Tang Ye walked past the crowd and headed into the storage room at the back. It was packed full, filled with all kinds of vegetables, meat, and seasonings, giving a strong sense of security.
She checked the quantities one by one. The usage was normal, and her wrist device could monitor the activity of each facility. If anyone attempted to steal food or other supplies, an alert would be triggered, essentially functioning as surveillance.
She had clearly informed the survivors working in the cafeteria about this, and it seemed everyone was abiding by the rules.
The inventory was still quite sufficient for now, so Tang Ye did not restock and turned to leave the storage room.
Outside, large batches of dishes had already been cooked, and the rice had just been prepared. The rich aroma continuously drifted into the survivors’ noses.
“Mom, it smells so good.” As soon as Tang Ye stepped out, she saw the little girl who had come with her parents.
At that moment, only she and her mother were in the cafeteria. It was unclear how her father was doing.
“It’s big sister.” When the little girl saw Tang Ye, her eyes lit up. She smiled and waved at her.
Tang Ye walked over and gently patted her head. “Did you come to eat with your mom?”
The little girl nodded. “We’re also buying food to take back for Dad.”
At that, her expression dimmed slightly. “Dad is still injured, so he can’t come with us.”
“How is his injury?” Tang Ye asked.
“The bleeding has barely been stopped, but he has a fever now. After all, he lost a hand. If we had anti-inflammatory medicine, it would be much better.” The girl’s mother sighed, her brows filled with lingering worry.
“Anti-inflammatory medicine? We have it. The medical room has it, but there’s no doctor at the moment, so you’ll have to figure out the dosage yourselves,” Tang Ye said.
The girl’s mother’s eyes immediately lit up.
Although there was no doctor stationed in the medical room yet, medicines could still be sold. Tang Ye went ahead to the medical room. It was still a logistics storage area. Opening the pharmacy interface, she found a wide variety of medicines and medical equipment.
The selection of drugs was extensive, covering almost everything, and the medical equipment was also very complete.
However, without doctors, the equipment could not yet be used. Still, Tang Ye exchanged for a portion of each.
There were simply too many types of medicine for her to exchange all at once, so she only selected some commonly used ones, along with the anti-inflammatory medicine needed for the little girl’s father. In total, it cost 8,200 energy points.
Medicines were significantly more expensive than food, though compared to what Tang Ye had known before, these prices were already much cheaper.
She took out a box of anti-inflammatory medicine. The little girl and her mother were already waiting outside the medical room.
“This anti-inflammatory medicine costs two Level 2 mutated crystal cores per box. One box should be enough,” Tang Ye said. “And this is fever medicine, I’ll count it as one Level 2 mutated crystal core.”
“Three Level 2 mutated crystal cores?” The girl’s mother froze for a moment. She had expected it to be very expensive, but it turned out to be so affordable.
It seemed that everything Tang Ye had said earlier in the small building was true. This really was a shelter that did not exist to profit from crystal cores, but to support survivors.
With reddened eyes, the girl’s mother paid the crystal cores, thanked Tang Ye repeatedly, and left with the medicines.
After they left, Tang Ye returned to the medical room and arranged all the supplies neatly on the shelves. She wondered when they would be able to recruit doctors and nurses.
The shelter she had stayed in before also had doctors, but there had been a severe shortage of medicine, and a portion of it had been controlled by the shelter’s higher ups.
After finishing the arrangement, Tang Ye was covered in sweat.
With more people now, she had to manage several facilities alone, and she was starting to feel overwhelmed.
It was not until the evening of the next day that the plot of land on the surface was finally fully transformed.
Tang Ye could not wait to take the elevator up to check. What she saw was a neatly shaped plot of deep black soil, distinct from the surrounding land.
Looking at it, she walked over slowly. It was not as small as she had imagined. It seemed large enough to grow quite a number of vegetables.
After unlocking the land, the logistics interface updated as well, adding various vegetable seeds.
There were many types of seeds available, even wheat and rice.
A bag of potato seeds cost one hundred energy points, while a bag of cabbage seeds cost one hundred fifty.
Tang Ye exchanged for these two types, planning to test them first. After spending 250 energy points, two burlap sacks of seeds appeared before her.
Since everything had to be planted manually, Tang Ye also spent fifty energy points to exchange for farming tools.
She had never farmed before and had to rely on the System’s guidance to begin awkwardly. The first step was to loosen the soil.
