Chapter 47: Green Lantern Bamboo Shoots

When Tan Junjie's patrol reached the isolation belt outside the western buffer forest of Plot Three, Xia Qing proactively greeted him. "Captain Tan, could I trouble you to pass a message to Zhang San of Plot Seven for me? I want to trade supplies with him."

Tan Junjie glanced at the backpack on Xia Qing's back, nearly as tall as she was. "You want to trade now?"

Xia Qing nodded. "I harvested some Green Lantern bamboo shoots. If he agrees to trade, please give him my phone number, Captain Tan."

Zhang San was a well-stocked foodie capable of long-term trading, so Xia Qing wanted to exchange phone numbers with him. Xia Qing was certain that although there were no ground-based cell towers here, Zhang San definitely had a satellite phone.

"I'll ask him." Tan Junjie pulled out his phone and called Zhang San.

After the call connected, Xia Qing, whose hearing had evolved, accurately caught Zhang San's fury: "You'd better—"

Tan Junjie calmly cut him off. "Green Lantern bamboo shoots were found at Plot Three. Asking if you want to trade."

"Yes!" Zhang San's voice instantly shifted from storm to rainbow. "Where's my girl Xia Qing?"

Tan Junjie shuddered. Xia Qing, suppressing a chill, stepped closer to the phone and stated her trade terms directly. "Brother San, this is Xia Qing. I got some Green Lantern evolved shoots today, but I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm not sure if they're good. I want to trade for a dehydrator, a packaging machine, and two hundred sealed bags. How many jin of fresh shoots do you think it would take?"

The "Green Lantern" and "fresh" that Xia Qing emphasized were enough to attract Zhang San. "Ten jin is enough. Can we trade now? Do you have Tan Junjie bring it over, or should I send someone to pick it up?"

"Captain Tan will bring it over. Please hand the trade goods to Captain Tan as well, Brother San." After speaking, Xia Qing stepped back two paces and handed over ten jin of sealed Green Lantern shoots. The Green Lantern bamboo shoots Beard Feng gave her came to two bags, ten jin each—no need to weigh them.

Tan Junjie patrolled along the isolation belt, passing the north side of Plot Three, the wire-mesh wall of the Wild Boar Breeding Center, and the north sides of Plots Four, Five, and Six. Before he even entered the north isolation belt of Plot Seven, the scruffy-bearded Zhang San rushed over impatiently. "Where's my shoots?"

Tan Junjie retorted, "Where's the machine and the sealed bags?"

"Give them to him, quick, give them to him!" Zhang San urged the two burly bodyguards behind him.

The bodyguards handed the machines, still in their packaging boxes, to Tan Junjie. After Tan Junjie confirmed everything was correct, he signaled Cao Xianyun to hand the bamboo shoots to Zhang San.

The pale-yellow fresh shoots inside the thickened sealed bags were as tempting as could be. Zhang San grabbed them without even saying hello, turned, and ran back to his territory.

Tan Junjie smiled and led the patrol onward. Su Ming muttered softly, "This guy really is…"

"I'd advise you not to badmouth him, or you won't even know how you died." Cao Xianyun shoved the big box containing the dehydrator into Su Ming's arms and took long strides to catch up with the captain.

When passing Plot Three, Tan Junjie handed the machines to Xia Qing. "Zhang San's phone number is inside. He may have a bad temper, but he's not a bad person."

After the Great Biological Evolution, human living conditions deteriorated sharply. Every person alive today has several lives on their hands. To survive, who hasn't done something that harms others to benefit themselves?

So in the tenth year of the catastrophe, still receiving the assessment of "not a bad person" is already quite rare.

After watching the inspection team walk away, Xia Qing turned and walked two steps into her territory. Sure enough, she heard the familiar muttering again: "Captain, what's Zhang San's background anyway… Why doesn't the captain ask Sister Qing where she dug up the bamboo shoots? We could dig some up and share some with her…"

Tan Junjie naturally wouldn't respond. Cao Xianyun snorted. "She goes out for one day and comes back with bamboo. How many places like that are there within dozens of li?"

The twenty-year-old Su Ming answered honestly, "I don't know. Where is it?"

"Even if I told you where, you couldn't go."

"Why not?"

