Qian Duoduo's losses were even heavier. The devastation spanned across his entire mountain estate as the smoke from the various blast sites curled into the rainy sky. Every single property he owned had been rigged with explosives and blown apart. The grand structures were reduced to jagged skeletons of steel and concrete.
Out of the six hundred people under him, more than a hundred had died for various reasons. Their lives were snuffed out in the sudden violence of the shifting terrain and the fire. Even the staff dormitories they had seen flattened last time while passing Xishan Villa were nothing but rubble now. The bricks were scattered like discarded toys.
The bodyguards and servants had no place to stay. They huddled in the remaining shelters, and the financial losses were beyond counting. The expensive farms and breeding centers he had invested in were all destroyed. The animals were lost to the debris. Still, rumors said that his castle had a large stockpile of grain hidden behind its reinforced walls. Maybe that would let him hold out a while longer.
In short, today was a mutual-destruction fiasco. Nobody got what they wanted. Lin Yi's side was completely wiped out. The organization was shattered in a single day. If anyone came out on top, it might just be Jing Shu.
She was certain that if she hadn't gone on this trip, her Cube Space might not have upgraded anytime soon. For her, the upgrade was nothing less than a life-saving trump card. It was a significant boost to her survival odds.
The Cube Space had not only advanced but also gained a new ability. The potential of it thrummed in the back of her mind. On top of that, she now possessed fourteen tons of TNT, which would be immensely useful in the apocalypse for everything from defense to clearing blockages. She had also gained the goodwill of Su Xiangnan and Qian Duoduo. These were valuable connections that brought her closer to standing among the powerful elites of the city.
Catching Lin Yi was bound to earn her a first-class merit, along with a reward of virtual coins that would appear in her account. That alone counted as income. It was a welcome buffer against the rising costs of the new world.
Thinking of all this, Jing Shu felt the exhaustion in her body lighten. The weight of the day's terror finally eased. Her eagerness to check on the upgraded Cube Space made her eat much faster at dinner. Her chopsticks moved in a blur.
Naturally, the day's ordeal became a story to tell at home. The family gathered around the wooden table in the warm light of the villa. It wasn't bragging. It was to ease her family's worries and explain her sudden departure. To calm her, Grandma Jing slaughtered a chicken and stewed a pot of fish soup. The rich aroma filled the room.
Of course, Jing Shu left out the part about the explosives and the detonators. She merely said she had uncovered a conspiracy and earned recognition from the authorities. Otherwise, her grandmother's weak heart might not have been able to handle the stress.
After dinner, everyone had a sip of medicinal wine to drive out dampness from the rainy weather and ate some of the remaining fruits. The sweet juice was a rare treat. Then Jing Shu asked her father to check on the leeches in their tanks and Grandpa Jing to walk Xiao Dou.
The community was too crowded now with the influx of refugees. Even Xiao Dou had been given a plastic raincoat that crinkled with every movement and a sturdy leash. Fortunately, with the heavy rain drumming outside and the thick shadows, it was too dark for anyone to tell whether the creature being walked was a dog or a large chicken. Xiao Dou had grown to the size of a medium dog by now. Its feathers were sleek despite the damp. Who knew if it would keep getting bigger as the days passed?
If it grew too large, would researchers seize it for study? Maybe not. Research institutes hardly had time for that now as they scrambled to solve more pressing problems. With so many new mutated and evolved species emerging in the wild, their main focus was food production. Jing Shu had heard whispers about them experimenting with genetically modified animals in secret labs.
In her previous life, she hadn't been high enough in status to learn such secrets. Her world was confined to the struggle for scraps. But this time, she happened to hear Su Mali mention it during their transit. The idea was to extract specific genes, fuse them with carriers, and introduce them into recipient cells. This would create entirely new organisms or plants tailored to post-apocalyptic survival, all to increase food yield at any cost.
