Jing Shu had been worrying about when the "blood mushrooms," those strange, vibrant red fungi that grew on decaying organic matter submerged in the floodwaters, would hit the public eye. That very night, as if on cue, the news broke everywhere: salvage teams across the country, from the south to the northern plains, had begun pulling up clusters of the distinctive mushrooms. After preliminary expert analysis broadcast on the state channel, besides their known nutritional value, they were shown to be extraordinarily rich in rare trace elements and a unique bioactive compound. Preliminary animal studies suggested regular consumption could, theoretically, extend one's lifespan.
Alongside the breathless scientific report, the government's big-data auction platform was officially announced, with a special preview category for this rare "blood mushroom." The starting price was set at a staggering 500 virtual coins per mature cap.
In no time, the blood mushroom became China's hottest, most obsessive topic. The earlier bad press about missing divers and salvage accidents faded from collective memory without anyone really noticing, drowned out by the gold-rush fever.
Every salvage worker, from the professionals to the desperate amateurs bobbing in life jackets, was fired up with a new, greedy energy. Everyone wanted to be the one to find a rich patch of blood mushrooms. A single healthy cluster held seven or eight large caps on average, which meant a potential windfall of several thousand coins. Compared to the grinding wage of four coins a day for hard labor, a windfall of thousands was absolutely worth any risk.
The price surge, the government economists explained in a follow-up segment, wasn't all bad. It sped up the sluggish circulation of the new virtual currency, gave ordinary people the intoxicating dream of "hitting the five-million jackpot," and allowed the remaining wealthy elites to spend their stored capital, stimulating the battered post-apocalypse economy in a strange, macabre way.
At the villa that night, dinner was a rare and plentiful spread: garlic scapes fried with precious cured pork, a half of a smoked duck, a large plate of fragrant fried rice studded with carrots and peas, and a steaming pot of old hen stewed with mushrooms. Only, the mushrooms bobbing in the golden broth today didn't look like the ordinary, pale button mushrooms from a can. They were a deep, wine-red, their caps meaty and thick.
Grandma Jing, watching the news report on the small TV in the corner of the living room, stared at the shimmering, close-up image of a blood mushroom cluster, her mouth agape. She slowly turned her head from the screen to the stew pot on the table. "Why… why do I feel like the mushrooms you brought home and tossed in the pot look just like the ones they're showing on TV?"
Everyone stopped eating. They looked from the vibrant HD footage to the identical shapes in their clay pot. The color, the texture, the distinctive gill structure… they really did look exactly alike.
"Oh," Jing Shu said casually between sips of the rich, herbal chicken soup. She speared one of the crimson caps with her chopsticks and took a bite. The flavor was bright, earthy, and intensely rich, unlike any common mushroom. Blood mushrooms, she reflected, tasted nothing like those gaudy, bland pretenders from the old world. "They are the ones on TV."
A stunned silence fell over the table, broken only by the soft hum of the generator.
"What a sin!" Grandma Jing finally wailed, her hands flying to her cheeks. "Such a waste! We should have saved them! We should stew one a day in a big pot and everyone drink a bowl! This stuff helps you live longer! And we just… ate them like cabbage!" She was completely unaware, of course, of how infinitely more precious the Spirit Spring water she drank daily in her tea really was.
"One bite," Jing An muttered, staring sadly into his bowl, "and we've gone through half a house…"
Not a single scrap of the hen stew was left by the end of the meal. Even the bones were sucked meticulously clean of marrow before being tossed into a bowl for Xiao Dou. The chicken looked at the bare, polished bones and then up at her humans with an aggrieved expression. Why had no meaty bits been saved for her today? Had she fallen from favor? Sob, sob.
That night, after completing her nightly patrol of the Rubik's Cube Space, checking on the new papaya saplings, tending the flowering plants and fruit trees, observing the busy bees in their hive, and practicing her spatial manipulation exercises until her mental energy was spent, Jing Shu finally collapsed into bed and drifted into a heavy, exhausted doze.
She thought, desperately hoped, she would sleep well for once.
But fate, it seemed, enjoyed playing a cruel game with her sleep schedule, specifically at four in the morning, as if the universe were hinting at some cosmic joke. At four on the dot, the roar of a poorly-tuned combustion engine and the crunch of gravel on the driveway shook her awake. The distinctive, sputtering throttle sounded familiar. Jing Shu groaned into her pillow. She knew that sound. Mentor Chu Zhuohua, Wu You'ai's brilliant, eccentric, and chronically sleep-averse biology professor, had arrived.
You could never guess what was racing through a dedicated biologist's mind at any given hour.
"Ah, I just had the most vivid dream about photovoltaic cell efficiency loss in high-humidity environments, and then inspiration struck!" Chu Zhuohua explained his pre-dawn visit, his eyes gleaming with manic energy behind smudged glasses, his hair standing in wild tufts. He looked bleary-eyed yet electrified, sporting dark circles that rivaled Jing Shu's own. "I need a deeper look at your solar array configurations and the RV's power coupling… the theoretical implications for bio-electrical interfaces are…"
Wu You'ai, who had been roused to answer the door, gave her mentor a flat, utterly unimpressed dead-fish stare. No one knew a teacher's obsessive quirks better than their long-suffering student.
"…Shall we head to the garage now and see how to modify the RV?" Jing Shu interjected quickly, before the professor could spiral into a lecture about fungal bio-luminescence or something equally tangential. When someone was that genuinely excited about modifying an RV for the apocalypse, she didn't have the heart to kill the mood. Practical help was too rare.
