Fu Erdie’s cooperation with D City Base began in full swing, and the title “Butterfly Principal” also spread outward in corners no one had noticed.
In fact, as early as February, the various ability-user teams around C City, large and small, had already noticed this rather special group based in Senyu Residential Complex.
The reason was simple. The feat of clearing one hundred thousand zombies in one day, and one million zombies in half a month, was far too shocking for wandering fighters and scattered groups.
Later, after three consecutive months of zombie clearing, almost all the zombies in C City’s centre had been dealt with. The name “Butterfly Principal” spread even further, becoming known to every one of the dozens of ability-user groups, large and small, in C City.
At first, there had still been a few scattered third-rank ability users who wanted to test Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao, to see if they could gain some advantage. But after Fu Erdie cleared the entire city centre and every ability user could move freely through the city, everyone abandoned those thoughts.
Take advantage? Take advantage of what! If she did not come to rob you, that was already the brilliance of humanity!
At present, because of the complex’s infrastructure work and the cooperation with D City, Fu Erdie was tied down and had no time to clear the vast districts, counties, suburbs, and rural areas outside C City’s centre. However, the population in those places was relatively scattered, so the ability users of C City could slowly expand outward in all directions, using the district where Fu Erdie was located as the centre.
To them, living near Fu Erdie was the safest.
But judging from Butterfly Principal’s attitude of never taking the initiative to greet them, they knew she did not like too many people wandering nearby.
They only dared to settle twenty or thirty kilometres away from Senyu Residential Complex, in places like the university town, the city centre, or several uninhabited mountains nearby.
After choosing their settlement points and transferring their few remaining supplies, they began regularly clearing nearby zombies in batches, making C City safer and cleaner.
In May, when Fu Erdie had no time to handle the zombies in the districts and counties, these people had already cleared them out.
While clearing, they felt safe, relaxed, and when they encountered others, they would mention C City’s current state and the mysterious yet extremely powerful Butterfly Principal.
Just like that, the title “Butterfly Principal” spread farther and farther.
Some ability users, as well as ordinary people backed by ability users, heard these rumours. With nowhere else to go, they moved toward C City’s centre and discovered that it really was as safe as people said. They immediately returned to their original bases or settlements and told those they had good relationships with to quickly find a place to live in C City’s centre.
Unlike the ordinary people outside D City Base, these people either had the ability to fight alone or formed complementary teams with water-type, plant-type, and space-type ability users. They did not have major problems obtaining daily food. They only needed a safe place to settle.
Now, C City was safe. No one managed them, and there were no mandatory missions. If they wanted to level up, they could go to the districts and counties to fight zombies. If they did not want to level up, they could hide in the city.
Either way, with safety and food guaranteed, everyone felt much more at ease.
By the end of May, the C City ability users who wandered everywhere killing zombies and searching for supplies finally learned about the D City zombie tide from half a month earlier.
At the same time, they also learned about the cooperation between D City Base and Butterfly Principal.
“D City wants to build a power station in Butterfly Garden that uses natural-type abilities to generate electricity?”
“Butterfly Principal can produce many plants that generate food every day?”
“Butterfly Principal is a fifth-rank ability user, and her gardener husband… no, her boyfriend is a fourth-rank ability user?!!”
Everyone who heard the news felt their pupils quake.
Mum, this world was so magical! It was not easy for them to get ten crystal cores and rise to second rank, yet Butterfly Principal was already fifth-rank!!!
Logically speaking, this news should not have spread. But among the 221 newcomers Fu Erdie had brought back, there was one person whose character Fu Erdie had misjudged. She hooked up with the sports student and wanted to rely on him to support her without working, moving into the sixteenth floor.
And the sports student did not mind. He really did want to support her.
Fu Erdie: “…”
As expected, she was still an infrastructure newbie. Some systems and rules needed to be clarified to prevent all kinds of messy things from disturbing everyone’s work order.
After personally going to D City Base and humbly consulting the base’s people, Fu Erdie initially established a series of regulations.
The first concerned the “salary” and daily task planning for Butterfly Garden’s internal staff.
Whether they were “old employees” like the sports student or new employees chosen from the refugees, everyone had to work.
