Jing Shu remembered the last time she came to Jin Tianci's neighborhood. It had been last year, during the earlier stages of the environmental collapse. The residential complex sat precariously on the edge of the basin in the old district. While it wasn't completely buried by the massive mudslides that had swallowed other blocks, life here was far from easy. Thick, muddy water kept bubbling up from the cracked pavement every day, carrying the faint, swampy scent of rot.
It really was like trying to cross a river made of endless, shifting sludge.
Vehicles were useless in this terrain; cars couldn't even get past the front gates without sinking to their axles. They had to continue on foot. The muddy water reached Jing Shu's waist, pressing against her with a heavy, cold weight. Jin Tianci's secretary led the way, wobbling precariously on top of a few narrow planks of plastic wood that had been laid out like a makeshift bridge. If the bodyguards hadn't held Qian Duoduo steady by his arms, the man would have fallen face-first into the freezing sludge long ago.
Just getting into this neighborhood felt like playing a particularly frustrating, hardcore adventure game where one wrong step meant being submerged in filth.
The secretary, clearly used to the daily struggle, walked ahead with a flickering flashlight. He called back over his shoulder, "Be careful, both of you. Our community isn't that bad compared to some. At least people can still live above the second floor here, and the flow of the mud is pretty slow. The mudslides around other cities are basically raging floods now. It's truly terrifying to witness."
Qian Duoduo was shivering from the biting cold and sheer exhaustion, his nose turning as red as a ripe tomato. After what felt like an eternity of wading through the muck, they finally reached Jin Tianci's apartment. The moment they were handed a bowl of steaming milk tea with a thick, decadent layer of cream on top, they could finally breathe again. The warmth spread from their hands to their chests, thawing the chill in their bones.
Wrapped in a heavy wool blanket and holding a ceramic cup filled with goji and red date tea, Jin Tianci smiled at them with a kind, grandfatherly expression. He took a measured sip now and then, chatting warmly once Qian Duoduo had finally caught his breath. He didn't favor the man just because he was rich, but he didn't ignore Jing Shu either.
That was just how Jin Tianci operated. He always made you feel as though your presence mattered to him personally. Jing Shu had long ago figured out his rhythm; if you didn't explicitly bring up your reason for coming, he could keep chatting for hours about absolutely nothing of consequence.
He asked with genuine interest about Jing Shu's Banana Community, then moved on to the fluctuating prices of everyday goods in the markets. He even wanted to know how the neighborhood aunties were managing to find enough food to keep their households running these days.
"Ha, those aunties are always the same, no matter the disaster," Jin Tianci said with a broad grin. "Ours collect all their families' waste every day and sell it for a few meager virtual coins. Then they send someone out to dig up fresh dirt, exchange that for more coins, and buy some worm patties or maybe a few buns and some rice. When they get home, they mix it all together with hot water to make a voluminous porridge. It lasts them for several days."
"Worm patties are getting scarce, though," he added, his smile fading slightly. "Lots of families have started converting all their saved coins into physical food. Everyone knows now that even those patties are becoming precious commodities."
Jing Shu could join in this conversation easily. When it came to the granular details of managing a household, women always had their own clever, resourceful ways of stretching supplies. Her grandpa was the undisputed gossip king of Banana Community. Every meal, he would nibble on roasted peanuts and share the latest news from the halls, so Jing Shu always stayed well-informed about the struggles of the common folk.
Jin Tianci also asked Qian Duoduo about how the people in his upper-class circle were coping with the dwindling luxuries of the old world.
Eventually, Qian Duoduo couldn't take the idle chatter any longer. He finally spoke up and said exactly what he had come for.
He knew he was giving up the strategic initiative by breaking first, but if he didn't say something soon, Jin Tianci would happily chat until the sun came up. The man's wife had already come in several times to refill the milk tea. Each batch was noticeably thicker than the last, until the liquid was more of a tea-flavored sludge than actual milk.
They needed to wrap this up fast. If they stayed for dinner, they would likely be served wheat bran soaked in thin rice water. That rough, gritty texture could scrape a person's throat raw if they weren't used to it.
