Chapter 405: Chapter 405

"Damn, recently I’ve been having nosebleeds for no reason, and the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong after I saw him," Eiffel said, tilting her head back and rinsing her nose with water. It took a while to clean it up. "Maybe it’s too dry in the castle. A few other colleagues have nosebleeds occasionally. Jing, aren’t you a doctor from Huaxia? Can you figure out what’s going on?"

Jing Shu was silent for a while. She didn’t know squat. Her medical knowledge came from unreliable online searches that always connected nosebleeds to various cancers.

However, Jing Shu’s first instinct was that there was something wrong with this castle! Perhaps the materials of the castle contained a lot of unknown radiation!

Jing Shu tossed over a Wanzi she had concocted from a bit of diluted Spiritual Spring and mashed hawthorn. "It’s not a big issue. Eat some of these traditional medicine pills from my family, and I guarantee they’ll cure you." Meanwhile, Jing Shu decided to start drinking more Spiritual Spring daily, not wanting to risk her life on a mission unknowingly.

After finishing it, Eiffel felt much better overall. "Thank you, Jing. You’re such a nice person. Your medicine really works. Come on, I’ll take you to the cafeteria now."

Under Eiffel’s generous hospitality, the group arrived at the castle’s grand dining hall. The food here was cleaner and more upscale than at the Black Market; they even had pre-apocalypse normal beef burgers. Americans, who have a strong preference for fast food and meats, often just have vegetable salads. There were many unusually large chicken breasts here.

Overall, the dining hall looked normal, and the messy pile of unidentifiable vegetables was Eiffel’s favorite vegetable salad.

The vegetables inside were precisely those strange, mutated vegetables grown in today’s fields!

Eiffel took two bowls of vegetable salad! Seeing those vegetables with unclear roots and stalks, and potatoes sprouting tiny potatoes, Jing Shu felt it was weird. Meanwhile, Little Black and Monk weren’t picky at all; each grabbed a bowl of meat and enjoyed it immensely.

The castle had really good food! There were also many diners, most of whom retained the typical American physique, with over half of them being obese.

Jing Shu couldn’t even pick up her chopsticks. This food was too bizarre and disgusting for her taste.

"Eiffel, do you usually eat the vegetables you grow yourself? What about the food developed here?" Jing Shu asked. Orıginal content can be found at 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩~𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖~𝙣𝙚𝙩

"Yeah, this is the best food in the castle. Oh, my God! I should have taken you to see the new vegetables the research department developed. They’re full of hormones and catalysts and can be produced in great quantities daily. They taste awful, and who knows what other effects they might have. But there are seven or eight hundred thousand homeless people in Austin who need to be fed, as long as it doesn’t kill anyone," Eiffel said, shrugging and chewing the indistinct vegetables.

"Right, the glowing material was named ’Concentrating Stone’ by Dr. Bo. They have a special effect too. Eating crops irradiated by it boosts our resistance and immune system, so many people like to ’sunbathe under the Concentrating Stone.’ After eating these vegetables, I really do feel my strength increasing. Look at these muscles!" Eiffel exclaimed, raising her fist to show off her significantly increased muscle mass.

Is it really that good?

Who was this Dr. Bo? Jing Shu was curious to meet him. Everyone in the castle seemed to hold him in high regard, since he invented this ’Concentrating Stone’—a new material that could self-illuminate and generate heat in the apocalypse, solving one of its greatest challenges. Austin Castle was preparing to stockpile various foods to exchange for other goods.

The whole Austin Castle was in an ambitious state. Every person able to enter the castle was also trying to earn more food, and many landowners started planting in their fields.

No matter how you look at it, the development of Austin Castle was now flourishing, and it would be the only city living as it did before the apocalypse.

Yang Yang, accompanying Hao Yunlai in completing other tasks, found success to be elusive. Over these days, Hao Yunlai was genuinely terrified, encountering Slave Master’s people many times. Had it not been for Hao Yunlai, their cover would probably have been blown long ago.

Meanwhile, Zhen Nantian led Tan Ke and a few others to start arranging tasks outside.

Jing Shu, on the other hand, was making smooth progress, as Little Black and Monk successfully secured positions as Jing Shu’s assistants.

「Days quickly passed.」

To verify the miraculous effect of the Concentrating Stone, Jing Shu divided the seeds Eiffel had given her into three groups. One group was planted under the Concentrating Stone, another in a room lit only by electric lamps and void of natural light, and the last batch was planted in the spirit field.

The seeds planted under the Concentrating Stone sprouted but then died young. The second batch, in the room with electric lamps, also sprouted. However, they grew slowly, were malnourished, weakened mid-growth, and eventually ceased to grow. Only the seeds in the spirit field grew normally, though they were much slower than other herbs.

That day, Eiffel arrived at Jing Shu’s medicinal herb cultivation site with a woman dressed in a black spacesuit and helmet.

"Another failure?" Eiffel, somewhat disappointed, examined the withered seeds scattered on the ground, then looked towards Jing Shu, her eyes flickering with evasion and a hint of pity.

From beneath her large bulletproof cotton jacket, Jing Shu pulled out several pots of lush medicinal herbs and said, "The herbs cultivated under the Concentrating Stone all failed. However, I managed to cultivate some using a unique secret formula."

"Oh my God! You succeeded, Jing, you are truly remarkable! You’ve made a great contribution! Can this be cultivated on a large scale?" Eiffel danced excitedly and then remembered, "Oh right, I forgot to introduce you. This is Dr. Bo’s assistant, Mrs. C."

"Mrs. C, this is Huaxia’s Doctor, Miss Jing."

Wrapped in her heavy spacesuit, Mrs. C merely gave Miss Jing a cold nod, full of pretense. "We only need herbs that can be cultivated on a large scale. If it can’t be scaled up, there’s hardly any point. Dr. Bo is already working on a new research plan."

Eiffel humbly said, "Yes, yes, but since it’s so hard to cultivate these herbs, could we possibly ask Dr. Bo to see if they can be utilized?"

"I’ll report this to Dr. Bo," Mrs. C said, then without turning her head, she walked away coldly.

Jing Shu narrowed her eyes. With a slight movement of her spirit, she controlled several Little Snakes to follow them. Simultaneously, she asked, "Isn’t their attire too heavy? Do they need to wear spacesuits in such a hot place? And even a helmet? Can’t they breathe this air?" Jing Shu asked this while completely ignoring that she herself would rather suffer in the heat than remove her bulletproof jacket and pants.

Eiffel explained with a smile, "You don’t know, but the environment where they and Dr. Bo work is extremely dangerous. They need to extract useful substances from various biochemical radiations every day, so they dress every day."