◎The 112th Happy Day: The Miserable Worker◎
There are far fewer survivors at the South 1 Base.
This was Jiang Muyun’s first feeling after arriving at the South One Base.
As far as Jiang Muyun knew, before the sandstorm arrived, the South One Base had already accommodated more than 5,000 survivors. Normally, the base was not crowded, but it could still be considered lively. But now, it looked like nine out of ten rooms were empty.
Everyone went out at night. When Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen arrived at the South 1 Base, it was still dark. There were few people on the roads inside the South 1 Base. Occasionally, there were survivors passing by, but they all seemed to be walking in a hurry.
There were not even many pine oil lamps lit on the street, and at first glance the entire base looked dim.
Not really?
Didn’t Captain Yu make any advance preparations?
During the polar day, the temperature of the sand and dust is transferred from the surface to the bottom. There is always a process in between, and this time is not short.
Even Jiang Muyun and his friends had time to make preparations, so there was no reason why so many people at the Nanyi Base could just stand by and watch.
Tang An took the initiative to explain, "A lot of people from the base were sent to the western suburbs. The remaining survivors have all gone to the city these days, so there aren't many people at the base."
The security at the South First Base was excellent, and the penalties for theft were severe. Furthermore, after the disaster, many people were left penniless, leaving little to steal.
After being able to go out, many survivors chose to take the little remaining water and go to the city to try their luck and see if they could find something useful while there were few people around.
The South One Base has a lot of water reserves and a points redemption system, but points are not easy to obtain. Apart from working for the base, the only way to get them is to exchange them for supplies.
Some survivors have a high degree of trust in the base, so they will choose to exchange unused supplies and food that is difficult to store for points. At this time, the points can be used for emergencies.
But the South 1 Base was established not long ago, and many survivors joined the base even less recently.
Rather than base points, they trust more in what they can hold in their hands.
They would rather use the time they spend working at the base to earn points to go out and search for supplies, and sell the unused items at the trading market or other bases, turning all their assets into tangible objects rather than illusory points currency.
For them, a well-ordered base is like a warehouse with higher security.
The survivors each have their own way of living, and Jiang Muyun doesn't care much about this. She is more curious about what is happening at the West Suburb Transfer Station.
"Still building the wall?" After getting the answer, Jiang Muyun always felt that this matter seemed both reliable and outrageous.
Tang An said helplessly, "Yeah, I just got back from my shift over there. Now both bases have allocated a thousand people each, plus the survivors who originally stayed in the western suburbs, there are probably more than 2,200 people in total, and they are all working hard to build the wall."
According to the estimates of Captain Yu and Meng San, the West Suburb Transfer Station will become the trade center of Nanshi and its surrounding areas in the future.
All large caravans coming to South City will not be allowed to directly enter the base where ordinary survivors live. All large-scale trade will be completed in the western suburbs.
It’s easy to imagine how much supplies flow in and out of the Xijiao Transfer Station every day.
There's nothing wrong with building a wall to keep thieves out.
The only wrong thing was that Jiang Muyun felt that the wall might not be able to prevent thieves.
Jiang Muyun thought carefully for a moment and then asked, "Are you planning to build a Nanshi version of the Great Wall to enclose the western suburbs?"
Apart from this, Jiang Muyun really doesn't know what other wall can prevent thieves.
Even if you build a five-meter-high wall, people will still climb over it if no one is watching, right?
The western suburbs is such a large area, it's impossible to gather more than a thousand people every day to stand hand in hand at the foot of the wall, right?
Jiang Muyun said this somewhat jokingly, but Tang An was obviously surprised after hearing it.
Jiang Muyun: "No way...are they really building it like the Great Wall?"
Tang An nodded. "Yeah. The inspiration came from the previous Western Suburbs base. We set up high-point sentries at regular intervals, with guards on duty everywhere. If they notice something amiss, they'll use a special wooden whistle to signal the nearby guards, and they'll come over. It's like a chain defense."
The specific plan needs to be more detailed. For example, the guards within a certain range of meters from the reporting point will directly arrive at the reporting point, the guards from the surrounding areas who arrive later will directly surround that area, and the guards at a certain distance away will remain on standby to prevent anyone from luring the enemy away and making a feint to the east while making a move in the west.
But now that they were on the street, Tang An couldn't explain these things in too much detail.
