"Hahaha, look at Boss Jing chasing the officials off. We can't just sit down and freeload at the workers' celebration banquet." The speaker laughed, gesturing toward the gates as the leaders retreated.
Jun Jia let out a long breath, his shoulders dropping as the tension left him, and gave Jing Shu a big thumbs-up for the first time. "Next time, I will definitely come back."
"Are you sure you guys don't want to try it? It's seriously delicious." She gestured toward the steaming bowl of red nematodes on the table.
The rest of the group shook their heads like rattles, their expressions filled with visible hesitation. Jing Shu thought people were just being spoiled. Once you get used to comfort, you can't handle this kind of food. Give it another year or two, and even the rich will find themselves having to pinch their noses and eat moldy old rice.
Thinking of how, by then, she would still be enjoying her own high-quality food, a faint, smug smile touched Jing Shu's lips.
After the factory tour concluded, Jin Tianci gave his full approval and praise, even nodding as he hinted that they should make more creative dishes like the Bloody Burst Nematode Eggs. Finally, with the reporters' wrap-up and final compliments, the whole recording session came to an end.
Jing Shu exhaled, the remaining tension leaving her body in a soft sigh of relief. Acting was truly exhausting. She had thought it was just a simple ribbon-cutting ceremony, but it ended up being a full inspection tour with a pack of leaders, complete with detailed walkthroughs. Still, she wasn't worried about anyone studying her process; if anything, she would love for someone else to figure out how to breed red nematodes too.
The officials left satisfied, their cars disappearing into the distance, and so did Jing Shu. But before she could even sit down on a chair, her phone rang; it was Yang Yang.
"I have one piece of bad news and one piece of good news. Which do you want to hear first?" His voice crackled through the speaker.
Jing Shu thought for a second. "Let's go with the good news."
"The good news is, after Hao Yunlai took your sleeping pills, he really did get much better. But according to him, as time passes, he is getting closer and closer to 'the other side.' He says he can only last about ten days before the symptoms return, so you will have to inject him with the medicine once every ten days. He also said, to pay for the medicine, he is willing to do anything for you."
So the Crimson Spirit Spring worked, but it needed to be taken continuously. That wasn't a big deal. The dilution she gave him was extremely light; it would take a few hundred uses to burn through a single drop. If one injection lasted ten days, then a single drop could last thousands of uses. To Jing Shu, trading that tiny cost for a walking good-luck charm, or more accurately, a plague god's protection, was worth it.
"Wait, so does that mean I will have to bring the plague god along every time I go out now?" she muttered to herself, her mind already considering the logistics of the situation.
"By the way, has Hao Yunlai shown any other changes?" Maybe he had turned into a gorilla? She wondered if the spring had altered his physical form in any noticeable way.
"Other changes? Kind of, yeah. It's weird, hard to explain. You will get it when you see him yourself."
"Alright then." When she met Hao Yunlai next time, she would find out for herself what the Crimson Spirit Spring had done to him. She was oddly curious about the results.
"What about the bad news?" Jing Shu braced herself, her grip tightening on the phone. She had had enough trouble lately and really didn't need another problem to solve.
"The bad news is, the shipment from the capital that was supposed to come by sea still hasn't arrived. It lost contact a few days ago. Today, headquarters received a distress call; they found that a massive island and mountain range suddenly rose from the ocean surface.
They're being forced to detour, but no one knows how far around they will have to go. Support has been requested, but we have no idea when the supplies will reach Wu City. Also, the shipping fee might double this time. Worst case scenario, we lose the entire shipment."
Jing Shu fell silent. The shipment wasn't huge, but it was full of rare and precious items, including two-thirds of her seed stock and over a hundred tons of rare metals.
"An island and mountains appeared in the sea?" That meant the tectonic plate shifts had started in year four, just like the ones in the US mountains. It reminded her of the time her German MAN truck got stuck during transport from America. That delay had lasted half a year.
At least she wasn't worried about the seeds spoiling, but if they got submerged or lost, that would be a disaster. All that hard work in the US would have been for nothing. If her Cube Space hadn't been full, she never would have shipped them by sea in the first place.
"That's about the worst possible news," Jing Shu said finally. "Alright, if you hear anything new, update me immediately. If nothing comes through soon, I will go find that shipment myself. You know how valuable those seeds are, hundreds of thousands of them."
Even as she spoke, her mind drifted back to the US mountains. These shifting landmasses... why did they move? Could it have something to do with dimensional space?
Maybe they even hid treasures like the Crimson Spirit Spring. She pictured the glowing liquid in her mind.
"Got it. Let's wait for a while. Have some faith in them. If it really comes to that, we will mobilize ourselves."
That settled the matter for now. She lowered her hand as the call ended.
Luckily, nothing else went wrong after that point. Everything followed Jing Shu's plans, remaining smooth and orderly as the days passed.
People always said, when you have had your fill of bad luck, good luck is right around the corner. When fortune hits rock bottom, it rebounds.
After all those ridiculous twists and turns, Jing Shu's luck finally turned. First, every Lion Head egg hatched perfectly, and Grandma Jing was overjoyed by the sight of the healthy chicks.
Second, the virtual coins in her account were skyrocketing by tens of thousands every day. She checked the digital screen, watching the numbers climb steadily.
The factory's production was thriving. After accounting for warehouse storage, trade resources, and some private exchanges, the rest went straight to retail sales. Workers moved crates of goods out the door.
The worm patties were tasty and filling, and they sold like crazy across all thirteen districts of Wu City. The savory smell of the fried food filled the air around the distribution points.
Once the workers got a taste of their bonuses, they worked like mad, selling nonstop. A few jealous people tried to get in on the profits, but with Su Yiyang in charge, government backing, and the workers banding together to shut outsiders out, the issue was resolved before it could even make waves.
By the end of the month, the factory, which had started with two thousand workers, kicked out a few dozen freeloaders. They were lazy folks who refused to earn points but still wanted to stay. Zhang Zi and Lai Ziba personally threw them out of the gates.
Now the factory even had its own security team, and everyone competed to catch rule-breakers since turning them in earned points. Guards patrolled the floor with watchful eyes.
No one was exchanging points for virtual coins anymore. Points were way too useful now; you could trade them for anything on the exchange list.
As for rewards, Jing Shu kept her promise. She gave her Maternal Eldest Uncle, Manager Tuo, and the senior staff a bonus of 2,500 virtual coins each, and they were ecstatic, their faces lighting up with wide grins.
Later, when she sent the month's quota, consisting of ten tons of red nematode patties, to Jin Tianci, he called her right away. He said she could ask for anything she wanted in return. He would handle it, as long as she paid with red nematodes.
"That's exactly what I was waiting to hear," Jing Shu said with a smile, telling him she would come to him when the time came. That left Jin Tianci a little disappointed, itching to shove everything he had her way just to get more red nematodes from her.
But Jing Shu wasn't about to waste them now. Those red nematodes were her lifeline.
With the factory now running smoothly, she could finally shift her focus elsewhere. She crossed off each of the completed goals from her list and began writing down new ones.