Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
[27th of July, 7:28 P.M. Another green-headed fly died. There are three remaining. The fly eggs left behind by the previous fly have not shown any reaction.]
Shen Cong gave the green-headed flies meat that was filled with even more Activity and observed the eggs laid by the green-headed fly. Each of them was the size of a needle tip, and they grew on the rotten meat like hair, but they did not hatch.
Shen Cong had great expectations toward the fly eggs.
His assumption was that the brachyponera ant colony was able to have so many mutated ants because once the brachyponera queen ant mutated, all the ants it gave birth to were mutants as well.
From this, Shen Cong could infer that mutations, or rather, Activity, could be inherited. If the flies gave birth to mutated flies, then his understanding toward Activity would increase.
Of course, compared to his expectation toward the fly eggs, Shen Cong had even greater expectations toward the three eggs laid by the brachyponera queen ant.
If the ants from those eggs were mutated ants, he wondered what sort of effect could be produced if he reared them since they were just larvae.
‘The three ant eggs were brought out from the queen ant’s body. I wonder if they have already matured and whether they can hatch. The encyclopedia stated that ants require fourteen days to hatch. I’ll try to hatch them, then.’
If he failed in hatching them, he could cook them and eat them like chicken eggs.
Ever since Shen Cong started living in the post-apocalyptic world, he changed his source of food. All creatures containing Activity were in his list of edible stuff.
He placed the ant eggs in a box and waited for them to hatch.
Shen Cong then set about doing another task. He started classifying the formic acid from the mutated ants’ crops based on whether it was powerful formic acid or super powerful formic acid and poured them into different containers. Acidic substances could not be contained in plastic bottles. Because of it, Shen Cong brought out a few fruit cans, ate the fruits inside, drank the juice, and used the cans as containers.
Once he poured out all the formic acid contained in the 221 brachyponera worker ants’ crops, he filled up two and a half 1 L cans. The 53 brachyponera soldier ants’ crops gave him a full 1 L can of super powerful formic acid.
The three and a half cans of formic acid were put away.
He did not plan to use them for the time being.
Then, he began organizing the ant legs.
He had plenty of brachyponera worker ant legs, but they did not take up a lot of space. Each ant leg was only about the width of a chopstick, and their length was about the length of its body. The ant leg of a brachyponera soldier ant was not that much bigger than the ant leg from a brachyponera worker soldier, and their length as well as width were about the same as well.
There were five sections to the ant leg—coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, and tarsus. The coxa was the basal segment of the leg of an insect. The sclerotin content there was high and could not be eaten. The trochanter was considered as a joint and could not be eaten. The tarsus was considered as an ant’s claws, so there was no flesh there.
Only the femur and tibia contained flesh. They could be considered as the thigh and calf, and the taste was incredibly great.
Shen Cong got rid of the coxa, trochanter, and tarsus, keeping only the femur and tibia. Then, he intended to give them a simple dip in boiling oil so that he could eat them as snacks.
“I ate fried ant legs at the People’s Square, but where are you right now?” Shen Cong hummed.
While he fried the ant legs, they gave off a tempting scent. Once he finished frying one batch, he packed them in a paper tray and ate them as he would french fries. If he dipped them in ketchup…
Shen Cong smacked his lips.
He fried all of the ant legs and filled up six shoe boxes. It was enough to last him for a few days, provided that it did not go bad.
He could treat the normal mutated ant legs as snacks, but the brachyponera queen ant’s three and a half legs and its antennae could be treated as main dishes. The queen ant’s leg was about the breadth of a mineral water bottle cap, and it was a little longer than a person’s forearm. A thick wave of Activity radiation spread out from it.
Now, Shen Cong was faced with the trouble of having too much food.
He had the pork steak from the tumor pig, dog legs from the unspayed poodle, fried ant legs, and meat from the queen ant. Unfortunately, before the apocalypse, Shen Cong never thought about making sure that he could store meat in a cold storage, because cold storages used up too much electricity. Hence, he did not install any. All he stored was dry food that was easy to keep.
He did have a small compressor fridge to serve as a car fridge, but when water entered the truck during the storm, its internal systems were destroyed, and Shen Cong never had the time to repair it. Besides, even if he did manage to repair it, it was not big, and it wasn’t that great anyway. He had just casually gotten himself a fridge and did not put a lot of effort in making preparations in this aspect.
It was not worth it for him to install a fridge that took up a lot of space, used up a lot of electricity, and only gave him a subpar effect just for the sake of storing food that could last for a short amount of time.
This led to him having too much meat right now, and if he did not throw it away, it would rot in his truck.
‘What a waste. If I manage to find a camp for survivors, I might be able to exchange some of this mutated monster flesh for resources. Once I find a survivor’s camp and my life stabilizes, I will need to remodify Titan so that I can handle this post-apocalyptic world better.’
