Under the combined influence of atmospheric Harmful Elements and Yi Elements, a phenomenon that remains unexplained to this day emerged during the global evolution of Earth’s lifeforms:
The lower the lifeform, the higher its degree of evolution.
While humans generally experienced a two-fold evolution, with only about 0.2% undergoing multiple evolutions, many invertebrates with simple body structures commonly underwent an eight-fold evolution, and their rate of multiple evolutions was also significantly higher than that of humans.
Therefore, the evolved lifeforms of Blue Star after the Natural Disasters were several times more dangerous to humans than before.
While Blue Star’s evolved lifeforms brought life-threatening danger, they also presented an opportunity for survival: organisms containing trace amounts of harmful radioactive elements and a Harmful Element content no higher than 0.5%.
Researchers named these: Safe Foods.
To date, research has confirmed three points. First, the lower the content of both types of elements, the more beneficial they are to the human body. Second, the higher the proportion of Safe Foods in one’s diet, the stronger a person’s ability to resist environmental contamination. Third, the resistance-boosting effect of multi-evolved safe lifeforms is significantly superior to that of ordinary Safe Foods.
Because Safe Foods were insufficient to meet the entire population’s needs, Hua Country designated edible organisms with little to no harmful radioactive elements and a Harmful Element content between 0.5% and 1.5% as "Optional Foods."
When tested with a standard Harmful Element Detector, both Safe Foods and Optional Foods show a Green Light.
If Xiaqing took the evolved catfish she had just killed to a Safe Zone, she could exchange it for enough compressed rations to last her three months.
But Xiaqing, having had her fill of coarse, composite compressed rations, just wanted to eat meat now.
She made short work of cleaning the catfish, chopped up a few pieces, threw them into the pot, added some mountain spring water, and started cooking.
’Seasoning? I only have salt and chili powder.’
’Side dishes? None.’
’Wait, no. I have evolved potato seeds. Six jin of them.’
However, Xiaqing couldn’t bring herself to eat them. The *Planting Guide* clearly stated that these potato seeds had a harmful element content of only 0.75% and a very low germination rate, between 30% and 35%.
It was impossible to know how many sprouts she could get from the six jin of potatoes, or how many jin she would harvest, so she was reluctant to eat them.
Soon, a tempting, meaty aroma wafted from the pot. Xiaqing sniffed the air and confirmed that her stewed catfish smelled even more fragrant and less muddy than the stewed fish sold in the Safe Zone’s cafeteria.
’This catfish is probably a Safe Food.’
Although her appetite had doubled since her evolution, Xiaqing couldn’t finish the catfish, which weighed over ten jin, in one sitting.
With no way to preserve fresh food in her territory, Xiaqing slowly roasted the leftover fish into jerky, then sealed it in a bag for storage.
Only by doing this could she prevent the fish from being corroded and spoiled by the Harmful Elements and Evolutionary Bacteria in the air.
’My food supply will only grow from now on. I need to figure out how to set up solar panels and a refrigerator as soon as possible. But before that, I have to find some glass to fix the window and keep out Evolved Insects, snakes, and other pests.’
Xiaqing put on her Protective Mask, grabbed her large canvas bag and tools, and decided to use the afternoon to patrol the Deserted Village.
Within Territory No. 3 were three villages arranged in a triangular formation. The villages were situated slightly higher than the surrounding farmland, separated from each other by large tracts of it. Before the Natural Disaster, each village had been home to dozens of families; now, only dozens of housing ruins remained.
Xiaqing lived in the Deserted Village at the top point of the triangle. To its southeast and southwest lay the other two Deserted Villages.
The houses in the Deserted Village had long been swallowed by plants. Pushing aside the overgrown weeds, Xiaqing saw numerous human and animal bones, picked clean.
It was a scene Xiaqing had witnessed countless times over the past decade. She was long since numb to it.
