Back at the H City base, it wasn’t as if Professor Zhao had never tried to find healing ability users. But most of the time, they were unwilling to waste their abilities on such minor ailments. Even when Professor Zhao brought crystal cores and grain that could be used for trade, the healing ability users still refused to act.
After this happened a few times, Professor Zhao understood.
It was not that they disdained treating her. Rather, they could not fully cure such minor injuries and illnesses. They did not want to damage their own reputation, nor did they want to take her grain for nothing, so they simply left it alone.
But now, although Miss Fu’s ability was rather strange, and aside from her plant-type ability, the rest had to be used within her exposed domain, no matter what, it could heal her inside and out. Even if it was only temporary and only lasted a few days, those few days would still feel incredibly refreshing.
Professor Zhao looked at Fu Erdie. This time, she truly and wholeheartedly wanted to prove her own value and stay by Fu Erdie’s side.
So she said, “Pan Feizhou has already gone to install the wiring. Once he finishes dismantling it, with some of the materials we already have, we should be able to make the telegraph. If you allow me to continue staying within your domain, I can make the telegraph before nightfall today.”
Fu Erdie was surprised. “The road is about to be cleared. We’ll continue travelling soon, and it’ll be very bumpy. Are you sure you want to make it?”
Professor Zhao nodded. “I will prove my worth.”
“Thank you. Then I’ll trouble you.” Fu Erdie did not stand on ceremony and immediately asked Professor Zhao what specific shapes of metal she still needed. After all, the telegraphs she had seen on television all had boxes, not just circuit boards.
And those boxes were not only for fixing and protection; they also had some anti-interference functions.
Professor Zhao understood and immediately drew several three-view diagrams, marking all the dimensions before handing them to Fu Erdie. Fu Erdie then went to Sang Wenhao to make the metal boxes and metal sheets. Five minutes later, all the necessary materials and metal boxes were ready. The road had also been cleared again, so everyone set off once more.
There were now two vehicles on the road. One was the minibus carrying the remaining supplies of the small team. Along the way, they had to keep watching for petrol stations and constantly seize petrol.
The other was the electric scooter driven by Sang Wenhao. Sang Wenhao sat in the driver’s seat, while Fu Erdie sat in the passenger seat. On the roof of the electric scooter was the box van where the house was located. Inside sat Cao Bingqing, Fu Chenghong and his wife, as well as Zhao Shansi and Zhuang Licheng, who were making the telegraph together.
That night, when they reached another congested section and planned to set up camp on the flat ground beside the motorway, Professor Zhao and the others finished making the telegraph.
From 8:00 to 8:30 p.m. was the unified time agreed upon by all bases for sending and receiving telegraphs. Coincidentally, they had just finished making theirs. After tuning it to the agreed frequency, they received the message D City was sending out.
The sharp telegraph sound, familiar to anyone who had watched spy dramas or anti-war films, rang out. Everyone cheered. Even Fu Chenghong was extremely excited!
He and his wife had actually witnessed the making and use of a telegraph from beginning to end! Who would believe it if he told them?!
He could count as a witness who had connected television, history, and reality together!
Cao Bingqing, however, wanted to cry even more.
The D City base… her mother was there… She did not know whether her mother was still doing well. Had she suffered a lot? Had her age-related illnesses that required medicine been treated?
A telegraph was essentially a device that sent signals of a specific frequency, then converted them through code to obtain the corresponding information.
Once the sender and receiver had agreed on the time and frequency, they could send messages through codes of different lengths.
In spy dramas, the plot of cracking codes usually involved finding the enemy’s frequency, adjusting to the same frequency to receive the other side’s information, and then trying to find the translation pattern. Once the pattern was found, the code was cracked.
But now, there was no need to crack anything. Everyone used Morse code. It was like speaking in a public channel: whoever entered that channel could see the messages there and could also reply in that channel.
So the message D City was sending was not actually aimed at a specific base. Instead, it was repeatedly sending out requests to buy grain on its own channel.
[We have many crystal cores. Continue trading. Long-term trade. Come quickly! Or leave your address, and we’ll go to you!]
Fu Erdie: “…”
She somehow felt that the high-end, impressive telegraph she had imagined had suddenly become extremely down-to-earth.
Professor Zhao and Zhuang Licheng were obviously used to this. They adjusted the telegraph to other channels and heard messages from several other channels. Interspersed among them from time to time was D City’s spam-like message:
[We have many crystal cores. Continue trading…]
Fu Erdie: “…”
Sang Wenhao: “…”
Cao Bingqing still had tear tracks on her face from her earlier excitement, but now she could not quite cry anymore.
“If they need grain, then we’ll take grain to trade,” Fu Erdie said. “Professor Zhao, disguise yourself as a base. Say that your base is helping someone search for relatives and wants to ask whether those relatives are at the D City base. If they are, ask how much of a thank-you gift would be suitable to bring in exchange for picking them up.”
Professor Zhao did as told. She returned to D City’s channel and sent a telegraph in the gap between the other side’s repeated messages.
The other side replied very quickly. After translating it, Professor Zhao relayed, “For one person, bring one year’s worth of grain for that person as a thank-you gift. Half a year’s worth covers the grain consumed during the half year since the apocalypse began. The other half year’s worth is a gratitude fee requested by the base for providing shelter.”
If one person consumed two jin of grain a day, then one year, 365 days, would be 730 jin of grain. If Fu Erdie wanted to bring out her grandmother, aunt, and cousin, she would need 2,190 jin.
It looked like a huge amount, but Fu Erdie breathed a sigh of relief.
Because this kind of demand from the base was normal. It did not count as an outrageous demand. Currently, the plants in the residential complex produced about thirty jin of grain every day.
