"Since everyone is here for dinner, let's hold a family meeting and hear what Jing Shu has got planned."
It was xu (dog) hour (around 7 PM), and the dining room was filled with the scents of a celebration. Grandpa Jing puffed on his cigarette, the movements slow and steady as the gray smoke curled toward the ceiling. When the apocalypse hit, he had almost died from the crushing weight of withdrawal. Luckily, they had planted some tobacco at home, though it was now worth its weight in gold. Most of the harvest went out as necessary gifts or got traded for essential food; this left barely enough for himself, and he still had to split that meager portion with his good-for-nothing son. No wonder he treated every single puff like a rare treasure.
The villa belonged to Jing Shu. The food, the supplies, even the smallest daily necessities; everything came from her efforts. In this shattered world, she still somehow managed to bring back fresh, fuzzy peaches now and then. She had ideas, meticulous plans, and a clear head. Naturally, everyone listened when she spoke.
Grandma Jing sat on the couch with Xiao Dou, the plump hen, resting on her lap. She smoothed down the bird's new-grown feathers with a damp towel, listening closely while her granddaughter talked. The chicken squinted its eyes in bliss, clearly enjoying the warmth of its spa treatment.
Jing Shu downed her milk in one go and sat at the table, greeting Wu You'ai with a small smile. Her fingers brushed the back of her ear, where the skin always flared up in the freezing winter. It was itchy and painful with oozing sores. The memory of those grueling days from her past life still made her shiver.
Would it happen again this time? She didn't know, but she had better be prepared. She would start making medicinal ointments and keeping herself warm, doing whatever she could to prevent the condition from returning.
"Why the family meeting all of a sudden? Did something happen?"
"For the New Year, we will do as we planned; we will invite Paternal Eldest Aunt, Paternal Second Aunt, and Maternal Eldest Uncle's family. They can stay across the street in Grandma and Grandpa's three-bedroom place. This year, let's say it's Grandpa and Grandma hosting the event. We should start preparing the New Year goods early, and we will need more than usual this time. As for rooms, the villa is already packed to the brim; we can't fit another soul inside."
Jing Shu squinted her eyes as she laid out the details of her plan. The supplies stored within the villa were their lifeline. No one was allowed to even think of taking advantage of their hospitality, let alone see what was actually stored behind the locked doors.
Even her parents had no idea how much she had stockpiled over the months. The basement and the storage rooms upstairs were all locked behind heavy, reinforced doors, and only she had the keys. Every now and then, she would bring out a small batch of food or essential supplies, making it look like leftovers from her old streamer days. Her parents still thought she had just overbought a massive amount for her cooking channel before the world went dark.
After the apocalypse began, Jing Shu hadn't sat around waiting to starve. She had worked the land alongside her grandparents, raising chickens, ducks, and cows, even growing fruit in the climate-controlled greenhouse. Their supplies grew so steadily and predictably that nobody bothered questioning her methods anymore.
Grandma Jing counted the guests on her fingers. "So when are we bringing them over? And how long are they staying? You know your Second Aunt; she will move in until the Lantern Festival if you let her, and good luck getting her to leave after that."
The dining table was covered with steaming dishes, the air thick with the heavy smell of oil and savory spice. Jing Lai brought out the final dish; a big pot of longevity noodles topped with perfectly poached eggs and fresh green onions. The colors were bright, cheerful, and festive against the dark night outside.
There was even a bottle of Laojiao liquor on the table, one of Jing An's rare, prized collectibles.
"Don't worry, Grandma," Jing Shu said with a confident grin. "They won't be staying long. I guarantee it." When the inevitable flood came, nobody would have the time or the inclination to linger anyway.
Grandma Jing didn't press the matter further. She ladled a bowl of noodles and two eggs for Grandpa Jing, setting it down firmly. "Stop puffing that smoke all over the house. You're the birthday boy today. You don't have to eat everything on the table, but this you must finish."
Jing Shu blinked in surprise, her chopsticks pausing mid-air. It was Grandpa's birthday? Right, he always went by the lunar calendar. She could never keep track of those shifting dates. Every year during the Spring Festival, she had to check her phone just to figure out the actual date of the celebration.
