Perhaps because of Sang Wenhao’s resentment, Fu Erdie and Cen Xiyang did not manage to achieve automatic ability circulation. They still had to rely on Fu Erdie actively controlling it to restore her ability and train.
The next day, Fu Erdie, who had spent the whole night thinking through the cooperation plan, held a meeting with D City leader Rong Le’an and a group of D City officials.
The two sides quickly confirmed the exchange of crystal cores for ordinary mutated crops, as well as support from intelligent mutated plants.
Fu Erdie estimated the scale of her plants and considered D City Base’s dangerously low food reserves. “Within forty-five days, I can give you four batches of mutated crops. On average, one batch every ten days, eight thousand plants per batch. By the end of next month, I can provide thirty thousand plants.”
“However, these mutated crops will be taken out for use at the shortest possible time, so after they come out, they’ll still need an adaptation period of ten to twenty days. Once adapted, their output can stabilise at around one jin per plant per day. If the people feeding them are diligent and use various methods, the output may be higher.”
Ordinary mutated plants were different from intelligent mutated plants. They did not produce corrosive liquid. Instead, they directly absorbed waste at a slower speed.
The waste they could absorb was not like that of intelligent mutated plants, which ate almost anything. They were not the type that could eat anything except hard objects like stone, ceramic, metal, and bricks. Ordinary mutated plants needed soft things, preferably nutrients close to what crops or natural plants needed before the apocalypse.
For example, all kinds of excrement, fertiliser, withered branches, and fallen leaves were what mutated crops liked most.
If those were unavailable, rotten cloth, rotten wooden stumps, and cardboard were also acceptable.
If there was really nothing else, softer artificial products that were difficult to decompose in nature, such as plastic bags, could also work. But absorption would be especially slow, and the plants might grow poorly for a long time.
Professor Zhao had been in the complex for almost half a year. Over that time, she had gained many insights from researching crops. It was only because of limited manpower and energy that she had not yet mass-produced ordinary mutated crops. Now that they were about to start planting, if Fu Erdie assigned her around twenty people, she could quickly grow these plants.
After learning the general situation, the base directly said that they had plenty of people. Fu Erdie could have as many as she wanted.
Fu Erdie did not agree immediately. Instead, she wanted to look among the refugees outside for people who suited her eye.
After all, the thirty thousand people in the base more or less already had their own jobs under the base’s management and guidance, and they had become increasingly familiar with them.
Fu Erdie felt that instead of plucking ready-made fruit and pulling people who already had their own duties in the base to work in her complex, it was better to recruit a few people who would work long-term in the complex.
Currently, the electricians and cement workers in the complex were technical workers sent by the base. But the ten people responsible for managing the other nine buildings and the downstairs gardens in the complex did not have much technical skill.
In the future, these non-technical personnel would still return to D City Base to reunite with their families after work. So Fu Erdie might as well directly recruit ten people from the refugees outside now. They could first help with planting the mutated crops for these forty-five days, then replace the ten D City workers in harvesting plant fruits from several buildings in the complex.
The base also thought this was a good idea.
As for military support, the base very much wanted Fu Erdie’s whole group to move over. But seeing Fu Erdie’s preference for peace and quiet and avoiding crowds, they knew she still liked her own already very green residential complex and would not come to the base.
Although regretful, everyone was shocked when Fu Erdie promised five third-rank plants, two hundred second-rank plants, and five hundred first-rank plants that might come to play at any time and might also run off at any time, but would maintain a dynamic balance in numbers.
“So Butterfly Garden actually has this many intelligent mutated plants!” the external relations officer said in disbelief.
Fu Erdie nodded.
The growth of plants was not a steadily rising curve, but a curve whose slope gradually increased.
Putting aside the dandelions, which produced tens of thousands of seeds and fluff in one day, sometimes with over a hundred intelligent mutated seeds among them, just the second-rank cucumber at home could already produce two or three hundred jin of cucumbers every day without anyone urging it, all to use as weapons in its fights with the tomato.
