Chapter 131: How to Store Food

Chapter 131: Chapter 131: How to Store Food

After the great evolution of microorganisms on Blue Star, preserving food became significantly more difficult. Humanity devised many methods to extend the shelf life of food.

The method Xiaqing used—first drying the food, then vacuum-sealing it—was a commonly adopted, low-cost food storage technique.

This method only isolated the food from the effects of aerobic bacteria and other strains that were abnormally active in the presence of the Harmful Element. However, it couldn’t suppress the toxins produced by anaerobic bacteria.

Even for durable grains like unhulled wheat and corn, the maximum shelf life using this method was only three months.

After three months, even if the food still looked intact, the toxins produced by Evolutionary Anaerobic Bacteria would have already caused it to spoil.

Evolutionary Anaerobic Bacteria produced a variety of toxins, including one of the most potent biotoxins after Blue Star’s great biological evolution—Evolutionary Botulinum.

Evolutionary Botulinum couldn’t be killed even after boiling in water for several hours. Therefore, unless someone was on the verge of starvation, no one would risk their life pitting themselves against evolutionary pathogens.

Besides this simple storage method, there were several other more expensive but effective options, the most common being food storage warehouses.

The planting and breeding centers within the Safe Zone all had storage warehouses built to preserve food. These warehouses could extend the shelf life of food—major grain crops for over a year, and easily stored vegetables like onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, eggplants, and napa cabbage for more than three months.

To achieve such long storage times after the great evolution of microorganisms was already an incredible feat.

Xiaqing wasn’t a technician and wasn’t qualified to participate in the construction of these warehouses, so she still hadn’t figured out their operating principles. She only knew they needed to meet two basic conditions: first, filtering the Harmful Element from the air, and second, controlling temperature and humidity.

The destructive power of Blue Star’s microorganisms was directly proportional to the concentration of the Harmful Element in the atmosphere. Once the Harmful Element reached a certain concentration, the destructive power of the microorganisms would even increase exponentially.

Controlling temperature and humidity was manageable, but filtering the Harmful Element from the air was extremely difficult. This was why food storage warehouses were so expensive to build, and the cost of maintaining them was frighteningly high.

Before obtaining the Yi Stone, Xiaqing had never even considered long-term food storage on her own territory. First, she didn’t know how to build a storage warehouse and didn’t want to hire anyone to do it. Second, there was the cost issue. It wasn’t worth building a warehouse for the bits and pieces of produce she grew or gathered.

There was another very important point: at an agricultural trade fair, Xiaqing had overheard Tang Zhengrong telling Huang Jie, the head of the Hui City Main Base’s Territory Management Department, that the total cultivated area of all Hui San territories was 1,358.6 mu.

’How did they get such a precise number?’

Xiaqing had been living in her territory for half a year, and the Territory Management Department had never sent anyone to inspect or measure the cultivated area within the Third Territory. Nor had she heard of them measuring the cultivated areas in other territories.

To obtain such detailed data without on-site surveys, there was only one possibility: the Territory Management Department was getting its data via satellite.

In the first year of the Natural Disasters, a cosmic gamma-ray burst had destroyed all of Blue Star’s low and medium-orbit satellites, leaving only a few high-orbit satellites launched by Hua Country. After the Natural Disasters, all countries were working hard to restore communications, and Xiaqing had heard several broadcasts about Hua Country’s successful satellite launches.

Since the base could use satellites to measure the cultivated area of the territories, they could also monitor every move within them. This was why even though Xiaqing was the only person in her territory, she was still cautious and furtive when she went to fetch water from the Pollution-free Spring Water.

Although she was currently just one of the inconspicuous Lords among the two hundred territories of Hui San Base, suddenly adding multiple solar panels and building a food storage warehouse in her territory would definitely attract the attention of the Territory Management Department.

Xiaqing just wanted to live a low-key, high-quality life and didn’t want anyone paying attention to her, so she was unwilling to make any big moves.

Now, she had the Yi Stone, which solved her biggest food storage problem. All she had to do was dig a cool, dry cave and take measures against moisture, pests, and bacteria, and she could store her food.

Food stored this way would have an even longer shelf life than food stored in vacuum-sealed bags!

’She had so many mountains on her territory, wasn’t digging a cave a piece of cake?’

Happily munching on an Earth-raspberry Fruit, Xiaqing laid out detailed maps of the Third Territory and Zone Three of Mountain 49 and began to choose a location.

She had traded vegetables with Zhong Tao for these two maps. She had drawn the map of the Third Territory herself, while she had commissioned Luo Pei to draw the map of Zone Three of Mountain 49. She had marked the corresponding locations of the crops she planted and the native edible plants she found in her territory and in Zone 3 with a pencil.

You could say that these two maps were her own personal treasure maps.