Grandpa Jing chuckled awkwardly as he stubbed out his cigarette in the tray. "Just trying to cover the smell of the food, that's all. Lao Zhang across the street keeps asking if we're eating fish and meat every day… cough, cough. Birthday or not, I'm not one for big celebrations. But these longevity noodles, I will definitely eat."
He slurped down the bowl and the two eggs in no time, and the rest of the family finally started eating their meal.
The dishes were plentiful; there was crispy fried yellow croaker, pickled cucumber, cured pork with garlic shoots, smoked duck, old hen stew, century eggs with chili, braised ribs, and stewed catfish. It was significantly more meat than vegetables.
Most of the meat had come from their extensive frozen stock, as the fresh produce in the villa greenhouse couldn't keep up with how much the growing family consumed. The crops in her Cube Space had been dried for long-term storage long ago.
Jing An poured a small cup of the clear liquor and grinned at his father. "It's the best we can do for now. The news says the disaster is over, that dawn is almost here. Give it another couple of years and things might go back to how they were before. When that happens, we will throw you a proper 90th birthday party."
Grandpa Jing tilted his head back and drained the cup, smacking his lips in satisfaction at the burn. "You all shouldn't have gone to this much trouble," he said, waving his hand at the spread. "Look at all this, such a waste. Anyway, the reason I called this family meeting is to get everyone's opinion on something."
Jing Shu lifted her own bowl of noodles, scooped up a poached egg, and took a large bite. The yolk broke open, golden and soft, flooding her mouth with rich, creamy flavor. Eggs nourished by the Spirit Spring always had that special, incomparable taste; she could eat them every day and never get tired of them.
"Grandpa, what do you want our opinion on?" she asked curiously. It had been a while since he had looked this serious about a family matter.
Jing Lai brought out a big teapot, prepared Wu City style, and poured each person a cup of hot milk tea. The tea was a deep, dark caramel color with a thick layer of white milk skin floating on top. Ever since milk became abundant in their household, people had gotten used to drinking milk tea like it was water.
Unlike modern bubble tea, Wu City milk tea was made from pure milk simmered with strong tea leaves and a pinch of salt, then topped with a rich layer of buttered milk skin. One sip of that warmth on a freezing doomsday night, and your whole body melted into a state of comfort.
Before the apocalypse, this milk tea had been a staple on every table in Wu City; people drank it before meals, when they were thirsty, or even to fill their stomachs. Now, it was an unthinkable luxury for most.
Jing Shu loved both kinds; she enjoyed the sweet bubble tea with rose syrup or chocolate like a rich lady's dessert, and the salty, creamy Wu City milk tea that tasted like home. Just like the debate between sweet versus salty tofu pudding, both had their own distinct charm.
Her family had more milk than they knew what to do with, so Grandma Jing often boiled it down into jars of concentrated milk skin; a snack Jing Shu couldn't go a single day without.
Grandpa Jing took another shot of the liquor, then sighed deeply. "Lately, people have been saying the big earthquake stopped two or three months ago. If it were like before, we would have seen another disaster by now. But there's been nothing at all. So… is it really like the news says? Is the apocalypse coming to an end?"
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New announcement (I add something here, this is more detailed than previous one)
So, I Became a Fairy And Lived Forever In The Fairy World is already rewritten and uploaded on AO3, and the Webnovel version has been updated too. Now it's The Cube Queen's Apocalypse Feast's turn, and I'm rewriting it while uploading the polished chapters here on AO3.
Right now, besides working on The Cube Queen, I'm also redoing When Everyone Cultivates. I'll rewrite it all the way up to the latest chapter I've already posted. Once I finish that, I'll move on to my other AO3 projects and give them the same treatment, rewriting and polishing everything before updating them.
After I finish the AO3 rewrites, I'll go back to updating my ongoing AO3 stories. Then I'll rotate between posting on AO3 and continuing my Webnovel projects. When The Cube Queen on AO3 finally catches up to the newest Webnovel chapter, I'll pick another completed Webnovel project, rewrite it, and publish the polished version on AO3.
That means each story will eventually have two versions, the polished one with my current style and the original one where you can see my whole journey as a translator and how my style slowly turned into what it is now on my webnovel.
If you want to follow my work, feel free to subscribe to my AO3 under Rikhi, and for announcements or updates, you can join my Discord at discord.gg/75sprU6DdD