Why had this item been sitting in the mall for so long without anyone buying it? It meant either the price was too high or nobody needed its specialized functions in the current market.
If something was genuinely good, everyone would be fighting to grab it. One only had to look at today's trades to see that. In this apocalypse, the value of supplies was obvious to everyone. Anything that produced long-term byproducts, like poultry, was the most expensive category. After that came consumable luxuries like cigarettes, alcohol, and tea, then various raw materials. But none of these were essential food supplies for immediate survival. What did that tell you? It was something worth thinking about, really thinking about, as the world shifted around them.
While the trading hall was busy selling ducks, their feathers flying in the 3D displays, Jing Shu shifted her attention to the neglected listing. The first thing she saw was the picture, a machine that wasn't too big or too small, its stainless steel surface gleaming under the sterile studio lights of the catalog photo.
Then she read the description. It was a freeze dryer.
"Freeze dryer?" Jing Shu frowned and kept reading, her eyes scanning the technical specifications. "After using it, the vacuum freeze-drying process removes over ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of moisture. The dried product can be stored long-term without spoiling. Since the drying happens under vacuum, oxygen is minimal, so substances that oxidize easily are protected."
"So…" Jing Shu looked up at Tang Tuoguan, seeking his professional opinion.
He nodded, his glasses reflecting the blue light of her screen. "You can make freeze-dried milk powder, freeze-dried meat, freeze-dried meals, everything. It lasts a long time and doesn't denature. You can even do compressed freeze-drying."
Her thoughts quickly cleared as she visualized the possibilities. She really did need something like this. For example, the dairy cow at home had just given birth again. The milk was overflowing, the heavy scent of sweet cream becoming a constant presence in the villa. Even if she drank milk and milk tea every day, and turned the rest into milk skin, cheese, yogurt, and every other product she could think of, it still wasn't enough to keep up with the supply. And that wasn't counting the cows inside her space, where she had already piled up far too much milk in various containers.
She had already been planning to make milk powder next time she had a free moment.
Everything in her space stayed fresh forever. But the things outside the villa, the ones with high production rates, spoiled easily if they weren't processed immediately.
Sure, food felt plentiful right now in her private stash, but once the great migration arrived, everything would run short. Fresh vegetables could be dried at all of Xishan, but with freeze-drying, she would have even more options for lightweight, high-nutrition rations.
Jing Shu checked the machine's price. It was a staggering three million trading coins. These weren't virtual coins but a special currency issued by the trading hall, based on market value, and only usable on the eighth floor.
"It's pretty expensive." She glanced at the list of items she had just swept up. Her original ten million had already dropped to five million, and she hadn't even bought much in terms of volume. How did she spend half already? If she spent another three million, she would barely be able to buy anything else for the rest of the day.
She remembered that when she bought land and built her factories back then, she had only owed the government a few million in virtual coins. Inflation really had gotten out of hand in the capital.
Besides, the weather was cold now, so everyone just tossed things outside to freeze solid and keep them fresh. There wasn't much demand for expensive freeze-drying equipment when the world was a natural freezer.
"But the compressed freeze-drying part is really tempting. It saves space, and once it touches water it goes back to its original form. When the migration starts next year, even with the space stuffed full and a two-story RV, it won't hold everything." Jing Shu hesitated, her finger hovering over the buy button.
Tang Tuoguan fell silent. He picked up his pen and did more calculations on his notepad, the scratching of the nib the only sound between them. After a while he added, "If I'm not mistaken, you will end up buying it. I think you should. It's a whole complete set, and not many are left in the inventory. Temperatures keep dropping. Sure, people prefer using this natural freezer outside, but nobody knows what the next disaster will be."
That was true. One disaster per year felt like a rule now. Nobody knew what would come next. The departments dealing with research and disaster prevention were already preparing so they wouldn't get caught off guard again. Even this year's mudslide had been anticipated, which was why supplies were mobilized right away and the disaster zone cleared so fast.
China's local governments and the people had adapted quickly. They were getting really good at avoiding disasters or at least mitigating the damage.
But what truly pushed Jing Shu into buying this insanely expensive freeze-drying machine was something else entirely, a sudden shift in the auction rhythm.
The categories were auctioned one after another. Each type only lasted a minute or two, giving people little time to think. With the heat of the moment, plenty of people bid impulsively, their faces flushed in the glow of their devices. After all, once something rare was gone, it was really gone.
Old hens and old sows went for sky-high prices. Jing Shu ignored them. She had way too many in her space already, enough to give her headaches during the daily counts.
What caught her attention was the feed.
But it wasn't ordinary feed. she wouldn't even glance at normal feed. She had vegetable leaves, eggshells, all kinds of bones, and her own grains. The feed she had bought before the apocalypse, several tons of it, was nearly gone, but she would never pay a premium for regular feed again.
Instead, this was something else. These were live feed worms.
Before the apocalypse, she had bought nearly every kind of poultry possible, along with tons of feed, but she had forgotten about feed worms, the ones rich in protein that kept birds healthy.
Now breeders were selling them. And of course the price wasn't anything like it used to be. These worms were classified as poultry now, receiving the same level of protection as larger animals. With poultry survival rates so low, if you wanted chickens to grow plump and healthy, you couldn't do without these high-protein worms. If you wanted more eggs, you needed these worms even more.
These live feed worms were pricier than pre-apocalypse freeze-dried meats. The sellers weren't stupid either. They sold them as breeding stock, promising exponential growth.
Looking at those plump, squirming worms packed tightly in their containers, thousands of tiny, pale bodies shifting over one another in a rhythmic undulating carpet, could anyone guess that each tiny worm was worth hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands?
"This batch, one hundred grams. Top-grade barley worms. Omnivorous, adaptable, high in nutrition. Whether it's fish or chickens or any kind of poultry, once you add barley worms, their nutrition shoots up. Best thing is they are easy to breed even in the apocalypse. They can lay six hundred to a thousand eggs until they die. They lay a batch every ten days and reach maturity in just a few dozen days. You don't need to buy much. Just get this, raise them for a month or two, and you will have enough to support all your poultry at home. You don't even need to mix a lot. Ten percent of the feed is enough."
Even Jing Shu found herself listening with interest, her eyes fixed on the wriggling mass.
The breeder went on to introduce several other kinds of feed worms, big ones, tiny ones, expensive ones, and cheap ones that reproduced even without supervision.
There were even sellers who specialized in high-quality maggots.
Yes, high-quality maggots needed complicated breeding methods and costlier feed. But maggots had high protein. If you mixed twenty percent of them into poultry feed, the chickens could lay an extra egg every day.