The old woman ate the kumquat in silence, her eyes filled with gratitude as she looked at Fu Erdie.
But Fu Erdie took a step back.
She couldn’t help but save a life when she saw one in need, but a moment of compassion didn’t mean she was willing to support someone long-term.
Right now, she only had a little surplus. Potatoes yielded two or three every couple of days, and combined with kumquats, sweet potatoes, and other crops that were gradually ripening, she barely had enough to feed herself, just starting to build a small reserve.
She wasn’t about to support someone irrelevant, nor did she want to expose her secrets.
“Take care of yourself.”
Leaving those words behind, she went to scavenge supplies from the other units on this floor.
This time, to protect her secret, she didn’t bring any potted plants. Instead, she first moved the usable items in batches to Unit 16-2, then returned to the floor, endured the discomfort, and gathered the remains into a room in the corner of the floor. She spread a layer of soil over the remains and planted some dandelion and cabbage seedlings.
Fu Erdie had already discovered that ordinary seeds planted in Unit 16-1 had an extremely high survival rate and tended to mutate in positive ways. But the only seeds that could survive outside were those that had undergone intelligent mutation.
These seeds didn’t mutate from the start. Instead, they only developed a tendency toward intelligent mutation after spending a day or two in Unit 16-1.
The dandelion and cabbage she was now planting on the 24th floor were seedlings that had undergone intelligent mutation.
If the old woman happened to notice them after they matured and ate them, that would be fine. If she didn’t, Fu Erdie wouldn’t go out of her way to remind her.
After finishing, she returned to the stairwell, where the old woman was waiting for her with a bag in hand.
Fu Erdie walked over. “Is there something else?”
The old woman seemed to sense the wariness in her tone. Without saying much, she lowered her head and opened the dusty sack.
Inside were over a dozen sprouting potatoes, a large bag of sesame paste, and a big jar of oatmeal.
Her voice no longer as hoarse as before, the old woman spoke softly. “I was hoping to trade for some fruit, if that’s possible.”
Everything she offered for trade required water to prepare or couldn’t be eaten directly.
The old woman didn’t pry into Fu Erdie’s situation, she simply laid out everything she had to offer.
“I just need a few bottles of water and a few of those kumquats you gave me earlier.” Afraid of making things difficult for Fu Erdie, the old woman spoke earnestly. “As for how many, little sister, you decide.”
Surrounded by zombies, the old woman couldn’t get out. Without water, no amount of stored food would be of any use.
Fu Erdie lowered her gaze and finally agreed.
She hoped that when she helped this old woman, someone might also help her grandmother when she needed it.
Although such hope couldn’t be equated with what she was giving, she still wished for her grandmother and her aunt to be safe and well.
Fu Erdie brought a bucket of water for the old woman and, estimating her food intake, also gave her the 30 kumquats she had saved over the past few days.
At this temperature, kumquats could last about fifteen days. If the old woman ate two or three a day, they would sustain her for a while.
As for the dried goods she received in return, oatmeal and sesame paste, they could serve as breakfast. The sprouted potatoes, however, were a bit of a headache. She had no place to plant them.
During her sweep from the 16th to the 24th floor, she had collected eleven more flower pots. But all of them were already filled with soil and planted with seeds she had gathered. There was no room left for potatoes.
Besides, the balcony was only about nine square meters. The original flower bed at the edge had already taken up two or three square meters with its various plants. Adding the seventeen flower pots she had accumulated, along with the wooden box she used for carrying intelligently mutated plants outside, that occupied another two or three square meters.
As the crops continued to grow, the pots had to be spaced further apart. The eco-friendly greenery was also getting bigger, now nearly filling the entire balcony. If she wanted to plant more, she would have to use the living room or one of the bedrooms.
But then there was another issue: even if she turned one of the bedrooms and the living room into planting space, she still wouldn’t have enough soil.
So what should she do with these seeds and sprouted potatoes? Just leave them for the apartment and the eco-friendly greenery to absorb as nutrients?
Fu Erdie couldn’t bring herself to do that.
Rubbing her chin, she found herself at a loss for the moment.
After clearing the 24th floor, Fu Erdie finally made it to the rooftop.
The view from the top was wide open, allowing her to see the current state of the surrounding buildings, stacked in layers.
Compared to the early days of the apocalypse, the world now seemed eerily quiet.
There were no chirping insects or birds, only waves of scorching heat.
The zombies, perhaps also affected by the heat, rarely wandered outside. Instead, many of them could be seen shuffling about inside the residential buildings.
Fu Erdie suddenly realized that while the heat left people exhausted, dehydrated, and with diminished appetite, it also had its advantages, it restricted humans, but it also restricted the zombies.
Now that she had cleared everything above the 16th floor, once she finished clearing the floors below and ensured there were no zombies left in the entire building, she could try to seal the building off.
She would need to block both the main entrance and the broken windows on the first floor.
