"Lao Zhang, haven't you found any news about that woman selling vegetables?" The leaders of the research institute and its subordinate farms sat around a table, all with worried looks on their faces.
But this was not the case a week ago or even earlier.
Since they discovered the vegetables that the mysterious woman was selling for seeds, it didn't take long for them to cross-breed the existing varieties to create new varieties with medium yield and stable seed reserves.
It is also because of the successful large-scale cultivation of these new sustainable varieties that the officials of the Hongcheng base were given confidence and hope. The officials believed that since the institute could produce new varieties of vegetables, it was only a matter of time before they could produce grains. Only then did they begin to recycle gold on a large scale, causing the price of gold at the base to rise.
With such great achievements, the government naturally gave the institute a great reward. However, along with the reward came the new task of overcoming difficulties, making persistent efforts, and developing more crops with stable seed retention and high yield, which was quite urgent.
The apocalypse has broken out, and everything is reshuffled. Hongcheng Base currently has two large military/factories, and is self-sufficient in guns and ammunition. It also has a large population. If it can make further progress in agriculture, it will not be subject to control by others in the future, and it will definitely be able to make further progress.
Power is always sought after by people.
The treatment of all staff members has been improved, which is naturally a happy thing. But how can they develop new varieties out of nothing? The existing three kinds of celery, radish, and cabbage, celery was bought by the wife of staff member Lao Zhang at a flea market outside the city by accident, and the radish and cabbage were later recycled at a high price in the city, and sold by the mysterious woman before. It was also thanks to the fact that cabbage and radish were originally high-yield crops that the food shortage in Hongcheng Base was alleviated for a period of time.
It was originally thought that the mysterious woman often came out to sell vegetables, and would appear again soon, and then find a reason to force or bribe her to hand over all the seeds in her hand: in the eyes of the people in the research institute, directly inducing germination is a waste of resources, and such precious seeds should be used for their research and hybridization first!
But even with all sorts of assumptions, who could have imagined that this woman would just disappear from the face of the earth and never show up again?
Zhang Helin shook his head in a headache: "I asked my wife to go to the flea market outside the city every day, and I never saw her again." He turned to look at the leader of the Third Farm: "Didn't they say before that the woman came from the Third Farm? Don't you have any news?"
"At first, it was just suspected, how did it become that she came from our Third Farm? Who has evidence? I haven't even seen her, how do I know if it is her or who she is?" The leader of the Third Farm didn't even raise his eyelids and kicked the ball back: "In my opinion, this woman may not be from our Third Farm. Maybe she came from another base, stopped in our Hongcheng, and then went to other places?"
The conference room fell silent. In fact, many people agreed with this statement. After all, there were no seeds that could be saved in Hongcheng. If the woman was a local of Hongcheng, where did she get them from? It was possible that she was from a village in a city with developed agriculture. She had saved some seeds in her family before, and then she awakened the wood ability, so she passed by the Hongcheng base and sold them.
But this is not good news: "What should we do? How should we explain this to our superiors?" The leader of the Institute's Agriculture Department scratched his head in annoyance.
"How can we explain? If it were you, you should have just told the truth. Your institute insisted on taking the credit, and now you've messed it up!" The leaders of the third farm were very clear-headed, but they were unwilling to share the blame with them. If they hadn't had bad intentions, and had wanted to take the woman's seed and take the credit, how could they have ended up in this difficult situation today!
"You are saying this now? When the official reward came down, I didn't see you refuse it!" the person from the Ministry of Agriculture said angrily.
"I don't know anything. We are giving bonuses for working overtime to help the crops grow." The leader of the third farm winked at his fellow farmers, and they all stood up and prepared to leave, not wanting to get involved in this matter. "You didn't discuss this with us before you reported it to your superiors, so don't bring our farm into this now."
In fact, according to his idea, it would be better if the woman was not from their third farm. I heard that there was a wood-type mutant who was disabled by the mutant willow tree. The matter of the mutant willow tree was handled very undignifiedly by their third farm. If no one mentioned it, it would just pass. If it got out of hand, it would be bad for him.
