Jing Shu found her pro-grade butchering tool, a custom-made steel awl thinner than a finger and about fifty centimeters long. She had forged it specifically within the Rubik's Cube Space to meet her exact specifications. The awl featured a deep, precision-milled blood groove; in the absolute control of that space, she could wield it like a lethal spear. It didn't strike with the explosive force of a rifle, but with her mind guiding its trajectory, it could pierce a pig's skull in a fraction of a second.
Traditionally, killing a pig required a heavy knife and several men, just as Wei Chang had described. You had to tie the legs tight and hang the animal while it fought, driving a broad blade into the neck and twisting so the life drained out faster. In those moments, the pig could only shriek and thrash against its bonds until it grew still.
In industrial plants, workers usually employed an electric kill. They would clamp both ears like a pair of headphones, shock the pig unconscious, and then pierce through the heart so the blood drained fast and clean. There were poison and gun methods as well, but Jing Shu wasn't considering those for this task. She was imitating the surgical precision of the electric kill—a stab through the brain for instant paralysis followed by a clean bleed. Her movements needed to be quiet, quick, accurate, and steady.
Of course, to keep the roasted pig brain tasting right for later meals, Jing Shu put in extra care not to shatter the entire cranium.
She drew a deep breath, the cold, damp air filling her lungs. She knew she was strong, but she didn't know the full extent of her limits. She was heading to America soon, and she needed a fresh read on her own physical power. Since that trip was essentially a high-stakes mission to steal something critical, danger was inevitable. There would likely be fights to the death in the dark.
She wouldn't expose her space powers unless absolutely necessary. If she couldn't use her poison bees or snakes and couldn't fire a gun without drawing unwanted attention, she had to know how to kill fast in one strike during close-quarters combat. Jing Shu figured practicing on these pigs would help her refine her technique.
If you swing a knife and don't kill in one blow, the resulting scream spooks everyone for miles. Even if there's no one else around, a slash backed by her strength could take off half a shoulder, but you risk a desperate counterattack and a chaotic mess of blood.
Jing Shu preferred the efficiency where her hand moves, the target drops, and there isn't even a sound to mark the passing. It's practical for a chase or a stealth break-in that turns into a fight. She shook her head hard to clear the thoughts. She told herself to stop overdramatizing; the mission might not be that dangerous after all.
"Let's test on you," Jing Shu said. she walked toward a lazy black pig with the awl held low at her side. The other animals in the pen were either sleeping in the straw or snorting softly in their dreams.
It was pitch-black in the shed, with the rain ticking steadily against the prefab roof. Her footsteps were soundless on the muddy floor as she slipped closer to the pen. Everything felt casual and ordinary, just another chore in the apocalypse.
She had told Wei Chang she would stun the pig first, but that was a lie to cover her efficiency. She was going to kill it right there in the pen without the struggle of tying it down.
She reached the target, then took the animal off guard. She bent her knees, gathered power in her core, spun the awl once, and drove it through the pig's ear. Jing Shu used all her strength in the thrust. There was a dull thud. The awl punched through the ear, bypassed the bone, and slammed into the hard ground beneath.
The pig's scream cut off mid-note as its brain was instantly destroyed. She didn't pin the body fast enough, so the dead weight bolted several meters on pure nerve reflex. It smashed into the wooden wall, then crashed over into the muck. Blood pooled fast on the ground. The rest of the pen erupted in a panic of grunts and shuffling hooves.
"What a waste. There goes two rounds of spicy blood pudding," Jing Shu muttered. She grabbed a plastic bucket to catch the remaining blood. The ruckus had the other black pigs panicking and pressing against the fences.
"Illusion, activate."
In a blink, the pigs settled back into a lazy calm. They returned to their spots as if nothing had happened, their minds clouded by the space's power. You had to admit, the Rubik's Cube Space ability was insanely strong even when used in small bursts.
Jing Shu exhaled, her shoulders relaxing. She had hit too hard on the first one. The blood-grooved awl had buried itself into the dirt, and because the blood didn't gush in an instant, the pig hadn't had time to reflexively fight back. It was just like with people; when you're struck with overwhelming force, your limbs flail in a final, useless spasm.
She kept learning and refining her movements. She treated each pig as a future target, even simulating potential counterattacks in her mind. She tried different angles and different amounts of force, learning how to use the least amount of power to drop a body without a sound.
After paying the tuition of more than forty pig carcasses, she finally had the technique down to a science. "If I ever have to kill a person, I need something even finer. The blood groove should be hollow. The faster the bleed, the faster the death."
She dubbed the technique the "silent close-quarters kill." She had plenty of other ways to deal with enemies, but more skills never hurt. In gun-happy America, her main weapon would probably be a firearm, so she might not use this much.
She didn't know that when it came time to steal, she would not only use it, she would use it to perfection. It would even edge out Yang Yang's tranquilizer gun for sheer speed. The two of them would work seamlessly together, leaving everyone else stunned by the silence of their wake.
Wei Chang ran in a short while later. "Jing Shu, the water is halfway to a boil, but something doesn't add up. You said you would knock the pigs out. How are you knocking them out? If you use a hammer wrong and they fight back, that's a disaster. If you..."
He stopped cold. Rows of pig bodies lay lined up neatly on the floor, each with a bucket catching hot, iron-smelling blood. A few hooves still twitched in the final stages of nerve death. In the dark shed, seeing Jing Shu's calm smile, his calves started to shake.
"D-d-done already? H-how did you do that?" Wei Chang lifted a heavy hoof gingerly. He saw no extra cuts anywhere, just a tiny, blood-beading wound at the base of the ear. You could call it near "no-trauma" butchery.
"Long story. You've just got to catch them off guard," Jing Shu said. "By the way, I left two sows and one boar as breeders. They were the best three in the lot. The slaughter is finished. You can handle the rest of the work." She wiped the long awl clean against a scrap of hide until not a drop of red showed on the steel, then slid it out of sight.
Wei Chang stared at the line of pigs, his mind blown by the sheer impossibility of the scene. To punch through a pig's brain with such precision took monstrous force and perfect aim. If you missed by even a centimeter, you would have half-dead pigs tearing up the yard in a frenzy.
It flipped his world upside down. Next door, Wang Mazi had slaughtered pigs for decades. His fastest time was thirty minutes for a single animal, and that was with four or five helpers tying the hog down. Jing Shu had been gone for barely over half an hour.
"Uncle, what is your plan for the rest? The skin, the offal, the meat and such?"
"Huh? Oh. The government is buying pigskin at a high price. I was going to sell the lot to the regional office." He crouched to inspect a black pig, clicking his tongue in wonder. It was incredible. Just incredible.
"Don't sell the skin. Save it for shoes and coats," Jing Shu said as she headed for the door. "Even if the sun peeks out tomorrow, there won't be any cotton for the next three years. With sunlight fading, Earth is only getting colder. It's already happening right now. No one knows how low the temperature will drop." She had said what needed saying and would only say it once.
"That's works. Here is my thought," Wei Chang said, finding his voice again. "Besides pulling strings for oxytocin, I will try to get more meds. Medicine is getting harder to find by the day. I will trade some of this meat for extra rice and flour, too. In the apocalypse, food is always the most important thing. As for the remaining meat, we will smoke-dry it and cure it as bacon. we will save everything."