"We don't lack virtual coins right now, so let's keep the meat. When the next batch of piglets comes, I will trade piglets for supplies. Once we process this meat and store it in the cellar, it will keep three to five years. Rice is getting harder to trade for too; even the government is down to old stock. It looks like you're right, we should stock more food." Wei Chang finally cooled off after Jing Shu's reality check, his breath hitching in the cold air. He had been planning to scale up black pig breeding into a massive operation, but the logic of survival had finally set in.
Out at the Livestock Breeding Center, those two were known as reliable pig hands.
Jing Shu nodded, her eyes scanning the quiet pens. It was never wrong to stash more food now.
If this had been before the world fell apart, butchering so many pigs would have been a huge deal for the whole village. Now, no one had the time to mind it or gossip. Jing Pan and Grandma Jing focused all their energy on Qiao Lian, while Wei Zheng and Wei Chang rushed to process the pork, their hands stained with brine and blood. In the apocalypse, grain was precious, so not a single part of a pig could go to waste.
Later, Wei Chang brought over thirty singed and cleaned pig's feet in a heavy plastic basin. "I know you love soy-braised trotters with yellow beans, so I brought the trotters. You have got the RV; cook them yourselves. Don't you dare refuse. If I had hired Wang Mazi to slaughter, he would take his cut in offal anyway. You helped so much, I have got to thank you right. And you came to help us, yet we're making you cook your own meals... that's on me."
He looked so wounded at the thought of rejection that Jing Shu cheerfully hauled the heavy load into the RV. She started plotting dinner with Wu You'ai: roast trotters tonight, braised trotters tomorrow.
The RV only came up when lunch rolled around and Grandma Jing said she would go back to cook. Everyone finally realized Jing Shu had arrived in an RV parked just outside the perimeter.
"How small is an RV that you can still cook in it? You're guests in my house; don't you dare run back to cook. That would make me look bad." Jing Pan insisted, her voice firm as she dragged Jing Shu back to the house for the local specialty: cornmeal porridge mixed with wild greens.
By apocalypse standards, it was a hard-won good meal. Jing Shu glanced at Grandma Jing and shook her head slightly. With one pot like that, never mind the taste, the portion wouldn't even fill her alone.
Jing Zhao said enviously, her eyes darting toward the window, "Mom, I want to see what the RV looks like too."
"You and that mouth, no. You will go brag all over the village, I know you." Grandma Jing shot her a look. "I know you want to eat their food. We will bring you a serving later." Jing Zhao just grinned, unbothered by the scolding.
Still, the RV was a magnet for country curiosity. Even Jing Pang wanted to see how you could cook inside such a vehicle. Jing Shu took Jing Pan, Wei Chang, Wei Zheng, and Jing Zhao around the outside first, letting them gawk at the reinforced door and the high clearance.
"Wow, it's huge; there's even a second level up there."
When she let them step up onto the entry platform, the kitchen and dinette on the left stunned them. Jing Zhao gaped at the shiny counters and the full induction setup.
No one dared go farther than the doorway.
Wei Chang rubbed his hands together, looking embarrassed. "Didn't know it would be this spotless. Can't compare to a mud house. We won't go in. We have got mud and pig blood all over us. We will just look from here."
"Right, it would be a pain to clean. Just bring us a taste later," Jing Zhao added, her mind clearly stuck on the food.
Folks in the countryside didn't really get what a luxury rig meant; they only knew that it was expensive. Honestly, they would be more shocked by a room full of rice. At least that was tangible.
Jing Shu didn't force it.
Grandma Jing had planned to cook, but with Qiao Lian looking rough and pale, her mind was entirely on the baby. Jing Shu took over the stove instead and turned out a full table of food. Grandma Jing barely ate more than a few bites. Sshe on the other hand, cleaned every plate without wasting a single crumb.
The day flew by in a blur of chores. That night, she truly enjoyed the two-level RV. Aside from the bathroom being a bit small and needing daily maintenance of the waste tank, everything felt great.
Her bedroom had a 270-degree panorama window with a wide-open view of the dark, rainy fields. With the defensive grid that Qian Duoduo had gifted activated, she slept easy. Wrapped in the fresh silk duvet Grandma Jing had just finished, she felt blissfully cocooned against the world.
After enabling defense mode, she even tested it with a little snake and some bugs she found outside. If anything got too close, it would get shocked in seconds. The longer a creature lingered near the hull, the stronger the current became. In five or six seconds, the snake had charred black, the smell of burnt scales lingering in the air.
She was very satisfied with that level of protection, though it did burn extra fuel to keep the capacitors charged. She had thought Qiao Lian would deliver in a few days, but one wait turned into more than ten. By mid-November, Jing Shu started getting anxious as the temperature outside continued to plummet.
Wei Chang hunted for oxytocin every day. He even made a run to Wu City through the flooded roads, but he came up empty. He traded for a few other medicines along the way, but not the right one for inducing labor.
The doctor came three times, and each time his face looked worse as he checked Qiao Lian's swelling. In the end, he left with a heavy sigh. Jing Shu caught a whisper he gave to Wei Chang: either force the delivery now, or keep waiting, but difficult labor was certain. When the time came, don't think about saving the mother or the child; you might lose both.
That shook everyone to the core. They rushed Qiao Lian to the hospital and chose to force the process.
There wasn't any experienced traditional doctor around who knew the proper pressure point techniques, so it was a hail-Mary shot. Jing Shu was helpless too. Her Spirit Spring wasn't some mythical spring that made childbirth easy with a single sip.
Everyone went to the hospital. Jing Zhao stayed home to watch the house and cook. In the afternoon, after eating her own meal, Jing Shu grabbed several lunch boxes and headed out with Wu You'ai to deliver food to the family.
The "hospital" was just a prefab shed set up on a concrete slab. Screams rolled out from the open windows constantly, sounding like a little hell come to life. Jing Shu searched for a long time before spotting Qiao Lian with Eldest Aunt and Grandma Jing at a crowded bed. She couldn't help frowning at the lack of privacy.
Apocalypse rules meant there weren't many restrictions on who could go where. It was an open floor you could walk into, though only women were allowed to enter the main ward. Wei Chang and Grandpa Jing sat smoking by the gate, their faces grim.
Inside, it's all women in labor.
Who would have thought this tiny rural area still had so many births in the middle of a disaster. There were no drugs to be found, so everyone relied on nature and endurance.
Qiao Lian's case was worse than the rest. The doctor was pressing hard on her swollen belly while she lay strapped to the delivery bed, her legs raised in the stirrups. She screamed without stopping, her voice hoarse as she shouted that she didn't want to live and didn't want to give birth. The wails coming from the beds around them weren't any better.
"It's still not working. Maybe we should go straight to a C-section," the doctor said, wiping his brow.