CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 55: PLANTATION UPGRADE (4K CHAPTER, PLEASE RECOMMEND AND BOOKMARK)

With the assistance of Mo Qingyan and Qin Lan, Chen Xin’s harvest of six hundred pounds of vegetables this month was quickly gathered from the fields, packed into the boxes Qin Lan brought, and placed in the car they drove over.

"Then we’ll be off, take care of yourself, Chen Xin." At the entrance of Chen Xin’s shelter, Qin Lan looked at Chen Xin, wanting to say something but finding it hard to start.

"Mm, you too, Qin Lan. The environment now is not like before. Your work is dangerous enough as it is, so be extra careful now." Seeing that Qin Lan was concerned about him, Chen Xin also carefully advised her.

Qin Lan nodded, said no more, and prepared to leave, but as she walked out of the shelter’s door, she turned back, frowned, and said, "Chen Xin, you should reinforce the door of your shelter and also create some camouflage outside. As you said, the environment is not like before, so... be careful."

"I know, I’ll take care of it later." Chen Xin nodded. He had already considered Qin Lan’s concerns, but hadn’t prioritized them.

Seeing that Chen Xin took her words to heart, Qin Lan nodded and got in the car, starting the engine to leave.

"Ingredients, remember to save a bit of the carrot harvest for me next month. I’ll trade you some Lafite wine!" As they left, Mo Qingyan didn’t forget to stick her head out of the car window, placing an order with Chen Xin.

"Got it!" Chen Xin replied, watching them drive away before turning back into the shelter and closing the door again.

Back inside the shelter, Chen Xin could hardly suppress his excitement and rushed directly into the greenhouse, preparing to upgrade it.

"Simple Greenhouse"

"Upgrade Plan One: Add drip irrigation system, add hydroponic planting trays, crop yield +10%, irrigation water consumption -10%, survival points required for upgrade 2000"

"Upgrade Plan Two: Increase planting area, improve supplementary lighting efficiency, crop yield +10%, lighting time -10%, survival points required for upgrade 3500"

"Provide steel, cement, supplementary lamps, micro vacuum pumps, PVC pipes, PVC hydroponic trays, and other materials for upgrade?"

"Materials for Plan One provided, reducing survival points required for upgrade by 90%, remaining survival points 200"

"Materials for Plan Two provided, reducing survival points required for upgrade by 90%, remaining survival points 350"

"Materials for both Plan One and Plan Two provided, reducing survival points required for upgrade by 150, remaining survival points 400, choose to upgrade?"

Faced with the system’s text, Chen Xin undoubtedly chose to upgrade, spending all the 400 survival points he had.

As Chen Xin chose to upgrade, the entire greenhouse was engulfed by the upgrade light he’d already witnessed twice before.

This time, not just the greenhouse but also various materials placed in the storage room and garage were covered by the light, turning into beams that converged into the greenhouse.

When the glow from the upgrade in the greenhouse faded, what appeared before Chen Xin was a greenhouse with an area doubled and a layer of hydroponic planting trays hanging from the ceiling, looking much more advanced than before.

The increase in planting area and the appearance of hydroponic trays were very direct changes, while the greenhouse becoming more advanced was a rather subjective feeling.

After all, without an increase in technological level, distinguishing whether something is advanced or outdated largely relies on one’s subjective judgment.

But looking at the upgraded clean and tidy greenhouse with soft and bright lighting from lamps upgraded from big lights to tubes, the orderly fields, even the crooked carrots Chen Xin previously planted were now lined up straight, Chen Xin truly felt a sense of "advanced."

The sight before him was no longer a typical shelter greenhouse Chen Xin had casually set up, but more like a plant cultivation laboratory.

Even so, the purpose of this greenhouse was still to cultivate crops and obtain food.

So no matter how good it looked, for Chen Xin, the utility of the upgraded greenhouse was the most crucial.