As for the research institute, it would be natural for it to share the same glory with them, but there is no need for it to suffer the same fate with them.
The people from the third farm tried to distance themselves from the matter, and the people from the institute could not stop them, so they could only watch the people from the farm leave. Liu Weiqiang, the second-in-command of the Ministry of Agriculture who had originally proposed taking the credit, was completely anxious. If this matter was really investigated, he would be the first to be blamed! "What should we do? How can we explain this to the people above us?"
If he had told the truth from the beginning as the farm leader said, it would not be a big deal and he would definitely get rewarded. But now that he has concealed it, it will be difficult to change his words. He will be punished and will not be promoted for several years. It is the end of the world, and he is not sure whether he can live for many years!
Their institute had done this kind of thing before, especially after the end of the world, after all, information was not transparent. After tasting the sweetness a few times, he was so good at it. Who would have thought that this woman would just disappear like this? They really learned a big lesson this time.
"If it really doesn't work, let's just delay it for now..." Zhang Helin said helplessly, "It's been almost a year since the apocalypse broke out, and all places have become stable. Sooner or later, we'll be able to communicate with each other. Just say there's been no progress, and wait until other agricultural bases send us seeds, or we can exchange what we have with them... Tell the higher-ups that grains are different from vegetables and we can't conquer them."
"That's easy for you to say. The higher-ups are pushing us so hard because they just don't want to ask other bases for money! Besides, vegetables shouldn't be limited to celery, cabbage, and radish. If the higher-ups let us develop a few more vegetable seeds..."
The young man who had been sitting in the corner and remained silent pushed up his glasses and interrupted, "I have an idea, but it might be a little risky."
Zhang Helin, Liu Weiqiang and others immediately focused their attention on the young man.
"We recently had a new brain-type mutant come to our institute." The young man's glasses gleamed. "Speaking of which, the development direction of this brain-type mutant is quite useless. She has neither highly developed intelligence nor mental control, but she can read people's memories. This ability is really useless. It's only because she is indeed a brain-type mutant and may be able to evolve in the future that we recruited her as a backup and gave her the lowest salary. No one else wants to work with her."
Who doesn't have some secrets? Especially those who work in research institutes. There are many people in the world who are engaged in academics, but those who can still make a place in this end times are all shrewd people. Which shrewd person would like others to peek into his thoughts and past?
"But we can use her this time. We couldn't find that woman mainly because the network was down. There was no surveillance footage in the base, and we didn't know what she looked like or where she had been. But this brain-type mutant is like a surveillance footage. If we can trace the origin of that woman through her, even if we can't find her, but we know where she came from, then we can hire a team of mutants to go there to look for seeds. Isn't that also a method? I think the authorities will be willing to allocate more funds to our scientific research so that we can collect some samples."
After hearing this, the others were somewhat concerned about the new brain-powered person's abilities, but their concerns were limited. Only Zhang Helin was very resistant: If he wanted to read the memory, should he start with his wife? He didn't want his family affairs to be known by outsiders!
The man with glasses smiled and said, "Don't be nervous, Brother Zhang. You don't need to read my sister-in-law's memory. Didn't we buy radishes and cabbages in the city later? Just find those people. And at the flea market outside the city, where that woman is setting up a stall, let the brain-type mutant read the memory of the stall owners around. At most, let my sister-in-law point out the location."
Zhang Helin finally let down his guard after hearing that. But he still emphasized to the man with glasses: "We must tell that person with special abilities not to look at things that she shouldn't look at, otherwise we have ten thousand ways to make her unable to survive in Hongcheng Base!"
The man with glasses nodded and said, "Brother Zhang, don't worry. Leave this matter to me. You don't even have to show up. I will definitely take care of it."
