Professor Zhao temporarily needed five technical personnel, ten ordinary people who knew electric welding, and one teacher who could teach high-school physics and chemistry, especially the periodic table.
The first two were naturally for building the power station. The latter was specifically responsible for teaching the sports student, Pan Feizhou.
Now that Professor Zhao and Zhuang Licheng were busy, neither of them had time to carefully teach him all kinds of knowledge about metallic elements one by one. If there was a high-school chemistry teacher to teach him, that would be perfectly suited and even better.
After sleeping, Fu Erdie woke up at midnight. At this time, Sang Wenhao had not slept yet and was still training his ability on the balcony. The corridor lights were still on too. Judging by the sound, her parents were still chatting with Granny Zhang.
Fu Erdie got up from the bed and immediately saw the list Professor Zhao had left on the table. She glanced over it, her mind stirring slightly.
A chemistry teacher? Very good. They could teach the sports student chemistry, and also teach the plant babies pinyin and reading.
Since they were adding sixteen new people, Fu Erdie thought about it and decided they could be arranged on the fourteenth floor, exactly at the edge of the domain where the house could still take care of them, but also the furthest place from their sixteenth floor. With one floor in between, both sides would not disturb each other.
As for food, feeding them was completely manageable. Yesterday, Fu Erdie had already repeatedly instructed the plant babies that they had to produce two jin of food every day. Whether for the purpose of training or consuming energy, they had to complete this two-jin task.
Some higher-ranked plants, such as the second-rank potato, needed to produce at least ten jin. In short, all the intelligently mutated plants had daily “homework” to do. Calculated together, they could produce two hundred jin of food.
After subtracting Fu Erdie and the others, they could still casually support at least eighty more people.
Fu Erdie ticked the box beside the newly recruited temporary workers, indicating approval.
However, in terms of supplies, because the sports student’s metal extraction had not yet been mastered, there were still many materials needed. At eight o’clock in the evening, Professor Zhao had already re-established contact with the D City base through the telegraph and asked about the prices of various metals and equipment. Some large electromechanical equipment started at one hundred thousand jin of grain.
Professor Zhao looked at the map of C City and the surrounding area and circled some areas where they might be able to find such electromechanical equipment. She said she could take Zhuang Licheng to inspect them first when there was time, and only buy with grain if they really could not find any.
Fu Erdie agreed to this suggestion. So the next morning, at the small meeting after breakfast, Fu Erdie announced the new arrangements.
“We need five technical personnel, ten welders, five cement workers responsible for repairing buildings, one chemistry teacher, and one D City person specifically responsible for managing these workers. Twenty-two people in total. They’ll all be arranged in the left half of the fourteenth floor. Mum, Dad, go down today and see how to arrange it. Professor Zhao, contact D City tonight and settle the wages. We’ll provide food and accommodation. Besides letting the people who come eat enough, we’ll additionally give each person two jin of sweet potatoes or potatoes every day. We’ll also calculate twenty-two jin of grain per day for the base as the rental fee for twenty-two workers. If that’s acceptable, they can send people over tomorrow. If they drive an electric vehicle, I can charge it. Anything else won’t work.”
Professor Zhao and her parents got moving. Fu Erdie’s ability-user team, meanwhile, had to start regular expeditions because of the supplies list and mapped areas Professor Zhao had provided.
For example, the nearest circuit board factory had many large machines for making circuit boards and PCB boards. This was much more stable than manual wiring. Without this machinery, the technical department would temporarily replace it with manual soldering, so it was not especially urgent. Fu Erdie could plan the route from Senyu Residential Complex to the circuit board factory, and from today onward, little by little, clear the ability zombies along the route. Then they would pull ordinary zombies back to the residential complex in batches and begin accumulating practical combat experience for the ability users and plants.
To ensure that each batch of zombies brought back was fewer than three thousand, Fu Erdie would deliberately first control the zombie count to around three or four thousand. Once the zombies had mostly arrived, she would have Sang Wenhao seal off the three directions other than the direction of home, then begin retreating.
On the retreat route, zombies from other places would intermittently hear the movement and come over. Their number would be controlled at around one thousand. That way, by the time they returned to the residential complex, there would be about five thousand zombies.
These zombies were all ordinary zombies. To ensure that every baby got training, Fu Erdie would not let the powerful pothos carry out large-scale slaughter. Instead, she would first let the weaker babies take action. Then, when the weaker plants reached their limit, she would let the experienced pothos and the others, who had already fought several times, take action and demonstrate for the little babies.
Because there were still 112 intelligent mutated plant seeds that had not yet been planted, Fu Erdie kept more than one hundred zombie corpses. Based on the distribution and size of each building, as well as the greenery, flower beds, and park areas in the complex, she placed the zombie corpses in different locations, then put the intelligent mutated fruits beside them.
These plants, which had never found the chance to grow and sprout, immediately consumed their limited corrosive liquid to corrode the corpses as soon as they had the opportunity, then converted and absorbed the nutrients to grow.
Their outbreak was not as fast as dandelion seeds, because dandelion seeds had linkage traits. So even initial intelligent mutated dandelion fluff seeds would grow extremely quickly after choosing a growth point.