At first, Jing Shu found it baffling. But Su Mali had whispered more bluntly. Her voice was low and urgent. "They want to make a chicken covered in legs and wings, even with multiple reproductive organs so it can lay eggs nonstop without rest. Or cows that become oviparous, laying eggs every day and hatching herds of calves within a month to fill the slaughterhouses.
Or fish bloated with hormones and drugs so each generation could balloon to dozens of kilos in just a few months. Their bodies are distorted by growth. They would even add anti-darkness agents or strip away natural photosynthesis, forcing new growth through artificial means.
They don't care about the side effects of genetic tampering. All that matters is ramping up production to feed the starving masses. No one bothers about the consequences. The higher-ups have already said that if the apocalypse continues under current national conditions, China could collapse in less than ten years. And you would not believe how fast the prices of livestock and crops have been skyrocketing lately.
That's why the state is stockpiling red nematodes. With enough feed, they can raise more livestock."
Only then did Jing Shu realize how the infamous monstrous foods of the post-sixth year came about. The distorted meat would eventually fill the markets. Research had already started in the second year. But Su Mali was right. By the fifth year, with mass migrations, heavy snow, and plunging temperatures, harvests had dropped to pitiful levels. Millions starved in the cold. Without new sources of food, China truly would have faced extinction.
For the first five years, people had still eaten local products, red nematodes, maggots, and carrion scavengers. But later, people were forced to consume bizarre, tasteless, nearly inedible creations that barely resembled food.
Jing Shu shuddered. Her skin prickled as she was unwilling to remember those dark days. Those genetically modified foods had not been for the poor anyway. Only those with money had access to the early, more stable versions.
She remembered eating a genetically altered "fattened fish" once in her past life. Its flesh did not even deserve to be called fish meat. Each cell had been swollen hundreds of times. The structure of the muscle fiber was destroyed. Biting into it was like chewing splinters of wood, tough, flavorless, and unbearably foul. The fishy stench was magnified hundreds of times, like swallowing months' worth of stagnant gutter water.
Yes, eating that fish had been like chewing on rancid sewage. It was a memory that still made her stomach turn.
When the markets were flooded with such genetically altered food, the most precious things became untouched, original produce. Chickens, ducks, and fish that had survived without genetic tampering became as valuable as antiques from before the apocalypse. Why so valuable? Couldn't they just breed more in the traditional way?
The problem was both environment and cost. It was a double barrier to natural growth.
"Survival of the fittest" wasn't a joke in the new world. The longer the apocalypse lasted, the harder it was for original species to survive without constant intervention. Fragile creatures couldn't withstand the darkness, the biting cold, new viruses, or low yields. They died too easily. Their natural defenses failed.
And cost. Raising one original animal consumed resources that could instead produce five to ten genetically modified versions in a fraction of the time. With China's population still in the billions, only cheap, mass-produced food could keep most people from starving.
Original species were luxuries reserved for the upper class. They were symbols of status rather than mere sustenance.
Jing Shu shook her head. The damp air of her room cooled her skin. Those problems were still far away in the future. For the country, genetically modified organisms were a livelihood issue. They were a desperate reach for survival. Just like the Father of Hybrid Rice had once saved millions from famine in the past, survival was what mattered now.
Once back in her bedroom, she pulled out the Rubik's Cube that had now advanced to the eighth tier and silently chanted. "Cube Space."
At that moment, the Cube Space shifted into its second form. It expanded outward with her at its center as the walls of her room seemed to blur. The seventh-tier Cube Space had measured 7×7×7, totaling 343 cubic meters of storage and cultivation. If she could complete the conditions for the eighth-tier upgrade, it would expand to 8×8×8, or 512 cubic meters. Excellent. Her motivation surged as she envisioned the increased capacity.
The changes at the seventh tier were substantial. The internal environment felt more stable. The Spirit Spring still produced a pitiful daily trickle of clear liquid, but now six new plots of farmland had appeared. They added thirty-six square meters of cultivation area to her personal garden.