The current post-apocalyptic world was very different compared to the post-apocalyptic world Shen Cong had prepared for.
It was now nine at night.
He had wanted to organize the Activity cores he gathered, but Titan’s repairs needed to be settled urgently, so he chose to guide its Activity to repair the wheel.
Titan had twenty-two wheels and one spare tyre. Right now, the spare tyre was punctured, and one of the wheels was damaged. Shen Cong now faced potential safety hazards.
He dragged the spare tyre into the truck compartment and used the tools for tyre patching on it. Then, he used the Extension effect from Activity to repair the tyre until it was as good as new.
The tyre was finally repaired when it was an hour after midnight. It was only then that Shen Cong went to sleep.
*****
It was cloudy the next day.
The weather in the post-apocalyptic world was incredibly extreme. First, they had a storm that raged for a month. Then, they enjoyed a period of sunny skies before it was followed by another storm. And after that, it was another period of sunny skies.
A cloudy day was rare.
When Shen Cong saw the cloudy sky, he nearly jumped in fright. He was prepared to drive his truck to the highlands, but he quickly realized that there were no soufflé of dark clouds. The cloudy sky resembled a haze. Activity wandered in the air, and the amount was much greater than found when the sky was clear and sunny. The readings on the Geiger counter were also nine times higher than usual.
Previously, Shen Cong hid from the radiation, but once he came to the conclusion that the radiation was caused by Activity, he fell in love with the air when its radiation content caused the Geiger counter’s figures to skyrocket.
Even Titan seemed to be happy when it was exposed to such a rich amount of wandering Activity, and it gave some to Shen Cong.
When the body was comfy, it would affect the person’s feelings.
But Shen Cong was not someone who would easily let his emotions control him. He never let his guard down. When he left Titan to exercise his limbs, he still put on Sky Lifting Pillar 1.0 and equipped himself head to toe with weapons.
He inspected every corner of the area before he began his work. Once every few minutes, he looked up to observe the area around him. He also surveyed the area once more every half an hour.
As the saying went, a cautious sailor could sail his boat for ten thousand years.
Shen Cong replaced the punctured tyre with the repaired spare tyre and continued on his way. He drove Titan slowly through the ruins in search of Provincial Highway 208.
Shijiangzhen was laid out completely before Shen Cong’s eyes half an hour later. There were no buildings that remained standing, but he could still somewhat make out where most of them were supposed to be. He was also able to find the roads under the debris, but there was a junction in front of him, and Shen Cong needed to observe it.
‘The side road branching from the main road on the left should be the county highway leading to Qingtai Forestry Center. The one on the right should be the county highway leading to Taiping Village. The one in the middle should lead to Provincial Highway 208.’
After determining his route, Shen Cong did not waste time. He just started his truck and left the area.
Shijianzhen was built near mountains. Provincial Highway 208 passed through valleys, but the once green mountains had now been reduced to uncovered limestone, and they were a grayish white color. Perhaps there was some kaolinite in between. Both types of rock were white, and from a distance, they looked like really dirty snowy mountains.
The bottom of the valley was supposed to serve as the provincial highway, but once these grayish-white stones piled up, some parts of the highway became rather difficult to traverse. Shen Cong had to use his bulldozer blade to open up a path, but this made him use up a lot of fuel, and he traveled slowly.
Perhaps because of a storm washing through the highway, sometimes, a smooth section would appear. No earthquakes had occurred during the apocalypse. Hence, potholes were the only obvious wounds on the roads. There were no cracks, elevations, or cave ins.
Shen Cong moved at some times and stopped at other times. In some areas, he slowed down, and occasionally, he sped up.
Titan traveled less than five km in half an hour.
What made Shen Cong really want to stomp his feet was that there was a landslide from a mountain 5 km into the provincial highway. A large amount of shattered stones completely blocked off the road, and Shen Cong was forced to turn his truck around and return to the junction.
He had to circumnavigate the entire area using the government-made road constructed in the Extending Radio and TV Broadcasting Coverage to Every Village Project [1] which led to Taiping Village. But Titan’s width was about the width of two government-made roads in the project, which would definitely make it more troublesome to travel using those roads.
But no matter how troublesome it was, there was a public road serving as its foundation. Titan’s wheels were 1.5 m in terms of diameter. As long as it did not run into terrain with too many potholes, it would be able to move over it.
Even when Shen Cong made a detour and traveled using the government-made road built by the project, the “snow” mountains still surrounded him.
He had the radio installed in the truck constantly on, and it kept producing white noise, but it never managed to find the message that he had heard before. Shen Cong bit down on an ant leg and felt a little tired, but it was unavoidable for a person to feel tired after driving for such a long period of time alone through a bumpy road.
Fortunately, the ant legs produced Activity and had calories, so he could refresh himself from time to time.
Suddenly, a flash of green appeared in the grayish-white world, and Shen Cong saw it from the corner of his eye.
It was emerald green.