Chapter 067 Food is becoming scarce
"He just arrived a few days ago. I heard he traveled for over a month and took several trains to get here. He's your father's cousin. You should call him uncle, right? Why haven't I heard you mention such a relative in your family?" Jing's father hesitated for a moment, then continued:
"I was supposed to stay at your eldest brother's house, but I don't know why I ended up staying at Su Meimei's. It seems like I came here just for Su Meimei."
As soon as Su Meimei was mentioned, the atmosphere in the whole living room became a little cold. The grandparents had already returned to their house, and only Jing's father was still fiddling with garlic sprouts, Jing's mother was fiddling with mushroom bags, and Jingshu was making rope to tie frogs.
Jingshu raised her head and squinted her eyes unconsciously. She remembered very clearly that in her previous life, there was absolutely no relative coming from far away at this time, let alone her grandfather's cousin coming to see Su Meimei. What kind of butterfly effect caused this?
Jing's mother sighed, "A few years ago, my father and my cousin came here together as educated youth in the countryside. After a few years, his family was called back because of connections. My father wasn't so lucky, so he stayed. I was only a few years old at the time and don't remember much. I only heard about these things from my mother later. After my parents passed away, I completely lost contact with my hometown."
Jingshu frowned and pondered, "Grandpa has been dead for many years. Why did he suddenly come all the way here after so many years of no contact? What's the secret?"
Jing's father nodded and said, "Your eldest brother doesn't look well either. There might be something else going on here. Since it has nothing to do with us, let's just ignore it."
"Since the old man has come from so far away, we should go and see him. Besides, people of my parents' generation are basically gone... Alas." Jing's mother sighed.
In the end, the whole family decided to wait for the old lady to leave and give her a ride, mainly because Jing's mother was being hypocritical: "I really don't want to go to her aunt's house. I think I see through her."
Jing Ma would never be so sad about a stranger, but the problem is that they grew up together and she gave Su Meimei all the good things. Jing Ma treated Su Meimei with all her heart, but what was the result?
Not only did Su Meimei not help Jingma when she was in trouble, she also planned how to take advantage of Jingma, which completely broke Jingma's heart.
"Okay, I should go and take a look." Jingshu thought, she must find out what kind of butterfly effect caused something that didn't happen in her previous life, and she would not take Su Meimei lightly.
The work of her hands became faster and faster. Jingshu skillfully made hundreds of frog tying ropes. This was a technique she learned from a frog breeder in her previous life. The tying rope was actually a slipknot, similar to a dog leash. Through adjustment, it could be applied to the necks and limbs of frogs from small to large to prevent the frogs from jumping around and getting lost.
After all, in the apocalypse where insects are rampant and frogs are almost extinct due to high temperatures, raising a frog is very precious and not everyone can afford it. The biggest purpose of raising a frog is to eat insects, but the prerequisite is that the owner must provide water and an appropriate temperature.
To this end, Jingshu also went to the glass factory to steal a lot of containers for frogs. Usually the frogs stay in the containers, and every few hours they can be tied with a rope to eat the insects that inexplicably appear in the house. If the bell frogs are well raised, they can live for more than ten years and can eat all the insects around them. They are much more useful than the discontinued toilet water. Unfortunately, in the harsh living conditions of the end of the world, few people can do it.
In just a few days, the bell-horned frog in Jingshu's Rubik's Cube space had laid many tadpoles, while the three outside the villa had not reacted at all. Jingshu knew that frogs had difficulty reproducing and only had one season a year, so frog breeders had become rare in the apocalypse.
"Take your baby frog to work tomorrow to eat some insects. Pesticides are in short supply lately," said Jing's mother.
Jingshu agreed while watching the little episode in the group.
Wang Qiqi #13: "Right now, all the food in the homes of Luxury Car Dealer #5, Feng #3, Wang Dazhao #1, and Zhu Fan #7 has been eaten by carrion beetles. Does anyone have any food left that's willing to trade with them, or sell some to them? They're already lining up at the supermarket entrance, but it'll probably be two days before they can get in line and buy anything."
Then everyone in the group started talking about how they had wasted a lot of food at home, and now they didn’t even have instant noodles to eat. There was only cornmeal and rice left, which was not enough to eat.
I have a baby No. 13: "I can use 5 catties of dried sweet potatoes and
Wang Dazhao replaced all the baby supplies he had prepared. Almost everyone knew that Wang Dazhao's pregnant wife died after eating vegetables sold by scalpers, and her body was forcibly burned that same day.
Wang Dazhao No. 1: "Okay. I'll give all ten cans of uncontaminated milk powder to your Tuanzi."
I have a baby, No. 13: "Thank you so much. I'll give you another ten kilograms of rice! The milk powder is out of stock now and I can't even buy it."
Wang Dazhao No. 1: "Thank you."
When they saw that someone still had snacks like dried sweet potatoes at home, many people were excited and exchanged half a pound of rice for some dried sweet potatoes. As for the other three people, they didn't have anything worth exchanging at home, and even with Wang Qiqi's help, they were unsuccessful.
In the end, Wang Xuemei agreed to pay 300 yuan per person to send them a bowl of rice to the supermarket tomorrow, and this was for Wang Qiqi's sake.
Some time ago, there were scalpers selling vegetables, but they have disappeared recently. Cabbage cannot be bought even if the price is 1,000 yuan. There are fewer vegetables in the leaders' homes, not to mention that there are no people selling grain at high prices.
All food factories have stopped production, and supermarkets are out of all other goods. Only rice and noodles are sold in limited quantities and for a limited time every day. Everyone wants to stock up on food.
The sun has disappeared for half a year, and there is high temperature and water shortage. Even the country is going to use artificial sun. This means that food cannot be grown on a large scale yet. Everyone has realized the seriousness of the problem. Although there is still food, there is not much left, and everyone wants to stock up some more.
Many people who felt they had stockpiled too much food half a year ago now regret not stockpiling enough. In this situation, no one is willing to sell food.
The next day, Jingshu took the frog tied with ropes to Jingma's workplace, only to find out that Yu Caini was using pesticides to kill insects, so they had everything they needed. Only Jingma, who was poor, had nothing.
But fortunately, the garlic sprouts, spinach and oyster mushrooms on Jingma's side are growing lushly, and each one is very fresh and pleasing to the eye.
Jingshu pulled the rope and released the bell-horned frog. The frogs in the space were obviously active, jumping around to look for insects, while the other three frogs were much more dull.
"Mom, why are there so many carrion beetles here?" Jingshu asked, looking at several piles of carrion beetles that were about to take shape in the corner. In two days, there would definitely be tens of thousands of carrion beetle larvae.
"They bully the weak and fear the strong, but they don't dare go to places where there are pesticides." Jing's mother said.
Just as the mother and daughter were chatting, footsteps were heard. "Director, the vegetables over there have probably been eaten by insects. Look how well ours are growing. We've come up with several solutions based on experiments with different chemicals."
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