Jing Shu swirled the small glass bottle in her hand, watching the thick, dark green liquid coat the sides before slowly sliding back down. "So, what is the difference between this and the regular kind of algae? Those moldy ones on the ground, can't they be cultivated too and used as fish feed?"
After the devastating floods in the second year of the apocalypse, those moldy green patches had gone wild, spreading across the damp ruins like a carpet of rot. They had quickly become one of the main food sources for red nematodes and the evolved carrion scavengers that thrived in the aftermath. Unfortunately, they had all been infected by the zombie virus. But if she could somehow reuse those slimy, ditch-grown algae again in a safe way, then the massive plan she had been dreaming of for so long might finally be possible.
Maybe; just maybe, the plan she had spent half a year thinking about to save the Shiyuan Base from disaster could finally come true. Jing Shu really just wanted to live quietly like a little emperor at her home, but life never let her rest easy for long.
Wu You'ai pushed up her glasses with a quick, clinical motion and explained, "Traditional algae cultivation needs a BG-11 nutrient medium, a stable temperature around 25 degrees Celsius, light intensity of about two thousand lux, and constant oxygen from a pump. What we have made is basically a synthetic invasive species. It's completely different from those common moldy types. The ones you see out there have already been infected by the zombie virus. If you used them to feed fish or fertilize rice, would you even dare to eat the result?"
Jing Shu shook her head slowly. She got it. The whole environment was polluted now. Almost every plant and animal in the world might have been infected by the persistent strain. The virus was a lot like the flu—it was usually not deadly on its own—but if you ignored it for too long, there was still a high chance of catching the lethal zombie strain from contaminated food.
Still, after years of constant exposure, most living creatures had built up some level of resistance. The infected ones were easy to spot anyway; they would rot, turn black or dark green, grow fuzzy mold, and stink like spoiled food, yet somehow they would still move. They were basically living colonies of bacteria.
Even so, there were still plenty of species that seemed completely immune. Sulfuric Acid Ants, cockroaches, and other invasive species all adapted well to the new world. As Wu You'ai said, if one invasive species could thrive, others would too. And now, there was this specially engineered green algae.
Oh, and carrion scavengers counted among the immune too. Those things had nearly been wiped out by maggots in the first year, then again by the red nematodes in the second. But somewhere in the deep ocean, they had learned the hard truth: fall behind, and you get eaten. So they evolved, growing several dozen times larger than before, climbing right up the food chain toward dominance.
Their comeback wasn't just luck, either. They were immune to the zombie virus, and the sea was full of rotting, infected corpses for them to feast upon. That endless buffet let them multiply at an insanely fast rate. In less than half a year, they had returned from the ocean to the mainland. And they weren't picky eaters at all. Rotting algae, wood, tree roots, garbage—they devoured everything in their path.
That's why people like Su Long, and even Jing Shu in her previous life, had such terrible memories of them. Getting bitten by those things left you covered in itchy welts for days. Just hearing the name "carrion scavenger" was enough to make people turn pale. Worse still, they didn't have natural predators to keep them in check. And eating them? Forget it. They were bitter enough to make you question your life choices, and if you ate too many, your stomach would cramp up—or worse. Jing Shu remembered the panic years ago when parasites spread through the scavengers, infecting anyone desperate enough to try to eat them.
Those things were crawling petri dishes full of viruses and bacteria. She had eaten them a few times out of sheer desperation and swore she would rather starve than touch one again. Honestly, any creature that thrived on corpses and disease couldn't possibly be clean.
Even poultry and livestock avoided them. The Tyrant once tried to argue that every living creature had its purpose, and he suggested extracting protein from scavengers to make human food. That ended in a total disaster. The cost of extraction was ridiculous, like spending millions of virtual coins to print a single hundred-yuan bill. Later, he even tried feeding scavengers to poultry. For a while, it seemed okay; but before long, the birds all got sick. Clearly, it wasn't meant to be eaten regularly.
He experimented with using scavengers to raise maggots and red nematodes too, but none of it worked well enough for mass use. So these disgusting bugs, without predators or purpose, just multiplied endlessly. But to Jing Shu, that perceived uselessness was exactly what made them valuable.
"That's it," she said suddenly, her eyes lighting up with a sharp realization. "If these scavengers can keep feeding the green algae nonstop, and the algae can feed the fish—or maybe even the red nematodes—then..."
Her lips curved into a faint smile. The red nematodes in her space hadn't regained their terrifying reproductive power from the old days, and she always suspected something was missing from their diet. Now, with the cell division solution she had brought back and these algae as feed, maybe things would finally change.
If it really worked...
Wu You'ai noticed her glowing eyes and felt a little uneasy. "Look, this algae is only meant as a supplement, alright? It's good for feeding fish, nothing more. We have already tested that."
Jing Shu just smiled and said nothing.
"Alright, enough of this talk," Su Lanzhi called out from the kitchen. "It's already late. Let's eat before everything goes cold on the table."
Dinner was lavish, the room filled with the steam of hot dishes and the chatter about the latest news—where the ground had sunk again in the city, which stall had launched new snacks made of processed insects, and what shady things the black market was selling now.
Jing Shu, who had originally called everyone over for a serious talk, stayed quiet. After a while, she said, "I'm a little tired. Let's talk tomorrow." And that ended the discussion for the night.
That night, after settling her uncle's family into the RV, everyone squeezed in to rest. Jing Shu went back upstairs early. There was too much waiting for her tomorrow, especially the experiments she wanted to run with Wu You'ai's green algae.
But in the middle of the night, the sharp, urgent ring of a phone shattered the silence of the villa. Lights flicked on in the RV outside one by one, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps and panicked voices.
In the dark of her room, Jing Shu opened her eyes. She was still on her bed, idly twisting her Rubik's Cube in the shadows, listening to the commotion.
"This... this can't be real! The entire old district in Xishan collapsed! It's all gone, completely gone! That was our only house, where are we supposed to live now?!" Wang Fang's voice was trembling, full of raw fear and despair.
Su Yiyang paced back and forth, his heavy footsteps thudding against the ground. "I told you not to sleep there, didn't I? I told you! But you just had to stay in that house with that damn kid. Be grateful my younger sister asked us to come tonight! The house is gone, so what? At least we're still alive! If all three of us had died in there, what would you be crying about then?"
The whole family was shaken to the core by the news. Su Lanzhi's hands trembled slightly as she stood in the hallway, her face pale. She couldn't even imagine it—Su Meimei had betrayed her, her parents were already dead, and now if her only brother's family had also died, leaving no bloodline behind... how was she supposed to bear that?