These seeds and fruits, however, had been tiny and weak from the start of their mutation and could not erupt in growth. But they could be stimulated within just a few minutes and begin taking root.
Fu Erdie cleared out the 112 intelligent mutated seeds one by one, then placed the fruits and seeds produced today into the house’s domain, waiting for mutation screening to see whether any new intelligent mutated species would appear.
Currently, each building could hold around a hundred intelligent mutated species, and the areas outside the buildings within the complex could also densely grow many things. Filling the entire place was still far away. They had to take it slowly.
In the blink of an eye, most of the day had passed.
Fu Erdie used her remaining ability to continue squeezing the crops. After producing seven hundred jin of food, she stopped and maintained a fairly decent condition through dinner. At least this time, she did not faint from exhaustion like yesterday.
That night, they held another brief meeting. After distributing the dozen or so crystal cores they had obtained that day, Fu Erdie pulled the house along for training.
When they were purely pushing and pulling ability without production, both Fu Erdie and the other party would feel their energy becoming more and more abundant, and the house would slowly level up bit by bit.
When it was time to sleep, Fu Erdie slept together with Sang Wenhao again. At night, their abilities automatically circulated and upgraded. Slowly, their abilities and energy were further consolidated and improved. She had a good dream all night.
The days passed in this regular way for several days. Everyone’s physical and mental state improved day by day.
In the blink of an eye, it was the last day of December, also the last day of the first year of the apocalypse.
The D City base had already prepared the people coming to C City, and Fu Erdie’s side had also made preparations to receive them, along with sufficient food reserves. She also announced one thing.
“Sang Wenhao’s ability has broken through third rank and advanced to fourth rank.”
Everyone congratulated him warmly.
Fu Erdie then changed the topic and mentioned that in the next few days, they would go look for Cen Xiyang’s parents.
As one of her two best friends, Cen Xiyang having no news of her parents had always been a major matter.
Previously, Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao had spent a whole month back and forth looking for her parents and grandmother. Now that they had rested and reorganised in the complex for a few days, and had also let everyone adjust to each other, it was time to go look for Cen Xiyang’s parents.
Actually, everyone’s relatives in C City were definitely not limited to direct relatives like parents or children. But those with more distant relationships could not be looked after.
Fu Erdie said, “Sang Wenhao and I are already very strong. We should be able to travel quickly around C City and the surrounding areas. Cen Xiyang, give me the addresses where your parents might have gone. I’ll go look. You stay here and continue practising.”
Cen Xiyang was very excited and instinctively wanted to say that she could go with them.
But very quickly, she realised that Fu Erdie did not yet completely trust the other ability users and needed her to stay here and guard the place.
Although she was only second-rank now and could not beat Ye Jia’s wind blades, wasn’t there still the third-rank pothos?
She needed to stay here and reassure Grandma, Fu Erdie’s parents, and the others.
Cen Xiyang nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll train my ability properly.”
Hearing their conversation, everyone’s thoughts stirred.
Fu Erdie could think about her good friend’s parents. Then, after they became familiar in the future, would she think about their parents too?
Although that was still very far away, and most of their parents’ whereabouts were unknown, at least… there was suddenly hope, wasn’t there?
For a moment, everyone’s gazes toward Fu Erdie unconsciously became fervent.
Fu Erdie did not make any statement and simply ate quietly.
The others were not disappointed either. Secretly, a surge of determination built in their hearts.
Work hard, work hard, and still work harder.
They had to prove their value and cherish everything they currently possessed.
Professor Zhao thought of her daughter studying university in Beijing, and her heart filled with bitterness.
Even she, an ordinary middle-aged woman, was still alive. Her daughter must also be waiting for her somewhere.
Now that she saw hope, no one could be allowed to destroy it.
She tightened her grip on her chopsticks.
For her daughter, and for herself, she had to make sure this residential complex, Fu Erdie, and everything here remained well.
On the second day of the new year, the D City base sent the people over.
Cao Bingqing and Fu Chenghong had long since cleaned and prepared the place. According to the gender distribution of the twenty-two people coming over, they arranged dormitories, beds, and bedding.
Since these people would be staying for some time, they all carried large and small bags, bringing many bundles that seemed completely out of place in the clean Building Seven. As soon as they entered the building, they became very restrained.
Cao Bingqing and her husband liked cleanliness, but not only did they not show dislike, they personally picked up the chemistry teacher’s luggage and led the group upstairs while introducing the situation here and the plants in each room that they needed to pay attention to.
“These plants were grown by my daughter’s plant ability. Every day, they can provide each person with four jin of vegetables. Your daily rations and wages all come from here. So you must treat them well and not harm them.” Cao Bingqing smiled kindly. “If you harm these little cuties living together with us, something will happen, okay?”
As soon as she finished speaking, everyone heard a crack.
Following the sound, they saw that at the corner of the staircase, a discarded but thick solid-wood door panel had been easily snapped in half by a soft, delicate-looking leaf, then slowly ground into powder.
The people, who had just been feeling excited after hearing about the plants’ traits: “…”
They instantly calmed down, physically cooled into silence.
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