Chapter 65: Chinese Medicine, Seems to Care a Lot

Bian Changxi couldn’t make sense of her own thoughts; her mind was a jumbled mess, as if she’d walked into a dead end. In the end, she could only shake her head, forcing herself not to dwell on these things any longer.

In the apocalypse, talking about feelings was a luxury—survival was the only real concern.

She pulled herself together, turned around, and carried a pile of things into her space.

Inside, the soil had already sprouted some tiny seedlings, looking like little bean sprouts. Three days ago, she’d planted things like bok choy and edamame here. While three days had passed outside, only a bit over two days had gone by inside. The seedlings were thin and small, tender and adorable, adding a touch of vitality to the dark soil.

Bian Changxi squatted down to observe them for a while, then walked over to the creek, strolling along the bank. The apple and orange trees showed no signs of growth at all. At this rate, it would be years before she could eat any fruit. Meanwhile, fresh food in the outside world was getting scarcer and scarcer. Since yesterday, the dozen or so people in their group hadn’t had any vegetables, and their stockpile of fruit was about to run out. Every day it was just jerky, biscuits, and bread—not enough to go hungry, but there was no quality of life to speak of.

After thinking for a moment, she fetched a bag of crystal cores from the warehouse and poured them all into the creek.

These were the payment Gu Xu had given her. She’d only poured a little over half into the space before, saving the rest for emergencies. After all, everyone knew she had so many crystal cores—if she couldn’t produce them when needed, it would arouse suspicion. But now, she figured accelerating the space’s time was more important.

She watched the fish and shrimp swimming happily in the water for a while, then went to check on the dozen or so chickens and ducks in the rough coop. They seemed lively enough, but looked like they hadn’t eaten anything—pecking furiously at the dirt, squawking and quacking hungrily at her.

Embarrassed, she rubbed her nose. How could she have forgotten about this? Aside from pulling some grass for them when she first brought them in, she hadn’t fed them anything.

These were breeding chickens and ducks—very important.

She searched around, but there wasn’t anything suitable for feed in either the space or the warehouse, and the fish and shrimp in the creek weren’t ready yet. Fresh fish was even rarer than meat, and she couldn’t bear to touch them. So she dug out a few bowls of cooked white rice she’d made back in the apartment, chopped up some sausage, marinated eggs, and canned food, mixed it all with rice, and used that as chicken feed.

As she fed them, she muttered, “You guys are eating better than people right now. You’d better work hard and lay me some eggs soon, hatch the next generation.” Then, I’ll slaughter you all.

Seeing them eat so happily, Bian Changxi felt relieved. She marked out a corner of the black soil and brought over the Chinese medicinal herbs, picking out the important and practical ones to plant.

Although these herbs had been processed and were shriveled and dry, the magical black soil might just be able to grow something from them.

As she’d said before, medicine and medical systems were indispensable at any time. After humanity went through this catastrophe, most medicines would be lost. She remembered that a few months into the apocalypse in her previous life, there was already a medicine shortage. After about half a year, basically all medicine was gone. With everything in ruins and survivors focused on rebuilding, food, and understanding the new world, there was no energy left for pharmaceutical production, especially since industrial production had been devastated. Western medicine couldn’t just be manufactured out of thin air.

In contrast, Chinese medicinal herbs that could be cultivated became extremely important.

Of course, as the environment and humanity changed, people’s bodies and the types of injuries they suffered changed too, so old medicines became less effective.

But newly grown medicinal herbs would mutate along with these changes, adapting to people’s needs and keeping up with the times. In this way, the fact that things grown in her space didn’t mutate—which was originally an advantage—might become a drawback. Still, Bian Changxi figured she could at least preserve some seeds for now; it wasn’t much trouble anyway.

Soon, she finished planting the herbs. Looking at the still-empty black soil, she thought she’d have to plant rice soon—there wasn’t much left in the warehouse, and they were almost out of cooked rice.

Thinking of rice made her feel hungry again. She washed up in the creek, changed into clean clothes, and made herself a bowl of rice, eating it hot with canned beef and egg soup.

Hmm, she really needed to set up a proper kitchen. Otherwise, it was too inconvenient to cook for herself. She had all the utensils, just needed a generator—preferably solar-powered, since the sunlight in her space could generate electricity.

“Oooh…”

A weak animal cry pulled her out of her thoughts. She turned her head—oh, she’d almost forgotten. There was still a mouse bundled up like a bug in the corner of her space.

She strolled over, bent down to look at it for a while, then gave it a little kick. “Stupid mouse, you’ve got some nerve to be whining. If you’d behaved and not tricked me, you could be eating with me now. I’d feed you until you were fat and plump, let you bathe in the creek and get all soft and clean—wouldn’t that be better than this? Ungrateful little thing!”

“Oooh…” The fat mouse, blind and unable to move its limbs, wiggled its exposed mouth, whiskers twitching, its voice soft and pitiful.

Bian Changxi sighed, opened a box of her precious milk and placed it in front of it, along with her leftover canned beef. “Eat up, I can’t let you starve. But until I figure out where you came from and what you’re here for, don’t even think about me letting you go.”