Chen Jiaqian had not met Shen Qing and the others since she came back from Zizhou. She herself had also felt that she and this group of people were a bit different. Although in the end, because she saw Ge Bingbing's "side effects", she did not absorb those human crystal cores, but she did not discard them either. She was only afraid of the "side effects" of the crystal cores, and she was not opposed to absorbing the crystal cores of the same kind.
She kept those human crystal cores close to her body. If she encountered a critical moment, she thought she would absorb them without hesitation.
When life is threatened, who cares about side effects?
Based on this alone, she knew that she, Shen Qing, and Song Kaiji were not of the same kind. If they were forced to get together, they would only make each other uncomfortable. So she was very tactful and did not bother them anymore. However, Song Kaiji told her the news that the institute was recruiting brain-type superpowers before they parted.
Chen Jiaqian was very grateful for this. She applied for a job soon after returning to Hongcheng Base and was admitted to the institute smoothly. Although the salary was very low, it was stable and there were not many jobs. With her salary and the money her husband earned as a laborer, the family of four barely survived in Hongcheng Base.
This was the first time she was assigned a job.
Chen Jiaqian looked at the six or seven people in front of her, both men and women, who were taken to the flea market outside the city without knowing anything. The man with glasses handed her a handful of crystal cores, leaned in and whispered, "Excuse me, Sister Chen, take a look at these people setting up stalls. From the memory of the twenty-seventh day of the lunar year, is there a woman selling celery nearby?"
He glanced at the people who were brought in. These were the people who had bought vegetables from the mysterious woman before, and their institute had purchased them from them before. "Take a look at the vegetable-selling woman in these people's memories and trace her origins and whereabouts. If she is still in the base, it would be best if we could find her."
Chen Jiaqian pinched the handful of crystal cores, about eight or nine, not a lot. But this was in addition to the salary from the institute, so it would be a waste not to take it. Chen Jiaqian had just started working at the institute, and she also wanted to get along well with her colleagues.
She closed her eyes and began to concentrate on sensing the memories of the vendors around her. It was the twenty-seventh day of the lunar year, less than a month away, and takeout food from the base was rare, so many people still had a deep impression.
Chen Jiaqian opened her eyes suddenly, and with some disbelief, she read the memories of those who had bought the vegetables.
A familiar figure appeared many times in these people's memories: Qu Weiwei.
Chen Jiaqian pinched the corner of her clothes and said under the expectant eyes of the man with glasses: "I saw her, but I can't see where she went before, I need to look for her again." She said calmly: "Why are you looking for her? Could she have stolen the vegetables from the institute and sold them?"
The man with glasses was a little disappointed, and said casually, "Yeah, yes, the Third Farm is trying to catch a thief. Sister Chen, don't ask too much, just help me keep an eye on the whereabouts of this woman. See who among them has a memory closer to the time when the woman last appeared? Let's follow her and look for her."
"Oh, I see. Let me take a closer look." When the man with glasses didn't notice, Chen Jiaqian had already retracted her "gaze".
Since Yu Le got the job assigned by Shen Qing, she went to the city gate every day. This is a treasure land for major superpower teams to recruit new members. Many new superpowers are fought over by several teams as soon as they enter the city, especially those with high superpower levels. Yu Le is just an ordinary person, and a young girl. She was often excluded and bullied at the beginning, but she was not discouraged. Sometimes she would go to the refugee camp outside the base.
There were occasionally people with special abilities in the refugee camps, but they were few in number and often had families with them, so they could not afford the entrance fee and had to live in the refugee camps. But Yu Le did not completely ignore these people. She had heard from Qu Weiwei that Tang Wenjie and Chen Jiaqian were both rescued by the boss from the refugee camps!
Yu Le carefully wrote down the information of all the people with special abilities in a small notebook. Since she couldn't compete with other teams for people with high special abilities, she wrote down the information of people with low special abilities. The boss said that special abilities can be cultivated, but the most important thing is good character!
After being busy for three or four days, she actually selected about ten people and invited Shen Qing and Song Kaiji to interview them.
