Chapter 6: 6. Chapter 6: House Repairs

Chapter 6: House Repairs

Under the combined influence of atmospheric *Qiang* elements and *Yi* elements, a phenomenon emerged during the overall evolutionary process of Earth's organisms that remains inexplicable to this day

The lower the organism, the higher its degree of evolution.

While humans have generally evolved to a double-evolution level, or roughly 0.2 times the baseline, many invertebrates with simple body structures have generally reached an eight-fold evolution, with their multi-evolution rates significantly higher than that of humans.

Therefore, to humans, the organisms of Blue Star after the natural disasters are several times more dangerous than they were before.

While these evolved Blue Star organisms pose a mortal threat to humanity, they also bring opportunities for survival: organisms that humans can consume, provided that the content of trace harmful radioactive elements and *Qiang* elements does not exceed 0.5%.

Researchers have named these: Safe Food.

Currently, research has confirmed three points: First, the lower the content of these two elements, the more beneficial it is to the human body. Second, the higher the proportion of Safe Food in one's diet, the stronger a human's ability to resist environmental pollution. Third, the effect of multi-evolved Safe Food in enhancing human resistance is significantly better than that of ordinary Safe Food.

Since Safe Food cannot meet the dietary needs of the entire population, China has designated organisms that contain trace or no harmful radioactive elements, and have a *Qiang* element content between 0.5% and 1.5%, as Optional Food.

When tested with a standard *Qiang* element detector, both Safe Food and Optional Food show a green light.

The evolved catfish that Xia Qing beat to death could be exchanged for enough rations to feed her for three months if taken to the Safe Zone.

However, having had her fill of coarse, compressed composite rations, Xia Qing only wanted to eat meat now.

She cleaned the catfish in a flash, chopped a few pieces into the pot, added mountain spring water, and started boiling it.

Seasoning? Only salt and chili powder.

Side dishes? None.

Wait, she had evolved potato seeds—six jin of them.

However, Xia Qing couldn't bear to eat them, because the "Complete Guide to Planting" clearly stated that these were potato seeds with a harmful element content of only 0.75%, and their germination rate was very low, between 30% and 35%.

How many seedlings the six jin of potatoes she obtained would produce, and how many pounds of potatoes she would harvest, were all unknowns, so she couldn't bear to eat them.

Soon, an alluring meaty aroma wafted from the pot. Xia Qing sniffed it and confirmed that the catfish she stewed smelled even better than the stewed fish sold in the Safe Zone cafeteria, and the earthy smell was much milder.

This catfish was very likely Safe Food.

Although her appetite had doubled after evolving, Xia Qing couldn't finish this ten-plus-jin catfish in one sitting.

There was no way to preserve fresh food in the territory, so Xia Qing slowly roasted the leftover fish into dried fish, then sealed it in a bag for storage.

Only in this way would the fish meat not be eroded or spoiled by the *Qiang* elements and evolved bacteria in the air.

Her food would only increase in the future, so she had to find a way to get solar panels and a refrigerator set up as soon as possible. But before that, she had to find glass to patch the windows to fend off attacks from evolved insects, snakes, or rodents.

Xia Qing put on her protective mask, picked up her large canvas bag and tools, and decided to use the afternoon to patrol the deserted village.

There were three villages in Territory No. 3, distributed in a "品" (triangular) shape. The villages were located slightly higher than the farmland and were separated from each other by large tracts of fields. Before the natural disasters, each village had dozens of households; now, only dozens of house ruins remained.

Xia Qing lived in the deserted village at the top position of the "品" shape. To the southeast and southwest of this village, there were two other deserted villages.

The houses in the deserted villages had long been swallowed by plants. Xia Qing pushed aside the wild grass and saw many human and animal bones that had been gnawed clean.

Xia Qing had seen such scenes countless times over the past ten years and had long since become numb to them.

