Now that money was no longer an issue, after buying all kinds of seeds, the Cube Space could produce more than enough food with surplus to spare. What was lacking were quality-of-life goods and first-rate snacks.
So, Jing Shu could finally shop without restraint: washer-dryer combo, large-capacity dishwasher—she bought them all. After all, she could generate her own electricity.
In her previous life, during the first year of the apocalypse, there was no water. Jing Shu remembered that everyone had to eat from their own bowl and then lick it clean. Clothes became so filthy their original colors couldn't be recognized. By the second year, there was torrential rain every day, but clothes never dried. Now, in this life, since conditions allowed it, she chose energy-saving dishwashers and washing machines. Water could be recycled, after all.
She purchased a complete water circulation and filtration system: purifiers, ultrafiltration machines, faucet filters, RO reverse osmosis filters, and ten years' worth of multi-layer filter cartridges. The system could remove even microorganisms.
She also bought four commercial water storage tanks and the corresponding circulation system, spending a total of 100,000 yuan.
In the second year of the apocalypse, although heavy rains temporarily ended water shortages, they also gave birth to a new species: the bloodworms.
Calling it "rain" was misleading. It was more accurate to say it was a bug rain. These creatures were entirely red, with black heads and tails. Large ones grew several centimeters, small ones just a few millimeters. They were thread-thin, slightly thicker than a strand of hair, and as long as there was water, they could survive and reproduce. Half of the rainwater was filled with them, and they even liked to jump.
Turn on a tap, and bugs would pour out.
Think bloodworms caused a disaster?
Ha. Too naive. Do you believe the Chinese people could eat a species nearly to extinction?
She didn't know what happened in Australia or America, but in China, bloodworms ended up saving hundreds of millions of lives.
That year, you could see countless people fishing them out daily—catching them from their own bodies, collecting them in basins, or scooping them from floodwaters. They handed them over to the government for credit points, which could then be exchanged for grilled, stir-fried, or pan-fried bloodworms in various "flavors."
The taste was awful. Old folks and kids next door gave it a thumbs down, saying it would have been better dipped in egg batter.
In this life, Jing Shu refused to live with damp clothes crawling with bugs, nor did she want the nightmare of always picking bloodworms off herself to eat as "snacks." She was determined to block every single bug outside her villa walls. She would never again drink water after filtering it again and again, boiling it again and again, only to still find bloodworms wriggling inside.
So this money was well spent!
She continued shopping: a commercial ice maker, a small multifunctional grain thresher that worked for soybeans, wheat, sorghum, millet, rapeseed, and corn. The grains she planted later could all be threshed.
Electricity would fail after the apocalypse, but one could still generate power. Machines, however, could not be purchased later. So Jing Shu carefully selected equipment she would need over the next ten years: a small millstone, a manual meat slicer, a meat grinder, an ice cream machine, a sealing machine, a vacuum packaging machine, and even a takoyaki maker.
Most of what Jing Shu bought required electricity. In later years of the apocalypse, China's remaining electrical and thermal power resources were funneled into the artificial sun project. Power to the people was cut almost completely. The only exception was a daily thirty-minute broadcast of the evening news between 19:00 and 19:30. That was the only guaranteed electricity supply, and everyone crowded into that window to run their appliances.
Here, Jing Shu had to hand it to the Chinese government. Ten years of apocalypse, yet the evening news had never once been canceled. Rain or shine, it was always there, like an old friend waiting faithfully.
Therefore, Jing Shu had to buy the latest generation of solar systems that could generate electricity without relying on direct sunlight.
It wasn't that the sun had disappeared after the apocalypse. Rather, collisions among celestial bodies produced vast amounts of dust and debris that lingered in the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight. Nights were pitch black and freezing, while days seemed like dusk, with only the faintest light.
This made traditional photovoltaic systems nearly useless. Post-apocalypse, a whole solar system could barely power a rice cooker.
Then UBC invented bacterial solar cells. The science behind them didn't matter. What mattered was that as long as there was light, they could generate electricity. Though the efficiency wasn't high, quantity could make up for it. Jing Shu, spending freely, bought ten full sets.
At first, Manager Wang was stunned, thinking Jing Shu was joking. But when she casually paid a 50,000 yuan deposit, his wrinkled face bloomed like a chrysanthemum.
