Forget it, forget it. Making those dirt patties still needs a bit of flour and salt. Even if the ratio was ten to one, or a hundred to one, Jing Shu couldn't afford it anyway. Otherwise, it'd literally be eating dirt—who could stomach that?
She lowered her head and covered her face, looking at Xiao Dou, who'd somehow grown even fatter. Oh no, there she was, head buried in the ground again, pecking away. The hen strutted around the back hill behind the villa, her proud chicken claws tiptoeing carefully as she stomped through the muddy puddles, thrilled to test out the new rubber shoes Grandma Jing had made for her.
Those little claw shoes might've been cut and refitted from an old pair of rubber boots, but their meaning was far from simple. Xiao Dou knew it too. They were a symbol of her status in the Jing household—after all, neither Da Hua nor Gou Dan had shoes of their own.
So she treasured them dearly, though she still insisted on wearing them every day when she went out to walk with her owner. She wanted the world to know that she, Combat Chicken No. 1, had new shoes now.
Watching the muddy water trickle down from the back hill had become part of the Jing family's daily routine. The TV and the online reports were always saying this place was buried by a mudslide or that place got flooded, so everyone felt safer checking on it every day.
One way or another, the year officially ended on the Lantern Festival. Though everyone kept saying they were trying to save money, Grandma Jing's actions spoke louder than words. Even if her granddaughter wanted something different every day, she'd never say no.
The Lantern Festival meal was even richer than usual. Besides the tangyuan Jing Shu had wrapped by hand, Grandma Jing even brought out some food they hadn't touched during New Year. Take those grilled pork ribs, for instance, smothered in a thick layer of cheese—that was a new one for everyone. Or the Iberian ham, sliced paper-thin, layered with cheese and bread, the flavor bursting in every bite.
Wu You'ai said she was already happy just having tangyuan. Her mentor, Chu Zhuohua, still hadn't returned, so she'd been busy with community affairs. But according to her, the synthetic meat project funded by Qian Duoduo had made some progress. The biggest issue left was the cost and sourcing of raw materials.
If the cost didn't drop, how could they mass-produce cheap synthetic meat? It was going to be a long road. Then again, if it were that easy, the last life wouldn't have seen so many people starve. Even Qian Duoduo wouldn't have been squeezed dry by those greedy capitalists.
The world was changing, and humanity was adapting too. Figuring out how to grow more food in a sunless, freezing world was something everyone was working on—it couldn't be rushed.
In Wu City, the government canteens also handed out tangyuan. They were made from the last batch of glutinous rice flour in storage. There were two kinds: meat tangyuan made from frozen chicken and duck meat chopped up with bones, and sweet tangyuan filled with brown sugar, water, and black sesame.
Each person could get two for free, while full-time workers got double.
They didn't taste great, a bit stale from sitting too long, but people were still genuinely happy.
And lately, since the situation in Ningshan City had gotten worse, many were recruited to help recover supplies. That gave some folks jobs and free meals, and with the Lantern Festival rations on top of that, the city finally felt a bit festive again.
After the holidays, life went back to normal. Everyone accepted the mudslide disasters as part of reality. Ordinary people just wanted to survive—they had to work, earn virtual coins, and buy food to keep living.
There were plenty of ways to earn virtual coins now. Besides the stable government jobs, many other gigs were available. Some places hired day laborers with free meals. Others let you collect trash and exchange it for coins at recycling stations. Even human waste could be traded for a small sum each day. And now, a hot new job had emerged—soil digging.
Jing Shu felt a pang of regret. In her previous life, she'd never been able to be a digger. The job required serious strength, and you had to sift out the finest soil without any pebbles. Back then, she'd been so skinny and weak, her hands and ears full of frostbite—how could she have managed that kind of labor? Her father, Jing An, had done it instead, working himself to exhaustion.
She shook her head, pushing those old nightmares aside, and focused on Wu City's current situation and her plan.
The city's food reserves were running low. The limited output from the Twelve Departments and the artificial sun wasn't nearly enough to feed millions. They'd been rationing what was left—some canned food today, a few biscuits tomorrow, mixing minced frozen meat into other dishes just to add a bit of nutrition.
Every portion of grain had been stretched tenfold, lasting three whole years. The short-shelf-life stuff was long gone. What remained was the real food, the true reserves, kept untouched unless it was a matter of life or death. That meant her plan would soon come into play—it was just a matter of time.
"Because of my butterfly effect, things really did turn out better than before," she murmured.
This time, even the dirt patties had insect meat mixed in, saving plenty of people. Wasn't that thanks to the Red Nematode Factory she'd built?
Did she ever brag about it? Did she act smug? Jing Shu lifted her chin and looked up, only to meet the eyes of a group of workers digging an irrigation channel. They were redirecting the muddy water from the hill into the sinkhole she'd bought the rights to.
Su Mali's row of five villas was the first rent payment Jing Shu had collected.
The rest of the villa owners had planned to freeload. They saw how effective her sinkhole was, but still thought they could just use it for free. After all, who wanted to pay to rent a mud-drainage hole in a time like this? But once they saw a big shot like Su Mali pay up, everyone else quickly followed, transferring their virtual coins the next day.
Jing Shu hadn't expected it to go this smoothly. "Well, guess they know how to read the room," she thought. "At least they're giving me some face."
The virtual coins she collected were immediately exchanged for natural gas. Hardly anyone dared to use gas freely anymore, except her family and, of course, Su Mali, who still insisted on taking a hot bath every day. Even Jing Shu wouldn't dare such luxury.
Lately, she'd started processing the food stocks into semi-finished meals, and even her grandparents helped.
"Who knows when we'll get flooded?" Grandma Jing said. "If we're lucky, maybe never. But if it happens, we've gotta be ready to grab our things and run. We might never come back. So we need to take our supplies with us. Last time there was an earthquake, remember how hard it was to cook while wandering outside for half a month? Washing veggies, kneading dough—everything was a nightmare. Better to prepare now while we still have gas."