She figured this fat mouse must have been sent by someone. After pulling off such a big stunt, whoever was behind it should be making a move soon. She’d just wait and see, ready to act when the time came. Anyway, since she’d already swallowed up all those explosives and weapons, no one was getting them back, no matter who they were.

Speaking of which, she realized she hadn’t checked whether those things were usable yet, so she hurried to the warehouse to inspect them.

As it turned out, all the weapons were in working order. The guns were high quality, no worse than the ones Gu Xu had given her, and there were boxes and boxes of bullets—more than enough. As for the explosives, she wasn’t sure how to use them and didn’t dare experiment in her space, but since the firearms were real, the explosives probably were too.

There were also some cold weapons, all exquisitely made and deadly—definitely not just for show.

She also found some syringes. She thought she’d seen similar ones with Gu Xu before, but had no idea what they were for.

Aside from a few with labels and instructions, there were no markings on any of the items. The two computers, when switched on, just showed a screen full of gibberish—completely unusable. With no clues, Bian Changxi could only put it all aside for now.

She kept a small portion of each medicinal herb for herself, taking the rest outside. After all, she couldn’t just make so many things disappear from her side without explanation. As long as she could grow them, a little was enough for her to use freely; if not, having more wouldn’t help anyway.

She left her space an hour later, pleased to find that she hadn’t felt any discomfort from staying inside so long. Relaxed, she flopped onto her bed, tried to empty her mind, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up, it was already evening. Mother Chen was downstairs calling her for dinner.

“Coming!” She took a sip of water to moisten her throat, rubbed her face, threw on a jacket and shoes, and went downstairs.

Not everyone was there. Besides the four members of the Chen family and Lin Rongrong, only Gu Xu and Qiu Feng were present. The two of them stood by the door, talking about something, the atmosphere a bit tense.

Seeing Gu Xu made Bian Changxi feel a little awkward, but she wasn’t the type of girl to get lost in romantic daydreams. She quickly pulled herself together and went downstairs as if nothing was wrong.

“I’ll be off, then.” Qiu Feng glanced at Bian Changxi, nodded, said something to Gu Xu, then hurried off with a pack of compressed biscuits and a bottle of drink.

Bian Changxi paused and asked Gu Xu, “Why did Qiu Feng leave in such a hurry? Is he busy?”

Gu Xu nodded. “The military sent people into the city for supplies this morning—you know about that, right?”

“I do. They left at about the same time as we went to District B, but their operation was much bigger, wasn’t it? Is there trouble?” Bian Changxi replied. She knew the military had organized people to go back into the city, since that was where most of the supplies were.

With four to five hundred thousand survivors in the new district—and the number rising rapidly every day—the demand for supplies was enormous. On the surface, the military was only responsible for management and protection, and survivors were supposed to be self-sufficient. But if people really started going hungry, the military would have to step in. Otherwise, if hundreds of thousands rioted, things would get ugly.

To solve the problem, they needed reserves, but ideally, people would be motivated to provide for themselves. So the first thing the military did was organize people to collect supplies. What happened in District B was just a small operation—the real action was in the city.

Bian Changxi and her group weren’t under serious survival pressure, so they’d only gone to District B and hadn’t joined the city operation.

Gu Xu said, “They were supposed to be back by three this afternoon, but only a small group returned half an hour ago, almost all of them injured and in disarray.” He took off his military jacket and loosened the collar of his white shirt underneath. The weather was hot, and many people were sweating in short sleeves, but Gu Xu looked quite fresh, with only a bit of sweat at his forehead and collar. The way he loosened his collar was surprisingly elegant, with none of the roughness you’d expect from a soldier.

“Others are still coming back. The military has sent people out to help. Qiu Feng went to assist.”

Bian Changxi blinked. “Wasn’t there a distress signal?”

“They say they sent one, but maybe it was too far—the military never received it.”

“Oh.” So the signal worked in District B but not in the city. It looked like the military’s communication system was starting to fail, too.

“Are the zombies in the city getting stronger?”

“Seems like it.”

Feeling a bit guilty, Bian Changxi hesitated, but couldn’t resist asking about the underground area of the 4S dealership.

At this, Gu Xu’s expression grew even more serious. “That place was a showroom, but it was probably just a front—most likely a base for a weapons smuggling group.”

“That serious?” Bian Changxi’s eyebrows shot up. “So, the military sent Yue Li and the others to investigate?”

“They don’t really have the resources for that. They just heard there was good stuff down there and wanted to get whatever they could.” Gu Xu smiled, with a hint of disdain that was easy to miss. Indeed, sneaking around like that did undermine the military’s authority. But after speaking, his brows stayed furrowed, as if something was still bothering him.

Bian Changxi could tell this wasn’t the end of it, so she probed, “You seem to care a lot about this.”

Thanks to dear Qiqiao Yezi for the pink ticket!

I have a huge and difficult exam tonight, so I’m posting everything for today now. Please, don’t hesitate to wish me luck and hope I pass smoothly!"