Jiang Muyun had a certain degree of control over the Western Suburbs. When the Western Suburbs transfer station was completed and everyone's verbal agreement was put on paper, Jiang Muyun would be the one to sign. Sooner or later, she would have to know the detailed rules and regulations, and she might even have a hand in drafting them.
Seeing that Jiang Muyun had no intention of asking further questions, Tang An stopped talking and started talking about the construction progress of the West Suburb Transfer Station.
The foundation of the city wall has been laid, and now is the time to pour water in regardless of the cost.
Several large foreign caravans have already found the South One Base, but the base is currently short of staff and no one dares to let these caravans in. They can only direct them to the West Suburbs Transfer Station which has not yet been built.
Just for these caravans, Captain Yu also went to the western suburbs. Before Tang An returned, several deals had been concluded.
The largest amount was the fresh water purchased from the water-trading caravan from the east. I heard that another batch was also ordered.
The prices are quite outrageous.
The sea was indeed uncovered, and no one could stop people from fetching water. But the costs and risks were too high, so high that Captain Yu tossed and turned all night before finally accepting the decision.
Even the caravan that came to sell water did not come directly from Hai City. It was unknown how many times the water passed through their hands in between.
Water vendors in Haishi sell water to nearby cities, shortening the distance to reduce travel risks and transportation costs. Similarly, nearby cities sell water to Liushi. Any excess water in Liushi is sold to areas further west, such as Nanshi, where water is even scarcer.
After scraping it off layer by layer, when it reaches Nanshi, the price is sky-high.
If Captain Yu was not in a hurry to use the water, and gritted his teeth and sold the water to the west, he would definitely make a lot of money.
But this business makes a lot of money, but also carries great risks.
If the rainy season comes during transportation, all your money will be lost.
Jiang Muyun touched the wilted chili pepper in his arms and said, "Son, try to fight for your courage."
These pepper seeds were obtained by Jiang Muyun before the end of the world. The soil used to grow the peppers was uncontaminated soil. The pepper seedlings also grew very fast in the early stage. Except for not blooming or bearing fruit, there was nothing unusual at all.
Professor Chen's authoritative diagnosis proves that Lajiaozi is still quite promising.
The ones who are not ambitious are those who grow peppers.
The peppers were taken care of too well by them in the beginning, and the plants grew too tall, but none of them noticed anything was wrong.
Zhou Ying discovered that her small bonsai was developing abnormally, but she didn't think that the abnormality was because the bonsai was too tall.
On the contrary, she had seen many tall pepper plants grown in the fields, and she thought that her own small bonsai was malnourished because it was not planted in the ground. Not only did she not control the size of the plant, but she also used fish waste to ferment more nitrogen fertilizer to supplement the nutrition of the small pepper.
As for Jiang Muyun... In the planting tutorials she had seen, the peppers grown by others were all tall. Jiang Muyun and Zhou Ying worked together every day to find ways to ferment more nitrogen fertilizer and try to grow the peppers taller.
Later, the rainy season came and went without a trace. They were afraid that the young water plants would be thirsty, so they never hesitated to water them. It was only when they were trapped at home in the later period and needed to save water that they stopped watering them every day.
If there was any mistake in the process, the peppers would not have grown so tall.
The accuracy of this was so high that even Professor Chen sympathetically advised Jiang Muyun to be more positive, saying that it was already amazing that he could grow peppers the first time.
Jiang Muyun was still in shock when she left the Nanyi Base. She even handed the precious chili pepper she had been holding in her arms to Chu Buwen.
It breaks my heart every time I see it, so I might as well just give it to Chu Buwen. Out of sight, out of mind.
Seeing her distressed expression, Chu Buwen thought she was regretting not growing the peppers well, so he whispered to her in a comforting voice, "At the time, we all just wanted to stockpile the finished products, just enough to use. No one thought we'd have to grow them ourselves, so it's normal that we didn't check the information in advance. Just like Professor Chen said, we're all novices, so it's great that we can grow them well."
Jiang Muyun said bitterly: "I don't feel sorry for the peppers. As long as the peppers can survive, they will grow. What I feel sorry for is that we wasted so much fertilizer and water."
Even if Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen scratched their heads, two people who had never farmed would never think of stockpiling fertilizers when they were stockpiling goods.
