Jing Shu’s family strictly followed the rules from above, keeping the RV door firmly locked during als. Thankfully, due to Jing Shu’s installation of a ventilation system in anticipation of the super foul egg gas in the seventh year, they were able to keep the unpleasant odors outside. Otherwise, they couldn’t have borne to eat with that sll lingering.
For lunch, Grandma Jing had made potato cakes in the morning. These were then placed in the oven with sausage, ham, chili, and chunks of mushroom, all covered with a thick layer of cheese. Scooping a spoonful of the cheesy mashed potato cake and chewing, Jing Shu felt as if the cheese was dancing in her mouth—it was so fragrant and wonderfully greasy.
Jing Shu suddenly craved a cheese and seafood hot pot. Looks like I’ll need to make more cheese, she thought. But our cow needs to be milked daily, and that difficult task can only be entrusted to Wu You’ai.
The side dish was the roasted chicken Jing Shu wanted. Though they didn’t end up making beggar’s chicken, the roasted chicken was still excellent. After marinating for an hour with a special secret sauce and honey, the whole chicken was roasted to a golden-brown, its skin wonderfully crisp. Tearing off a piece of skin and tasting it, she found it incredibly crisp and delightful.
There were also roasted oysters, with minced garlic and millet peppers fried in oil. The essence was in adding so oyster sauce, each oyster sizzling in the garlic sauce as it roasted. Slurping one down delivered an unforgettable burst of savory flavor.
This al filled Jing Shu with imnse happiness. After they finished eating, Grandma Jing put the dishes and cutlery into the dishwasher. Mr. Jing cleaned up the dining area, while Mrs. Jing began to pack up the food they had brought out that day, leaving so for Wu You’ai, who was leading a team outside.
Zijin indeed stayed in Banana District. People from the Second Team organized a group to patrol the district to prevent any mischief amid the disaster. They also stopped another group from digging up bodies in the back mountains to deal with the aftermath. Digging up a corpse would earn them Virtual Coins, making many eager to do the work; they could even strip clothes from the deceased.
Zijin was very enthusiastic. This is just like before, she thought, racing against ti to rescue people trapped underground! If people are already dead, why would the governnt organize a rescue mission? Is it really just to excavate bodies?
Yes, it truly was for excavating bodies. The governnt was collecting every corpse this year. In fact, during the first year, due to drought and extre heat, the governnt had used corpses to farm maggots as an additional food source.
The second year didn’t see many deaths, but bodies were still sporadically used. Jing Shu, piecing together information from her past life and fragnted news from Su Malie in this life, learned that the governnt had been experinting with corpses during that second year.
The experints were successful, so from the third year of the apocalypse, orders were issued to collect every corpse, with rewards now offered to those who dug up the bodies. Jing Shu realized these bodies were being used by the governnt as a source for New Energy.
Jing Shu didn’t understand the details. However, she roughly knew that all the deceased were collected. Through the technological process of creating the Artificial Sun, these corpses were integrated to eventually produce New Energy.
After research and experintation, so bodies were transford into a partial energy source for the Artificial Sun, alleviating a small portion of Huaxia’s energy problems. Moreover, by-products were derived from this process, such as fats rendered from the bodies—commonly known as corpse oil.
Corpse oil would first be used to produce ergency food reserves. Subsequently, life-saving energy bars appeared. These bars were crunchy but made from uncertain ingredients, likely fried with corpse oil. The state perhaps reserved them for critical monts, to save lives when the origin of the food was a secondary concern.
After repeated reprocessing, this used oil beca refined oil. The governnt industrialized its production to support fuel combustion. This was the only explanation for how, during the extrely cold fifth year when the governnt was stretched to its limits and various types of fuel were nearly exhausted, they managed to bring out new Fuel in batch after batch to provide to people on the verge of freezing to death. This new Fuel was also made from corpse oil.
In this sense, every corpse still had great use. Of course, human body fat content is about 25%; if it was from people who hadn’t had enough to eat during the apocalypse, the oil yielded would be even less. Lard was the most abundant among all dostic poultry, reaching up to about 70%. There were also other oils like soybean oil, peanut oil, and so on. The governnt in forr tis had claid to use a blend of oils, but Jing Shu later ca to believe that it certainly included oil derived from the corpses collected over the years.
After all, tens of millions died in Huaxia each year. If all these corpses were processed for the Artificial Sun, and the derived oil used for food and industry, it would indeed save a significant amount of expense.
As technology advanced, the tyrant who took office in the fifth year committed an act abhorred by both gods and n. He advocated for the "synthetic cycle" concept. This ant that even if natural disasters destroyed food sources and crops could no longer be grown, humans could beco self-sufficient.
It ant recycling human feces for secondary use, remaking it into food. Before the apocalypse, Japan famously had "gold poop" food available, with flavors like banana and chocolate. Through a week of cultivation and adjustnt, feces excreted by professional body models—healthy, edible, and retaining nutrients—were backed by scientific claims of their health benefits.
Through science, the healthy energy that humans could reabsorb from feces could be extracted and directly injected into the human body or consud to achieve a lasting cycle.
He later achieved this, saving many lives. The tyrant’s thought process was bizarre: one might say he didn’t care about life, yet he saved many; conversely, one might say he cared, yet he had ended so many lives.
Jing Shu shivered. I’m the last person who has the right to judge if this is right or wrong, she thought. I can’t think of a better way to survive the apocalypse. Besides taking care of myself, I can’t do much else. Despite these thoughts, Jing Shu resolutely decided she would never again eat food from outside sources.
They had hardly stolen a mont’s peace after eating when the park began to bustle. People from Banana District started hurrying in from the hills behind them. Impressive, large groups from the sa district arrived one after another. Park staff began making urgent arrangents. Many were assigned to the dirty, chaotic landfill; they envied those in the clean and spacious parking lots until learning about the expensive Virtual Coins required, a realization that instantly dispelled such thoughts.
By afternoon, the people from Banana District were finally settled. Then, those from Lingshan District began to arrive, and the arrangents continued well into the evening. The park was filled with an extre cacophony: the thunderous rumbling from outside, intermittent tremors shaking the ground, and a constant barrage of loud noises, crying, and other commotions.
Wu You’ai ca back once to eat sothing, then left again. Third Aunt, however, had not returned at all.
In the face of this disaster, only Jing Shu appeared like an Old Taoist, leisurely playing with the Magic Cube and eating Fried Chicken Legs.
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