Tang Ye swung the hoe, breaking up the hard, compact soil. Such a simple action felt unexpectedly difficult for her. For the first time, she felt that a hoe was harder to handle than a blade.
“Administrator, what are you doing?” Jiang Qing and Jiang Hong had just returned from outside when they saw Tang Ye turning the soil.
“Farming,” Tang Ye replied briefly while working. “You’re back? Not injured, right?”
“No injuries. What are you planting? Isn’t all land wasteland now? Can anything even grow?” Jiang Qing asked, puzzled.
“This plot has been transformed, so it can be used for planting. I plan to gradually turn this entire area into a farm, but everything is difficult at the beginning.” Tang Ye wiped the sweat from her forehead.
By now, the two of them were no longer as shocked by the shelter’s strange capabilities as they had been initially. Seeing Tang Ye struggling, they rolled up their pants and stepped forward to help.
The plot was not very large, and with their help, the soil was quickly loosened.
With the first step done, the rest became much smoother. When it came time to sow the seeds, Jiang Qing and Jiang Hong looked at the piles of seeds in the bags and could not help but show expressions of delight.
“Administrator, aren’t these potato seeds? And this one, this is…”
“These are cabbage seedlings,” Tang Ye said. “There are other seeds too. These two are just for testing.”
The two of them crouched eagerly beside the bags, helping Tang Ye take out the seeds and place them into the dug holes.
“Will they really grow?”
“They will.” Tang Ye now trusted the System completely.
It was not until nightfall that the three of them finished planting the entire plot.
It was not because the land was large, but because Tang Ye was simply not skilled at farming, which made the process take longer.
No one knew how well they would grow or how much they would yield. Not only Jiang Qing and Jiang Hong, but even Tang Ye herself felt full of anticipation.
After tidying everything up, the three of them returned to the shelter, bringing the tools and remaining seeds back with them.
Tang Ye temporarily placed everything in a corner of her room.
Afterward, she went to the laboratory and the recycling station to collect the finished products.
It was already very late. Back in her room, Tang Ye set the prices for the newly produced toilet paper, sanitary pads, and towels. Since they were made from recycled waste, she did not price them high. Each item cost one Level 1 mutated crystal core, though like other supplies, bulk purchases were not allowed.
After finishing everything, the outside world had grown quiet. Tang Ye lay down on her bed and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning, after posting a notice, Tang Ye went up to the surface to check on the vegetables she had planted the day before.
As soon as she arrived, she saw several survivors gathered around the plot.
“Are those new sprouts?”
“It looks like it, but how can vegetables grow on this wasteland?”
“This is unbelievable. It must be something the Administrator did.”
Tang Ye walked over and saw that the seeds planted just the night before had already sprouted tender shoots.
Even she was astonished. How could they grow so fast? Even without farming experience, she knew that vegetables had growth cycles. No matter how fast, they should not sprout overnight.
“The land transformed by the System increases yield and shortens growth cycles, so there’s no need to be too surprised,” the System explained at the right moment.
With the System’s explanation, Tang Ye finally understood why the plants had sprouted overnight. As expected, things produced by the System could not be judged by normal standards.
More and more survivors gathered around. Some even began to cry at the sight of the seedlings. No one laughed at them, because everyone understood.
It had been years since the apocalypse began. This was the first time they had seen signs of life growing on this wasteland.
As Tang Ye watered the plants, she answered various questions from the crowd.
One survivor who had just arrived reached out to touch the seedlings, as if to confirm whether they were real, but was immediately stopped by others.
“Don’t touch them. Do you know how precious these seedlings are? This might be the only place in the world where vegetables can grow.”
“That’s right, don’t touch them. Can you afford to compensate if something happens?”
The man quickly scratched his head awkwardly and apologized to Tang Ye. “Sorry, Administrator, I just got too excited.”
Tang Ye had also been startled. She looked seriously at the survivors. “Since this is our shelter’s farm, I hope everyone will take good care of it. Don’t let something like this happen again. Also, does anyone here know carpentry? I want to build a fence around this area.”
Several people in the crowd raised their hands. Tang Ye glanced over, there were about seven or eight of them.
The fence she wanted was not something simple. It needed to be taller and wider. She planned to enclose the entire area so that when more land was unlocked in the future, there would be no need to build another fence.
“You, then. I want a fence built from here to over there, enclosing the entire area. I’ll provide one lunch per day, and each of you will receive one hundred energy points per day,” Tang Ye said after thinking it over.