"You are not even a regular employee. What right do you have to talk to me?" Jiao Jiao snapped, her voice high and piercing as she stood her ground in the middle of the path.
"Heh. Xiao Xiao is not a regular employee anymore either. Now I have every right to talk about her," Wang Danai countered, her posture unwavering and her expression set in a look of cool defiance.
…
The argument ended with Wang Danai winning by a hair, her persistent logic eventually wearing down Jiao Jiao's sharp retorts until the other woman had nothing left to say. Wang Danai wiped her dry lips with the back of her hand, the skin slightly chapped. "Come on, breakfast. People break their heads trying to get in here just to eat from our canteen, so we should not let the opportunity go to waste."
Wanting to ask about recent events and get a sense of the changes within the association, Jing Shu followed Wang Danai into the bustling canteen.
By then, the crowd had thinned as the early shift finished their meals, leaving empty chairs and a low hum of quiet conversation. Without lining up for long, they each got a bowl of thin millet porridge, the pale yellow grains settled at the bottom of the watery broth, and a small plate of salted greens mixed with mushroom that looked dark and savory.
In her previous life, Jing Shu would have dreamed of a meal as plain as this, seeing it as a rare luxury in a world defined by hunger. In this life, however, she could barely swallow it, the flavor lacking the richness she had grown accustomed to at home. She had definitely been spoiled by the abundance she had managed to secure for herself.
They found a seat at a sturdy table. Jing Shu slid her tray over to Wang Danai, the plastic scraping lightly against the surface. "You eat. I already had breakfast at home, and I am quite full."
"Then get another portion and eat it anyway. With food this good I can eat five bowls. Are you foolish for turning it down?" Wang Danai stared in disbelief, her spoon halfway to her mouth as she paused in surprise.
"Ahem, small appetite. I cannot finish it all," Jing Shu lied with a straight face, maintaining her composure perfectly.
"Alright then. I like people like you who do not let good food go to waste. Thanks," Wang Danai said before she dug in with gusto, the sound of her slurping the warm porridge filling the small space between them.
"What has happened these days while I was away? And the plants assigned to me, are they still alright in my absence?" Jing Shu asked, leaning in slightly to hear the answer over the canteen noise.
"Strangely alright," Wang Danai said, swallowing a mouthful of the salted greens. "That batch of gastrodia used to grow all crooked, leaning away from the light no matter what we did. Ever since you fixed them, I check them daily and they only get better, standing straighter and looking healthier than ever.
And the honeysuckle assigned to you, President Zhou said it was under your care while you were gone. The moment he said that, the honeysuckle acted like it had gained a spirit, its vines reaching out with a new sense of vigor. Every day it looked better. The ones that never bloomed are blooming now, small pale flowers appearing among the leaves, and the stunted ones are filling out. It is still not like before the apocalypse when the conditions were perfect, but it is almost good enough to enter the pharmacopeia."
Wang Danai rattled on like beans pouring from a bamboo tube, her words coming fast and energetic. "And your astragalus seedlings have sprouted already. The germination rate beats the other plots by a lot, with tiny green shoots pushing through the soil in neat, sturdy rows. None of the odd symptoms like yellowing or mold that other people are seeing in their sections. Honestly, even if no one watched them or tended to them, yours would probably survive on their own.
But President Zhou said the seeds must be special, that you soaked them with a unique method to give them such a strong start."
Jing Shu nodded, surprised by the report. The Spirit Spring was working even better than she thought it would in the association's environment. Last time, to avoid drawing too much attention, she had only used heavily diluted Spirit Spring water, and it still outperformed the other plots by a lot, even after being left alone so long without her direct supervision.
"Good. And these people I see around us? I see so many new faces today, while the familiar ones from last time are gone, replaced by strangers," Jing Shu said, looking around the room at the unfamiliar groups.
At that, Wang Danai pulled a mournful face, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "Some were cut from the roster entirely. Some were reassigned downward to less desirable positions. The Medicinal Herb Association only has so much space and resources. We cannot waste grain on too many mouths if they are not productive. The 'downward' posts are the pharmaceutical factories that stopped production before the current crisis.
After material enters medicine and the primary ingredients are extracted, the residue can be pressed into secondary tablets. The efficacy is ordinary, little more than a supplement, but it is better than nothing for the general public. The authorities are preparing to reopen the factories to increase the supply. That job is bitter and exhausting, with worse benefits than what we have here."
Jing Shu let out a long "Oh," processing the information. She had heard the Association's status would be exceptionally high later in the timeline. So why were there only seven regular staff at first? It turned out they were still merging various institutions and streamlining their operations for the future.
