Jing Shu rubbed her nose and kept quiet. She already knew what was coming next. The hardest period of the apocalypse was about to begin. All she wanted was to make a quiet fortune, eat well, sleep well, and not get dragged into unnecessary trouble. As long as no one tried to take her private stash or force her to hand over her remaining food, she would be happy.
"Then you should store your seeds in the city's central warehouse," Jin Tianci said, his voice regaining its official weight. "We won't charge you any storage fees for the space. You can access and use them anytime you need."
He called in his personal secretary and began drafting the entire agreement on his tablet, the blue light reflecting in his glasses. He officially logged every detail, his stylus clicking rhythmically against the glass screen. He even added the new clauses they had discussed earlier, then marked the deal as Wu City's top-level secret. From now on, only the highest-ranking officials could modify or view it. Anyone who dared mess with that twenty percent crop allocation would be breaking an official decree recognized even by the distant Capital.
Jing Shu nodded quickly, looking like a pecking chick. Even if Jin Tianci hadn't mentioned the offer, she had planned to keep those seeds in the government warehouse anyway.
After all, it was a massive batch. She didn't really have anywhere else to put it without drawing suspicion. Keeping them in the Rubik's Cube Space was not exactly "official" for her records, either. She would just secretly store a small portion in her private space later. You couldn't put all your eggs in one basket. The Red Nematodes she had kept there before had always been safe, but if anything ever happened to the warehouse, losing her entire collection of seeds would be a nightmare.
Once they had finished the discussion, both of them let out a long, collective breath. The weight in their chests finally eased.
Jin Tianci immediately began making arrangements for the seeds' distribution and subsequent planting. "We won't hand this batch to the Agriculture Department. They are already overloaded with the migrants and don't have the time or specialized facilities to handle this level of complexity. Send an order to the Research Department. Tell them to use that method to plant them."
He kept talking in circles, his tone hushed and conspiratorial.
Jing Shu frowned at the phrase. "That method?" Besides traditional soil and hydroponics, was there really another way to plant seeds? Was it reliable for such rare specimens? Was it truly safe? She had twenty percent in that batch, after all, and she didn't want to see her future food supply wasted on a failed experiment.
"When it's time to start the actual planting, you had better call me," she said seriously, her eyes narrowing. "I will help check things over to ensure the yield is maximized."
"Sure, sure," Jin Tianci replied absentmindedly as he turned back to the tablet to issue a string of new instructions. It was then that she realized just how many different departments were getting pulled into this operation.
So this is what they mean by one command from the top, and the secretaries run themselves to death, she thought with a flicker of amusement.
Jing Shu leaned back comfortably on the sofa, waiting for the official briefing to end. Once things wrapped up, she would ask the secretary to take her to see Li Dayou. She needed to think of a proper way to thank those people. They would be leaving Wu City in a few days, and chances were she would never see them again.
People always said cash was the best reward since everyone could buy whatever they wanted with it.
"How about giving them virtual coins?" she muttered to herself, then shook her head. She didn't have that many coins herself, and they were nearly worthless for buying anything of real quality now.
In this apocalypse, nothing beat plain, white rice.
"Should I give them rice then?" she wondered, then shook her head again. The favor she owed them was huge. How much rice would be enough to truly express her gratitude? And it was not as if they could bring much weight on the plane anyway.
Besides, her own family's rice supply was not endless. If she gave it away, they would be short at home.
"So what should I give them then?" she murmured, thinking hard as she stared at the ceiling. Suddenly her eyes lit up. She slapped her thigh and said excitedly, "Teaching a man to fish is better than giving him fish! In times like this, what is the point of giving more food? It will all run out eventually."
Just then, the room's door slammed open with a loud bang! A gust of biting cold wind swept into the warm apartment, smelling of mud and winter, before the door banged shut again. A familiar, loud voice shouted, "Sister-in-law, pour me some hot tea! It's freezing out here!"
The first thing Jing Shu saw was Zhou Bapi's big yellow-toothed grin as he shook the snow from his coat. Next door, Madam Jin rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath as she prepared to pour more of the milk tea. Milk was already a rare and expensive luxury in Wu City, and now these uninvited guests had drunk four whole pots today.
She let out a long sigh. "This was supposed to help Lao Jin recover his strength, but everyone is freeloading instead."
"The Jin family's tea sure is fancy," Zhou Bapi said cheerfully, gulping down a fresh cup. "Pure milk, huh? It would be perfect if you added a pinch of salt. It's absolutely freezing out there."
He plopped himself onto the sofa with a heavy thud, then froze when he saw Jing Shu sitting right across from him. The mouthful of milk tea he had just taken almost sprayed everywhere, but he forced it down through his nose instead. It stung like hell, but at least it was not wasted.
"Jing Shu, you are finally back? When did you get here?" His face lit up with genuine excitement, his voice full of emotion. "My dear apprentice, you have got no idea how worried I was! You have been missing for over a month! I called you so many times my phone nearly exploded. Only Lao Jin here told me you had gone deep into the mountains. We didn't even know if you would come back, so I had stopped hoping for the best."
He sniffled dramatically, rubbing a hand across his nose. "You should have told us the moment you came back! I have been worried sick looking for you!"
Jing Shu blinked, startled by his intensity. "What is the matter? I thought I had already arranged everything with the Medicinal Herb Association. If you need more chicken manure, just ask my grandma. What is so urgent?"
Her arrangement with the Medicinal Herb Association was pretty comfortable. All her monthly work quotas had been replaced with bulk chicken manure deliveries, and she had even exceeded the target. She didn't need to show up at the Association's offices anymore. The only people above her in the hierarchy were the missing Director and her own teacher, Zhou Bapi. No one else dared to manage her. After all, she was a vice president.
"You forgot? The Capital's Medicinal Herb Planting Contest, the one that got canceled last year. It's back on. It starts in five days!" Zhou Bapi said urgently, his eyes wide. "All twenty-six districts' associations will bring their own best crops to compete. The results decide the next distribution of medicinal resources. Lao Jin gave us a strict order this time. A lot of Wu City's sick and elderly are counting on new medicine. If we don't win some resources back, the Association is going to lose its privileges and benefits."
The Medicinal Herb Association's perks were far better than those of the Agriculture Department.
Jing Shu raised an eyebrow. She did have a pretty high clearance level, higher than even her mother's clearance. But she didn't hold much real power. It just meant if she got in trouble, she would be judged internally by the Association instead of Wu City's main authority. No other department could touch her. After all, she was a vice president.
"So soon?" she said, surprised. She had thought the contest was dead and buried, but it seemed it was happening fast. Way too fast.
She had just gotten home, she still had tons of supplies to prepare, and more family things to handle. It was already the fourth year of the apocalypse—couldn't she just rest for a few days?
Her expression darkened.
Zhou Bapi, on the other hand, was grinning wide, his yellow teeth flashing in the amber light. "That's right. They say someone cracked a mysterious item, and now a batch of resources is being distributed. So they are holding a quick contest. If you hadn't come back, we would have no chance. But since you are here, hehe, our odds just went way up. Lao Jin, if we really win this time, shouldn't the Medicinal Herb Association get a few extra benefits?"
Mysterious item?