Chu Zhuohua, however, didn't move from the doorway. His keen eyes, now adjusted to the dim foyer light, were scanning the living room beyond with the predatory focus of a hawk, lingering on the potted plants, the healthy sheen of the family's skin, the general aura of un-crisis-like well-being.
Hands planted firmly on her hips, Wu You'ai stepped bodily into his line of sight. "Mentor," she said, her voice firm and preemptively weary. "Let's get this straight. Jing Shu's pet horned frog won't be dissected, nor will it be fused with any other creature in a 'symbiotic enhancement experiment.' Jing Shu's hens won't be studied to see whether laying so many eggs causes ovarian loosening or skeletal calcium depletion. And my grandpa's teeth aren't growing back because he found a secret second puberty spring. Give it up. We're not your new lab rats."
Chu Zhuohua's enthusiastic expression crumpled into one of profound, theatrical tragedy. "What a pity," he sighed, shoulders slumping. "Such magnificent, wasted research potential. The data points in this household alone…"
Jing Shu: "???"
What in the world were they even talking about?
They still made a round of the garage eventually. The family's electric car wasn't in bad shape, just dormant. With some minor repairs to the moisture-sensitive connections, it would run. The real project was the bulky RV parked beside it. Refitting that behemoth for true off-grid, post-apocalypse living was a major engineering undertaking. Even the momentarily wilted Chu Zhuohua perked up at the scale of the challenge. He didn't only love biological puzzles; anything complex, worth investigating, or in need of rebuilding could catch his fervent interest.
Jing Shu spread out the rough floor plans she had rushed to finish drawing the night before and held them up against the RV's side window, comparing the idealized lines to the bulky reality. The first deck, the main living area, was currently a mess of damaged, water-stained furniture. She had divided it conceptually into three zones: a front lounge area behind the cab, a middle section for kitchen and bathroom, and a rear master bedroom suite.
She started with the first-deck refit, pointing with a grimy finger. "Here, behind the passenger seat, we open a big pass-through into the cabin. The built-in circular sofa is ruined, and the passenger seat frame is rusted and shot, so we'll convert this whole section into a connecting corridor. We remove the original passenger seat entirely and replace it with a custom-built, mobile, foldable single sofa-bed. When not in use, it folds flat against the wall to keep the corridor clear for movement. When it's time to sleep, it unfolds into a proper single bed."
Chu Zhuohua considered, his mind shifting into engineering mode. He traced a line on the blueprint. "For ergonomic comfort, a single bed at 80 centimeters wide and 180 centimeters long is best. But that will take up about a quarter of the rear arc of the original circular sofa layout. The passenger-side arc is already done for, so that's a trade-off."
Jing Shu nodded. "That's fine. The front arc of the sofa, on the driver's side, still has about one meter sixty by two meters of usable space. I want to convert that into an enclosed double tatami-style sleeping platform. The center will be a lift-up storage chest. When no one's sleeping, it becomes a raised living room floor. Everyone can sit around it on cushions. That way the right-side overhead cabinets and under-seat storage stay intact, and the main corridor from the door remains open."
"That could work," Chu Zhuohua mused, scratching his stubbly chin. "The RV already has a hydraulic lift table mechanism for the dinette. We could cannibalize it as base material. Sourcing the rest of the lumber and upholstery will be tricky. Best to comb through the government's reclaimed furniture stocks from salvaged buildings or check previously furnished apartments that got flooded."
The original passenger seat in an RV was always an awkward space, unusable for sleeping at night, uncomfortable during the day, and completely cut off from the main living portion. The driver was isolated up front. To reach the living area, the driver had to stop the vehicle, get out, go around, and enter from the side door. Even exchanging a quick word with passengers was a hassle.
Now, turning the defunct passenger seat into a foldable single bed that also served as part of the corridor was a perfect solution. It didn't disrupt the core living layout and added crucial sleeping space.
"This modification will inevitably loosen and stress the joint where the cab meets the coach body," Chu Zhuohua added, his tone turning clinical. "It's a structural pain, but I can reinforce it with steel brackets and composite filler. It shouldn't affect the drivetrain or power lines if we're careful."
The remaining front arc would thus become a small, private double-bed room with its own fold-down TV, completely separate from the new single bed and not interfering with one another's space.
Jing Shu had a small, selfish idea behind this plan. She intended to house her parents in the existing rear double room for privacy. Her grandparents would take the new front tatami room. Some physical distance between the two couples meant privacy. No one would accidentally hear anything awkward, and no one would feel embarrassed living on top of one another.
This change alone added one double bed and one single bed. The remaining original sofa and table area would stay as the combined dining and lounge area. It would be a bit tight with six adults, but with a few foldable stools, everyone could squeeze in for meals.
The middle left section of the coach would be dedicated to the kitchen, envisioned with a full set of appliances: a compact ceramic cooktop, a small range hood, a deep sink, a 12-volt compressor refrigerator, and floor-to-ceiling dish cupboards with drawers. Properly secured, even rough off-roading shouldn't tear the interior apart.
But considering the number of appliances and the size of the family, cooking a full meal in such a confined space would be a major, chaotic undertaking. They couldn't just slap something together. For this mobile fortress to truly work as a long-term survival vehicle, Jing Shu knew she needed further, more radical upgrades.