But that was under relaxed circumstances, when they had no motivation and simply produced a fruit whenever they were bored.
Take the potato seedling, for example. If left alone, it could go several days without producing a single potato. But if they wanted to eat potatoes and told it so, it would produce several football-sized potatoes like a hen laying eggs.
Over the past half month, the potato seedling had moved around while corroding and absorbing many zombies and other rubbish. The potatoes it could produce were still football-sized, but they had become heavier.
Fu Erdie had made it try producing potatoes without holding back. She weighed one in her hand. Even if it was not ten jin, it was still seven or eight jin.
And if Fu Erdie used her ability on it, she could instantly increase the potato seedling’s vitality and production. Producing potatoes would become like using an ability, one after another. As long as Fu Erdie’s and the potato seedling’s energy was not exhausted through the push and pull, the potato seedling could keep producing.
It was just a little tiring.
Fu Erdie calculated that if the potato seedling produced more than twenty potatoes a day, that would be more than two hundred jin.
When they returned to the residential complex, she could squeeze the potato seedling dry, then go squeeze the millet, cabbage, tomatoes, watermelon…
In short, as long as her ability was not completely exhausted, by repeatedly squeezing, recovering, squeezing, recovering, squeezing, and recovering, she would soon have plenty of vegetables, fruits, grains, and miscellaneous crops.
Was two thousand jin a lot? It was indeed a lot.
But if she squeezed herself for two days, it would be produced. It was not a big deal!
Actually, among all the crops, potatoes were still the easiest to store. Even after leaving the house’s domain, they could be kept for a long time without spoiling. As for the other things like cabbage, water spinach, and kohlrabi, once they left the house’s domain and were delivered to the D City base, they would need to be eaten within a few days.
But that was not something to worry about. The D City base had twenty thousand people. Who knew how many of them were longing to eat fresh vegetables? They would definitely be consumed on the same day. Fu Erdie only needed to deliver enough food.
The only question was whether, after seeing how easily they could bring out so much food, the other side would still release the people so easily.
So she still needed to prepare in both ways. On one hand, she would give the thank-you gift. On the other, she would quietly make contact with her grandmother.
After thinking everything through, Fu Erdie dragged the potato seedling over that very night and forcefully produced five potatoes weighing ten jin each.
She consumed a lot of her ability, while the potato seedling consumed even more energy. It felt as if its body had been hollowed out, turning it into a potato seedling with no soul.
Fu Erdie suggested sleeping while holding the potato seedling so she could help it recover its energy. This time, it would purely be recovery, not potato production.
However, the potato seedling had already become clever!
Did she think it did not know?! The wicked gardener just wanted to fatten it up so she could slaughter it again tomorrow!
No!!!!!!
Fu Erdie was very regretful. That night, she still could only sleep together with Sang Wenhao.
Speaking of which, it was very strange. This situation where her ability automatically operated after she fell asleep and restored her energy only worked with Sang Wenhao. It did not work with the house, the potato seedling, or the dandelion.
Only when she was conscious and intentionally pushing and pulling would her ability circulate. Once she gradually entered sleep and stopped deliberately guiding the push and pull of her ability, the ability would gradually stop and would not continue moving on its own.
This was too strange. Could it only work with people?
Fu Erdie planned to find Cen Xiyang and test it after they returned.
Far away in the residential complex, Cen Xiyang sneezed for some unknown reason.
“Looks like the weather’s getting colder again. I’ll need to wear more clothes tomorrow.”
In mid-December, after being away for more than half a month, Fu Erdie finally returned to Senyu Residential Complex!
Bringing her parents and her new companions, she returned to this familiar residential complex.
Needless to say, the new companions were shocked by the greenery and freshness of the complex. Fu Erdie and Cen Xiyang also hugged each other, celebrating her safe return.
Cao Bingqing and Fu Chenghong both knew Cen Xiyang. In the past, they had often hosted Cen Xiyang at their home for meals, so they were also very happy now.
Cao Bingqing asked quietly, “Your parents…”
Cen Xiyang gave a bitter smile and shook her head. “I haven’t been able to contact them since the apocalypse started. I don’t know their situation now. My ability isn’t very strong. I can only fight ordinary zombies. It’s very dangerous for me to travel far alone. After Fu Erdie finds her grandmother, we’ll go together to find my parents.”
Cao Bingqing felt a little pained.
Her daughter and Student Sang were indeed very well matched, and it was very stable when they travelled far. But after they became able to go out, according to closeness, they naturally came first to find the two of them and her grandmother. Only after that came the family members of good friends. As for searching for people, forget others—even the two of them had almost been swept away by the flood.
Under such circumstances, they truly could not look after everyone else for the time being.
Cao Bingqing felt stifled inside and could only say, “Good child, thank you for understanding.”
“There’s no such thing as understanding or not understanding.” Cen Xiyang shook her head. “Uncle, Auntie, and Grandma—you are all my family too. Your lives are very important. I’m especially happy that you came back safely, truly. As for my parents, I have no clues. They could be at home, at the company, on the road, hiding somewhere, or they could…”
Cen Xiyang gathered her emotions. “Let’s not talk about this first. Let’s go home, have a good meal, and celebrate!”
After the two vehicles found a place to park, Sang Wenhao once again controlled the box van to transform. From a box, it became an enormous flat surface with locked windows, large enough for everyone, including the potato, to stand on. Then it rose up to the sixteenth floor.
After they entered through the large balcony of the reception room in 16-8, the house’s white light returned. The entire sixteenth floor lit up in an instant, as if electricity had been restored.
No, not just the sixteenth floor!
Fu Erdie seemed to sense something. She jumped onto the iron sheet platform still hovering outside the balcony and looked at Building Seven from outside.
In that instant, both her eyes lit up.
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