These people all have abilities at level two or three, they have families but not many, and they can barely support themselves and their families, and they want to join a large team but no one wants them. Therefore, they dare not ask for too high a salary, they just hope to have a stable residence, and their families can stay in a safe place when they are on a mission, without any worries.
Shen Qing and Song Kaiji came to interview and kept two-thirds of the candidates, all of whom were people who they liked and thought had decent character. Of course, a person's character cannot be fully understood after just a short contact, and one can slowly experience it in the future.
The rent of their original residence in the outer city was not due this month, so it was just right to house these people. There were nine people selected this time, plus their family members, young and old, totaling 21 people. Shen Qing simply rented the apartment downstairs for these people to live in.
There were three fire-type psychics, one water-type psychic, two wood-type psychics, one wind-type psychic, and two earth-type psychics. When Shen Qing selected them, he focused on collecting all the psychics, so that they could easily solve any emergencies when they were on missions, and they could also be self-sufficient.
The people in the outer city team were treated differently from the core team. Shen Qing selected two aunts who looked quite honest to be in charge of cooking. Their cooking skills were far inferior to Tang's mother, but middle-aged women had their own flavor when making stews. Yu Le sent them food every few days. The food was simple, with cabbage, radish, coarse grains and pancakes, and a few seeds for the wood-type mutants to grow vegetables themselves.
It can't be compared with what Shen Qing and the others eat, but it is already considered good in the Hongcheng base. Those who can afford to eat vegetables are all big special ability teams, and they also give them to the newcomers. Everyone who joins the team is very happy.
When they went to Zizhou before, Shen Qing never asked them to hand in the zombies they killed and the crystal cores they dug. In the end, whether it was Sun Cheng or Chen Jiaqian, they were allowed to take them all away. But now it can't be like this anymore, rules must be established.
All the crystal cores dug up during the mission belong to the team. The team provides food and accommodation. Level 2 psychics will be given 50 crystal cores per month, and level 3 psychics will be given 60 crystal cores per month. The probation period is three months, and after three months, there is a chance to be selected into the inner city team, with additional treatment.
If there are ordinary people willing to follow the mission and dig crystal cores, twenty crystal cores will be distributed every month.
With someone dedicated to digging out the crystal cores, the psychics can concentrate on killing zombies, which is more efficient.
Everyone had no objection. This treatment was already very good in the Hongcheng base, especially since their ability levels were not high. Especially after following Tang Wenjie and his team on a mission, the iron cage tactics had a very high safety factor, and there was almost no risk of contracting the zombie virus. They were even more willing to follow Shen Qing, and everyone worked hard to perform, and even ordinary people signed up to dig crystal cores.
Song Kaiji thought of Sun Cheng again and turned to ask Yu Le. Yu Le also witnessed the cracks in the relationship between Sun Cheng and Ge Bingbing, and explained to Song Kaiji very embarrassedly: "I went to find Brother Sun first, and I went to find him again not long ago. But his parents really doted on their youngest son. Sun Cheng's father even said that he was willing to go to dig crystal cores, and he refused to let Sun Xian go."
Yu Le was very confused. It was okay for the old man and old lady to be reluctant to let Sun Xian kill zombies, but it sounded a bit scary. The reason why she came the second time was because Shen Qing said that ordinary people could go to dig crystal cores. How easy is this job? It also meets Sister Bingbing's requirement that Sun Xian be self-reliant. Why would the old man rather dig it himself than let Sun Xian go?
It's the end of the world now, there should be a limit to pampering, right? If you still pamper your child like this, it's like killing him!
"Not only that, but the old couple still said bad things about Sister Bingbing in front of me, saying that someone in their family had gone to dig crystal cores, and they wouldn't lose money or food for their daughter anymore, so why should Sister Bingbing care about who went to dig? They said Sister Bingbing was a thorn in the side, and that she was not virtuous and so on." Ge Bingbing has always taken good care of Yu Le, since they were in Zizhou. Naturally, Yu Le's heart leans more towards her, and the more she talked, the more unhappy she became.