"These people have been here more than a week now," Wang Danai continued, her voice dropping as she checked their surroundings. "The plan is to centralize medicinal planting for the whole provincial capital, then allocate processed material down to the prefectural and municipal levels throughout the region. Central supply, higher efficiency is what they are aiming for. So they are summoning experienced growers from across the province to join the effort. This is only the first batch of arrivals. Another batch is coming soon."
She glanced around the canteen and lowered her voice even further, leaning across the table. "I heard there are real medicinal families in this batch, people who have passed down their secrets for generations. After President Tie put that tall hat on you today by praising you so publicly, those family types will probably come to make trouble for you soon to test your skills."
Wu City had only four million people, but the provincial capital had thirty million. Even with fifteen percent dead from the initial chaos, that left over twenty million survivors to provide for. At even one in ten thousand people having specialized skills, the Medicinal Herb Association would soon have thousands of people working within its walls. That would be lively indeed, filled with competition and politics.
As for the trouble Wang Danai mentioned, Jing Shu did not mind the prospect. If they asked professional questions or tried to debate theory, she could simply not answer or pretend ignorance. She truly did not know the textbook theory or the traditional academic methods anyway.
After Wang Danai finished all the gossip and their business in the canteen, the two finally went to "work," stepping out into the cooler air of the cultivation area.
Others were genuinely busy, scurrying between plots with tools and ledgers.
Jing Shu's "busy" meant checking her three items: gastrodia, honeysuckle, and astragalus, making sure they were still progressing as expected.
By Wang Danai's standards their growth was joyous, a miracle of resilience. To Jing Shu, who was used to the bounty of her own space, they were mediocre, not even as vigorous as the weeds that grew around her villa.
Even so, they still grew better than most plots here, which were struggling against the harsh conditions and poor soil quality.
Many medicinal plants were as finicky as ornamental flowers, requiring precise temperatures and moisture levels that were hard to maintain now.
Jing Shu calculated her next moves. With these three qualifying for medicine, and with leeches also counting toward her goals, she would claim the leech niche early while no one else was raising them due to the difficulty involved. Then she would add two more medicinal lines and solve a couple of problems that were currently stumped. The vice president seat would be as good as hers once she proved her worth.
Of course, the Medicinal Herb Association was not idle either. They were already planting the herbs most in demand for current illnesses that were spreading through the shelters. Quantities were small, but good enough for emergencies and immediate needs.
That left fewer open niches for her to exploit. To plant more and stand out, she would need to choose something scarce and highly valuable.
Seeing that aloe had been added to the medicinal roster recently, her eyes lit up with a new idea. She had been too rigid in her thinking about what constituted medicine. Who cared whether something was traditionally considered "a medicine" in the old books. If it had medicinal effects and could save lives now, it counted toward her quota.
"I can plant the Bodhi tree," Jing Shu thought, the idea taking firm root in her mind. "Bodhi is a nemesis of parasites, which will be a major problem soon. Most important of all, the seeds were given to me by Mu Xiaoxuan when we were still in school. With that legitimate source to point back to, there is nothing to fear regarding their origin."
The inspiration hit like lightning, illuminating a path she had not considered before. Before, she had wanted to plant Bodhi for its useful properties but did not know how to bring it out publicly without raising suspicion about where she got it.
Now the chance had arrived perfectly. As a member of the Medicinal Herb Association, with proven skill in cultivation and experience that everyone acknowledged, and with her former classmate Mu Xiaoxuan conveniently providing the seeds in the past, she could plant it openly and take full credit for the result.
If the day came when parasites ran rampant through the population, she could reveal this crop and save more people, while elevating her own standing within the city's hierarchy. Parasites were truly terrifying for apocalypse survivors, far worse than many of the other hardships they faced. She prayed that in this life, no one would die from them because of her intervention.
Once she thought it, she acted quickly. She took the small, hard Bodhi seeds from her Rubik's Cube Space, their surfaces smooth and cool, and planted them carefully on the nursery racks, pressing them into the damp soil. Then she recorded the planting on the Big Data system as evidence, typing the details into the digital ledger to ensure there was a permanent record of the date and method.
Bodhi grew fast under the right conditions. It needed repotting every month as it expanded and could be used medicinally in four months. Planting Bodhi now was completely in time for the coming need.
She had considered propagating from cuttings, which would be faster than starting from scratch. But for the sake of "fair play" and maintaining her cover as a natural grower, she chose to plant from seed so everyone could see the entire process from the very beginning.