Xiaqing first added the locations of the three patches of Earth-raspberry Fruit, then looked at the growing number of small dots, circles, and squares on the maps, filled with a sense of accomplishment.

Because these were all food, and amid the Natural Disasters, nothing provided a greater sense of security than food and weapons.

The more than fifteen thousand mu of mountain forest and arable land on the map were all hers. She could dig a cave wherever she wanted, as long as it wasn’t deeper than thirty meters.

Going deeper than thirty meters would damage the mountain’s internal structure and could potentially affect her most precious resource for survival: the Pollution-free Spring Water.

Xiaqing hesitated for a moment between Zone 3 and the Buffer Forest before deciding to dig the cave in the West Buffer Forest.

Although Zone Three of Mountain 49 belonged to her and was at a higher altitude than the Buffer Forest, making temperature control easier, Xiaqing didn’t feel comfortable storing her food in a place she couldn’t see or hear at all times.

Once the location was chosen, digging a cave was a trivial matter for Xiaqing, who had both tools and strength.

This wasn’t an urgent matter. She began to work on the most crucial "technical aspect" of food preservation—crafting the Yi Stone Protection Shell.

After opening the files Luo Pei had sent and studying them carefully, Xiaqing, with her three months of blacksmithing experience, felt it wouldn’t be too difficult.

Crafting the Yi Stone Protection Shell required first melting down the crushed stones sifted from the surface layer of the Yi Stone and the surrounding soil at a high temperature. Then, she had to add a certain proportion of iron, carbon, silicon, manganese, nickel, and aluminum, and smelt-cast it into a shell of a certain thickness.

Xiaqing took out her toolkit and went through the materials she had accumulated over the years. She had iron, carbon, silicon, and aluminum, but she would need to buy manganese and nickel.

Xiaqing pulled out her phone and sent a message to Zhong Tao.

Zhong Tao quickly replied: No problem. What do you need these for, girl?

Xiaqing replied: My machete is broken. It’s too expensive to get it repaired in the Safe Zone, so I’m planning to reforge it. I’ve worked in a blacksmith shop in the Safe Zone before, so I know a little about forging.

Zhong Tao, who had just walked into the Safe Zone’s military cafeteria, froze for a few seconds before typing his reply: Girl, is there anything you can’t do?

Xiaqing chuckled and put her phone back in her pocket.

"Why aren’t you getting food? Reporting your every move to the missus?" A brother from his unit came over with a tray, asking casually when he saw Zhong Tao standing there in a daze.

Zhong Tao ran to get his food and came back, asking the comrade next to him, "Tell me, does a Strength-evolved woman who can farm, build houses, and forge metal even need a man?"

Zheng Kui knew immediately who Zhong Tao was talking about and didn’t reply. The brother next to them chuckled slyly. "It’s not about whether she needs a man, it’s about whether any man would dare to marry a woman like that. Would you dare?"

Zhong Tao shook his head like a rattle drum. He didn’t dare to think about it and just buried his head in his food.

Back in the Third Territory, Xiaqing first replaced the drinking water for her two distinguished guests with fresh spring water. Then, listening to the radio, she went to bring back the chicken that had entered its cage and put it in the tool shed before starting to prepare dinner for herself and Sheep Leader.

After a greasy lunch, Xiaqing decided to have something light for dinner. Mung bean and rice congee, plain flatbread, a cold vegetable salad, bird’s blood with chopped chilies, and a few pieces of roasted heron meat. Dinner was served.

Sheep Leader’s meal was tender toon leaves and pasture grass mixed with compressed rations. The Green Light Alfalfa and Perilla smelled so awful after they flowered that now, never mind eating them, even walking past them made both Xiaqing and Sheep Leader want to take a detour.

After preparing the food, Xiaqing stood in the house and called out loudly, "Leader, time to eat!"

Sheep Leader, who had been lying in the sheep pen chewing its cud, completed the entire sequence of washing its hooves, rubbing against the grass, opening the door, entering the house, and approaching the table in just a few seconds. It squinted at Xiaqing.

’Where’s the food?’

Xiaqing brought out its food bowl, putting on a dejected look. "Leader, ever since your friends arrived, you’re not as clingy with me anymore. I’m so disappointed."

’Disappointed? What’s that? Is it tasty?’ Sheep Leader’s eyes followed only the food bowl.

Feeling like she was casting pearls before swine, Xiaqing was speechless. She put down the food bowl and gave its horns a rough rub. "You ungrateful thing!"

To prevent any light from escaping at night, Xiaqing tightly shut the security door and pulled down the blackout curtains before turning on the main light. After washing her hands in the kitchen, she brought her own food to the table and shouted happily, "Time to eat!"

Lying in the sheep pen, the Brain Domain Evolution Wolf stared with its amber eyes in the direction of the closed security door for a while before slowly shutting them.