Shen Qing was listening at the side and interrupted, "What does Sun Cheng mean?"
Yu Le paused for a moment before saying, "Brother Sun is in a difficult situation. He was scolded when he tried to persuade his parents, and he didn't dare to say anything else."
"Did he directly tell Sun Xian that he wanted Sun Xian to go dig for the crystal core?"
Yu Le thought for a moment and said, "Not in front of me."
"Okay, you don't have to ask him anymore. If Sister Bingbing asks, just tell her the truth. Unless Sister Bingbing wants to go find Sun Cheng herself, don't mention this person again." Shen Qing said indifferently.
He has read a lot of books recently, and his knowledge has increased. He has seen a lot of family matters. How Sun Xian is doing, how the old couple are doing, although they are also important, they are secondary. The key is that the man himself must be clear.
Although Sun Cheng has his own difficulties and is pitiful, he is obviously not a clear-headed person, at least for now. Shen Qing actually thinks that he can also help Sun Cheng. He is not the kind of person who pushes people away when something happens. For a neutral person, it is always better to have one more friend than one more enemy.
But Shen Qing didn't want to completely push Sun Cheng away, but felt that pushing him appropriately might speed up Sun Cheng's awakening. Instead, he kept looking for him and giving him a chance, which made Sun Cheng feel that he had a way out and hesitated.
Yu Le didn't understand the twists and turns, but she nodded her head when her boss spoke. Shen Qing asked her to continue looking for suitable candidates. There was no need to rush this time. She could interview again in three months. "The second batch is planned to admit six people."
These days, Yu Le is responsible for managing the outer city team, distributing supplies and wages, and continuing to select good seedlings. The little girl became busy, no longer the timid look she had before, and was full of energy.
Yu Le skipped away with the notebook in his hand, while Shen Qing turned his head to look at Song Kaiji. Song Kaiji was much better than Sun Cheng. He was very clear-headed and would not even tell Zhang Sujuan if Shen Qing did not allow him to say anything.
For a while, Shen Qing keenly noticed that Zhang Sujuan's attitude towards him had changed: he couldn't put it into words, but he noticed that this change was a development in a bad direction?
But Song Kaiji did not let this germinate. I don't know how much effort he put in behind the scenes, but soon Zhang Sujuan's attitude returned to normal.
This is what a man should be like. Shen Qing has seen too many cases in the village where the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law was ruined because the men were not good at handling things: some men were like people without brains. When their mothers pointed out some shortcomings of their wives or husbands, they would run to their wives or husbands and repeat them, saying, "My mother thinks this is not good for you, you have to change it."
Isn't this wrong? I'm afraid the family won't break up!
Then there are people like Sun Cheng, who have no ability to reconcile the conflicts at home. He just keeps complaining about his pain to his wife and mother, asking them to be more considerate and sympathetic towards him, and throws his negative emotions onto them.
Incompetent and weak.
At the gate of the base not far away, I don’t know if it was a couple or a husband and wife, but they seemed to have just experienced the separation of life and death, and they hugged and kissed at the gate of the base.
Shen Qing took two glances and gave Song Kaiji a loud kiss on the cheek.
Song Kaiji looked back at him in surprise, covering her face like a young wife who had been flirted with: "What happened suddenly?"
"Reward you." Shen Qing said with a smile, "I think you are very good."
The couple at the city gate can do it, so why can't he do it? Shen Qing's ears were a little red, but she still turned sideways and kissed Song Kaiji on the other side of his face.
The new recruits all looked at them secretly.
Song Kaiji's breathing became heavier, and he pressed Shen Qing's shoulders: "That's enough... That's enough." His voice was small and sticky: "Although I don't know why you rewarded me... But can I save the reward first? I want to deposit it in small amounts and withdraw it in full, is that okay?"
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