In Building Seven, wherever one walked, one could often see crime scenes left behind by the cucumber and tomato before they had been cleaned up.
Two or three hundred jin of cucumbers meant, on average, if each cucumber weighed two jin, over a hundred cucumber fruits a day. And each cucumber had several hundred seeds. Calculated this way, this second-rank cucumber alone could produce tens of thousands of seeds in one day.
The more sensible older children like the pothos and spider plant would collect the seeds, screen for intelligent mutated seeds, or place them in the house’s domain for a few days to identify mutated seeds.
For every ten thousand cucumber seeds, there were on average fifty or sixty ordinary mutated seeds that grew quickly after planting, and around ten intelligent mutated seeds.
This data fluctuated depending on the cucumber’s condition and mood. Unless the cucumber controlled itself not to produce mutated seeds while fighting, it would produce this many mutated seeds every day.
Different plants showed different outputs of ability seeds. Aside from plants like the cucumber and tomato that lost all restraint when fighting, most plants consciously controlled the number of mutated seeds they produced. After all, after half a year in Building Seven, there were already three thousand intelligent mutated seeds that they had not had time or energy to sow. They were still piled together, dozing every day. There really was no need for more plant babies.
As for ordinary mutated seeds, there were even more — at least twenty thousand, piled in the warehouse and looking ready to sprout at any time.
These seeds, which had never been planted due to lack of manpower, could be planted in batches in Building Seven.
Ordinary mutated seeds had to grow in the house’s domain for ten days before they could be transplanted out. Fu Erdie planned to plant them across the twenty-four floors of Building Seven, excluding the seventeenth-floor warehouse, the sixteenth and fourteenth residential floors, and the first-floor entrance. The remaining twenty floors would all be planted with crops. Each floor would hold four hundred plants. One batch would be eight thousand plants. Four batches would be thirty-two thousand plants. After subtracting some losses and the time consumed during transport, by around forty days later — the end of June — all the crops the base needed could be delivered.
Once every person in the base had one ordinary mutated plant, they could obtain one jin of food a day. It would not fill them completely for the time being, but it would guarantee a basic, continuous diet. At least they would not starve to death.
During this month and a half, they would also cultivate a batch of plant babies willing to roam at D City Base. Once released, they could provide daily warning around the base and also produce food. Later, after cultivating several more batches of mutated crops, everyone in D City Base could become self-sufficient.
To thank Fu Erdie for the military support, the base showed full sincerity. The large equipment that previously cost ten thousand jin of grain per month just to rent, along with related supporting facilities, would all be lent free of charge.
Not only that, they would directly escort mature technical teams and technical systems over to help Senyu Residential Complex with infrastructure construction.
Over the past half year, Professor Zhao had already built the power-generation framework suitable for Senyu Residential Complex. With so much large equipment and technical personnel joining, the complex’s electricity work would be implemented very quickly.
At that time, even if Fu Erdie took the house away from the complex, the people in the complex could still use electricity normally, rather than only relying on stored power and saving every bit.
It was now mid-May, and the temperature was already just over twenty degrees, faintly approaching thirty.
The high temperatures that had lasted nearly five months after the apocalypse last year had already broken everyone’s mentality. Without electricity, in order to let her family live comfortably, Fu Erdie could not keep taking the house everywhere. Relying only on herself and Sang Wenhao, the range she could leave for was relatively limited.
If the high-temperature period lasted longer, and she did not have the house box van, then for safety, she could not go far. She would almost be locked inside the complex.
This would clearly slow down her levelling speed.
But she also did not want everyone to move to D City Base and live under someone else’s territory and gaze, moving around uncomfortably.
After thinking it over, the base coming to help the complex with infrastructure was the best option.
The meeting went very smoothly. It lasted the whole morning, and all details were quickly settled. If anything changed in the future, they would still contact each other by telegraph.