Ordinary people without special skills received three jin of grain per person per day. How much they used for food and how much they stored was up to them.
Everyone’s workload was the same, but their appetites differed. Fu Erdie did not reduce their “salary” and arrange unified meals. Instead, she assigned four people as cooks for the new employees. If the new employees needed meals, they would prepare in advance the portion of food they wanted to eat and hand it to the cooks.
The cooks could make meals according to each person’s note.
Some people’s menus were the same. For example, if they all wanted mashed potatoes, then the cooks could stew them together in a large pot, then divide the portions according to how much each person had given to the kitchen.
Cold cucumber salad, millet porridge, and white rice were divided in roughly the same way.
As for foods like sweet potatoes and yams, that was much simpler. Whoever they belonged to, they belonged to. Once steamed, they were distributed together.
Cooking separately for over two hundred people was indeed somewhat troublesome, but it achieved as much fairness as possible.
If someone was unwilling to work, then sorry, they would be directly driven away.
If someone wanted to rely on a partner and not work, that was also possible. Their activity area would be restricted.
After all, now, from planting grain on every floor of every building to the technical department doing research and building the power station, everything being done was serious work. Every place in the complex was a work area.
If you did not work, you could not receive wages and could not live in the employee dormitory. You could only pay rent to live somewhere.
You wanted to live in your partner’s employee dormitory?
Sorry, that was an employee dormitory and also an important work area. How could the sixteenth floor of Building Seven be open for people to come and go casually?
Fu Erdie’s second rule was this: anyone who wanted to marry or date, where one party held an important position in Butterfly Garden and the other party was not part of the core level, had to live together in the lower-positioned person’s non-core area, or pay rent.
For someone like the sports student, who lived in the core area on the sixteenth floor, if he wanted to live with his girlfriend, and his girlfriend did not belong to Butterfly Garden’s core level, then the two of them had to live together where the girlfriend lived, completely separating their living place from the office area. He could not bring his girlfriend to live on the sixteenth floor, which was more like an office.
Now, the sports student’s girlfriend had no job and no place to live, so she could only rent a place.
Fu Erdie designated Building Two on the edge of the complex as the rental area. The rented rooms were priced according to area: five jin of grain per square metre per month.
In other words, renting a ten-square-metre room required fifty jin of grain per month.
Could the sports student afford this?
He could.
Because the new salary Fu Erdie set for him was unlimited food every day, plus ninety jin of grain and one first-rank crystal core per month.
After hesitating for a long time, the sports student rented a twelve-square-metre single room, paying sixty jin of grain per month, so his “girlfriend” could stay.
But after one week of this, the “girlfriend” still left.
Because, just as Fu Erdie had said, every part of the complex was a work area. Once she gave up working, the only space she could move around in was this small home, or outside the complex.
Although no zombies could be seen with the naked eye, she did not dare leave the complex and could only stay inside.
Occasionally, when she wanted to go out and talk to others, as soon as she wandered into an area that was not part of the route from her home to the complex gate, the elusive pothos would forcefully tie her up, send her back to the rental room, and report to Fu Erdie.
Fu Erdie would forward the report to the sports student, emphasising that the activity area for non-working personnel was limited to the rental room, the path from the rental room to the complex gate, and outside the complex.
After this repeated for several days, the sports student’s “girlfriend” realised she was losing out.
Because the companions who had come with her, such as the children taking care of plants and harvesting fruits on the floor she rented in Building Two, received three jin of grain every day. Now they ate well, lived well, had electricity, water, and air conditioning, and their mental and physical states were visibly improving.
What about her?
She stayed at home dishevelled, with no electricity and no food. Every mealtime, the sports student would come to deliver food and bring her a bucket of water for daily use.
In a daze, she felt that she was not being an ability user’s girlfriend, but sitting in prison!
She understood now. This Butterfly Principal simply could not stand seeing people not work. She wished everyone would put all their energy into doing tasks!
Under someone else’s roof, she had no choice but to lower her head. The next day, she went to Fu Erdie and said she wanted to start working again.
But Fu Erdie did not want her. She said a short-term worker would only be recruited once.
