Jing Shu swirled the bottle in her hand. "So, what's the difference between this and the regular kind of algae? Those moldy ones on the ground, can't they be cultivated too and used as fish feed?"
After the floods in the second year of the apocalypse, those moldy green patches had gone wild, becoming one of the main foods for red nematodes and the evolved carrion scavengers. Unfortunately, they'd all been infected by the zombie virus. But if she could somehow reuse those slimy ditch-grown algae again, then the massive plan she'd been dreaming of might finally be possible.
Maybe—just maybe—the plan she'd spent half a year thinking about to save the Shiyuan Base from disaster could finally come true. Jing Shu really just wanted to live quietly like a little emperor at home, but life never let her rest easy.
Wu You'ai pushed up her glasses and explained, "Traditional algae cultivation needs a BG-11 nutrient medium, a stable temperature around 25 degrees Celsius, light intensity of about two thousand lux, and constant oxygen from a pump. What we've made is basically a synthetic invasive species. It's completely different from those moldy types. The ones you see out there have already been infected by the zombie virus. If you used them to feed fish or fertilize rice, would you even dare to eat it?"
Jing Shu shook her head. She got it. The whole environment was polluted now. Almost every plant and animal in the world might've been infected. The virus was a lot like the flu—usually not deadly, but ignore it for too long, and there was still a chance of catching the zombie strain from contaminated food.
Still, after years of exposure, most living creatures had built up some level of resistance.
The infected ones were easy to spot anyway—they'd rot, turn black or green, grow mold, and stink like spoiled food, yet somehow still move. They were basically living colonies of bacteria.
Even so, there were still plenty of species that seemed immune. Sulfuric Acid Ants, cockroaches, and other invasive species all adapted well. As Wu You'ai said, if one invasive species could thrive, others would too. And now, there was this green algae.
Oh, and carrion scavengers counted too.
Those things had nearly been wiped out by maggots in the first year, then again by red nematodes in the second. But somewhere in the deep ocean, they'd learned the hard truth—fall behind, and you get eaten. So they evolved, growing several dozen times larger than before, climbing right up the food chain toward dominance.
Their comeback wasn't just luck, either. They were immune to the zombie virus, and the sea was full of rotting, infected corpses. That endless buffet let them multiply insanely fast.
In less than half a year, they'd returned from the ocean to the mainland. And they weren't picky eaters. Rotting algae, wood, tree roots, garbage—they devoured everything.
That's why people like Su Long, and even Jing Shu in her previous life, had such terrible memories of them. Getting bitten by those things left you covered in itchy welts for days. Just hearing the name "carrion scavenger" was enough to make people pale.
Worse still, they had no natural predators. And eating them? Forget it. They were bitter enough to make you question your life choices, and if you ate too many, your stomach would cramp up—or worse. Jing Shu remembered the panic years ago when parasites spread through the scavengers, infecting anyone who tried to eat them.
Those things were crawling petri dishes full of viruses and bacteria. She'd eaten them a few times out of desperation and swore she'd rather starve than touch one again.
Honestly, any creature that thrived on corpses and disease couldn't possibly be clean.
Even poultry and livestock avoided them. The Tyrant once tried to argue that every living creature had its purpose, and suggested extracting protein from scavengers to make food. That ended in disaster. The cost of extraction was ridiculous, like spending millions to print a hundred-yuan bill.
Later, he even tried feeding scavengers to poultry. For a while, it seemed okay—but before long, the birds all got sick. Clearly, it wasn't meant to be eaten regularly.
He experimented with using scavengers to raise maggots and red nematodes too, but none of it worked well enough for mass use.
So these disgusting bugs, without predators or purpose, just multiplied endlessly. But to Jing Shu, that uselessness was exactly what made them valuable.
"That's it," she said suddenly, her eyes lighting up. "If these scavengers can keep feeding the green algae nonstop, and the algae can feed the fish—or maybe even the red nematodes—then..."
Her lips curved into a faint smile. The red nematodes in her space hadn't regained their terrifying reproductive power from the old days, and she always suspected something was missing. Now, with the cell division solution she'd brought back and these algae as feed, maybe things would finally change.
If it really worked...
Wu You'ai noticed her glowing eyes and felt a little uneasy. "Look, this algae's only meant as a supplement, alright? It's good for feeding fish, nothing more. We've already tested that."
Jing Shu just smiled and said nothing.
"Alright, enough of this talk," Su Lanzhi called out. "It's already late. Let's eat before everything goes cold."
Dinner was lavish, filled with chatter about the latest news—where the ground had sunk again, which stall had launched new snacks, what shady things the black market was selling now.
Jing Shu, who had originally called everyone over for a serious talk, stayed quiet. After a while, she said, "I'm a little tired. Let's talk tomorrow." And that ended the discussion.
That night, after settling her uncle's family into the RV, everyone squeezed in to rest. Jing Shu went back upstairs early. There was too much waiting for her tomorrow, especially the experiments she wanted to run with Wu You'ai's green algae.
But in the middle of the night, the sharp, urgent ring of a phone shattered the silence. Lights flicked on in the RV one by one, followed by hurried footsteps and panicked voices.
In the dark, Jing Shu opened her eyes. She was still on her bed, idly twisting her Rubik's Cube, listening.
"This... this can't be real! The entire old district in Xishan collapsed! It's all gone, completely gone! That was our only house, where are we supposed to live now?!" Wang Fang's voice was trembling, full of fear and despair.
Su Yiyang, paced back and forth. "I told you not to sleep there, didn't I? I told you! But you just had to stay in that house with that damn kid. Be grateful my younger sister asked us to come tonight! The house is gone, so what? At least we're still alive! If all three of us had died in there, what would you be crying about then?"
The whole family was shaken to the core. Su Lanzhi's hands trembled slightly, her face pale. She couldn't even imagine it—Su Meimei had betrayed her, her parents already dead, and now if her only brother's family had also died, leaving no bloodline behind... how was she supposed to bear that?