Both sides were very satisfied. Thinking that she was gradually going to regain a stable, electrified life close to before the apocalypse, Fu Erdie felt happy.
However, during the meeting, the base mentioned news from other bases about zombie tides.
“Among the eight major bases, apart from us, the other seven have also reported that zombie tides are becoming stranger. The ratio of ability zombies is increasing, and their ability levels are generally rising. Many zombie tides have shown signs of intelligent leading zombies.”
“This is truly… a bad omen.”
Humans evolved, and zombies evolved too.
Humans could absorb crystal cores, and zombies could also absorb crystal cores.
Unlike humans, some zombies with zombie-king traits, such as the fourth-rank space zombie they had encountered this time, could level up by eating other zombies. This caused this group of ability zombies with zombie-king traits to level up more easily than others.
Together with the other type, the attribute-less zombies that could absorb crystal cores of every attribute, powerful zombies would only become more numerous.
The two types of zombies mentioned above had already become key targets of prevention for the major bases.
When this was mentioned, the people of D City Base looked at Fu Erdie with complicated expressions.
Based on the current information available to humanity, Fu Erdie was the only known attribute-less ability user, the only known fifth-rank ability user, and also the only ability user who could mutate plants and whose plants could eat zombies to level up.
Only lending part of her plant army to D City could quickly resolve D City’s current food and military crisis. Once it developed further, it would absolutely become a major force that could not be underestimated.
And…
Rong Le’an thought further than others, and he dared to imagine more.
If the Butterfly Principal before him was given enough manpower to continuously develop her plant army, then once the plants covered an entire city, detecting all kinds of zombies, humans, or zombie animals hiding in every corner like automatic alarms and clearing them out, would people be able to return to their homeland and return to the homes they had been driven out of?
The base was highly efficient. In the afternoon, they began counting the teams and equipment that could go with Fu Erdie to Senyu Residential Complex.
Fu Erdie and the others, meanwhile, went outside the city to look for refugees who suited her eye and were willing to go with them to the complex.
When selecting people, Fu Erdie leaned toward women, children, and elderly grandmothers.
As vulnerable groups, they were at the very bottom among ordinary people who already found survival difficult, and they were easily bullied.
Women were resilient. Although they cried easily and seemed more fragile, once given a chance to survive, they could instead grasp it and adapt more quickly.
Tenacious grass was too weak to withstand the wind and fell with a single blow. But once the surrounding flowers and trees were gone, it would still be there, waiting for an opportunity to rise again.
She chose children because children were highly malleable. Whether boys or girls, before they became deeply stained by the messy calculations of adults, they all had a chance to become children with different personalities but overall kindness and the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
As for elderly grandmothers, Fu Erdie was not acting purely out of kindness. She wanted to find some people with rich life experience, upright character, and gentle temperaments.
They could patiently teach the endlessly newly born plant babies pinyin together with Grandma. They could also keep Grandma company and have more to talk about in daily life, instead of Grandma being out of place among only young people.
Fu Erdie planned this in her heart, but when it actually came time to choose, she could only go by instinct. There was not enough time to understand people deeply.
When recruiting people, she did not loudly announce through a loudspeaker that she was hiring. Instead, she pretended to be surveying the terrain and brought several technical personnel from the base to walk around the city wall outside the city.
The technical personnel also cooperated in the act, looking as if they were taking a newcomer to familiarise herself with the city wall and surrounding terrain.
Along the way, Fu Erdie held a measuring instrument. Under the technical personnel’s guidance, she gestured here, recorded there, and inevitably overlapped with places where refugees were lying about in all directions.
Some refugees were tired and sleepy, with no expression on their faces, utterly numb. But they still moved aside to make it convenient for Fu Erdie to stand in position.
