Chapter 133

Any project needed a feasibility study and proper evaluation before it could be launched. It wasn’t something they could just decide to do on a whim.

Song Jingshuo had already picked out a patch of lawn in the courtyard. He had also asked Aunt Pan to assess the fertility of the soil.

She said it would do.

Since Aunt Pan and Zhao Yizhong had both taken part in the rescue operation that afternoon, Song Jingshuo grabbed a soil-type ability user who had been assigned to stay behind in the complex and had him turn over the ground.

The soil rolled and churned, pushing the grass up by the roots.

Manager Wang was nothing if not diligent. He arrived carrying the property management office’s enormous rake and hauled away all the grass, leaving nothing but soil behind.

Song Jingshuo moved over all the seedlings he had been growing in water. With the sun still above the horizon, he planted a small vegetable plot.

It was small only by comparison—it was actually quite large. To activate his ability over all the seedlings at once, Song Jingshuo had to stand in the middle of the plot and slowly spread his arms.

Like God bestowing a blessing.

“God of Agriculture,” Gao Yuxuan said.

Li Jiangbing saw Song Jingshuo’s cheeks clench and warp with irritation. He lowered his voice and said, “Shut up. He’s going to throw his shoe at you in a minute.”

Gao Yuxuan knew Song Jingshuo would never do something so undignified, and so he continued provoking him without fear.

“At least he’s serving the people,” Li Jiangbing said. “Give it a rest.”

Fine. Gao Yuxuan grinned and toned it down a little.

Song Jingshuo couldn’t be bothered with these idiots. He focused his mind and calmed his breathing.

It was an incredible feeling. He could sense the vitality of the plants. It was also wonderful to urge them to grow with his own hands.

Song Jingshuo didn’t know what using supernatural abilities felt like for other people, but he rather liked the sensation that came with using his own.

It gave him the feeling of leaving the city behind and returning to nature.

In the past, the only way he could find that feeling was by taking annual leave, driving his big off-road vehicle, and traveling all the way to the mountains, grasslands, or forests.

Li Jiangbing and Gao Yuxuan squatted beside the vegetable plot and watched with their own eyes as the hydroponic seedlings took root and grew, like a time-lapse sequence in a documentary.

In less than ten minutes, the small vegetable plot had turned into a lush sea of green.

“That big?” Gao Yuxuan exclaimed in shock.

Song Jingshuo gave him a cool glance. “With this many people eating, we either increase the number of plants or increase the yield of each individual plant.”

Increasing the number of plants would require expanding the growing area. If the area exceeded the range of his ability, he would have to work in separate sections and batches.

In reality, though, when he stimulated the plants, he could sense the limit of how much they could grow. Relying on the plants alone, it would be difficult to break through that limit.

But when he tried using his ability to support them, they really did break past it.

Many people came over to watch. When they saw how huge the vegetables had grown, they all let out amazed exclamations.

“Wow!”

The cafeteria aunties arrived pulling a flatbed cart from the property management office.

“Time to harvest! Come on, time to harvest!”

Everyone pitched in, and before long, the entire vegetable plot had been picked clean.

This time, Song Jingshuo had planted three different kinds of vegetables, which meant they could have three dishes for dinner.

In the future, the cafeteria head chef would decide on a weekly menu, and Song Jingshuo would grow the vegetables according to the menu each day. That way, everyone could eat the freshest produce every day.

This outbreak of the zombie virus had left the complex with far fewer survivors than the previous one, and the government still hadn’t sent any word.

Yet everyone actually felt more secure than before.

This time, they didn’t have to sit around anxiously waiting for the country to send supplies, worrying that the supplies might never reach them.

This time, they could find ways to provide their own food and water.

So what was there left to fear?

The scene looked almost like an old-fashioned farm from decades ago, with everyone working together in high spirits.

They transported the vegetables to the clubhouse.

The complex officially began taking names for those who wanted to sign up for communal meals.

It solved one of everyone’s biggest problems, and many people lined up to register.

For the time being, no one needed to contribute grain. The food they were using had been transported over by Mai Duoduo’s forklift.

Jiang Cheng also opened the blast-proof door to the basement and moved out all the supplies they had previously received from the government.

If grain was stored for too long, it would become old grain. They might as well take it out and eat it first.

Jiang Cheng had always been the leader of the complex, so everyone naturally felt that it was perfectly normal for her to handle this matter.

Only Song Jingshuo, whose eye missed nothing, asked her when they were alone, “When did you get the key?”

Jiang Cheng smiled faintly. “The first day.”

Song Jingshuo knew it.

That woman was always one step ahead. On the very first day, when everyone had only just woken up and many people hadn’t even awakened their abilities yet, she had already thought to get hold of the key to the basement’s blast-proof door. In other words, she had secured the grain stored down there.

Well, fine. With a leader like that, at least he could take things easy.

The little ones had already taken baths.

The elderly women from Auspicious Home knew one another well. They went to the homes of families with children and rummaged around, finding lots of clothes and bringing them over.

The little ones changed into clean clothes.

Then they went with the young women to the clubhouse for dinner.

With all the cooking utensils Jiang Cheng had brought back from the Gaoxin Middle School cafeteria, the head chef and the aunties were as powerful as tigers with wings.

The cafeteria aunties clearly had plenty of experience controlling portions. Only a small amount of food was left after dinner, which was a perfectly normal remainder.