Originally, the floor of Chen Xin’s greenhouse was just soil, used to segment the land with furrows he left himself, without any plan.

But now, in the two hundred square meters of planting area, the land was evenly divided into eight rectangular plots, looking much more organized.

Standing between the furrows, Chen Xin reached down to grab a handful of soil from the ground, rubbing it in his hand to check the soil quality.

It seemed that even the soil was affected by the upgrade, as it also seemed to have been upgraded.

The soil originally in Chen Xin’s greenhouse was obtained from nearby farmer’s gardens, already cultivated soil, suitable for crop farming.

But compared to the soil in the greenhouse now, the previous soil was noticeably more ashen, making the contrast very apparent.

The soil in the greenhouse now was dark and glossy, delicate and fluffy. As you squeezed it, it felt as though it might even exude oil, giving an impression of fertility at first glance.

Although Chen Xin didn’t know much about soil, he could roughly guess that this should be the black soil from northern Flame Country, renowned for its fertility.

This was far better than the soil he used before. It’s a natural treasure bestowed upon humanity, perfect for growing crops, with only three patches of such black soil on the entire Blue Star.

The change in soil gave Chen Xin a deeper understanding of the system’s upgrade power, and he hadn’t expected that upgrading the greenhouse would upgrade the soil as well, especially to this black soil most suitable for crop growth.

Aside from the change in soil quality, the most noticeable transformation in the greenhouse was the hydroponic planting trays hanging from the ceiling.

Chen Xin had exchanged for a set of hydroponic planting equipment before, including hydroponic trays, a nutrient solution circulation system, and a micro vacuum pump, but these exchanged pieces of equipment clearly could not compare to the equipment provided by the system upgrade.

The hydroponic trays, although called trays, are not actually dishes but consist of a nutrient trough and a planting board.

The hydroponic trays Chen Xin exchanged for were common plastic trays, with a grid-like planting board that looked ordinary, and felt roughly made to the touch.

But after the system upgrade, the tray became an integrated sink, and the planting board turned into a more professional planting board with slots, all in white color by the system, feeling smooth and rounded to the touch, and therefore looking exceptionally clean and tidy.

There are pipes for circulating nutrient solution installed on the brackets, as well as supplementary lights to provide illumination for the lower plants, so that the lower crops are not affected by the blockage of the hydroponic planting trays.

Chen Xin reached out and held the bracket hanging from the ceiling, trying to shake it, but found that it was remarkably stable with no wobbling at all. It seemed that the quality of things after the system upgrade was also rather good.

After examining the upgraded planting greenhouse, Chen Xin began to prepare for the use of the hydroponic planting system. Although hydroponic cultivation involves hydroponics, it’s not as simple as just water alone.

While plants can grow with only water, they won’t grow well, and the harvest would be rather disappointing.

Therefore, in normal hydroponic cultivation, it is necessary to add a formulated nutrient solution to the water to provide various trace elements needed for plant growth.

Chen Xin was naturally aware of this, so when he asked Mo Qingyan to help him exchange resources previously, besides acquiring the necessary equipment for hydroponic cultivation, he also got a large bottle of concentrated nutrient solution.

This nutrient solution is a general-purpose nutrient for plant cultivation and is a highly concentrated model. According to the usage instructions on the package, only 30 milliliters are needed to dilute four liters of nutrient solution.

And this bottle of highly concentrated nutrient solution has a capacity of 1.8 liters, which, given Chen Xin’s current greenhouse area, is enough for him to use for several years.

After checking everything, feeling very satisfied with the upgraded system in the planting greenhouse, Chen Xin prepared the nutrient solution and started preparing for seed breeding.

Hydroponic planting differs from soil planting. In soil planting, seeds can be directly sown into the ground, and the crops will sprout, root, and grow on their own.

However, for hydroponic planting, even with a planting board, pre-seeding is necessary, and once the roots and leaves have grown out, they can be moved to the nutrient solution slot for planting.

