When Tan Junjie led his team to the buffer zone outside the western side of Plot 3, Xia Qing proactively greeted them, "Team Leader Tan, could you please pass on a message to Zhang San in Plot 7? I'd like to exchange supplies with him."
Tan Junjie glanced at the backpack Xia Qing was carrying, almost as tall as her. "Want to exchange now?"
Xia Qing nodded. "I've harvested some green-light bamboo shoots. If he agrees to the exchange, please give him my phone number, Team Leader Tan."
Zhang San was a well-supplied foodie, someone who could trade long-term, so Xia Qing wanted to exchange phone numbers with him. Xia Qing was certain that although there were no ground base stations here, Zhang San definitely had a satellite phone.
"I'll ask him," Tan Junjie said, taking out his phone and calling Zhang San.
As soon as the call connected, Xia Qing, with her enhanced hearing, accurately caught Zhang San's anger: "You'd better..."
Tan Junjie calmly interrupted him, "Green Light bamboo shoots have been found at site number three. They're asking if you want to trade."
"Yes!" Zhang San's voice immediately changed from a storm to a rainbow, "Where's my sister Xia Qing?"
Tan Junjie shuddered. Xia Qing, suppressing a chill, leaned closer to the phone and directly stated her trade terms, "Third Brother, this is Xia Qing. I got some Green Light evolved bamboo shoots today, but I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm not sure if they're good. I'd like to trade for a drying machine, a packaging machine, and two hundred sealed bags. How many kilograms of fresh bamboo shoots do you need?"
Xia Qing's emphasis on "Green Light" and "fresh" was enough to attract Zhang San. "Ten kilograms is enough. Can we trade now? Should you have Tan Junjie bring them over, or should I send someone to pick them up?"
"Team Leader Tan will bring them over. Third Brother, please also give the exchange supplies to Team Leader Tan." Xia Qing finished speaking, took two steps back, and handed over ten kilograms of sealed Green Light bamboo shoots. Hu Zifeng had given her two bags of Green Light bamboo shoots, ten kilograms each, so there was no need to weigh them. Tan Junjie patrolled along the isolation zone, passing the north side of Plot 3, the iron fence of the wild boar breeding center, and the north side of Plots 4, 5, and 6. Before even entering the isolation zone north of Plot 7, a scruffy-looking Zhang San rushed over, yelling, "Where are my bamboo shoots?"
Tan Junjie countered, "Where's the machine and the sealed bag?"
"Give it to him, quick!" Zhang San urged the two burly bodyguards behind him.
The bodyguards handed the machine, still in its packaging box, to Tan Junjie. After confirming it was in good condition, Tan Junjie gestured for Cao Xianyun to give the bamboo shoots to Zhang San.
The pale yellow fresh bamboo shoots inside the thick sealed bag were incredibly tempting. Zhang San grabbed them without a word and ran back to his territory.
Tan Junjie smiled and led his team to continue patrolling. Su Ming muttered under his breath, "That guy is really..."
"I advise you not to talk about him, or you won't even know how you died," Cao Xianyun said, shoving a large box containing the dryer into Su Ming's hands and striding after his captain.
As they passed Territory Number Three, Tan Junjie handed the machine to Xia Qing. "It has Zhang San's phone number inside. He has a bad temper, but he's not a bad person."
After the great biological evolution, human living conditions deteriorated drastically. Every human who has survived to this day has taken several lives. To survive, who hasn't done something selfish and harmful?
Therefore, to still receive the assessment of "not a bad person" after ten years of natural disaster is quite remarkable.
After watching the search team walk away, Xia Qing turned and took a few steps back into the territory. Sure enough, she heard the familiar murmur again, "Captain, what's Zhang San's background... Captain, why don't you ask Sister Qing where she dug up the bamboo shoots? We could share some with her..."
Tan Junjie, of course, didn't respond. Cao Xianyun snorted, "She can bring back bamboo in a day. How many places like that are there within dozens of miles?"
Twenty-year-old Su Ming honestly answered, "I don't know. Where is it?"
"You can't go there anyway."
"Why?"