Right, why? The bamboo-growing place wasn't far from the regiment headquarters. Why didn't they go? Xia Qing stopped overthinking, carried the not-very-heavy big box home, and after unsealing and confirming both machines were fine, finally entered Zhang San's phone number into her phone's contact list.

After being out for a day, Xia Qing was now so hungry her chest stuck to her back. Smelling the rice fragrance drifting from the pot, her stomach started growling. She quickly stir-fried a dish of bamboo shoots with pork, made a cold salad of perilla, and then used perilla, Chinese toon sprouts, and rations to prepare the most lavish concentrated feed ever for Sheep Boss, placing it on its dining table.

Her own meal was also the most lavish one since moving into the territory… no, the most lavish one in the five years since her father passed away.

The bamboo shoots were truly delicious. After the person and the sheep licked their plates (basins) clean, Xia Qing leaned back in her chair, smelling the fragrance in the air, and chatted idly with Sheep Boss.

"Wasn't my trip to the bamboo forest the right call? If I hadn't gone, would Boss get to eat such good shoots?" Xia Qing boasted, casting a sidelong glance at Sheep Boss, and discovered the creature was squinting at the tin box in the kitchen.

Still want more?

Dream on!

Xia Qing efficiently tidied up the bowls, chopsticks, plates, and basins, and carried the dehydrator and vacuum packaging machine into the kitchen. This vacuum packaging machine was the same as the one from Guan Tong's place, so Xia Qing knew how to use it, but she hadn't used a food dehydrator before and needed to figure it out.

Zhang San really wasn't a bad person. What he sent wasn't just brand-new machines, but also came with instruction manuals. Xia Qing opened them and read carefully.

This food dehydrator is 48 cm long, 41 cm wide, and 51 cm tall, weighing 25 jin. It can hold twelve layers of stainless steel mesh trays at once, with a temperature control range of 30-90 degrees, a timer of 0-24 hours, and can dehydrate fruit, meat, seafood, and vegetables.

Now the ocean has been polluted by nuclear-contaminated water, so seafood can't be eaten. The other three are exactly what Xia Qing needs to dehydrate and preserve. She doesn't have fruit right now, but the two strawberry plants on the terraced fields of her planting zone have already bloomed little white flowers—six of them!

Xia Qing was overjoyed, but after continuing to read the dehydration time for each type of food, she fell silent.

Although the dehydration time reference table didn't mention bamboo rats, bamboo rats are also called bamboo pigs or bamboo civets, so the dehydration time can reference pork slices. Therefore, even if the bamboo rat meat is cut into 0.5 cm thin slices, it still needs to be baked at 60 degrees for 8 hours. Bamboo shoots reference the dehydration time for ginger, needing to be dehydrated at 60 degrees for 7 hours.

Slicing isn't a problem, and the oven's capacity isn't a problem either. The real big problem is that the two solar panels on her rooftop don't generate enough electricity.

Xia Qing picked up her phone and contacted Zhong Tao. After confirming he could come pick up the goods tomorrow morning, she gave up on processing the Red Lantern bamboo rat and opened the sealed bag of Yellow Lantern bamboo rats.

Xia Qing didn't know how big bamboo rats could grow before the catastrophe, but this Yellow Lantern evolved bamboo rat weighed twenty-two jin, definitely bigger than pre-catastrophe ones. This bamboo rat should yield sixteen jin of meat, which dehydrates to eight jin of jerky.

Eight jin…

Although Xia Qing had never eaten bamboo rat and didn't know what it tasted like, any meat that could promote her evolution was good meat.

Ten years ago, during the Great Biological Evolution of Blue Star, human evolution used age twenty-five as the dividing line. Those under twenty-five had a higher probability of advanced evolution, and if those under twenty-five evolved, their evolution level would also increase.

In the tenth year of the catastrophe, through in-depth research, scientists from Hua Country discovered that the current dividing line for human evolution is thirty-five. If humans can ingest sufficient energy before thirty-five, it may induce evolution and raise the evolution level.

The energy humans obtain comes from edible food, and the nutritional combinations must be balanced and reasonable.

Xia Qing is only twenty-five this year, so she can still raise her evolution level. Therefore, while in the Safe Zone, almost all the credits she earned were spent on food. Now that she's out of the Safe Zone and has a territory, she certainly won't shortchange herself.

(End of this chapter)