Chapter 279: New Space Trick — Brewing Alcohol

Not only that, but now the buildings in the city have grown a thick layer of green mold, with mushrooms beginning to sprout faintly on the mold. Jing Shu knew the era of poisonous mushrooms and toxic insects was about to begin.

Whenever she walked through Banana Community, every building was covered with green-black moss. Soon, they would become green hairy monsters. Various insects would grow on the moss, and after a few months, the houses would be filled with green moss, mushrooms, and crawling biting insects. Many people were infected by insect bites and died from the resulting diseases.

Thinking about living in a damp, moldy, insect-infested house, Jing Shu didn’t know how she had survived in her past life. So now, her family paid great attention to these issues. Every two days, they would dry the villa inside and out. Every three days, Jing Shu replaced the lime desiccants inside the villa. Every five days, Jing Ba and Jing Shu would clean the roofs and corners outside where moss tended to grow.

After months of soaking, some parts of the villa were no longer waterproof. Every month, Jing Shu reinforced the villa’s waterproofing to keep the house from becoming too damp.

By now, one-fifth of people in the apocalypse suffered from rheumatism, limping painfully. Jing Shu’s snake medicine wine was highly sought after, but it was rare. Since she didn’t have much white liquor, she bartered the prepared medicinal wine or exchanged favors.

Speaking of which, the father and son who forcibly occupied Zhang Bingbing’s place were surprisingly released after a few days because Zhang Bingbing was pregnant again. Zhang Dada’s baby was not yet 100 days old, and these two beasts got her pregnant again!

This was discovered by Wang Xuemei, who cared for Zhang Bingbing and noticed she hadn’t had her period for a long time. She suspected something and took her to a doctor for a checkup.

In the apocalypse, menstruation was generally ignored. Those who could would cut some cloth for sanitary use; those who couldn’t just let it be, and water outside would wash it away. In the dark, no one could tell.

The middle class exchanged virtual currency for toilet paper—1 virtual coin per roll. The upper class used pre-apocalypse stockpiles since daily necessities had stopped production.

Fortunately, Jing Shu had bought enough. With so many people at home, if it ran out, she could make some cotton cloth. Cotton was skin-friendly and absorbent; adding a waterproof layer outside would suffice.

“Next time, if Zhang Bingbing’s baby is a boy, call him Zhang Erge; if a girl, Zhang Erjie,” Jing Shu said. Children were rare in the apocalypse. When schools reopened next year, the scene would be...

Wu You’ai shrugged, “Anyway, you’re the one providing milk to the baby, so you have the right to name them.”

Every day, Wu You’ai personally brought a bowl of warm milk to feed Zhang Bingbing. Since Zhang Bingbing ate poorly, she couldn’t breastfeed. Luckily, there was plenty of milk at home, so saving a baby was a good deed.

This month, Jing Shu’s two red worm feed factories were better managed, thanks to Su Mary.

Previously, Jing Shu had to transport feed from the origin to the storage warehouse every three to five days, which was troublesome and fuel-consuming.

Once, Su Mary invited her to a noble party to exchange information and supplies. She learned Jing Shu had arranged transport trucks, so she borrowed a natural gas truck from her father and rented it to Jing Shu. The truck and driver were dedicated to shuttling between the two feed factories and the warehouse.

Jing Shu only needed to verify numbers and goods, paying just 30 virtual coins each time—almost half price.

In recent months, virtual coins spent on red worm feed soared. Jing Shu had invested 30,000 virtual coins, enough for over two months of production. She might invest another 30,000, increasing her recycling efforts.

Last month’s deal with West Mountain’s Fat Piglet went as planned. Jing Shu only got 12 tons of gasoline, so the feed investment came from profits made selling blood mushrooms auctioned by Su Mary.

The more virtual coins she earned, the more she needed. To cover the feed factory’s deficit, Jing Shu brewed white liquor, red wine, and the rice wine she always wanted to drink, planning to use snake wine to make money before tobacco was ready.

Rice wine was the simplest. Jing Shu cooked white rice, cooled it, added sweet yeast, and fermented it at about 37°C for 72 hours. The resulting rice wine was sweet and sour.

Jing Shu planned to put the rice wine into glass jars, refrigerate them, and when she wanted some, scoop a few spoons, add water, boil it, cook glutinous rice balls inside, then add a poached egg and milk. The delicious rice wine soup would be ready.

The poached egg had to be soft-boiled, bitten twice—half a bite each time. The egg white wrapped the yolk, slightly solid outside but with a little runny yolk inside. Then, when the person wasn’t paying attention, swallow it whole, lick the yolk off the lips, and enjoy maximum taste satisfaction.

But one pot with a dozen poached eggs wasn’t enough for Jing Shu. She made dozens of pots, filling 2 cubic meters of space. She used several bags of rice and a whole stack of eggs, successfully solving the egg storage problem in her space.

Two cubic meters gave her great peace of mind. Whenever she wanted, she could scoop a big bowl with five or six soft-boiled eggs, enjoying cooked food anytime, anywhere. This was Jing Shu’s greatest happiness now.

Red wine was also easy to make. Jing Shu had saved grapes for a long time and made red wine following tutorials. The only hassle was filtering twice; the rest was fermentation.

Jing Shu praised her own cleverness and discovered a new space function.

The rainy, humid weather outside was unsuitable for fermentation and brewing, so she fermented inside the space. If there was no life inside, the independent Rubik’s Cube Space would automatically switch to vacuum time-stop mode. That meant whatever was fermented inside would remain unchanged no matter how long it stayed.

So Jing Shu put the space and the snakes she raised together. After thinking it over, she decided chickens, ducks, and rabbits had too strong a smell, which might affect the wine’s taste. If the wine smelled like poultry, that would be terrible.

The only odorless creatures were the little bugs Jing Shu had brought back from West Mountain. After so long breeding, the dozen or so bugs had become ferocious, eating everything. Jing Shu worried they might gnaw on the jars and ruin the wine if separated.

So she put the snakes and wine together. The snakes were large but only took up one cubic meter. Jing Shu used iron cages to separate them from the wine. The jars were sealed, so even if a snake accidentally got into the wine, it would just become medicinal wine—very convenient.

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