When Jing Shu first met Wang Dazhao, Wang Dazhao wore side-swept bangs, a sunny big boy through and through. Now Wang Dazhao had a buzz cut, his face weathered, but his will was firm. This was someone baptized by the apocalypse, with nothing left to bind him.
"I want you to be my informant, infiltrate the Zhetian Gang, and gather intel for me," Jing Shu said slowly. In her previous life, Jing Shu had questions she never figured out.
She also feared that once the Zhetian Gang heard that Bi Ri had been wiped out, they would storm this community. Jing Shu had to prepare in advance.
The Zhetian Gang was a pack of lawless people whose only joy was revenge on society. Their fun was killing and torture.
Some bastard had posted about the brother-in-misery duo of Zhetian and Bi Ri: one failed to steal guns from a police station, the other was annihilated in a remote community. Wu City's hottest gossip was now these stories, which shoved their community right into the spotlight.
Wang Dazhao agreed without a word. Jing Shu then laid out several critical rules: "Use a fake name whenever possible. Never get caught on camera. Never allow your info to be scanned. Never leave any records." And more along those lines.
Because Jing Shu knew that whether the police were truly too busy to act or, as Wu You'ai's mentor predicted, were deliberately letting more people die, it would only be a few months. Once the government had free hands and the cake had been sliced, a blood-soaked reform would begin.
Anyone caught committing robbery or rape would face a single verdict, death. Anyone with a recorded criminal history for robbery would also be executed.
You could run for a while, but it would not matter. By then everyone would be eating from communal kitchens, authenticating with facial scans to receive meals. If your name was on the blacklist, the moment you came for food you would be arrested. If you did not claim food, you would be left to fend for yourself.
In her previous life, Jing Shu had believed the world was done for. But China clawed back a win by controlling the lifeline of grain.
Wang Dazhao went to register with the Zhetian Gang, carrying the blood-dripping head of his enemy as an initiation gift. Word spread, and it caused a stir within their little circle that very day.
…
The coconuts Jing Shu had been longing for finally ripened. Six coconut palms nearly thirty meters tall stood in the Cube Space, their crowns thick with huge coconuts. Jing Shu used her will to harvest them all, planning to wait for the next few rounds. The pace should pick up from here.
After all, just cultivating the palms had taken Jing Shu over three months. She could not cut them down after one harvest to grow something else.
At the same time, fruits that normally needed years to bear, like apples, apricots, or even lychees, had taken only a single month.
This led Jing Shu to a bold hypothesis: the taller the fruit tree, the weaker the time-compression effect the Cube Space's fields exerted on it, so the longer it took to mature.
This discovery thrilled Jing Shu. If so, what about things grown directly in the soil, would they mature faster?
Would that mean medicinal herbs that required decades might ripen in only two or three months inside the Cube Space? Jing Shu wanted to test it next time.
Coconut water, mild in flavor, was good as drinking water. But Jing Shu liked coconut milk better. Following the cookbook compendium, she blended coconut flesh with coconut water, heated it until thick, then mixed the pressed liquid with milk and sugar in proportion. Delicious coconut milk was done.
The leftover pulp was not wasted. It was perfect for feeding fish and pigs.
Jing Shu cleared out 2 cubic meters in the space and filled them all with coconut milk. She gulped it down in big swigs, both blissful and a little pained. Pity she had to keep it to herself, because even with Jing Shu's award-worthy acting, there was no way to explain where coconut milk came from.
At worst, she would conserve water for the next six months, not drink water at all, and just drink fruit juices. A different flavor each day did not sound bad.
Ever since natural gas shut off, Jing Shu's family had been cooking with coal. It was not convenient, and the heat was hard to control.
A few days ago, when Jing Shu brought back corn, Grandma Jing complained it was too much to finish. Part of it was boiled, and Jing Shu alone ate dozens of ears. Another portion, given the cooking inconvenience, was turned into corn cakes.
Each cake was griddled to a golden hue, puffy and fragrant. One bite was crisp, chewy, and wonderfully tasty. Even cold, they were delicious, practically snackable.
Jing Shu's favorite was Golden Corn Fritter. That dish never got old. Kernels mixed with starch, spread thin in a pan with oil, fried until the corn turned golden and crisp, sprinkled with coarse sugar, then lifted by hand straight from the pan. Crispy, sweet, tender, the corn aroma exploded and filled every craving.
High-end ingredients often needed only the simplest methods to become delicious food.
Jing Shu secretly made a lot and stored them in the space. Now every extra meal needed a few pieces, or her whole body felt out of sorts.
While Jing Shu spent two idle days at home cooking, much happened outside.
[Wang Luobin, No. 15]: "@Everyone, anyone have a little food to sell me?"
[Luo Zhu, No. 9]: "@Wang Qiqi, everyone's grain is almost gone. Think of something fast. We do not even have enough water now."
Wang Qiqi replied, "Internal news. The first batch of government vegetables is about to arrive. Hold on a few more days and wait for the announcement."
On May 19, there was still a robbery and murder in the community.
A couple from Building No. 1, with no grain left, went to Building No. 2 to "borrow" food from Wang Xuemei.
Everyone in the group chat knew she had at least ten sacks of rice. They assumed that after what happened to Wang Xuemei, she would be timid and could be frightened into handing over the food.
No one expected Wang Xuemei's reaction to be so extreme. She picked up a cleaver without a word and hacked away. By the time Wang Qiqi arrived, the two intruders had been chopped over a hundred times. You could not even tell their sex.
With her phone back in hand, Wang Xuemei posted in the group: "Anyone who tries to borrow grain from me, except those who helped me, will end up like this." She attached a photo of the scene, and the whole group practically wet themselves. From then on, the nickname Crazy Wang followed Wang Xuemei everywhere.
But even that could not stop those who had run out of everything. Anything edible in their homes had already been eaten. With no one selling, and nowhere to get more, robbery was all that remained.
On May 20, on the road where Jing An was driving Su Lanzhi to work, they were robbed three times.
The first time was inside the community. As Jing An drove to the gate, a barricade blocked their way. Five knife-wielding men rushed out. Jing An stomped the reverse, ran over two of them, then floored it forward and hit two more. The last one tried to run. Jing An chased him, ramming both man and car into the barricade. With a boom, the car stopped, and the man was pinned in the middle.
When Jing Shu arrived after getting the call, three were still gasping on the ground. The one wedged in the middle stared wide-eyed, blood bubbling from his mouth. He was not dead yet, but if the car reversed and removed the pressure, he would die instantly.
Jing Shu drew a knife and handed it to Jing An. "Since they are from the community, let's kill them all."