CHAPTER 152: MY STRENGTH DOES NOT ALLOW ME TO RAISE PIGS

Even if it meant spending money, it was worth it.

Currently, the most valuable things were food and resources, and coincidentally, she lacked neither.

But isn’t Heng Jin in charge of Hengda Logistics Company? That man really did manage to squeeze his way into the system after the apocalypse and even started working for the government.

"Alright then, I’ll contact him. I’ll see how bad things really are once the RV gets back."

Jing Shu hung up and immediately contacted Heng Jin via WeChat.

"Are you guys transporting an RV back here soon?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" Heng Jin narrowed his eyes.

"Because that RV is for me..."

Heng Jin: "..."

The way people’s paths crossed was so unpredictable; Jing Shu never imagined she would one day be doing business with Heng Jin again.

Before the apocalypse, Jing Shu was a young woman with nothing to her name, relying on being compensated by Heng Jin for her testimony to earn a sum of money; Heng Jin, on the other hand, was the wealthy young master of a logistics company.

After the apocalypse brought famine and harsh living conditions, Jing Shu lived in a villa, with no worries about food or drink. Now, she even had the clout to have the Armed Police bring a luxury RV back from the United States specifically for her.

Meanwhile, Heng Jin was constantly on the move, having expended great effort to integrate into the government system. He had toiled for a whole year transporting various supplies for the government, and now he even had to work for the woman who once had nothing.

Isn’t this disparity just too great?

Heng Jin felt a storm of emotions. "I never expected the person having an RV shipped from the United States would be you... But even as friends, I can only promise not to overcharge you for this transportation fee."

"Fine. What do you want?"

Just look at her, Heng Jin thought. The person whose WeChat step count is always near the bottom, yet she’s still so shamelessly extravagant. What on earth happened to this woman in the past year?

"800 Virtual Coins or 60 kilograms of grain will do. Although half the journey can be by ship, it’s still over a thousand kilometers by land, which consumes a lot of fuel."

800 Virtual Coins represented half a year’s salary for a civil servant. It was enough to afford two meals of white rice daily for six months. By comparison, a family of three eating mainly maggots, with vegetables as a weekly treat, spent only 50 Virtual Coins a month.

This was the gap. After the apocalypse, food would become increasingly valuable and would create a class system. Those who couldn’t afford food would find it progressively harder to do so, forced to survive on meager government assistance earned through manual labor.

After some thought, Jing Shu decided to use Virtual Coins.

The second batch of frogs had been exchanged with Niu Mou for 300 units of electricity, 200 bottles of mineral water, and 500 Virtual Coins. Plus, she had received 300 Virtual Coins as a commendation for a rescue, and she also received a regular ’salary’. She had more than enough, and it would be a waste not to spend these Virtual Coins.

She wasn’t going to use Virtual Coins to buy rice that would likely be moldy by the second year of the apocalypse, was she?

"Then 800 Virtual Coins it is. I’ll give you 200 as a deposit first, and the rest upon delivery of the vehicle."

"Okay."

Having resolved this major concern, Jing Shu felt a wave of relief. That night, while practicing with the Magic Cube, she felt her mind become exceptionally clear, and her understanding of the seven-stage Magic Cube deepened. She had finally reached the point where she could proficiently solve the cube.

But going from proficient to masterful was another significant hurdle. Jing Shu found that practicing the Magic Cube daily when she had free time greatly helped improve her proficiency.

However, the seven-stage Magic Cube was much larger than her previous one, causing her family members to give her strange looks whenever she took it out.

This was especially true when Jing Shu sat on the sofa, eating fried chicken and drinking a beverage while playing with the Magic Cube, much like how parents might disapprovingly watch their children play video games. Mrs. Jing had commented several times in the past few days:

"If you’re not going to be a livestreamer anymore, then hurry up and find a job within the system. Or else, trade a piglet for a job at a livestock farm and go raise pigs.