For every 5,000 yuan spent, there was a raffle. For every 10,000 yuan spent, there was a 1,000 yuan discount.
She spent a total of 340,000 yuan, pulled 68 raffle tickets, and received 34,000 yuan in discounts. In just two hours, Jing Shu had spent 306,000 yuan.
She paid the deposit, left her villa address, signed all the required paperwork, and hurried home. The raffles could wait until next time. If she didn't make it back before Jing Shu's mother finished cooking, she would be scolded!
…
The meal Jing Shu's mother prepared was enough to shatter Jing Shu's fantasies about many foods after her rebirth. Once this busy period passed, Jing Shu swore she would take charge of the kitchen herself!
That evening, as usual, she fed the livestock Spirit Spring and collected eggs. The marked eggs still hadn't hatched. Chicken No.1, which had received the most Spirit Spring, had grown much larger and fiercer than the others. It had already become the leader of the seventeen chickens.
The quails, ducks, and rabbits had also grown noticeably. Among the pigs, the sow was growing the fastest, already twice the size of the boar.
The fish fry in the aquatic section of Cube Space showed little visible change, but the water plants and algae were flourishing wildly. The Cube Space's light and Spirit Spring provided abundant nourishment.
Most of the six crop fields had begun bearing fruit. In another two or three days, the first batch of vegetables could be harvested. Jing Shu needed to accelerate her next plans.
On November 4, Jing Shu rose early, exercised, disposed of manure, and returned home for breakfast.
Breakfast was a specialty milk tea from Wu City. A thick layer of secret milk skin floated on top, chewy and full of fragrance, lingering on the palate. Paired with fried dough sticks and sour-spicy shredded potatoes, Jing Shu gave the stall owner 99 points. One more, she feared, would make him too proud.
After breakfast, the family of three set out.
"I'll take your mother to work first, then bring you to Captain Chen. He oversaw the last renovation. Follow the contract for how it needs to be redone. If you don't understand something, ask Lao Chen or the people from the entertainment company. Put everything on my tab, I'll settle it later," Jing Shu's father said while driving, thinking bitterly that they really might have to sell the house.
A single coin could topple even the proudest man.
"Dad, Mom, I want to buy a car worth twenty to thirty thousand yuan. That way, I can follow along with the villa renovations easily. I can't always go with you to the company and rely on Uncle Chen to bring me back and forth. Once the villa is complete, Mom can use the car for commuting to work too." This was her excuse to bring the energy car into the open.
"That's fine. Let your mother give you some more money," Jing Shu's father said, still bitter over how cheaply the BMW had been sold. It would have been better not to sell it at all.
…
Captain Chen's team consisted of six people, a well-organized and highly efficient renovation crew.
Captain Chen arrived at the villa with Master Liu, the carpenter, to listen to Jing Shu's instructions for the rework.
After the apocalypse, as long as order held, villas like this were protected by the local government. But Jing Shu still planned to arm her villa to the teeth.
"I want to build tempered glass walls surrounding the villa on top of the existing two-meter walls. Then install a retractable tempered glass roof that seamlessly connects with the four tempered glass walls. The structure should use steel trusses, forming inverted triangular shapes. This will give the villa a unique style."
The protective cover was essential—to guard against bug rain, hurricanes, blizzards, and thieves!
Nor did she need to worry about the renovations attracting attention. In the apocalypse, tempered glass walls would be buried under several decimeters of black soil. Besides, this area was under government protection, and order had not collapsed. In an age of big data surveillance, almost no one dared break the law. Of course, Jing Shu would also lay traps and arm herself to the fullest. She intended to have every weapon available!
===
One of the reasons I got hooked on this novel is because of this "red nematode." I don't know why, but every time I read it, I kind of sing the words in my head. LOL (♪ red nematode~ ♪) (*≧▽≦)
In case you're curious: I usually read Chinese webnovels using Google Translate add-ons, and 红线虫 (hóng xiàn chóng) gets translated as red nematode.
Technically, "red nematode" or "red thread worm" is the literal translation, and even the proper biological name for this creature. But in more common, everyday English, this creature is known as "bloodworms." That's why I decided to go with bloodworms instead of red nematode in the translation—since it's the term you'd be more familiar with.