Fortunately, Chen Xin is planting cabbage and lettuce. The seed breeding for these two crops is not complicated. Simply remove the planting board, place seeds on the sponge used to secure the plants in each slot, and then water it with the prepared nutrient solution to keep the sponge moist until the seeds germinate.

When taking the planting board off the bracket, Chen Xin also noticed there were still some issues with the installation height of the hydroponic planting tray.

The ceiling height of Chen Xin’s planting greenhouse is 2.5 meters, which, although a bit low, didn’t cause any problems during previous use.

But with the addition of the hydroponic planting tray after the upgrade, which is positioned at about 1.5 meters high from the ground, it resulted in Chen Xin having trouble straightening up when handling crops on the ground level.

Although farming usually involves bending over, if one can’t straighten up at all, it can be very uncomfortable. After all, even farmers usually stand up straight to rest occasionally while tilling, rather than being bent over constantly.

Fortunately, Chen Xin’s greenhouse is not large, and the area to be cultivated is just two hundred square meters, so it won’t be too exhausting.

However, after realizing this issue, Chen Xin remembered the small agricultural machine he planned to get earlier.

The resources exchanged with Uncle Ding this time did not include the small agricultural machine. It wasn’t that Chen Xin didn’t mention it, but rather Uncle Ding didn’t send the small agricultural machine he needed together, indicating they would only send it after Chen Xin paid off the balance of this transaction.

Clearly, Uncle Ding also maintains some caution towards Chen Xin.

This isn’t about trust or distrust. Even before the disaster, when applying for a loan from a bank or borrowing from friends, some kind of security was needed. Chen Xin’s installment payment method naturally made the other side a bit uneasy, so keeping some reservation is normal.

Chen Xin didn’t resent or object to this; it just meant this month’s work would inevitably be a bit more strenuous for him.

Fortunately, along with the system upgrade, the soil on the ground was also upgraded, so he didn’t need to fertilize or till it anymore, only scatter the drought-resistant rice seeds.

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After finishing the work in the planting greenhouse, the time had already reached evening.

Although there was no longer a change in light, and evening could no longer be called "evening," the routine remained the same.

After having dinner, Chen Xin slumped onto the living room sofa, feeling a bit aimlessly playing a game console.

After a whole day’s labor, Chen Xin felt muscle soreness all over his body. Although he had done quite a bit of farm work over the past month, he still felt particularly tired today, so he wanted to play a few rounds of games to relax.

Come to think of it, feeling more tired today was normal, considering he first moved various resources in the morning, then engaged in hydroponic seeding and drought-resistant rice sowing in the afternoon, which was indeed a more substantial workload compared to the previous month.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to till the land today; otherwise, Chen Xin felt he might have worked himself to exhaustion.

While fiddling with the controller, Chen Xin took a sip from the cup beside him. The bland boiled water made him smack his lips, wishing he had a bottle of fizzy soda.

Unfortunately, there was no fizzy soda, the ultimate relaxation beverage, in the shelter, only flavorless, pure water.

Before the disaster struck, Chen Xin mainly collected survival supplies, and although fizzy soda could be collected, he simply didn’t think of it at the time, leading to the situation where he couldn’t drink it now and only realized he hadn’t prepared any.

As for the current times, after the disaster’s onset, it might still be possible to obtain fizzy soda through resource exchange. However, it’s uncertain whether there would be any stock left in the large shelters.

Such items are consumables, and given the current times after the disaster, even if the state organized production restoration, it wouldn’t waste resources producing such non-essential items, instead focusing all resources on producing survival supplies.

Thinking of this, Chen Xin couldn’t help sighing. Not only fizzy soda, but many familiar things might be lost to this disaster, becoming mere records in history books.

It’s also uncertain whether, after rebuilding and restoring production, humanity could produce these things again and how many of the past’s items could be restored?

Chen Xin didn’t know the answer, but he sincerely hoped, if possible, to return to the life of the past, even just a part of it.