If Jiang Muyun didn't have a space in her hand, she wouldn't even hoard clean soil.
Therefore, all the fertilizers they use now are made by themselves using limited materials.
What with wood ash, fish offal, and biological fertilizer? Blue Star is still making trouble every day. Whether the composting can be successful depends entirely on fate.
Especially nitrogen fertilizer. There are not many times to catch fish after the apocalypse. After much difficulty in producing some nitrogen fertilizer, it all has the opposite effect, which is a double loss.
Jiang Muyun felt depressed just thinking about it.
If she had known this earlier, she would not have just bought the fish, chickens and ducks that had been processed by others for the sake of convenience.
That way she could sneak some offal from the space and mix it in, and get more fertilizer.
Chu Buwen touched the tall man in his arms and said, "It's better that our planting method is wrong than that the peppers themselves have problems. Don't you feel happier when you think about it this way?"
Jiang Muyun was indeed a little happier after hearing this, but the others were not so open-minded.
Zhou Ying felt unwell.
In the end times, when you plant peppers, they get too much nutrition and won’t bloom.
End of the world! Overnutrition!
"How could such an outrageous thing happen?"
Zhou Ying feels like she is a miserable worker who just entered the workplace and was deceived by her boss. So she tightened her belt to work for the company and help it develop, but then she turned around and found that her bastard boss had just bought a luxury car.
Wang Qingqing was very good at comforting people: "We are not that unlucky. We were not deceived by the boss. We volunteered to work here and were paid for it."
Zhou Ying: "Why do you think this statement is so good?"
Wang Qingqing pondered for a moment: "At least we made the choice. It sounds smarter than being cheated."
Zheng Xiang was impressed: "Your thinking is really good, you are so smart."
The clever Wang Qingqing successfully diverted everyone's attention. When everyone was tearfully plucking the branches and leaves of the peppers and cutting the lush seedlings they had raised with their own hands into bald spots, all they could think of was "This is what I deserve."
It seems... I am indeed in a better mood than before.
In addition to processing crops, everyone also took this time to take inventory of the supplies on hand.
Order has collapsed for so long that there are not many valuable materials to be found in the outside world, but they are not short of common materials.
Compared with the risks of going out to search for supplies and the cost of cleaning after returning, everyone thinks it is better to stay at home.
Replenish the firewood that was consumed previously, dry the clothes and quilts in the sun to disinfect them during the day, find some food to supplement the nutrition of the hungry rabbits, and prepare the supplies to be transported to the western suburbs for trading later.
Whether it was the herbs in their hands, or the tea, cigarettes, and alcohol that they had fished out from the water before, or even some electrical appliances and electronic products that were not used temporarily, they were all precious materials that could be traded.
Some supplies may be worthless to them, but it will be a different story when they fall into the hands of traveling merchants.
Similarly, some things that are extremely scarce here may be as ubiquitous in other regions as the rags of cloth that they are too lazy to pick up now.
Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen traveled all the way from West City to South City in their previous life, and their understanding of this "information gap" was no less than that of ordinary traveling merchants.
So when everyone was counting the items for trading, there would often be scenes where others said that something was not valuable and there was no need to spend the effort to transport it to the western suburbs, while Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen, like two salesmen, would tell people how useful these things were and that survivors somewhere would definitely be able to use them, and then add them all to the list.
Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen's fancy explanations of the items' functions did not arouse anyone's suspicion, but instead reminded everyone of a problem that had been ignored before.
It is known that the collapse of order in the large area from Haishi to Nanshi was due to the tsunami, crude oil spill, and even the outflow of weapons was one of the important factors.
So how did other places suffer from disasters?
If it was just a communication cutoff, there is no reason why the entire Blue Planet would fall into chaos in just a few days.
Because if the entire blue planet had not fallen into a state of anarchy, then from a pessimistic point of view, even if they could not wait for international assistance, foreign enemies would always take advantage of the chaos to invade.
But now there is nothing.
Jiang Muyun quickly wrote down the list of supplies on a small piece of paper, and at the same time thought about pricing and sales channels.
After listening to the various wild speculations of several people, Jiang Muyun spread out the list he had compiled in front of everyone: "Is it an alien invasion or the spread of a hypnotic virus? Wait two days to go to the Western Suburbs Transfer Station and ask the caravans from various places, and we'll know."
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