Chapter 47: Green Light Bamboo Shoots

Chapter 47: Green-Light Bamboo Shoots

When Tan Junjie led his team on patrol to the isolation zone outside the western buffer forest of Territory No. 3, Xia Qing took the initiative to greet them. "Captain Tan, could I trouble you to pass a message to Zhang San in Territory No. 7? I want to exchange supplies with him."

Tan Junjie glanced at the backpack on Xia Qing's back, which was nearly as tall as she was. "You want to exchange now?"

Xia Qing nodded. "I harvested some Green-Light bamboo shoots. If he agrees to the trade, please give him my phone number, Captain Tan."

Zhang San was a foodie with abundant supplies and was capable of long-term trading, so Xia Qing wanted to exchange contact information with him. Xia Qing was certain that although there were no ground base stations here, Zhang San definitely had a satellite phone.

"I'll ask him." Tan Junjie pulled out his phone to call Zhang San.

Once the call connected, Xia Qing's evolved hearing accurately captured Zhang San's irritation: "You'd better..."

Tan Junjie interrupted him calmly, "Green-Light bamboo shoots were found in Territory No. 3. We're asking if you want to trade."

"I do!" Zhang San's voice instantly shifted from a thunderstorm to a rainbow. "Where's my sister Xia Qing?"

Tan Junjie shuddered. Suppressing a sense of dread, Xia Qing leaned close to the phone and directly stated her terms. "Brother San, it's Xia Qing. I got some Green-Light evolved shoots today, but I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm not sure how they taste. I want to exchange them for a dehydrator, a vacuum sealer, and two hundred sealing bags. How many jin of fresh shoots do you need?"

Xia Qing's emphasis on "Green-Light" and "fresh" was enough to entice Zhang San. "Ten jin is enough. Can we trade now? Should I have Tan Junjie bring them over, or should I send someone to pick them up?"

"Captain Tan will bring them. Brother San, please hand the supplies to Captain Tan as well." After speaking, Xia Qing took two steps back and handed over ten jin of sealed Green-Light shoots. Hu Zifeng had given her two bags of Green-Light bamboo shoots in total, ten jin per bag; no scale was even needed.

Tan Junjie continued his patrol along the isolation zone, passing the northern side of Territory No. 3, the wire fence of the wild boar breeding center, and the northern sides of territories four, five, and six. Before they even reached the northern isolation zone of Territory No. 7, a disheveled Zhang San came rushing over eagerly. "Where are my shoots?"

Tan Junjie countered, "Where are the machines and the sealing bags?"

"Give them to her, quick, give them to her!" Zhang San urged the two burly bodyguards behind him.

The bodyguards handed the machines, still in their packaging boxes, to Tan Junjie. After confirming everything was correct, Tan Junjie signaled Cao Xianyun to hand the bamboo shoots to Zhang San.

The pale yellow fresh shoots inside the thickened sealing bags were incredibly enticing. Without even a word of thanks, Zhang San grabbed them and turned to run back to his territory.

Tan Junjie smiled and led his team to continue the patrol. Su Ming muttered quietly, "That guy is really..."

"I advise you not to grumble about him, otherwise you won't even know how you died." Cao Xianyun shoved the large box containing the dehydrator toward Su Ming and strode forward to catch up with the captain.

As they passed Territory No. 3, Tan Junjie handed the machines to Xia Qing. "Zhang San's phone number is inside. Although he has a temper, he's not a bad person."

After the Great Biological Evolution, human living conditions had deteriorated sharply. Every human who had survived until now had blood on their hands; to survive, who hadn't done something selfish at the expense of others?

Therefore, being able to receive the evaluation of "not a bad person" in the tenth year of the catastrophe was quite rare.

After watching the inspection team walk away, Xia Qing turned and took a few steps into her territory, only to hear that familiar muttering again. "Captain, what exactly is Zhang San's background... Why doesn't the Captain ask where Sister Qing dug up those bamboo shoots? We could just dig some up ourselves and share them with her..."

Tan Junjie, of course, did not respond. Cao Xianyun snorted, "She went out for one day and brought back bamboo. How many places within dozens of miles are like that?"

Twenty-year-old Su Ming answered honestly, "I don't know. Where is it?"

"Even if you knew, you couldn't go there."