After searching through the three villages, Xiaqing found a piece of tempered laminated glass of the right size for her window. She wiped it clean, installed it in her window frame, and secured it firmly with glass sealant and a special sealing strip.
By the tenth year, the glue and sealing strips produced before the Natural Disaster had long expired, spoiled and unusable. The ones she was using now were post-disaster products she had brought from the Safe Zone.
The Natural Disasters had destroyed Blue Star’s original industrial production systems, turning most goods that could once be bought with a simple tap on a phone into scarce items that were now nearly impossible to find.
Even these tubes of sealant and sealing strips were something Xiaqing had only managed to acquire through her status as a squad leader on a construction team.
After her father’s death, Xiaqing—helpless, alone, and beautiful—had three options if she wanted to live comfortably and with dignity in the Safe Zone: possess overwhelming strength, earn a living with a team of powerful allies she could trust with her life, or sell her body to get by.
Xiaqing had no overwhelming strength, no trustworthy teammates, and she certainly wasn’t willing to sell her body. So, she chose to cut her long hair, dirty her face, and blend in with a construction team doing hard labor.
Earning points was a secondary goal. Xiaqing’s main purpose was to hide her identity, learn construction skills, and hoard materials and tools that couldn’t be bought on the market, all in preparation for living alone after leaving the Safe Zone.
Of course, there were men on the construction team who had designs on her, but after getting a taste of her formidable Strength, they all dropped their sordid ideas.
For those who wouldn’t give up, if she could kill them, Xiaqing simply took their lives. If she couldn’t, she avoided them and used dirty tricks to keep them too preoccupied to notice a grimy girl like her.
After installing the gleaming glass, Xiaqing let out a long sigh of relief. Her home was finally secure.
With some time left before dark, Xiaqing took a shovel to the neighboring yard. She dug a pit and buried the remains she found under the overgrown grass: the stark white bones of one large human, one small human, and a dog.
All three—the two people and the dog—had been killed by an Evolved Plant, a Mistletoe. From their positions, it was clear the dog had been trying to save its owners until the very end.
The seeds of an evolved Mistletoe could parasitize not only tree trunks but also animals and humans. If the host didn’t notice and completely remove it in time, the parasite would quickly drain them of their flesh and blood, killing them.
Xiaqing still remembered the first time she saw the clusters of bright red Mistletoe berries growing on a person killed by the parasite. At the time, she thought it was the most terrifying sight of the Natural Disasters.
But over the years, one close call after another had taught her there was no "most terrifying," only "more terrifying." Fortunately, humans now had Protective Suits and other methods of self-defense. As long as they didn’t rashly enter an uncleared Evolution Forest, they wouldn’t suffer a large-scale attack from evolved lifeforms.
After burying the family of three, Xiaqing went ahead and cleared the weeds from the yard and the house as well.
This family had been in the middle of building their house. The two-story main structure of reinforced concrete had just been completed when the acid rain and the great biological evolution struck. The secondary structures, doors, and windows were never finished, and the building materials they had bought were all piled up in a room on the second floor.
Luckily, the roof was made of resin tiles, and the homeowner had done everything they could to protect the house. Otherwise, after half a year of being battered by strong acid rain, not just the concrete, but even the steel rebar would have been dissolved away.
Xiaqing was only one person, and her current two-story house was more than enough. She decided to clean out this shell of a building and turn it into a warehouse for large, non-essential items like farm tools, building materials, old furniture, and wood.
After finishing up and taking another look around, Xiaqing felt a surge of accomplishment, but also realized she should get a smart Evolutionary Animal to guard the house as soon as possible.
’An Evolutionary dog or a goose would work. A goose would be better since it’s a herbivore. I don’t even have enough meat for myself, so I can’t afford to raise a dog.’
But that was just a thought. Animals that could still be tamed by humans after evolving were incredibly rare. Xiaqing didn’t think she was lucky enough to just wait for one to fall into her lap here in her own territory.
’For now, the most important thing is to get the fields planted.’