Chapter 274: Chapter 274

Qian Duoduo suffered even more severe losses—every place with a house had been rigged with bombs and destroyed. Over a hundred of their six hundred people died from various causes. The staff building at West Mountain, seen on a previous occasion, had been leveled. The bodyguards and servants were without shelter, having no place to stay. Financial losses were also significant. Farms and breeding grounds that cost a fortune to establish were gone. However, it was said that Qian Duoduo’s castle still held plenty of food, so they should be able to hold out.

Overall, today seemed like a scenario where both parties had hurt each other without achieving their goals. Lin Yi had even met with total annihilation. Wait... if there was anyone who benefited, it seemed to be Jing Shu?

Jing Shu was certain that if she hadn’t made this trip, she would have had no clue when the Magic Cube Space might have upgraded. Thus, the upgrade of the Magic Cube Space definitely increased her life-saving trump cards.

The Magic Cube Space had upgraded, granting her new abilities. Jing Shu also acquired 14 tons of TNT explosives, which would be quite useful in the post-apocalyptic world. She even won valuable goodwill from Su Xiangnan and Qian Duoduo. With these new connections, even if she wasn’t a major player yet, she was moving in the direction of becoming one. Google seaʀᴄh novel•fire.net

Capturing Lin Yi must have earned her a first-class merit, right? She should be rewarded with some Virtual Coins, marking at least one source of income.

With these thoughts, Jing Shu’s fatigue seemed to lessen considerably. However, eager to see the upgraded Magic Cube, she ate dinner much faster than usual.

Jing Shu’s experiences of the day would naturally be shared as a bit of a joke—not to show off, but to reassure her family. Grandma Jing even specially slaughtered a chicken and stewed fish soup to calm Jing Shu’s nerves. Of course, Jing Shu omitted the part about the explosives, only mentioning that she had uncovered a conspiracy and received a reward; otherwise, Grandma Jing, with her weak heart, might have fainted.

After dinner, each family member had a sip of medicinal wine to dispel dampness and enjoyed some of the available fruit. Jing Shu then asked Mr. Jing to take care of the leeches, and Mr. Jing to walk the chicken.

Due to the large population in the community, the fat chickens were also given plastic raincoats and leashed like dogs. Fortunately, the torrential rain outside made everything so dark that it was hard to tell whether they were dogs or chickens. The fat chickens had grown as big as medium-sized dogs, and no one knew if they would continue to grow.

If they grow too big, would they be taken away for research? Oh, the research institutes might not have time for that now. There are already many new species of mutations and evolutions. Their current focus is on how to produce more food, and I’ve heard they’re researching a type of genetically mutated animal.

Due to her different status in her previous life, Jing Shu hadn’t heard about such things. In this life, however, she happened to hear Su Malie mention it. The idea was to extract genes and combine them with a carrier, introducing the target gene into recipient cells to create new species or plants suited for apocalyptic survival, thereby increasing food production.

Jing Shu listened, somewhat baffled, until Su Malie whispered,

"It’s about making a chicken with legs and wings all over its body, or even having multiple reproductive organs for laying eggs. It could also involve turning cattle into oviparous animals that lay eggs daily, hatching a batch of ’cattle eggs’ each month, or fattening fish by injecting them with hormones and drugs to ensure each generation grows to tens or even hundreds of pounds within months. They might even add Antidark Pigment to each generation or remove the natural photosynthetic ability from creatures, forcefully using other methods to make them grow."

"They’re simply not considering the impact of genetic breakthroughs or modifications, just forcefully increasing their yield. They no longer care about the consequences of eating such things, especially since the higher-ups have said that if the apocalypse continues and the country’s situation remains unchanged, Huaxia might collapse within a decade. So, you might not be aware, but the prices of livestock and various crops have started skyrocketing again recently."

"After all, the country is now storing large quantities of red earthworms, hoping to breed more livestock once enough feed is secured."

After Su Malie’s explanation, Jing Shu finally understood how the infamous ’monster food’ from after the sixth year of the apocalypse came into existence. She realized that significant resources had been heavily invested into its research starting from the second year. Su Malie was right: migration, heavy snowfall, and frigid temperatures beginning in the fifth year of the apocalypse caused Earth’s crop yields to plummet, leading many to starve. Without the development of new food sources, Huaxia would indeed have faced complete annihilation.

If the first five years of the apocalypse were spent consuming local products—including red earthworms, maggots, and rotten corpse insects—then in the later stages, people began to eat these things that had no taste of meat, were oddly shaped, and were difficult to swallow.

Jing Shu shuddered, truly unwilling to recall these memories. In her past life, even these genetically engineered foods were affordable only to people with substantial assets.

She remembered eating genetically altered ’fat fish’ one year. The flesh could hardly be called fish meat; it was like chewing on sawdust, with each cell enlarged a hundredfold, making it hard and tough to swallow. The fishy smell was amplified several hundred times, as if one were smelling a sewer that had been collecting vomit for months.

Yes, eating that fish was like consuming garbage steeped in the fetid water of a gutter.

When the market was flooded with genetically mutated foods, the most precious and valuable items became those that were unchanged, in their original, natural state. Chickens, ducks, and fish from that era became as valuable as pre-apocalypse antiques. Why were they becoming increasingly valuable? Couldn’t they just be bred extensively?

The reasons were environment and cost.

The phrase ’survival of the fittest’ was no joke. The longer the apocalypse endured, the less likely original, natural plants and animals were to survive if they didn’t grow stronger or adapt to the apocalyptic conditions. These natural organisms were too delicate; factors like darkness, cold, disease, low yields, and high mortality rates made them unsuitable.

Regarding cost, the same amount of food that could sustain only one natural animal could, thanks to genetic breakthroughs, support animals with yields five to ten times higher. With Huaxia’s population at one billion, it was necessary to choose low-cost, high-yield options for breeding. Even then, this was often just enough to prevent the majority from starving.

Natural, original foods were confined to the upper echelons of society.

Shaking her head, she thought these concerns were still too far off. The issue of genetically engineered creatures was a matter of livelihood for the Huaxia nation. If the ’Father of Hybrid Rice’ hadn’t developed high-yield hybrid rice varieties, perhaps half of Huaxia’s population would have starved. Indeed, survival was more important than anything.

After Jing Shu locked herself in her bedroom, she took out the Challenge Cube, which had transformed into an 8th Order one. At the same time, she silently invoked, "Magic Cube Space!"

In that instant, the Magic Cube Space entered its Second Form, spreading out with Jing Shu at its center. The current size of the Magic Cube Space was 7x7x7 = 343 cubic meters. If she could meet the upgrade requirements for the 8th Order Cube, she would possess a space of 8x8x8 = 512 cubic meters. Jing Shu was highly motivated!

The 7th Order space had undergone significant changes. The Spiritual Spring in the center still seemed to produce only a pitiful amount each day, but now there were six additional fields, totaling 36 square meters of planting area.