With only her and the old woman as the sole living people in the building, it was unlikely to attract many zombies from a distance.
And by then, even though her apartment was small, the crops continuously producing fruit would be enough to sustain the two of them. If seeds couldn’t be planted and eventually went bad, at least she wouldn’t regret it as much.
Fu Erdie hadn’t realized that while making her plans, she had already started to include the old woman.
The immediate issue was this: she could clear the building floor by floor, but how was she supposed to seal the windows on the first floor?
And besides, sealing the windows would help contain the scent and keep zombies from wandering in. But wouldn’t sealing the building tightly while everything else around was in ruins just scream “something valuable inside”?
Zombies might not get in, but what about survivors? Or ability users searching for resources?
Feeling her negative thoughts creeping back, Fu Erdie took a deep breath and forced them down.
She returned to Unit 16-2, organizing all the useful and useless items she had scavenged, then went to water the millet in Unit 16-7.
Compared to the potted plants and mutated plants in her own home, the intelligently mutated plants planted outside seemed pitiful, listless and wilted all day. Only when Fu Erdie came to water them did they perk up slightly.
Yet she could still feel the millet’s resentment. After drinking water and regaining some energy, the little sprout would poke at her finger in protest, which Fu Erdie found utterly adorable.
But what could she do? There was no room to plant it at home!
After finishing everything, Fu Erdie returned home, took a shower, changed her clothes, and collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion.
Her body was tired, but her mind remained tense, her not-so-sharp brain working furiously.
At the moment, she had two major concerns. First, she wasn’t an ability user, so she might not be able to protect her home or even the entire building.
Second, she had always been the type to get to the bottom of things. The apartment and the pothos were her support, but they had only grown stronger by consuming large numbers of zombies.
Now, they couldn’t move, and the zombies they could have fed on were all gone. It had been a long time since they had last eaten.
All they could break down now were the daily household waste and the excrement from her and the dog in the bathroom.
It could also count the flies and mosquitoes buzzing around.
But were these things really enough to keep the apartment functioning normally?
The air conditioning every day, the water for drinking, bathing, and washing, the electricity for daily use, none of it could come from nowhere.
Even ability users had to keep eating and maintaining their strength to sustain their powers.
The apartment and the greenery hadn’t fed in a long time. Could they hold on?
If they couldn’t, then the comfort and stability she now enjoyed, clean water, fresh air, a cool indoor environment, the continuous harvest of crops, would all vanish like fleeting clouds.
Unless she could confirm that the apartment and the pothos could sustain themselves through photosynthesis, relying on wind and rain to grow healthily, she would never be able to ease her worries.
Two months into the apocalypse, Fu Erdie had learned one survival rule: when anxiety and fear set in, she had to use physical exhaustion to wash away the mental strain.
Fifteen floors below the 16th, she cleared each one at top speed.
On the eighth floor, she brought the potato plants with her. In total, they contributed 30 potatoes.
The potato plants worked one day and rested the next. During their seven days of rest across seven floors, the gardenia and spider plant took over.
As for the slowest and most adorable of the eco-friendly greenery, the succulent, Fu Erdie simply carried it along floor by floor, keeping it within sight as a little mascot to lift her spirits. As for food, it could eat as much as it managed. If it got bullied by the other “kindergarten kids”, the spider plant or potato plants, and had its food stolen, Fu Erdie would step in to stop it if she could. If she couldn’t, then there was nothing she could do.
It took her over half a month to clear the entire building.
During this time, aside from the usual supplies, Fu Erdie also found a few things that gave her ideas.
The first was a power strip.
Fu Erdie didn’t know how to do wiring, but she certainly knew how to use a power strip.
In every apartment, she could find at least two power strips. And in some homes, where the owners ran businesses or often worked outdoors, there were extremely long extension cords, which worked to her advantage.
With over two hundred households, she had collected four to five hundred power strips. It felt like enough to wrap around the Earth twice.
At the very least, running one from the 16th floor down to the 1st floor was no problem.
That meant she could install surveillance cameras on whichever floors of the building she needed.
And surveillance cameras were another series of usable tools she had uncovered.
There was already a camera in the hallway outside her door. She had also bought a pet camera for fun before, so she had some basic understanding of surveillance equipment.
Some cameras required an internet connection for remote transmission, while others only had simple recording functions.
In the current environment, if she wanted to remotely monitor activity downstairs, she would have to use Bluetooth-enabled cameras.
But Bluetooth had a limited range, at best, it would work across only one floor. Unless she moved to the second floor herself, she wouldn’t be able to monitor the comings and goings on the first floor in real time.
Fortunately, Fu Erdie came across a third type of tool: walkie-talkies.
Different walkie-talkies could be used as long as they were set to the same frequency. After searching through 24 floors, she had found nine walkie-talkies. As long as they were within five kilometers of each other, they could pick up transmissions.
Fu Erdie felt she now knew how to settle the old woman.