Under the combined influence of atmospheric radioactive elements (IU and RI), a phenomenon that remains unclear in the overall evolution of life on Earth is the case:
The more primitive the organism, the higher its level of evolution.
While humans have generally evolved twofold (approximately two-thousandths more), many invertebrates with simpler body structures have generally evolved eightfold, with their evolutionary rates significantly higher than humans. Therefore, after natural disasters, Earth is several times more dangerous for humanity than before.
While Earth's evolving life forms pose a threat to human life, they also present opportunities for survival: organisms containing trace amounts of harmful radioactive elements, with IU content not exceeding five-thousandths, that are directly edible for humans.
Researchers have named these: safe food.
Currently, research has confirmed three points: First, the lower the content of both types of elements, the more beneficial they are to the human body; second, the higher the proportion of safe food in the diet, the stronger the human's ability to resist environmental pollution; and third, the effect of multi-evolved safe food in enhancing human immunity is significantly better than that of ordinary safe food.
Because safe food cannot meet the needs of the entire nation, China has designated edible organisms containing trace amounts or no harmful radioactive elements, with a harmful element content between 0.5% and 0.15%, as optional food.
Both safe and optional food samples show a green light when tested with ordinary detectors. The evolved catfish that Xia Qing killed could be exchanged for enough rations for three months in the safe zone.
Having had enough of the coarse, compressed rations, Xia Qing now only wanted meat.
She quickly cleaned and chopped the catfish, threw it into a pot, added spring water, and started cooking.
Seasoning? Only salt and chili powder.
Side dishes? None.
Wait, she had six pounds of evolved potato seeds.
However, Xia Qing was reluctant to eat them because the "Complete Guide to Planting" clearly stated that this was a safe food with a harmful element content of only 0.25%, and a very low germination rate, between 30% and 35%.
The six pounds of potatoes she received had an uncertain yield; how many seedlings they would produce and how many pounds of potatoes they would harvest were all unknown, so she was reluctant to eat them.
Soon, an enticing aroma of meat wafted from the pot. Xia Qing sniffed it, confirming that the catfish she had stewed was even more fragrant and less muddy than the stewed fish sold in the safe zone's canteen.
This catfish was likely safe food.
Although her appetite had doubled after evolution, Xia Qing was still full before finishing even half of this catfish, which weighed over ten pounds. Fortunately, it was only February, and the fish from lunchtime wouldn't spoil by evening.
Her food supply would increase in the future, so she needed to find a way to install solar panels and a refrigerator as soon as possible. But before that, she needed to find glass to repair the windows to protect against attacks from evolved insects, snakes, and rodents.
Xia Qing picked up her large canvas bag and tools, deciding to use the afternoon to patrol the deserted village.
Within plot number three were three villages arranged in a triangular pattern, separated by large tracts of farmland. Xia Qing lived in two deserted villages, one to her left and one to her right.
These villages were completely overgrown with vegetation. Pushing aside the weeds, Xia Qing found numerous human and animal bones, gnawed clean.
She had seen too many such scenes; she was numb to them.
After searching all three villages, Xia Qing carried usable glass home. She selected suitable tempered laminated glass, cleaned it, cut it to the appropriate size with a glass cutter, sealed it with silicone sealant, and then firmly sealed it with special sealing strips.
By the tenth year, the building materials produced before the catastrophe had long expired and spoiled. What she was using now was something she had brought from the safe zone.
The catastrophe destroyed Blue Star's original industrial production system, causing many supplies that were easily obtainable with a few taps on a mobile phone before the catastrophe to become scarce and impossible to find.
Even this silicone sealant and sealing strips were obtained by Xia Qing thanks to her position as a construction team leader.
After her father's death, the beautiful and orphaned Xia Qing needed either exceptional strength, a powerful team she could rely on, or she had to sell herself for a living to survive in the safe zone.
Xia Qing lacked both exceptional strength and the ability to completely trust anyone. She also didn't want to sell her body, so she cut her long hair, darkened her face, and infiltrated a construction team.
Earning points was secondary; Xia Qing's main goal was to conceal herself, learn construction techniques, and accumulate materials and tools unavailable on the market, preparing for living alone after leaving the safe zone.
Of course, some in the construction team wanted to take advantage of Xia Qing, but after experiencing her formidable strength, none dared to act.
After installing the bright windows, Xia Qing breathed a long sigh of relief; her home was finally secure. With some time before nightfall, Xia Qing took a shovel to the neighbor's yard and dug a hole to bury the skeletons of an adult, a child, and a dog, now only visible as bones covered by weeds.
The two people and the dog were all killed by the evolved plant mistletoe. Judging from their postures, the dog was trying to save its owner even in death.
Mistletoe seeds can not only parasitize tree trunks, but also animals and humans. If the host is not detected and completely removed in time, it will quickly drain their flesh and blood, leading to death. Xia Qing still remembers the first time she saw the clusters of bright red mistletoe berries growing on the bodies of people killed by mistletoe; she thought it was the most terrifying scene of a natural disaster.
But in the years that followed, repeated close calls taught her that there is no most terrifying, only more terrifying. Fortunately, humans now have protective suits and other methods of self-protection. As long as one does not recklessly enter an uncultivated evolved forest, one will not suffer a large-scale attack by evolved creatures.
After burying the family of three, Xia Qing also cleared the weeds and debris from the yard and the house.
This house was under construction; the two-story reinforced concrete main structure had just been completed when acid rain and a biological evolution event hit. As a result, the secondary structure and doors and windows hadn't been finished, but the materials had already been purchased and were piled up in the second-floor rooms. Fortunately, the roof was made of resin tiles, and the homeowner had done everything possible to protect the house; otherwise, after six months of intense acid rain, not only the concrete but also the reinforcing steel would have been destroyed.
Xia Qing lives alone, and the two-story house is enough for her, so she decided to use it as a storage room for large but not essential items such as farm tools, old furniture, and timber.
After tidying up and taking a walk around, Xia Qing felt a great sense of accomplishment, but also thought she should quickly raise an evolved animal to guard the house, preferably a smart one.
A highly evolved dog or a goose would be fine, preferably a goose because it's herbivorous.
However, this was just a thought; animals that could be domesticated after advanced evolution were extremely rare. Xia Qing didn't think she had the luck to find one by simply waiting for it to come to her within her territory. The most important thing was to plant the land first.