Jing Shu stayed quiet after the proposal was laid out, sipping her milk tea while her mind drifted. She began managing her crops inside the Rubik's Cube Space, her consciousness expanding into the vibrant, green fields hidden within.
Six plots had been growing various medicinal herbs for a while now. She had originally planted them for medical emergencies or in case the Medicinal Herb Association needed a small contribution to maintain her standing someday.
But honestly, that plan had turned out to be mostly useless.
Before the apocalypse had even begun, she had already stocked up on all kinds of common medicines. After drinking the Spirit Spring regularly, no one in her family really got sick anymore. Except for the occasional gift of herbs to Jing Pan's family, those medicinal plants had barely been touched.
The rare ones growing inside the space, like the woody lingzhi mushrooms and the gnarled ginseng roots, were even more of a wasted resource. She had been nurturing them for years, and they had just sat there, taking up valuable, fertile land.
Pulling them out for trade wasn't a good idea either. It was far too risky to expose the sheer quality of what she had.
She looked at the plump ginseng roots, which were likely aged several decades by now, and let out a quiet sigh. She harvested everything with a mental command, storing the herbs away in the preservation lockers of the space. She didn't need them right now, so it was better to keep them safe and clear out the land for something more practical.
"Let's use the empty fields for spices," she muttered to herself. "Star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, black pepper, cinnamon. Oh, and curry! I haven't had a good curry in forever. There's a recipe in the Baidu Encyclopedia; I could try to replicate it. And I should make more hotpot base too. Before we start any major migrating, I better stock up on condiments and marinated foods. Nothing beats a hotpot on the road; it's so easy to prepare. You just throw in whatever you want."
Her hunger sharpened at the thought. It had been ages since she had eaten tripe, pork aorta, or pig brain. Perhaps she should find a way to source those soon.
Her thoughts drifted further into her inventory. Before the apocalypse, she had bought over a hundred kilos of assorted seasonings. But after she started doing livestream cooking for her followers, she had gone through the jars fast. Even after making cubic meters of preserved food post-apocalypse, she still tore through her supplies like crazy.
Now some of the essential spices were almost gone. It was a good thing she had stocked thousands of kilos of vinegar and salt for curing and pickling food, or she would be in serious trouble by now.
"Jing Shu, Jing Shu? What are you daydreaming about over there?" Jin Tianci chuckled, his voice pulling her back to the warm apartment. The earlier conversation about the migrants had clearly put him in a great mood. He even reached out and patted Qian Duoduo's shoulder with a heavy hand. "You know what? There's no time like the present. Let's do it today. The old district just took in fifty thousand desperate people from Lin City. We still haven't fed them yet, and we need to distribute food and supplies immediately. Lao Qian, you have saved Wu City a lot of vital resources today."
Jing Shu was stunned. This old man really was in a rush to offload the problem.
Qian Duoduo gave her a weary, knowing smile, the kind that said he told her so. "Alright, I will go make the necessary arrangements right away."
"Go ahead, go ahead. They are all yours now. Do whatever you want with them; be a local king if you like. I have only got one condition: keep them alive until the disaster ends, or until your Xingfu Shiyuan can't keep running anymore." Jin Tianci's voice turned uncharacteristically serious for a moment.
Qian Duoduo waved a hand dismissively as he stood up. He hesitated for a second, then downed the rest of his milk tea and poured the remaining liquid from the pot into his cup to finish it before leaving.
"Oh, Jing Shu, stay a while. I have got something to discuss with you. And Lao Qian, make sure those people get food first! Hungry folks can turn into monsters." Jin Tianci called out as Qian Duoduo walked toward the door.
The man waved back weakly, then hurried out into the whistling cold wind. The heavy door slammed shut behind him with a thud. Jin Tianci just smiled and shook his head before turning his attention back to Jing Shu.
"Now then," he said lightly, his eyes twinkling with a different kind of intensity, "let's talk about those seeds. This morning, they were all delivered and stored properly. The staff have been settled too."