Chapter 152: The Second Year of the Apocalypse Begins

“Jing Shu, the medicine you gave me last time was amazing—better than I expected! The patient’s already recovered. I wanted to ask if you have any other medicinal herbs? Also, where did you get these medicines from?”

Any herb nourished by the spiritual spring could be called a spiritual medicine—how could it not be effective?

A hero’s origins need not be questioned. We’re still good friends.

Jing Shu scratched her head hard. “Do you know why my grandma lived to be 80?”

Su Mali replied, “Because she took the antidote you gave me?”

“It’s because she never meddled in my business.”

Su Mali said, “I see. My grandma lived to 90 and was still full of energy, probably because she worried about my affairs every day.”

Jing Shu: “...” There’s no way to keep chatting after that.

“So where did your medicine come from? I’m just asking on behalf of someone else.”

Jing Shu stroked her chin. She knew that once these Chinese medicines got out, people would start asking all sorts of questions. But she actually needed a legitimate cover story to pave the way for more herbs to appear in the future.

“I grew them myself.”

“How did you grow them?”

“I just scattered the seeds and watered them, and they grew.”

“...”

Meanwhile, at a rehabilitation center in Wucheng, a refined-looking middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses stared at a message on his phone and muttered, “Grew them herself? Even with lights and air conditioning, you can’t simulate the right climate in these conditions. The key is, the quality is so good.”

It would be normal to grow misshapen, poor-quality herbs.

A stern-faced, composed middle-aged man let out a cold, dismissive laugh. He’d checked recent transaction records and found no evidence of herb purchases, though there was a record of buying seeds a year ago. Maybe she really did grow them herself—she just wasn’t sharing her secret.

As the man reached out, an old man behind him handed him a cup of milk coffee at just the right moment.

Another bald, one-eyed man flexed his impressive muscles, glanced at the message on the gold-rimmed glasses man’s phone, and video-called another old man: “That girl said she grew them herself—just scattered the seeds and watered them, and they grew.”

From the video came a voice: “Bullshit! That’s utter nonsense! If she could grow them like that, what have us old medical families been doing all year—eating shit?”

The man with gold-rimmed glasses gently pushed up his frames. “Oh? But Old Su says her medicine is much more potent than anything on the market. Look, you couldn’t cure that poison, so you had to go elsewhere for an antidote, but that girl’s medicine solved it in no time.”

The old man on the video flushed with anger. “I don’t believe you can grow herbs of that quality at home unless you send me a photo.”

The gold-rimmed glasses man relayed the message with a smile. Meanwhile, Su Mali was sipping on a Wangzai milk drink through a straw, watching a personality quiz on her iPad: “People who like to chew on straws while drinking have strong desires.”

Su Mali looked at her nearly chewed-flat straw and fell into deep thought, already imagining a few things...

On the other side, Jing Shu frowned at the messages from Su Mali.

She felt Su Mali was unusually curious and persistent today, so she decided to ignore her for now. But soon, Su Mali messaged again: one stalk of honeysuckle for a canister of compressed natural gas.

“Fine, I’d have to come up with a cover for the planting sooner or later anyway. It’s not just for a canister of gas.”

Jing Shu transplanted the honeysuckle into a flowerpot, then decided to add some astragalus as well, took a photo, and sent it over.

The man with gold-rimmed glasses shook his head in amazement and showed the photo to the old man on the video. The old man gasped, “This is a crime against nature! Honeysuckle is one thing, but if that astragalus is really alive, I’ll livestream myself eating shit! No, I’m coming back right now—I have to see for myself what trick she’s pulling!”

The old man was clearly questioning reality. Suddenly, someone was telling him that 1 + 1 could equal 5. He didn’t know if he’d gone crazy or if the world had.

Su Mali messaged: “Someone said if the astragalus is really alive, he’ll livestream himself eating shit. He’s rushing back from Guangdong to see for himself. Take good care of the astragalus—don’t let it die.”

Jing Shu: “???”

What’s going on? Wait...

Could it be that a real expert is coming? Jing Shu felt a bit excited—this was exactly the effect she wanted.

The more she used these “novice” methods to grow high-quality herbs, the more people would see her as a true expert who just didn’t want to reveal her secrets. Everyone would assume she was deliberately hiding her skills and being mysterious.

This was the classic “reverse strategy” from the Thirty-Six Stratagems.

Su Mali didn’t follow up, and Jing Shu wasn’t in a hurry. She had to be cautious with the herbs—these were even more precious than food. Revealing a few would let the big shots see the value in cultivating them, but revealing too much would only arouse greed.

Never expose something so valuable that those much stronger than you would covet it.

...

In the blink of an eye, it was mid-December 2023. While everyone enjoyed the most peaceful, temperate month of the apocalypse—no shortage of grains, bugs to eat, or water to drink—Jing Shu finally finished all the renovations on her villa:

A VPC plastic waterproof canopy perfectly covered the villa, equipped with windshield wipers, slanted pipes at each corner, and four large water tanks. Each tank had a drainage outlet and new channels to divert water to the back hill.

The RV garage was built on the vacant lot behind the villa, now also covered with a PVC waterproof canopy.

The coal shed added in March outside the villa was now fully enclosed and protected.

Jing Shu placed quicklime packets she’d made as desiccants in every nook and cranny. Dehumidifiers, dryers, and wall-mounted boilers were all in place.

The fish and shrimp in the pond had multiplied again. Taking advantage of the last heatwave, Jing Shu dried a huge batch of shrimp, salted fish, and various seafood for storage in the basement. She also processed the surplus crayfish into a full cubic meter of spicy crayfish, ready for late-night snacks.

As for the overflowing chickens, ducks, rabbits, and pigs in her space, Jing Shu slaughtered a batch and made all kinds of dried meats and cured products, storing them in her space as snacks for the coming year—none would be taken out.

She also dried the last batch of vegetables and fruits, making them into various preserved foods for storage.

She organized the poultry feed, mixing vegetable leaves, weeds, and roots from her space with dried shrimp, orange peels, and garlic—not only nutritious but also long-lasting, all stored away.

She even dried the chicken manure she’d been saving, mixed it with other feed to make black pig feed. For a long time to come, her poultry wouldn’t have to worry about food.

Fish feed was even simpler—leftover bones, poultry innards, all tossed in with some egg wash, and the fish and shrimp would put on a show of “carp leaping over the dragon gate” for her.

The extreme heat was quietly dropping day by day, and before anyone realized it, the temperature had fallen to 40°C. Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the apocalypse was ending, the second year of the apocalypse began.

When the villa’s water tanks were running low, the first heavy rain finally arrived as expected, nourishing the parched earth."