After searching the three villages, Xia Qing found tempered laminated glass of the appropriate size according to her window measurements, wiped it clean, installed it on her window frames, and secured it firmly with glass glue and specialized sealing strips.

By the tenth year, the glue and strips produced before the natural disasters had long passed their expiration dates and had deteriorated, making them unusable. The ones she was using now were brought from the Safe Zone and produced after the disasters.

The natural disasters destroyed Blue Star's original industrial production system, causing most of the supplies that could be bought with a few taps on a phone before the disasters to become scarce goods that couldn't be found anywhere.

Even this glass glue and sealing strips were only obtained by Xia Qing thanks to her status as a construction team squad leader.

After her father died, Xia Qing, who had lost all her relatives and was quite pretty, had to have either super strength, a group of powerful teammates she could trust with her back, or sell herself to trade for daily necessities if she wanted to live comfortably and decently in the Safe Zone.

Xia Qing had no super strength, no trustworthy teammates, and certainly didn't want to sell her body, so she chose to smear her face red to pretend she was poisoned, blending into the construction team to do manual labor.

Earning points was a secondary goal; Xia Qing's main purpose was to hide herself, learn construction techniques, and accumulate materials and tools that couldn't be bought on the market, preparing for a life alone after leaving the Safe Zone.

Of course, there were people in the construction team who wanted to take advantage of Xia Qing, but after experiencing her formidable strength, they all gave up their crooked thoughts.

For those who wouldn't give up, if they could be killed, Xia Qing took their lives directly; if they couldn't be killed, Xia Qing could only avoid them and use underhanded tactics to ensure they had no time to pay attention to her dirty self.

After installing the bright, clear glass, Xia Qing let out a long sigh of relief. Her home was finally secure.

Taking advantage of the time before dark, Xia Qing took a shovel to the neighboring yard and dug a pit to bury two humans—one large and one small—and a dog, whose remains were covered in wild grass and reduced to white bones.

These two people and the dog had all been killed by evolved mistletoe. Judging by their posture, the dog had been trying to save its owner until the very end.

The seeds of evolved mistletoe could not only parasitize on tree trunks but also on animals and human bodies. If the host did not notice and clear it thoroughly in time, they would soon be drained of blood and flesh and die.

Xia Qing still remembered the strings of bright red mistletoe berries growing on the body of the first person she saw killed by mistletoe. At the time, she thought it was the most terrifying scene of the natural disasters.

But in the years since, one thrilling experience after another had taught her that there is no "most terrifying," only "more terrifying." Fortunately, humans now had protective suits and other self-protection methods; as long as they didn't rashly enter uncleared evolved forests, they wouldn't suffer large-scale attacks from evolved organisms.

After burying the family of three, Xia Qing took the opportunity to clear out the wild grass and the house in the yard as well.

This family had been in the middle of building a house; the two-story main structure of reinforced concrete had just been completed when the acid rain and the Great Biological Evolution hit. As a result, the secondary structure and the doors and windows of the house hadn't been finished, and the building materials they had bought were piled up in a room on the second floor.

Fortunately, the roof used resin tiles, and the owner had done their best to protect the house; otherwise, after half a year of heavy acid rain, let alone the concrete, even the steel bars would have been dissolved away.

Xia Qing was all alone, and the current two-story building was enough to live in, so she decided to clear out this frame house and convert it into a warehouse to store some large, non-essential supplies, such as farm tools, building materials, old furniture, and wood.

After finishing the cleanup and taking another look around, Xia Qing felt a sense of accomplishment, but also felt that she should raise an evolved animal to guard the house as soon as possible, preferably a smart one.

An evolved dog or a large goose would both work, preferably a large goose, because it was a vegetarian. Xia Qing didn't even have meat to eat herself; she couldn't afford to feed a dog.

However, this was just wishful thinking. Animals that could still be tamed by humans after evolving were hard to come by. Xia Qing didn't think she had the luck to just sit and wait for one to appear in her territory.

At this stage, getting the land planted was the most important thing.