There were now seven people working in the cafeteria. The uncle was the head chef, Auntie Ma and Auntie Jiang handled portion control, and everyone else assisted.

The two of them were supposedly especially good at making foods from dough, too.

That evening, after the head chef and the others had “clocked off” and returned to Auspicious Home, the two aunties living in the youth apartment began preparing dough again.

“We’re having youtiao tomorrow morning,” they announced.

They also made a request to the handsome man who grew their vegetables. “If you can grow them, plant some beans, too. We can sprout them into bean sprouts and make soy milk.”

Mai Duoduo naturally had beans in stock. But there was no need to buy any. Someone immediately contributed an entire bag from their own home.

“I make soy milk every day. I have plenty of bags of beans at home.”

Song Jingshuo silently accepted the beans and took them home to soak. Once they had been soaked, he could stimulate their growth with far less expenditure of his ability.

The simple announcement that they would be having youtiao the next morning gave many people in the youth apartment sweet dreams that night. In their dreams, they had everything they could wish for.

On the morning of September 2, they woke up and rubbed their eyes, only to remember that there was another zombie outbreak going on. Reality wasn’t nearly as wonderful as their dreams.

But... it wasn’t so bad, was it? They had reliable neighbors, and everyone was doing their part.

It wasn’t so bad.

No one slept in that morning. There was already a long line at the clubhouse early in the morning to collect youtiao.

Even the little ones were waiting in line.

Someone near the front laughed and said, “They’re lining up too? Just let them go to the front.”

Su Yu waved her hand. “They need to learn. Children don’t suddenly understand rules on their own. They have to be taught.”

The best way to learn was to participate in the rules firsthand.

Zhou Wang brought Little Huang over to mooch breakfast.

The two of them were powerful ability users, and they had also taken part in every group operation organized by the youth apartment, contributing a great deal.

They had killed far more zombies than ordinary people.

So no one felt that they shouldn’t be allowed to eat a free breakfast simply because they weren’t residents of the youth apartment.

Jiang Cheng even said, “Why don’t you two join us from now on?”

“No need. We already have people we share meals with,” Zhou Wang replied. “We only came to mooch a meal because we heard there was going to be a meeting later.”

The youth apartment was holding another general meeting today.

Jiang Cheng had already called Zhou Wang the night before to notify him about the meeting.

Zhou Wang: “......”

It gave him the distinct feeling of a suzerain state summoning its vassal.

So Zhou Wang brought Little Huang along first thing in the morning.

Jiang Cheng asked about the food situation for the people in Auspicious Garden.

Zhou Wang said, “Nobody’s short on food. Everyone went and bought another round of supplies on Pinduoduo.”

There were now eighty or ninety elderly people living in Auspicious Garden. Apart from them, there were about thirty other residents who could all be considered young.

Among them, more than ten were middle school students—the ones they had rescued from Gaoxin Middle School yesterday.

“They were all crying their eyes out,” Zhou Wang sighed. “Then we held a meeting too and paired off the middle schoolers who no longer had parents with different families. They can look after each other.”

The people of Auspicious Garden formed household partnerships.

The elderly had spent their whole lives cooking and were more comfortable preparing meals in their own homes. Some of the old folks who were especially good at cooking volunteered to team up with younger people. The arrangement was that if any physically demanding work came up, the younger person had to help.

Everyone got what they needed.

The fried dough sticks were delicious.

Seriously delicious.

They heard that Song Jingshuo was already preparing to plant soybeans, and many people were asking when they would finally be able to drink some soy milk.

Song Jingshuo said, “Where would we even get a soy milk maker?”

He was planning to grow soybeans because they were rich in protein. Song Jingshuo was already considering replacing meat with plant protein if meat became scarce in the future.

He hadn’t been thinking about soy milk. A small household soy milk maker would never be able to handle enough for this many people.

But just as he finished speaking, Auntie Ma said, “We have one! We found it yesterday!”

The owner of the clubhouse had previously run a restaurant and hadn’t been willing to throw away any of the equipment. It had all been stored in the back kitchen. There really was a professional commercial machine sitting in the storage room.

Li Jiangbing hadn’t seen it when he was clearing out and cleaning the kitchen. But after the cooks and aunties took over, they found it.

That was why the aunties had told Song Jingshuo to plant soybeans.

All right. Song Jingshuo agreed. “We’ll give it a try today.”

They held the general meeting in the morning.

Following their usual custom, everyone sat in a group on the ground.

The people from Auspicious Garden gradually arrived as well. Some residents from Yujing Xiang Garden even came over.

Gao Yuxuan showed up with his hair standing on end like an explosion. His face was black, and his fingernails were black too.

He looked as though he’d been struck by lightning.

Song Jingshuo was stunned. “What happened?”

Gao Yuxuan had an electrical superpower, after all.

Zhao Yi said, “You actually tried it?”

Gao Yuxuan: “Yeah.”

Zhao Yi flew into a rage. “You tried it without calling me? You didn’t let me observe it?”

Gao Yuxuan: “Yeah.”

Zhao Yi grew even angrier. “Speak like a normal person.”

Gao Yuxuan had no choice but to open his mouth and say, “I was worried you’d be in danger, so I only called Brother Guo.”

As he uttered that short sentence, sparks of electricity crackled from his mouth.