Chapter 010: Buying Fish Fry

The farmland in the space needed infusion only once a day, and Jing Shu also fed the Spirit Spring to her animals once daily. Each time, she gave them about a mouthful of water, so the twenty or so drops of Spirit Spring extracted today could last for a while.

After leaving the space and searching for information on Baidu, Jing Shu went to the lawn downstairs and picked a lot of dry grass to bring home. She re-entered the space and used “Absolute Control” to dismantle the chicken coop, laying it flat and fixing it ten centimeters above the ground in the space. She then made fifteen nesting boxes with the dry grass for the chickens to lay eggs, and also made nests for the ducks and quails.

This way, the eggs laid by the chickens would be in the nests, and the chicken droppings would fall through the coop directly onto the ground of the space. After a few days, when they dried, Jing Shu planned to mix the chicken droppings with pig feed to feed the pigs [Eureka].

According to Baidu, pigs benefit from eating this, and it saves Jing Shu the trouble of finding places to dispose of chicken manure. However, dealing with pig, cow, and sheep manure would be a problem in the future.

She added more feed and regular water for all her little darlings. Jing Shu exited the space and began diligently practicing the Rubik’s Cube. This wasn’t something that could be achieved overnight; sometimes, luck played a part. The only thing she could do was practice hard, becoming more proficient with time. She aimed to upgrade to the fifth-order Rubik’s Cube before the apocalypse!

On November 3rd, the third day after her rebirth, Jing Shu went for a morning run after being awakened by noise. Her parents were greatly surprised. In fact, Jing Shu mainly went out to dispose of the manure. Every time she ran past a garbage container, she would stop briefly; with a touch, she could instantly dispose of one type of livestock’s waste, then move on to the next.

No wonder they say that products from the space are always top-notch—the Spirit Spring was incredibly effective.

Early in the morning, upon entering the space for inspection, she found that a thick layer of manure had already accumulated. The space that was originally just right now felt a bit crowded. The female cows, pigs, and sheep were noticeably larger, hungry, and moaning. The males had grown slightly but were not hungry. Jing Shu hurriedly fed them with feed and water.

The chickens, ducks, and quails had laid many eggs. The higher the Spirit Spring content, the more eggs they laid. Jing Shu allocated 3 cubic meters to store different eggs and marked a few to let them hatch, to see how long it would take.

She added 4 cubic meters for the sheep and cows and 2 cubic meters for the pigs, leaving only 31 cubic meters of space.

The feed that was given as a bonus was no longer sufficient; it seemed she had to buy more today. The Spirit Spring seemed to accelerate growth, intake, and digestion. Fortunately, she hadn’t rashly drunk it herself; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable…

After cleaning up the manure, Jing Shu went home to eat breakfast. It didn’t affect her appetite. In the apocalypse, as long as it was edible, Jing Shu had eaten it, including farmed grain worms, also known as maggots.

In the first year of the apocalypse, due to extreme heat, many livestock and people died, and countless rotting foods bred countless maggots, which were everywhere.

Jing Shu originally wouldn’t eat them even if threatened with death, but when she was so hungry that she didn’t even have the strength to speak, and when the coarse grains distributed by the government turned into various preparations of deep-fried, braised, and stir-fried grain worms, she found that she got used to it after eating. After all, it was meat.

“I don’t want my parents to suffer the hardships I’ve endured,” Jing Shu thought. “But I wouldn’t mind watching Su Mei Mei go through it again.”

Breakfast was thick pumpkin porridge, steamed potatoes, a plate of garlic scapes pickled in vinegar, and pancakes as the main course.

Her parents had specially taken a day off to wait at home for Uncle Sun’s money. After eating, Jing Shu drove straight to the feed factory, wholesaled a whole truckload of feed, and stored it in her space. Jing Shu intended to raise some chickens, ducks, and cows at the villa as well. Feed was a must-buy in sufficient quantities; otherwise, there would be no excuse to bring them out during the apocalypse.

