Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Adding fresh water and expanding the capacity of the water tank was like tily help for Chen Xin, solving his urgent needs.
With a water pump now available to extract groundwater, Chen Xin clearly doesn’t have to be as tight-fisted with water as before.
Previously, although there were three tons of freshwater and a water recycling system that could purify wastewater and reclaim moisture from the air, the shelter wasn’t a space station in space. It couldn’t be completely sealed, so the efficiency of the water recycling system naturally wasn’t 100%. In fact, achieving a 90% water recycling efficiency was already considered highly impressive.
But even so, losing 10% in each cycle ant that three tons of water wouldn’t last very long. According to the statistics of urban water usage in the Fla Country, under normal circumstances, one person would use 130-300 liters of water a day, averaging about 4 to 10 tons a month.
And this isn’t even accounting for the water consumption in the greenhouse for irrigation.
Factoring in the evaporation of moisture from the ventilation system and the water consumption for the greenhouse plants, managing to last a month before encountering a water shortage was already considered extrely frugal by Chen Xin.
However, with the new water pump and the large tank capable of holding eight tons of water, Chen Xin could sowhat loosen his water conservation efforts. He no longer had to live like an astronaut on a space station, only wiping his face with a damp towel to wash, and having to turn off the tap imdiately after wetting himself and using soap in the shower.
This easing of water restrictions was indeed a significant improvent in living conditions for Chen Xin.
He believed that by nightfall, when survival points were tallied, his daily inco could increase by at least one point.
After filling the water tank, Chen Xin turned off the water pump and returned to the greenhouse to continue watering, finishing the parts that hadn’t been watered earlier.
If one hectare of land were used for vegetable cultivation, it would really just be a small garden, not much space, but a hundred square ters was not small at all.
If you put it in a place like Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou, a hundred square ters for a house would cost at least one or two million. Do you still think a hundred square ters is small?
Moreover, a hundred square ters of land might only be enough to grow upland rice for one person, but if you plant quick-harvesting vegetables like cabbage and lettuce, which can be harvested in a month, the production can be quite substantial.
At least after Chen Xin harvested all the mature lettuce and cabbage, he found a large pile on the ground, making him feel he couldn’t eat it all.
Chen Xin didn’t have scales and couldn’t asure exactly how much these vegetables weighed.
But there were at least a hundred or two hundred heads of vegetables, not counting the few left for seed and the other half of the land planted with carrots.
Calculating at the rate of one vegetable a day, these would last Chen Xin for more than half a year.
Even though cabbage is durable, Chen Xin didn’t think he could finish all the cabbage in half a year if he ate it daily, not to ntion the sa amount of lettuce.
So, after keeping enough for himself, Chen Xin planned to take the rest out for trading.
This was also part of Chen Xin’s original plan, regardless of the external situation, he needed to go out and see what the world had beco after the teor impact.
After packing the harvested vegetables into large plastic boxes he found, Chen Xin then considered how to deal with these vegetables.
These boxes were storage containers he had previously purchased to store things in the shelter, but once he entered the shelter, he realized there wasn’t much that needed storing in boxes, so they had been set aside in the storage room, now finally proving useful.
While packing the lettuce and cabbage, Chen Xin also roughly estimated the quantity of these vegetables.
There were about over eighty heads of cabbage packed into two plastic boxes, weighing at least three to four hundred kilograms, and the yield of lettuce, though not as crazy as cabbage, still filled one and a half plastic boxes, around two hundred kilograms.
The cabbages Chen Xin planted were an early-maturing variety, and since they were grown in a greenhouse, they were quite plump despite only growing for a month. Chen Xin estimated each head would last him three to five days.
Fortunately, cabbage is naturally a long-lasting vegetable that can be stored for three to four months in a cool environnt without spoilage.
So, Chen Xin kept a box of cabbage and half a box of lettuce in his storage room, and moved the other two boxes of vegetables to the garage, planning to take them out for trading.
While moving the cabbage and lettuce into the storage room, Chen Xin scratched his head looking at the space, thinking he should probably add the upgrade of the storage room to his improvent plans.
When he originally built the storage room, since he was storing bottled water and self-heating food packs, there was no need for low-temperature storage and preservation, so Chen Xin didn’t add those functions or prepare a fridge in the shelter.
But with these fresh vegetables harvested, Chen Xin now had to consider the storage issue.
Cabbage wasn’t too problematic due to low room temperatures allowing extended storage, but lettuce might wilt after just a few days.
Therefore, creating a cold storage or a fridge capable of preserving at least a hundred or two hundred kilograms of vegetables beca Chen Xin’s imdiate concern.
Soone might ask, isn’t the outside temperature supposed to drop to minus several tens of degrees? With such low temperatures, shouldn’t you be worried about the vegetables freezing rock hard instead?
This is technically correct, but the problem is the temperature hasn’t dropped that low yet!
Also, Chen Xin’s storage room is within the shelter, situated under hundreds of ters of soil, and under such conditions, it’s unlikely to plumt to minus several tens of degrees! If it were, Chen Xin would have already frozen.
The soil acts as an insulator, while underground geothermal warmth, though less noticeable on the surface, continually transfers heat upward.
In fact, scientific calculations show that for every thousand-ter increase in depth, the temperature rises by 25 degrees, aning every hundred ters adds about 3 degrees.
Therefore, Chen Xin’s shelter isn’t that cold, with the temperature inside his container ho remaining over twenty degrees. One might need a jacket, but otherwise, it’s tolerable.
While this couldn’t be considered warm, it was unlikely these vegetables would spoil quickly in the storage room. However, although the storage room wasn’t overly warm, it was still above ten degrees, making a fridge or cold storage necessary if Chen Xin intended to slowly consu these freshly harvested vegetables.
Fortunately, now that it’s a post-apocalyptic world, taking these fresh vegetables outside might just be sufficient to trade for a fridge or cold storage, maybe even nurous other goods.
With these thoughts, Chen Xin began preparing for his outing.
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