Ch14 - Sorting and Farming

Climbing to the top floor in one breath, Wei Xuan hurriedly collected a pile of dried vegetables and dried meat into several plastic baskets before the night was completely dark, and took Du Hang back to the second floor together. In their temporary room upstairs, Wei Xuan pulled the heavy curtains to cover the window and turned on the dual-purpose solar flashlight as a desk lamp. Then he found a large pile of non-woven bags from some store and started to process the dried vegetables, fruits, tofu, and meat that had been thoroughly dried.

Two weeks is enough to dry these moisture-rich things completely, and even many things will be overdried, too thin, like shredded paper, and will crumble into slag with a light touch.

Fortunately, many green leafy vegetables have special drying skills. Although Wei Xuan did not handle them himself in his previous life, he heard of several methods when dealing with the mutated plants that circulated in the base, and so far, the effect is not bad.

Those green leafy vegetables – such as spinach and cabbage, should not be directly exposed to the sun before they are ready to be processed. They should be placed in a cool and ventilated place to dry for half a day or directly blanch in boiling water, and then he needs to take them out to ventilate and dry them, so they last for a long time. Of course, if he finds it troublesome, he can also just take it out and expose it to the sun, but the taste will not be very good, and the dried vegetables will be too dry and will break when touched, which is inconvenient for subsequent processing.

The LED lighting of the flashlight is still very powerful, and the thick curtains are enough to protect the privacy of this room from being discovered by people who may pass by outside or live in nearby residential buildings.

Wei Xuan had tested this place at night after selecting it as a place to stay: he turned on the mobile light in the bedroom and stood downstairs to observe if ant light leaked when it was blocked by the curtains. People outside will not be able to see the light that is tightly blocked by the curtains.

Different vegetables are picked from the rope and put into different bags because most of the vegetables that come to dry in this building are dried after boiling water, so although the vegetables are completely dried, their texture is relatively tough and easy to store. After filling a non-woven bag with each type of vegetable, Wei Xuan simply sewed the opening of the bag with a thick needle and strong thread—this kind of breathable cloth bag is more suitable than plastic bags. Although he can’t sew too detailed things, he can still do it by simply sewing two more circles on the seal.

After processing the green leafy vegetables, he had to clean up those dried fruits, dried meat, etc., and of course, dried vegetables such as potatoes and pumpkins. Of course, the fresh meat will be coated with salt and other things, but compared with the real air-dried chicken and duck, the taste of these meats processed by him is not as delicious as those processed by professionals, and if he wants to soak them, it would take him a very long time.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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In just one night, Wei Xuan packed up all the things that had been hanging on the roof and top floors. It has to be said that this is much faster than when he handled these things and hung them up to dry. Of course, the amount of materials that Wei Xuan actually got to the roof of this building is not too much.

The untwisted strings were all put away, and they were not put back on the top floor, but in a storage room on the first floor. Wei Xuan took out his small notebook, then examined the detailed map of T City. After checking it carefully for a while, he raised his head and looked towards the direction of the heavy curtains in a daze.

The roar of cars on the street outside can be heard even at night. Of course, there are more explosions, screams, and crashes caused by unknown reasons. At this time, just after the darkness before dawn, the first rays of sunlight quietly fell on the city.

Just when the dawn came, many people who had worked up their courage and prepared all night finally seized this last chance. As the armed vehicles lured away many zombies, the survivors used this opportunity to gather together and escape the city. This would be the last big wave of people who left T City. 

They walked out of their homes one after another, grabbed all kinds of means of transportation, or simply ran towards the edge of the city on foot, and fled towards the direction they each thought might be safe.

Almost at the same time, most of the last survivors in various cities in the country also started to take action, taking advantage of this last chance to escape from their former homes. At this time, most of the people who are still in the city are old, weak, sick, and disabled, and have almost no ability to escape, while the rest of the people, although there are still young people, have no way or cannot leave. The survivors who stayed in the city knew that their future was bleak, and no one could predict the possible direction of the future… 

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Wei Xuan stood on the top floor of the building where he lived, held up the binoculars and looked out from the windows in all directions, and carefully listened to the sounds from outside. 

It has been nearly three days since that team entered the city for rescue, and since the evening of the second day, there has been no more sound of roaring cars. It can be seen that this city has entered a safe period for Wei Xuan and Du Hang.

That’s right, only when almost all the survivors were evacuated, could Wei Xuan dare to go out and act normally, without worrying about any accidents and dangers that might be caused by being discovered. 

Of course, there must still be survivors in this city, but Wei Xuan will not take the initiative to provoke them, and his ability is not enough for him to protect someone in this completely zombified city, or hide from the unpredictable survivors. But now, he needs to hurry up and get busy with other things to ensure that his and Du Hang’s life can be relatively stable in the future.

“Let’s go, it’s time for us to go out.” Putting down the binoculars, Wei Xuan heaved a sigh of relief, turned around and took Du Hang’s arm who had been by his side, and led him to a room on the first floor, where he picked up two supermarket plastic baskets, walking towards the outside. 

In the basket were all pieces of sprouting potatoes and carrots with roots that Wei Xuan had cut up last night.

That’s right, these things are what Wei Xuan has been planting in the entire city since the end of the world. These are the things he can rely on in the future to provide him with constant food.  

During the three years of the apocalypse, after tireless research and experiments in various bases remaining in the country, it can be confirmed that most of the animals and plants have undergone mutations. Among them, mutant animals are no longer suitable for human breeding, so the lack of meat in the base has been known to all survivors almost from the beginning. Fortunately, if there is no meat to eat, there are vegetables and grains. After screening all the edible and non-toxic mutant plants, people finally found several high-yielding, relatively nutritious crops for large-scale cultivation at the base.

Although the taste of those things is much worse than before the end of the world, as long as you can have a full stomach at this time, it is good! 

Among them, mutant potatoes are especially popular among the survivors of various bases. The main reason is that the growth time of mutated potatoes after sowing becomes many times faster than that of normal potatoes before the end of the world. Before it would take at least five months for ordinary potatoes to be harvested, but now, potatoes can be harvested after growing for only two months! And it can be planted in any season other than severe winter!

This kind of food, which has a large yield, fast sowing and harvesting speed, and much better taste than other mutated crops, naturally replaced the status of rice and other miscellaneous grains and became an important staple food in the base. 

The other staple crop in the base was carrots. Its growth and seeding method is somewhat similar to that of potatoes, and although it takes about three months for the mutated carrot to be harvested, it is rich in vitamins and has a good taste and texture. This is the best choice for balanced nutrition for people after the end of the world. If these two foods are combined for daily consumption, they can fully supply the normal nutritional needs of ordinary people.

After the apocalypse, fruits are regarded as rare varieties. So although the taste of carrots is a little worse now than before, they are still crispy, sweet, and refreshing. If eaten raw, they can be used as fruits to supplement nutrition and water. It is the most popular vegetable in the base besides potatoes. 

Of course, carrots are not as good as potatoes in that their output is much less than potatoes. After fully grown carrots grow roots, they need to be planted first to form seeds, and carrots can only be grown after the seeds are produced. So he could only eat it once in a while, if he could have eaten it every day…that is, only those who have some status in the base could afford it.

As Wei Xuan is idle recently, once he finds the sprouted potatoes at home, he cuts them and stores them in baskets. As for the carrots that grow roots, he takes them out to dig holes to plant them and keep an eye out for their situation.  

He does this every once in a while so that the harvest time of these things is spaced apart, forming a good cycle pattern. While cultivating, he can also clean up the mutated and aggressive plants in advance, to avoid letting them grow wildly in the city affecting his personal safety.