Chapter Ninety-One: Are We Already Starting to Farm?

When Jiang Huan came out again, she felt as though she were some rare animal newly brought into the zoo. All eyes were fixed on her, bright and intent, each one brimming with hope.

She let out a soft breath.

“Everyone should have heard Xie Congzhou say this already. We were originally survivors from the Star City complex down the mountain. We chose to come to the air-raid shelter because we don’t like overcrowded living conditions, and we dared to make that choice because we have absolute means of protecting ourselves. The reason I’m saying this is simply to remind everyone that I dislike internal strife and pointless friction. Those things wear away the decent qualities in a person. Since we’ve chosen to live together, I have only one request of you all.

“However, Xie Congzhou never said he would bring back so many people, so the rooms I prepared may only be enough to let about half of you live comfortably. As for how to arrange everything, you can decide for yourselves. If there isn’t enough space, you can set up beds in the corners so long as they don’t obstruct movement.

“So, lastly, on behalf of the residents of Building Six, I welcome all of you to move in. From now on, I hope that under this natural disaster, we can become each other’s closest partners.”

As applause rose, the tension in the Xie family’s hearts finally eased.

From the sound of it, Miss Jiang, their leader, was a very reasonable person.

Everyone carried their things inside. After some discussion, the weakest among them were assigned to the reserved rooms. Jiang Huan noticed that Xie Congzhou chose a corner instead. Using a removed car seat cushion, he made himself a small nest, laid a sheet of stiff cardboard on the ground, set out a few necessities, and sat down to rest.

He was certainly an unusual one. He had gone through all the trouble of risking himself to bring people back, and then, so that everyone could move in, he had proactively made so many promises to Jiang Huan and paid such a high price. In the end, he did not even stay in one of the rooms with a door, choosing instead to give up the space and make do with a crude shelter outside.

Realizing that she had been paying too much attention to Xie Congzhou, Jiang Huan withdrew her gaze and focus, no longer looking at him.

At the air-raid shelter, they usually had one meal before eleven in the morning and another around seven in the evening, trying to avoid making anyone go hungry for too long while also reducing food consumption as much as possible.

Because Xie Congzhou had turned over rice, grain, and some cotton padding, Jiang Huan’s side estimated that they would be able to cover these people’s food for the next month. So starting tonight, everyone would eat together.

A few clangs from the bronze gong announcing mealtime echoed through the shelter, and everyone came out one after another.

In the pot were dough lumps cooked in a broth flavored with instant noodle seasoning.

It wasn’t seasoning taken out of instant noodles. They had bulk packets of the stuff to begin with, which Jiang Huan had thrown in while gathering supplies. Along with it came vegetable packets of the same origin, so the dough-soup came out fragrant and satisfying, hearty and delicious.

Jiang Huan did not eat much, only a bowlful. Jiang Xi ate a bowl too.

Neither was quite enough for them, after all. They were used to eating breakfast.

On the third day of the two groups living together, Jiang Huan noticed Xie Congzhou leading people to open up an area, putting up a lightly screened enclosure like a greenhouse. After asking around a little, she learned that he was farming.

She was dumbfounded.

What temperature was it outside, and he was already planting crops directly in the open? Even if he were especially skilled at farming and knew the land and the weather perfectly, growing crops still required at least some warmth, didn’t it? Building a shed indoors would be one thing, but what kind of shelter could the one outdoors possibly provide?

Remembering the mysterious quality about him, Jiang Huan’s curiosity surged. She found time to go take a look.

That look almost shattered everything she knew about farming.

Because the ground was densely covered with tiny green leaves, each only the size of a fingernail on a little finger.

No, he not only grew things, they were growing that fast too?

Jiang Huan opened her mouth as if to say something, then decided to observe for two more days.

But two days later, when she went to check again, the vegetables had already grown to the height of a finger.

She was numb.

Jiang Huan was numb.

At that point, she took a fresh look at Xie Congzhou’s abilities.

Could it be that he was one of those people who had been reborn with some kind of miraculous advantage?

The sort of advantage that was easy enough to guess at: a farming space, a spring-water space.

But she had never seen Xie Congzhou produce any species beyond the ordinary, nor did he seem to possess some heaven-defying spring water. After all, none of the people around him seemed abnormally vigorous and full of energy. Otherwise, when Uncle Kui was injured before, wouldn’t a few drops of that spring water have solved everything?

On top of that, the clear, innocent quality he gave off clearly wasn’t an act.

He himself explained this discovery as having mastered special farming techniques and bred new varieties.

With the high-quality seeds distributed by the capital as a precedent, and with every member of the Xie family saying that Xie Congzhou had been a skilled farmer since the age of seventeen or eighteen, often winning agricultural awards in the provincial capital, and had even once been specially hired by his school, only to accept payment and take on jobs instead of actually going to school or becoming a teacher or researcher, the two together left no other explanation. Everyone accepted that he was simply extraordinarily gifted.

Jiang Huan did not covet his things. It was only on the next outing to gather supplies that she handed him a few packets of seeds, saying they had been traded for at a base.

Xie Congzhou grew them in a week. During those days, everyone in the shelter ate enough leafy greens to their hearts’ content, and the surplus was even blanched and pickled into sauerkraut.

Jiang Huan became certain that the secrets hidden in him were no fewer than her own.

Because what she had said about the seeds coming from the base was a lie.

They had plainly been ordinary seeds she had casually taken before the frozen apocalypse. Ordinary, unremarkable seeds.

With this realization, Jiang Huan no longer pursued the question of what secret Xie Congzhou might be hiding. Instead, she began cooperating with him in many ways.

One of them farmed outside the shelter, chopped firewood, built facilities, and did carpentry.

The other took people out every day to search for supplies, never once returning empty-handed.

Gradually, with Jiang Huan and Xie Congzhou working in tandem, everyone’s supply of fresh vegetables was basically secured, seasonings were never in short supply, and as the potatoes and taro they had planted gradually neared maturity, April arrived without a sound.

With April came good news as well.

It all began when someone was exploring in the mountains and dug up a grave.

They discovered that it was an empty tomb, with a passage inside. He did not dare go further in. The moment he found it, he hurried to Jiang Huan, Xie Congzhou, and the others to take a look and see what it was.

“It’s right here. This morning, when I came over, I saw that because of the tremors, there wasn’t much ice or debris here, and the ground was relatively flat, so I thought I could dig it out and build a shed here too. But after digging a bit, I hit a hard wooden board. I thought I’d struck a stone layer, so I brushed it off out of curiosity and found that only a small section was the same. If I dug farther down, it would cave in. I thought it was a coffin lid, but it turned out to be just a stone stele. It’s too dark underneath, so I didn’t go in.”

He was afraid there might be snakes, insects, mice, or other things inside.

Jiang Huan stopped beside the pit. There was still a stretch of passage below, but it was too dark to make out what condition it was in.

Just then, Xie Congzhou suddenly said something in Jiang Huan’s ear, and Jiang Huan smiled as she jumped down.