The fields in the Cube Space only needed watering once a day, and Jing Shu also fed the Spirit Spring just once daily. Each animal drank about a mouthful, so the twenty or so drops she had taken out today could last for a while.
After leaving the space, she searched for information online, then went downstairs to the lawn, pulled up a bundle of dried grass, and brought it home. Entering again, she used her "absolute control" to dismantle the chicken cage, lay it flat, and suspend it ten centimeters above the ground. She then made fifteen nesting spots from the dried grass for the hens, along with little nests for the ducks and quails.
This way, the chickens would lay their eggs inside the nests, while their droppings would fall through the cage directly onto the ground. After a few days, once the droppings dried out, she could mix them into the pig feed. A sudden inspiration struck her.
According to what she had read, pigs benefited from eating it. This way, she would not have to worry about finding a place to dump chicken waste. However, pig, cow, and sheep manure might be a bigger problem later.
She added more feed and water for all her little creatures, then left the Cube Space and began practicing her Rubik's Cube diligently. Mastering it was not something that could be done overnight, and sometimes luck played a role, but the only thing she could do was keep practicing until skill came naturally. She hoped to upgrade the Cube Space to the fifth level before the apocalypse.
On November 3, the third day after her rebirth, she woke early to the sound of noise. Going for a morning jog left her parents astonished. In reality, her main task was disposing of manure. Each time she passed a garbage dumpster, she stopped and touched it, instantly making a load of animal waste vanish before moving on to the next.
As expected, anything produced by the Cube Space was of the highest quality—the Spirit Spring was incredibly effective.
When she inspected the space that morning, a thick layer of manure already covered the ground, making the once-spacious place feel crowded. The female cow, sheep, and pig had all grown noticeably larger, groaning with hunger. The males had grown slightly but did not seem hungry. She hurriedly fed them with more fodder and water.
The chickens, ducks, and quails had laid many eggs. The more Spirit Spring they consumed, the more eggs they produced. She separated them into three cubic meters of space, leaving a few marked eggs to hatch so she could observe how long it would take.
Next, she expanded four cubic meters for the cattle and sheep, and two cubic meters for the pigs, leaving only thirty-one cubic meters of free space.
The feed she had been given was already running low, so she had to buy more today. Clearly, the Spirit Spring accelerated growth, food intake, and digestion. Thankfully she had not rashly drunk it herself, or the consequences could have been unimaginable.
After clearing away the manure, she went home for breakfast. The smell did not affect her appetite. After all, in the apocalypse, she had eaten everything that could be eaten—including five-grain bugs, which were essentially maggots.
During the first year of extreme heat, countless livestock and people had died. Rotting food produced endless maggots, everywhere.
Back then, she had sworn never to touch them, but when hunger left her too weak to speak, and the government distributed coarse grains supplemented with oil-fried, braised, or stir-fried five-grain bugs, she eventually got used to it. At the end of the day, it was still meat.
"I've suffered enough. I don't want my parents to suffer the same way," she thought. "But watching Su Meimei eat them again—I wouldn't mind that."
Breakfast was thick pumpkin porridge, steamed potatoes, a plate of garlic sprouts pickled in vinegar, and pancakes as the staple.
Her father and mother had both taken leave to wait at home for Uncle Sun's repayment. After finishing breakfast, she drove directly to the feed factory, bought a whole truckload of feed, and stored it in the Cube Space. She deliberately prepared enough for raising chickens, ducks, and cattle at the villa as well. Otherwise, in the apocalypse, she would have no excuse for suddenly producing feed.
Afterward, she navigated straight to an aquatic breeding base to buy fish.
In her plan, she wanted to dig a pond in front of the villa and raise lotus leaves, lotus roots, fish, and shrimp. Even without sunlight in the apocalypse, she could set up lamps and generate her own electricity to keep them alive. It would serve mainly as a cover; from time to time, she could toss in fish raised inside the Cube Space, cook them, and enjoy a fresh meal.
The aquaculture base offered too many species, and she could not buy everything—her space simply couldn't hold that much.
She went to a large-scale fish store and explained to the owner that she had dug a private pond to raise crayfish, river crabs, various fish, and lotus for herself and her relatives to eat.
The boss discouraged her, saying such mixed breeding would not survive. But she insisted—after all, in her space, anything could survive.
Eventually, the boss gave her a breeding package and some advice: she should divide the pond into zones, keeping aggressive fish like bass, catfish, and mandarin fish separate until they grew larger, after which they could be mixed to weed out the weak and diseased.
Crayfish and crabs could be raised together, as the crabs would eat sick or weak shrimp.
In the end, she bought almost everything: crayfish, river crabs, eels, loaches, crucian carp, silver carp, oysters, scallops, clams, grass carp, bass… the list went on.
The boss also explained that small-scale private farming was flexible. Chicken manure mixed with microbial solution, plus wheat bran and cornmeal, made excellent fish feed. Crayfish should mainly be fed high-protein animal feed, carcasses, and entrails, but wheat, soybeans, and winter melon could also work. Fish could even be co-bred with rice fields.
After driving to a secluded place, she dug up soil from the Cube Space fields and spread a thick layer into a newly expanded eight cubic meters of space, since loaches and crayfish preferred muddy environments. She then released about twenty jin (10 kg) of fry into it, dividing them into simple zones to keep them from devouring each other too early.
By the time she returned home, it was already two o'clock. Her mother was cooking while arguing heatedly with her father.
Judging from the burnt smell overpowering the aroma, her mother was furious.
Her father sat on the sofa, smoking one cigarette after another, occasionally retorting, "He must have something important to do, or maybe he didn't see the call."
"Then call him again! Isn't this holding up business? He promised to repay at noon, but first said he'd transfer in fifteen minutes, then disappeared. If he can't pay, he should just say so. Why make people wait like fools? What kind of man has no credit!"
He was fuming too, puffing smoke as he tried to argue back.