Then, Jing Shu navigated nonstop to the aquatic breeding base to buy fish fry.

In Jing Shu’s plan, she intended to dig a small pond in front of the villa to raise lotus leaves, lotus roots, fish, and shrimp. Even without sunlight in the apocalypse, it wouldn’t matter. She could buy lamps and generate her own electricity to ensure the fish wouldn’t die. Mainly, it was a cover so that she could occasionally throw some fish produced in her space into the pond to enjoy… *slurp*.

There were too many kinds of fish fry at the aquatic base, and Jing Shu could only selectively buy some; otherwise, the small space wouldn’t be able to accommodate many.

She found a large aquatic shop and explained to the owner that she had dug a small private pond and wanted to raise crayfish, hairy crabs, various fish, lotus roots, and lotus flowers for her family and relatives to eat.

After listening, the owner, although not recommending such a way of farming, still provided Jing Shu with a package and some precautions. He suggested that she divide the pond into several areas, separating aggressive fish like bass, catfish, and mandarin fish. When they grew larger, they could be mixed together to eliminate the weak and diseased.

Crayfish and crabs could be raised together; crabs would eat weak and sick shrimp.

In the end, Jing Shu bought:

– 2 catties of crayfish

– 2 catties of hairy crabs

– 1 catty of eels

– 1 catty of loaches

– 1 catty of crucian carp

– 1 catty of silver carp

– 1 catty of abalone

– 1 catty of oysters

– 1 catty of scallops

– 1 catty of clams

– 0.5 catty of razor clams

– 0.5 catty of mandarin fish

– 0.5 catty of grass carp

– 0.5 catty of bass

– 0.5 catty of catfish

– 0.5 catty of grouper

– 0.5 catty of snakehead fish

– 0.5 catty of octopus

– 0.5 catty of softshell turtles

– 10 catties of sprouted lotus roots

The owner explained the concept of ecological fish farming to Jing Shu—using fish to raise fish. The package also included various fish insects, aquatic plants, algae, and other plankton, various fish feeds, tools, nets, and a bunch of other aquaculture-related items.

The owner also told Jing Shu that small-scale private farming was very flexible. Mixing chicken manure with microbial agents, adding wheat bran, cornmeal, etc., made excellent fish feed. Feeding crayfish mainly required high-protein animal feed—various animal carcasses and internal organs—as well as crops like wheat, soybeans, and winter melons.

It could also be combined with rice cultivation.

With this, Jing Shu integrated her crop planting, animal husbandry, and aquaculture into a new ecological cycle, achieving complete self-sufficiency.

The owner helped load the boxes of fish fry, toolboxes, and other items into her car and mentioned that she could come back next April or May to restock. At that time, stocking the fry would be easier, and they would grow fat.

Considering the knowledge the owner shared, Jing Shu didn’t mind that he had sold her fish fry along with a bunch of tools for 3,000 yuan. In half a year, 3,000 yuan wouldn’t buy anything, and today’s fish fry would become one of her family’s food sources for the rest of their lives.

Driving to a remote place, Jing Shu dug some soil from each field in her space and laid a thick layer in a newly combined 8-cubic-meter space—after all, loaches and crayfish like mud. Then she placed the nearly 20 catties of fish fry into it, and as per the owner’s advice, she simply divided the area to prevent the fry from cannibalizing each other initially.

After busily returning home, it was already 2 p.m. Jing’s mother was cooking while arguing with Jing’s father, and the quarrel was quite heated.

From the smell of burnt food overpowering the aroma, it could be judged that Jing’s mother was very angry!

Jing’s father was sitting on the sofa, smoking one cigarette after another, occasionally retorting, “He must have something important, or maybe he didn’t see the call.”

“Then call him again! Isn’t this delaying serious matters? He promised to repay at 12 o’clock, then said he’d transfer it in fifteen minutes, and now he’s disappeared. If he won’t repay, he should just say so. Why embarrass people! A person with no credibility!”

Jing’s father was huffing and puffing with anger and argued back a few more sentences.

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