Some refugees were clearly newly arrived and eagerly introduced themselves to the group, trying to see whether there was any chance to enter the city. Even when people nearby sneered, and even when they disturbed the group’s work, they continued following and introducing themselves.
Some people introduced themselves for a while, realised there was no chance, and left.
Some, seeing that Fu Erdie and the others had no reaction, began crying, cursing, or provoking them. In short, they used all kinds of methods to fight for that tiny possibility.
Some people found it strange that after so long, there were still people coming to inspect the city wall. They came over to ask whether it was being expanded and whether new people could be accepted.
Some people did not avoid or move. They lay on the ground like nothing but skin and bones, showing no reaction to others’ arrival. Even when their positions conflicted, they ignored Fu Erdie’s gentle words and only looked at her with hollow, despairing, or hateful eyes.
After walking a full circle, Fu Erdie had a rough idea in her heart.
She knew every person had their own state, and everyone had reasons and helplessness behind why they had become like this. But she could only choose some people to take to the complex.
Thinking about the present, excluding those sent over by D City Base, Senyu Residential Complex had only a few people who could work.
Taking in a few more was not impossible.
For example, in Building Seven, if twenty floors were used for planting, the original idea was that one person would be responsible for two floors. Ten people would be enough.
But the other buildings in the complex were currently empty, with no electricity or water for the time being. To pick crop fruits or other plant seeds, the people sent over by D City Base had to climb the stairs floor by floor. Sometimes, when it had not rained for a while, intelligent mutated plants needed to be watered with Building Seven’s water, and the workers had to carry water up floor by floor. It was very hard.
Seeing the complex improving more and more, and her parents becoming increasingly skilled at personnel management, the number of people responsible for watering and handling crops could also be increased, so everyone would not always have to work so hard.
For example, they could recruit more people according to the standard of one person per floor. One building had over twenty floors. Ten buildings altogether could require around two hundred people.
These people could first live on the first floor of Building Seven. Once the complex’s power generation and water storage and usage systems were completed, they could move into their respective unit buildings, or one building could be specially chosen as an employee dormitory area for easier management.
All of this could be discussed later.
Thinking of this, Fu Erdie decided that while D City Base personnel who understood management were also going with them, if anyone made her unhappy or uncomfortable after arriving, she could ask the D City people to send them back where they came from during their return trips. That would also make resettlement convenient.
Fu Erdie and the technical personnel returned to the city, then drove out again in a large truck that could carry many people and began recruitment.
She briefly introduced Butterfly Garden’s situation. She did not mention that people might be “eliminated” after recruitment. Instead, she made most people think it was short-term work. This way, their usual work state would be relatively relaxed, rather than them performing perfectly just to make a good impression, only to reveal huge, irreconcilable conflicts after working for a long time. At that point, driving people away would cause unrest, which would not be good.
She continued introducing the work after going to Butterfly Garden. Finally, she emphasised that she had already inspected the people present just now. Those willing could raise their hands when she passed by. She would choose from among the people who raised their hands and had already passed her earlier inspection, then bring them onto the truck.
After a brief daze, the refugees exploded into motion.
This was currently the only chance they might have for clean food, water, and shelter. Whether it was work for one day, one week, or one or two months, they had to grab this spot first!
Everyone reversed their previous coldness and surged toward Fu Erdie, scrambling over one another. But before they had taken more than a few steps, metal bars blocked their path.
Fu Erdie emphasised, “Please sit properly and raise your hands. I will make the selection.”
Those filled with hostility and hatred: no.
Those who became furious when they failed to achieve their goal: no.
Those who thought too highly of themselves: no.
Those who had excessive expectations for future life: no.
Those who loved mocking others and gossiping: no.
Those who did not suit her eye: no.
Based on her impressions from the afternoon, Fu Erdie chose 221 people. Over one hundred of them were half-grown children under fifteen.
The truck carried the people back to the base. After registration, they followed the base convoy and Fu Erdie’s group, setting off together toward Senyu Residential Complex.
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