Yeah, why? The bamboo grove wasn't far from the regimental headquarters, so why didn't they go there? Xia Qing stopped thinking about it, carried the relatively light box home, unpacked and confirmed the two machines were working properly, then entered Zhang San's phone number into her phone's address book.
After a day out, Xia Qing was starving. The aroma of rice wafting from the pot made her stomach rumble. She quickly stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork, made a cold perilla salad, and then used perilla, toon sprouts, and her rations to prepare the most lavish meal ever for the sheep, placing it on its table.
Her own meal was also the most lavish since settling into the territory… no, it was the most lavish meal she'd had in five years since her father's death.
The bamboo shoots tasted absolutely delicious. After the two of them licked the plate (or bowl) clean, Xia Qing leaned back in her chair, inhaling the aroma in the air, and chatted with the sheep.
"Did I make the right choice going to the bamboo forest? If I hadn't gone, would Boss have been able to eat such good bamboo shoots?" Xia Qing glanced at Boss Yang with a boastful look, noticing he was squinting at the metal box in the kitchen.
Want more?
Dream on!
Xia Qing quickly cleared away the dishes and utensils, then took the dehydrator and vacuum packing machine into the kitchen. This vacuum packing machine was the same as the one with the copper belt; Xia Qing knew how to use it, but she had never used a food dehydrator before and needed to figure it out.
Zhang San was indeed a good person; he not only delivered a brand-new machine but also included an instruction manual, which Xia Qing opened and read carefully.
This food dehydrator was 48 cm long, 41 cm wide, and 51 cm high, weighing 25 catties. It could hold twelve stainless steel mesh trays at a time, with a temperature control range of 30-90 degrees Celsius and a timer function from 0-24 hours. It could dry fruits, meat, seafood, and vegetables.
Now that the ocean was contaminated by nuclear wastewater, seafood was inedible; the other three items were exactly what Xia Qing needed to dry and preserve. She didn't have any fruit right now, but the two strawberry bushes in her terraced fields had already blossomed with six tiny white flowers!
Xia Qing was delighted, but after scrolling down to the drying times for each food item, she fell silent.
Although the drying time reference table didn't mention bamboo rats, bamboo rats are also called bamboo pigs or bamboo raccoons, and their drying time could be compared to pork slices. Therefore, even if the bamboo rat meat was sliced into 0.5 cm thin slices, it would still need to be baked at 60 degrees Celsius for 8 hours. Bamboo shoots, similar to ginger, would need to be dried at 60 degrees Celsius for 7 hours.
Slicing wasn't the problem, nor was the oven's capacity; the real problem was that the electricity generated by the two solar panels on her rooftop wasn't enough.
Xia Qing picked up her phone and contacted Zhong Tao. After confirming that he could come to pick up the goods the next morning, she abandoned dealing with the red-light bamboo rat and opened the sealed bag containing the yellow-light bamboo rat.
Xia Qing didn't know how big bamboo rats could grow before the natural disaster, but this yellow-light evolved bamboo rat weighed 22 jin (approximately 11 kg), definitely larger than before the disaster. This bamboo rat should yield sixteen jin of meat, which, when dried, makes eight jin of jerky.
Eight jin…
Although Xia Qing had never eaten bamboo rat and didn't know what it tasted like, meat that could promote her evolution was good meat.
Ten years ago, during the great evolution of life on Earth, the age of twenty-five was considered the dividing line for human evolution. Those under twenty-five had a higher probability of undergoing high-level evolution, and those who evolved before the age of twenty-five would see their evolutionary level further increase.
Ten years after the natural disaster, Chinese scientists, through in-depth research, discovered that the current dividing line for human evolution is thirty-five years old. If humans can consume sufficient energy before the age of thirty-five, it is possible to induce evolution and increase their evolutionary level.
Human energy comes from edible food, and a balanced and reasonable nutritional intake is crucial.
Xia Qing is only twenty-five years old this year; she can still increase her evolutionary level. Therefore, while in the safe zone, she spent almost all the points she earned on food. Now that she's outside the safe zone and has her own territory, she's even less likely to deprive herself.