"Don’t just stay at home every day, eating and drinking and fiddling with that darn Magic Cube. That ’Honored Frog Farmer’ title sounds so undignified. Besides, we’re not really short of water now. In another two months, cultivated frogs won’t be a novelty anymore, and you’ll be unemployed."

Indeed, with no current water shortage, what couldn’t be cultivated? Although the weather was still very hot, there was ample water. The public could once again eat fried Five Grain Worms with some green vegetables, and people were generally content with their lives.

Mr. Jing chimed in off-topic, "I remember the Magic Cube I bought for our daughter wasn’t like this one..."

Rapidly twisting the Magic Cube, Jing Shu replied, "Oh, Mom, with my talents, pig farming just isn’t in the cards for me. There will be better, more suitable jobs for your daughter in the future."

"What’s that? If you don’t want to raise pigs, are you planning to raise a Divine Beast instead? Do you want to ascend to the heavens next?" Mrs. Jing retorted while sorting and organizing the household’s dried snap beans. Why do I feel like these Dried Vegetables are piling up more and more?

Besides the dried snap beans, there were also dried bamboo shoots and dried ferns. Jing Shu had also replanted a batch of chili peppers and dried them all.

Last year, she had dried chili peppers to make over a hundred pounds of chili powder, which they still hadn’t finished. But in the coming year, the plan was to mainly use dried chilies to add flavor when cooking.

Moreover, dried chili peppers could effectively dispel dampness from the body, making it less likely to develop health problems rooted in dampness during the anticipated heavy rains and humidity of the following year.

Speaking of making milk powder, this project had kept Jing Shu busy for several days.

The dozens of kilograms of milk produced daily couldn’t all be consumed, so it was made into yogurt balls, shaved ice yogurt, ice cream, cheese, and other products. After stockpiling for over a month, Jing Shu decided to make milk powder and milk tablets.

However, making milk powder required specialized equipment. Jing Shu searched for a long time before finding an abandoned milk powder factory in Wu City. She brought her own power generation equipment, boiled the milk in a low-pressure cooker, and then used a centrifugal spray dryer to successfully produce pure, natural milk powder.

Ten kilograms of milk yielded one kilogram of milk powder. Jing Shu made over a hundred kilograms of milk powder in one go, which should be enough for the apocalypse. She then used the factory’s milk tablet press to make some milk tablets.

The abandoned factory also had cans. After sterilizing them, Jing Shu meticulously filled the cans with milk powder and sealed them. Her homemade milk powder was complete!

So, when Jing Shu brought a cartload of milk powder home, the expressions on her family’s faces were priceless. When Jing Shu had first mentioned turning the milk into powder,

Mrs. Jing had criticized her for not focusing on practical matters, questioning why she would go to such trouble when they could just drink the milk directly.

"But milk powder has a longer shelf life," Jing Shu had explained. "It can be used in emergencies, its value will be higher, and it also makes a good gift."

Grandma Jing was also somewhat perplexed. "We can just take the cows with us wherever we go; we don’t need milk powder."

Jing Shu: "..."

Jing Shu hadn’t expected that when the whole family was due to go on an extended outing in over a month, Grandma Jing would actually intend to bring all the Domestic Poultry along...

The thing was, no one had expected Jing Shu to actually succeed in making it all by herself.

Wu You’ai gave her a thumbs up. "There’s nothing you can’t do."

Seeing the attractive packaging, Mrs. Jing opened a can. A rich, milky aroma wafted out, prompting her to praise her daughter, "Well, I’ll be, this is actually really well done. My daughter is good at everything she does—except her studies."

Emmm... Leave it to my dear mother!

Just as her mother was complaining daily that Jing Shu should find a job and persistently urging her to go into pig farming, Su Malie, the Holy Mother whom Jing Shu most wanted to avoid in this lifetime, contacted her again. This is undoubtedly the fallout from that herbal medicine incident!