People in the group chat had grown mostly numb to, even accepting of, eating bugs as a protein source. Lately, with the cooler weather, maggot production had naturally become scarce, which drove the market price of a single serving up to 0.3 units of virtual currency. Folks no longer went outside and casually grabbed fistfuls of maggots from community compost pits the way they used to during the peak heat.
Just when the government was worrying about what new, sustainable protein source to feed everyone next, it not only rained, it rained red nematodes, a sudden, massive, nationwide biomass.
This downpour didn't just hit Wu City. It swept across the entire country simultaneously, a synchronized meteorological event. The central authorities, monitoring the situation, ordered immediate emergency research on the red nematode. In less than an hour, lab analysis of the first samples produced a preliminary result: edible, high in protein and some minerals, but with a tough, elastic skin that made them hard to digest without proper processing.
Fine. Decision made. Name it the red nematode officially and push the directive through all big data channels and public announcements. From the initial discovery and reporting of the red nematode to the central decision that future government rations would feature it as a staple, only one hour and two minutes passed, a record for bureaucratic speed in the apocalypse.
Fatty Niu said she hated them in the chat, but in the end, driven by need, she still followed everyone down to the management office basement to have Wu You'ai shave her head bald, the price for cleanliness.
"Gather your own shaved-off hair with the nematodes and trade it for work points at the collection station. You can also scoop live ones from puddles. No one knows how long this rain will last. Once the rain stops, the bugs will be gone or buried, so hurry and trade for as many work points as you can. Oh, and these bugs, according to the bulletin, don't currently bite or sting people. They are mechanically harmless, just a nuisance," Wu You'ai said with a sort of devilish cheer, trying to motivate through pragmatism.
So after all that panic, these terrifying-looking bugs didn't actually bite. Just like maggots before them, they were apparently just another protein source, ready for the taking.
Well then, even if the hair was gone, a few kilograms of harvested red nematodes should at least fetch some work points. That made the loss and the humiliation worth it, a transaction.
Cut off three thousand strands of worry, and you really have fewer worries when you step out the door. The old saying took on a new, literal meaning.
Ah, that slick rainwater and those red nematodes pattering against the smooth, newly shaved, hard-boiled egg of a head. Pure silkiness. Bounce, bounce, bounce, wrinkles begone. Sorry, wrong commercial. The absurd thought crossed many minds as they touched their bare scalps.
In short, everyone in the community, young and old, men and women, ended up with shiny, hard-boiled egg heads by that evening. First they had foolishly washed their bedding and clothes in the worm-rain, ruining them, then, just as Wu You'ai advised, they rushed outside with basins to scoop red nematodes from the flooded gutters and puddles, turning necessity into a grim harvest.
Oh, those rows of glossy, bald heads bobbing in the rain, very eye catching and uniform.
At 37°C, the storm still felt like a warm shower, not yet cold, which made the scooping bearable.
"Look at the ground. What is that?" Someone shouted over the rain.
"Work points. Dancing work points." The reply was immediate, a new mantra.
Everyone had learned through brutal experience how precious food and the work points to buy it were. The moment they heard red nematodes could be traded directly for points, they went all out, competitive in their scooping.
The newly bald heads quickly got clever. People spread their now-ruined bedsheets or large plastic tarps across flooded areas of the courtyard and dragged them once. The sheet came up writhing with hundreds of red nematodes. Everyone copied the efficient method, a production line of misery.
In the second year, as Jing Shu knew, the first few months would swarm with red nematodes. Later, their numbers would drop sharply, over-harvested. Being eaten too much by a desperate population had something to do with it. It wasn't like the situation in Australia, where the continent didn't lose to the floods themselves in her past life, but lost to the unchecked proliferation of the red nematode, which choked waterways and machinery.
Letting red nematodes breed completely unchecked ends in ecological tragedy. Australia in her last life was the prime example, its infrastructure paralyzed by the sheer biomass.
While people in the community scooped red nematodes from puddles, Jing Shu, safe under her canopy, circled the villa and checked the four giant rain collection tanks at the corners. They were already a quarter full with water and a thick slurry of drowned red nematodes. Clearly, those tanks would need daily scooping of red nematodes, then the water would need to be drained and filtered before use or storage.
With just her four collection tanks and the surface area of her canopy, the daily haul of red nematodes would likely equal what everyone in the entire community could scoop in a hard day's work combing the ground. The difference in scale was stark.
Raise your perspective, and your methods change entirely. She was collecting from the sky, not the ground.
After returning to the villa from her inspection, Jing Shu didn't rest. She called Grandpa Jing over, and the two of them used a large, flat boulder from the back hill and some quick-mix cement to build a shallow, square dipping pool by the inside of the courtyard gate, just under the canopy's edge.
"What is this for?" Grandpa Jing asked, wiping his hands. Even after helping build it, he still didn't know what she had in mind.
"You'll know when Third Aunt gets back," Jing Shu said, keeping it a secret for now, a small surprise.
…
"Oh, I told my husband not to pick me up, but he insisted. He said there are too many red nematodes and he must bring me a proper raincoat and umbrella. He has no special strengths, but he loves me," Wei Wei, a coworker, said, extending her ring finger to show off a small, one carat diamond that still sparkled under the artificial lights of the Ai Jia supermarket entrance.