The sports student’s girlfriend felt as though struck by lightning and immediately cried. Later, when she returned home and waited for the sports student to visit, she cried even harder about Fu Erdie’s “terrible attitude.”
However, if she had not cried, it might have been fine. Once she cried and complained about Fu Erdie’s many faults, the sports student, who had been somewhat hesitant, instantly made up his mind.
“We don’t need to continue. Go back to the D City gate.” The sports student pushed her out of his arms. “I’ll cancel the rent on this room tomorrow.”
The sports student was simple-minded and straightforward.
But his “straightforwardness” was different from Cao Yuanbai’s “straightforwardness.”
He had experienced the apocalypse alone, fled with an unfamiliar team, and gone through many hardships.
If a woman who came to him seeking protection stuck close, he could casually support her. Having an extra girlfriend was also fine.
But clearly, Fu Erdie did not welcome this kind of person. Even if she accepted someone who did not work for his sake, she would compress that person’s space and only allow her to move in a small area, instead of letting her wander around and corrupt the atmosphere.
If his girlfriend accepted this treatment calmly, everything would be fine. But now she not only refused to accept it, she was also sowing discord. What reaction did she want from him?
He would never be so blind as to offend the boss.
Besides, he did not like this so-called girlfriend he had only known for a few days that much anyway.
If he casually fed a cat for a few days, did that mean he had to take responsibility for the rest of its life?
No need.
Pan Feizhou left. He gave no explanation and did not linger. No matter how his girlfriend cried and cursed behind him, he ignored her.
The next day, the woman returned where she had come from. She was really brought back to the base gate by the D City people and merged once more with the refugees.
The short week of living in the complex was like a dream.
She was afraid, resentful, and did not dare do anything major. She only secretly spoke ill of Fu Erdie.
She said Fu Erdie was harsh, liked tormenting women, and could not stand seeing women have boyfriends.
She said Fu Erdie was stingy. Clearly, she had an entire building with water and electricity where people could live like before the apocalypse, yet she chased her into an abandoned building.
She said Fu Erdie was dictatorial. All of Butterfly Garden listened to her. Her word was law. Everyone was forced by Fu Erdie and could only obey her arrangements.
The more the woman spoke, the more information others learned.
She lost control and grew angry in her emotion of gaining and losing again. But the bystanders focused on “Butterfly Principal is very capable and commands everyone’s obedience” and “Butterfly Principal can at least let an entire building’s people live normally.”
They followed along with the woman’s words while extracting more information. Back and forth, combined with the truckloads of plants transported from C City and the rumour from inside the city that one plant could support one person, everyone finally drew a “complete” image of Butterfly Principal.
She possessed an enormous domain. Within that domain, the houses had water and electricity, warm in winter and cool in summer.
She possessed fifth-rank plant-type ability. The plants she produced could casually support one or two people.
She was proud and decisive. Everyone had to listen to her, otherwise they would be driven away.
She was kind and had a bottom line. She only drove people away and would not kill them. So when interacting with her, as long as you did not offend her and followed her instructions, she would not deal with you. She might not even put you in her eyes.
She was that powerful and looked down on everything!
Ah, how perfectly this matched the imagined image of a strong person!
The woman kept speaking ill of Fu Erdie, but after those words spread around and returned to her ears, they had completely changed shape.
Woman: “…” I understand everything else, but kind? Damn it, I was driven away! That counts as kind?!
Ability users passing through D City Base to trade or inspect the situation more or less heard these rumours. Then they followed the convoy to C City and saw from afar the lush, almost otherworldly Butterfly Garden, as well as the building made of plants.
They understood.
This was the world of a big boss!
The D City ability users learned of Butterfly Garden’s existence.
Ability users in the central and northern regions gradually learned of Butterfly Garden’s existence too.
And when the major bases communicated information about zombie tides, they also learned of Fu Erdie’s existence.
Just like that, without Fu Erdie noticing, she became famous in ability-user circles and left a deep impression in the hearts of the major bases.
A fifth-rank ability user, humanity’s strongest — so this was what such a person was like.
D City Base noticed that many people had recently been asking about Butterfly Principal. After understanding the situation, they realised ordinary ability users had also discovered this treasure called Fu Erdie.
