Before departing from the base, the teammates from the Imperial Capital boarded the private plane for one last farewell, their breath visible in the chilled cabin air. They even created a new WeChat group called Sheep Herding Group (11 members). They agreed to post updates whenever they spotted a fat sheep or new opportunities while carrying out their duties in their respective sectors.
Monkey and Monk stayed behind at the Tupo Tianji Hospital because of their serious injuries. Thankfully, the doctors managed to save Monk's life, though he was still unconscious, lying still beneath clinical white sheets.
As for Hao Yunlai, he was carried back onto the plane on a medical stretcher and sent home to Wu City. They had already consulted several doctors over the past two days, but none could do anything to help. Everyone said Hao Yunlai's brain cells were completely unresponsive and that he had become a vegetable. Maybe it really was time to try Jing Shu's method.
She figured she would have to study that crimson liquid properly once she was back. Hao Yunlai's luck wasn't like Su Mali's. His ability to dodge danger always came at a heavy cost, while Su Mali was truly blessed by the heavens. She lived in a constant state of fortune, and anyone who tried to harm her usually ended up dead by some freak accident. Thinking about it now, Su Mali was terrifying.
Before Tank got off the plane, Jing Shu forced a basket of fresh eggs from Xiao Dou into his arms. The shells were smooth and still warm from the nest. She told him he would receive another batch every three months. She would also include a Lion Head goose as a guarantor's fee for his services.
Since Tank was the guarantor for both parties, he would be held accountable if anything went wrong. It was only fair he got some benefits in return for the risk.
"I will take the eggs, but I don't need the goose," he said, shifting the weight of the basket. "The Starve-No-More Food Regulation Bureau already promised to cover my sister's meals, thank goodness.
My bottomless-pit of a sister finally has a solution. I'm honestly relieved to leave Da Hua and Gou Dan with you. Oh, and I heard our captain's unit wanted to send you their dog, Er Gouzi, but the captain refused to be a guarantor, so it fell through."
"Hmm? Er Gouzi? What is that?" Jing Shu asked, her interest piqued.
Tank opened his mouth to explain, but one sharp glare from Zhen Nantian shut him up immediately. He bolted toward the exit with the basket of eggs in his arms. Zhen Nantian cleared his throat and said, "The batch of seeds you sent to the Imperial Capital has been received. I already warned them the seeds were exposed to radiation and some might mutate. If they want to fix it, they'll have to come to you. But for now, they're unwilling to pay your price, so they've hired a few labs to seek sponsorship and handle it themselves."
"That's fine," Jing Shu said casually. "The compensation I got from them is already generous. If they can fix it, great. If not, they will come to me eventually."
To her, being able to help preserve global seed samples for the nation was already an honor. Besides, the government had given her plenty of contribution points. She could later exchange them for private cargo rights when traveling abroad. That was enough for her.
But to use her Spirit Spring water—which produced only one drop per day—to purify radiated seeds for free? That wasn't happening. This was especially true when the other side didn't even acknowledge what she was doing. Even if she told them she had solved the radiation problem, they wouldn't appreciate it until they hit a wall themselves. Only then would they understand her value.
Giving help when it's truly needed always mattered more than showing off when things were easy. When they finally couldn't solve it and came to her, any request she made would seem perfectly reasonable, even generous. That would be the real contribution.
Doing it now would only make people think she was being greedy.
Zhen Nantian nodded, narrowing his eyes. His lips twitched as if he wanted to ask about that bloody night when she smuggled supplies and killed those men, but in the end, he just sighed and got off the plane.
The plane took off again, the engines roaring as it ascended into the grey sky.
The Wu City team had taken heavy losses during the mission. Hao Yunlai lay unconscious in the cabin, Monkey remained in the Imperial Capital for treatment, and now the massive private jet only had Jing Shu and Yang Yang aboard. They were eating spicy lamb spine hotpot, the steam carrying the scent of Sichuan peppercorns as they slurped marrow from the bones.
"Don't waste that marrow," Jing Shu reminded him. "We can grind it into bone powder and reuse it later for calcium supplements."
Yang Yang nodded, scooping out the last bit of marrow with practiced ease. He had learned by now that with Jing Shu, nothing went to waste.
Da Hua and Gou Dan were unusually quiet, huddling in a corner of the cabin. They had been pecked bloody by Xiao Dou earlier for disobedience and now looked pitiful with their ruffled feathers. Jing Shu didn't bother comforting them. A few days of Spirit Spring diluted water would heal them up anyway. The rules in her house had to be enforced.
"You really don't want to move up to S-rank?" Yang Yang asked, poking another bone with his chopsticks. "You would get national privileges, you know. You would be directly under Imperial Capital authority. No other organization can touch you. Basically, S-ranks can do whatever they want. There are barely a dozen of them in the whole country."
"No thanks," Jing Shu said calmly. "Maybe if things ever get truly dangerous, I will consider it. But not now."
The Imperial Capital might be powerful, but it wasn't easy to cozy up to.
"In that case, I can't tell you what you were curious about," Yang Yang said with a sly grin.
...
April 4, 2025. Friday. Qingming Festival.
Wu City's temperature dropped to minus six degrees Celsius, frosting the edges of the reinforced windows.
If it weren't a national holiday, the city's canteens wouldn't have opened their all-you-can-eat buffets for 2 virtual coins. Most people had even forgotten what Qingming was.
The last buffet day had been three months ago, on New Year's Eve. That showed just how rare these events were now. People lined up outside the disaster shelter canteens a day early just to get in, shivering in their thin layers. As for tomb sweeping, most just whispered a few words of remembrance into the cold wind. What else could they do? Take a road trip like in the old days when tolls were free?
Even if they wanted to burn paper offerings, there wasn't any paper left. People were wiping their asses with stones now. And fire? Good luck finding a lighter or match these days.
All the buffet prices had gone up significantly. Back in the first year of the apocalypse, it only cost 0.3 coins for an unlimited meal, complete with those tasty maggot dishes. At least that was real meat. How nostalgic those crispy salt-and-pepper maggots seemed now. Now, everything had changed. The cold alone made it impossible to raise even a single larva.
Technically, the buffets were still "unlimited," but with food so scarce, there were new restrictions. Each person got fifteen minutes to eat as much as they could, then they had to leave for the next group.
On good days, the menu included mushrooms. Usually, it was red nematode patties so hard they could break teeth. People still choked while trying to swallow the fibrous mass in time. Several deaths had already occurred that day.
The corpses were dragged away across the frozen ground. The half-chewed patties covered in saliva were snatched up within seconds by those still waiting. In moments, the dead man's clothes and shoes were stripped off too. Civil workers hauled the bodies away, vanishing into the crowd. No one cared. Only a few people muttered while watching the scene.
"With how cold it's, why bother hauling them off? Just bury them on the spot. Isn't that easier? Doesn't that save fuel?"
"Who cares," someone replied. "We're barely eating. Maybe they're hauling bodies back to render corpse oil for frying. Those new fried red nematode patties taste pretty damn good."
"You're disgusting. I just lost my appetite."
"Move! Move!"
"Who the hell is shoving? You almost crushed me!"