"Why not?"

Exactly, why? The place where the bamboo grew wasn't far from the headquarters. Why couldn't they go? Xia Qing stopped thinking about it. Carrying the relatively lightweight large box, she returned home. After unpacking and confirming that the two machines were functional, she entered Zhang San's phone number into her contacts.

Having been out all day, Xia Qing was now famished. Smelling the aroma of rice wafting from the pot, her stomach began to growl. She quickly stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork, prepared a cold dish of perilla, and then used perilla, Chinese toon sprouts, and rations to make the most sumptuous specialized meal ever for Boss Sheep, placing it on its dining table.

Her own meal was also the most bountiful she had had since moving into the territory... no, since her father passed away five years ago.

The taste of the bamboo shoots was simply too good. After the human and the sheep had licked their plates (basins) clean, Xia Qing leaned back in her chair, smelling the fragrance in the air while chatting with Boss Sheep.

"I went to the right bamboo forest this time, didn't I? If I hadn't gone, would Boss be able to eat such good shoots?" Xia Qing gave Boss Sheep a boastful side-eye, only to find the creature squinting at the metal box in the kitchen.

Still want more?

In your dreams!

Xia Qing efficiently cleaned the dishes and basins, then brought the dehydrator and the vacuum sealer into the kitchen. This vacuum sealer was the same as the one with the copper band; Xia Qing knew how to use it, but she had never used a food dehydrator and would need to study it.

As it turned out, Zhang San really wasn't a bad person. He hadn't just sent brand-new machines, but also included instruction manuals. Xia Qing opened them and read carefully.

This food dehydrator was 48 cm long, 41 cm wide, and 51 cm high, weighing 25 jin. It could hold twelve layers of stainless steel mesh trays at once. The temperature control range was between 30-90 degrees Celsius, with a timer from 0-24 hours, and it could dehydrate fruit, meat, seafood, and vegetables.

Now that the oceans had been contaminated by nuclear wastewater, seafood could not be eaten. The other three items were exactly what Xia Qing needed to dehydrate for preservation. She didn't have fruit right now, but the two strawberry plants in her terraced planting area had already bloomed with small white flowers—six of them!

Xia Qing felt delighted, but as she continued reading the dehydration times for each type of food, she fell silent.

Although the reference table for dehydration times did not mention bamboo rats, bamboo rats were also called bamboo pigs or bamboo martens, so the dehydration time could be referenced from pork slices. Thus, even if the bamboo rat meat was sliced into 0.5 cm thin pieces, it would still require 8 hours of baking at 60 degrees Celsius. For bamboo shoots, referencing the dehydration time for ginger, they required 7 hours at 60 degrees.

Slicing was not the problem, nor was the capacity of the oven. The real problem was that the electricity generated by the two solar panels on her roof was not enough.

Xia Qing picked up her phone to contact Zhong Tao. After confirming he could come to pick up the goods tomorrow morning, she gave up on processing the Red-Light bamboo rat and opened the sealed bag of the Yellow-Light bamboo rat.

Xia Qing didn't know how large bamboo rats could grow before the catastrophe, but this Yellow-Light evolved bamboo rat weighed twenty-two jin, which was definitely larger than those before the catastrophe. This bamboo rat should yield sixteen jin of meat, which would result in eight jin of jerky after dehydration.

Eight jin...

Although Xia Qing had never eaten bamboo rat and didn't know what it tasted like, any meat that could promote her evolution was good meat.

Ten years ago, during the Great Biological Evolution of Planet Blue, human evolution used twenty-five years of age as a dividing line. Those under twenty-five had a higher probability of high-level evolution, and after those under twenty-five underwent evolution, their evolution levels could still increase.

In the tenth year of the catastrophe, Chinese scientists discovered through in-depth research that the current dividing line for human evolution was thirty-five years of age. If humans could ingest sufficient energy before the age of thirty-five, it was possible to trigger evolution and increase evolution levels.

The energy humans obtained came from edible food, and the nutritional balance had to be reasonable and well-matched.

Xia Qing was only twenty-five this year; she could still increase her evolution level. Therefore, while she was in the Safe Zone, almost all the points she earned were spent on food. Now that she had left the Safe Zone and had a territory, she was even less likely to mistreat herself.