Just in case, D City Base informed Fu Erdie that night.
Fu Erdie was surprised that the information had spread faster than expected, but she accepted it calmly.
She would not stay hidden here forever. She would go out and fight.
The fifth-rank ability she had displayed in front of so many people would not remain hidden for long. Since that was the case, there was no need to conceal it.
Only, from now on, she would need to pay even more attention to her family’s safety. The ability-user squad and the plants at home all needed to become stronger, and stronger still.
Only by becoming stronger together could they ensure that even if Fu Erdie, Sang Wenhao, and even the house — the strongest combat forces — went out to fight, the rear would remain stable and not give others a chance to bully them.
Fu Erdie stroked the pothos leaf.
She still needed to find an opportunity to take this house full of plants out to fight zombies.
….
June.
A full year had passed since the apocalypse began.
During winter, the floods caused by high temperatures and rainfall had improved somewhat, but visibly, C City’s Li River water level was still very high.
Two days earlier, the first batch of eight thousand ordinary mutated plants and five hundred first-rank intelligent mutated plants from Building Seven had been sent to D City Base. Meanwhile, under Professor Zhao’s larger framework, D City Base’s people had rapidly built a power generation network and large-scale power generation equipment centred on the roof of Building Six.
Yesterday, during the trial run, they successfully powered and lit the highest floor of Building Six.
Fu Erdie looked at the lush greenery in the complex and at everyone working overtime with hope on their faces. Her heart was also very happy.
When others were busy, Fu Erdie and the ability-user team were relatively idle.
Because the surrounding zombies had already been mostly cleared, Fu Erdie only had to train her ability every day, make a symbolic patrol, find a gravel slope to practise her ability, and nothing else.
On the other hand, Fu Chenghong and Cao Bingqing were very busy. Based on D City’s suggestions and the complex’s current situation, they were revising the details of the complex’s rules.
In terms of wages, since one crystal core was already relatively rare for ordinary ability users, D City Base generally paid ability-user missions one crystal core at a time.
Fu Erdie’s basic salary was also set in this way.
But this “salary” was aimed at ability users. For ordinary people, she did not know how to measure it.
Whether it was Professor Zhao, Granny Zhang Dongxuan, or Cao Bingqing and Fu Chenghong, none of them were ability users. But they had a lot of important work every day.
They could not use crystal cores, so what should be used as their pay? Grain?
But now everyone had enough to eat and no real need for grain.
The so-called “salary” now was more like issuing “grain tickets.”
People like Professor Zhao could not be bothered to collect and carry grain at all. They simply asked Cao Bingqing to record it and write a receipt.
After thinking and thinking, Cao Bingqing still felt that since Butterfly Garden did not lack food and drink, it should create something similar to “currency,” then plan the prices of various supplies aside from grain.
First and foremost was salt, which everyone needed to survive.
With the city’s population sharply reduced, the remaining salt and seasonings were more than enough to meet the needs of several hundred people. But obtaining salt still required certain channels. If people simply came to the storage room whenever they needed it, it would be far too informal.
So either a portion of salt would be issued every month, or salt would be assigned a price and exchanged using currency that circulated within Butterfly Garden and represented a certain value.
Next were clothes, quilts, fabric, needles, and thread. These involved a person’s clothing and shelter, and were items pursued for greater comfort after basic food needs had been met.
Third were seasonings and condiments other than salt.
In addition, Cao Bingqing was also thinking about water and electricity fees. After all, whether it was the house or the future power station using abilities to generate electricity, both involved ability consumption. If people were allowed to use them without restraint, the ability users would definitely become very tired.
Water and electricity fees could be used as a constraint, letting everyone know these things were not free, or at least giving them a sense of limits.
Cao Bingqing and Fu Chenghong studied it together, occasionally consulting people from D City Base. They even had their daughter and son-in-law take them to find books related to currency for systematic study. Finally, by the end of June, they produced a fairly reasonable currency system.
First, the material for the currency itself was decided: some intelligent mutated nuts specially planted on the sixteenth floor, including chestnuts and pine nuts.
The chestnuts and pine nuts they produced could carry specially designed patterns, serving as anti-counterfeit markings.
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