"Your husband is very good to you," Jing Lai said as she stood at the supermarket entrance, directing the cleanup and shift change, her voice polite.
"Look at me, bringing up your sad memories again," Wei Wei said, suddenly remembering Jing Lai was widowed. "Anyway, let's go back together later. If you ride your bike home alone, you'll be drenched. There are so many bugs."
"It's fine. My niece Jing Shu stuffed a sealed raincoat into my work bag a few days ago," Jing Lai said, her cheeks warm with gratitude. This niece made her feel cherished all the way to the heart. Thoughtful beyond words.
Just then, Wei Wei's phone rang. "Hello, honey? What? You can't make it? You want me to go back alone?" Her voice rose.
Wei Wei's expression darkened as she listened. "Jing Lai, let's still ride back together. It's on the way. My husband says he has urgent business and can't come." She tried to sound casual.
"Okay," Jing Lai said agreeably.
Wei Wei had assumed Jing Lai's raincoat was an ordinary, cheap plastic poncho. When Jing Lai pulled out and put on the fully sealed, hooded, one-piece yellow raincoat, snapping the wrist and ankle seals shut, envious eyes turned from every direction. Jealousy flashed stronger, unmistakably, in Wei Wei's gaze.
"Squad Leader Jing is truly prepared. That's a professional-grade rain suit."
"With that raincoat, Squad Leader Jing can go anywhere in this. Nothing gets in."
"It's all thanks to my family's preparations," Jing Lai said modestly, though pride swelled inside. "Let's go." In her heart, a flower of familial pride bloomed. She had such a good, caring family.
"Oh, okay," Wei Wei said, her voice tight. She wrapped her own head in a thin towel, pulled a flimsy plastic shopping bag over it, and mounted her bicycle. The two women rode out from the Ai Jia supermarket into the relentless, bug-filled rain.
The sealed raincoat looked bulky and hot, but it kept out all rain and every red nematode perfectly. As raindrops and worms pelted their faces and bounced off the slick plastic of Jing Lai's hood, Wei Wei, feeling the worms catch in her own towel and slither down her neck, suddenly desperately wanted a raincoat like that and a family that planned like that. Not a man who only talked sweetly and never acted. Silent tears, mixed with rainwater, streamed down her cheeks.
When Jing Lai finally returned to the villa courtyard, she saw Jing Shu and Jing An filling the new shallow pool at the gate with water from a hose. "What are you doing?" She asked, curious.
Jing Shu finished filling it, then poured in more than a dozen bags of coarse salt from a bucket, stirring until it dissolved into a strong brine. Just then, Third Aunt, still in the raincoat, stood at the pool's edge. "Auntie, step inside the pool and take a slow spin," Jing Shu instructed.
Puzzled but trusting, Jing Lai, still wearing the sealed raincoat, stepped into the shallow saltwater pool, turned once slowly, and stepped out. The red nematodes clinging to the outside of the raincoat, which had been difficult to brush off, immediately shriveled, curled up, and dropped dead into the brine. The raincoat was clean again, ready for the next trip.
Grandpa Jing, watching, broke into a wide grin and gave Jing Shu a big thumbs up. "Brilliant!"
Red nematodes stuck to a raincoat wouldn't shake free easily and were a pain to pick off one by one. This brine dip was easier, faster. The saltwater, now a nematode graveyard, would last a long time without going to waste. Later, the dead nematodes could be scooped out and the brine, now enriched, could be used to supplement feed for the poultry. Perfect efficiency.
That night, the national news broadcast, watched by the family, reported heavy rain and red nematode falls across multiple regions globally. Even typically dry Africa had rare torrential downpours accompanied by the red nematodes, causing panic.
Other countries were still researching the red nematode, debating its safety. Only China, with characteristic decisiveness, issued a single, clear command through its channels: if it's not toxic, eat it. Secure the food source first.
The family's dinner was still the leftover hot pot mutton, reheated. The temperature outside had already dropped to just a few degrees Celsius with the rain. The whole family warmed themselves with bowls of rich mutton soup. Jing Shu finished the last of the broth from the communal pot, keeping the fine family tradition of leaving no drop of good food.
The storm outside raged on, a constant roar against the canopy. Late that night, while Jing Shu practiced the 7×7 cube in her room, the phone beside her buzzed continuously. The group chat couldn't sleep. People were in real, tangible misery now.
"The bedding is all soaked and crawling. I can't sleep. It's freezing."
"It's so cold. We have no spare dry blankets or clothes. Everything is wet."
"I miss my old, sour and stinky blanket. At least it was dry." The lament was poignant.
Jing Shu shook her head slightly, kept working the cube through a complex algorithm, and then focused inward to sow a new batch of fast-growing leafy vegetables inside the Cube Space. Now that the external weather wasn't lethally hot, there was less need to sun-dry everything. She planned to start growing crops that would be common and necessary in the typical diet of the second year of Earth's Dark Days, diversifying her hidden larder.
The iconic, chaotic first day of the second year passed in a blur of rain, bugs, and shaved heads. No one who lived through it that day expected the true, devastating floods to come, but the flooding days were, in fact, close at hand.
It was time, she knew, to begin the final preparations for the floods. The rain had arrived; the deluge was next.