Chapter 57: Busy Farming in the Last Days

Jun 19 2023

The egg incubator has been running continuously for twenty days, and as expected, these two days should be about the time when the chicks hatch.

Ji Cha endured the discomfort of his buttocks and got up early, guarding the small storage room where the eggs were hatching. Every now and then, he stood up to carefully check if there was any movement in the incubator.

Around noon, the outermost egg finally showed some changes. Ji Cha saw a little chick pecking hard and breaking out of the eggshell, squeezing out its head, still somewhat wet all over.

Ji Cha didn’t dare to help and quickly turned around to turn on the heater in the room. The weather now was clearly chilly, and the newly born chicks could not be directly exposed to outdoor temperatures.

The storage room was not large and heated up quickly. With the first little chick’s tender and crisp chirping, many of the remaining eggs also began to slowly change. In one afternoon, more than sixty little chicks hatched. By the time it was almost dark, a total of seventy little chicks had hatched. Ji Cha didn’t touch the other eggs and left them in the incubator to wait for further changes.

As for the seventy little chicks hatched that day, Ji Cha took out the clean feed and water he had prepared early. The chicks eat a lot in the early stages, and their weight can double within seven days of birth, triple within half a month, and increase by five or six times in less than a month. Feed is very important in this process.

When raising chicks, the land area occupied is not large. About five or six dozen chicks can be raised in one square meter. Ji Cha took a small iron cage with upper and lower layers, lined it with newspaper, and put the fully dried chicks in it in two batches. When it was completely dark, the chicks had their first meal of the day. As soon as the crushed corn and millet were put into the feed trough, they were snatched up immediately.

Ji Cha worked tirelessly all day and was extremely pleased with the scene he saw. After all, there were now seventy little chicks, which would later become seventy or more meat chickens.

After settling them in, Ji Cha still couldn’t relax with the incubator. After all, it was a machine he had bought online, and he himself was only half-knowledgeable about many things. He could only spend more time preparing and taking care of them to make up for it.

The other people in the house didn’t have an easier day than Ji Cha.

Early in the morning, Zhang Xing began to modify various mechanical vehicles and equipment outside the gate. He was so busy that he even forgot to drink water. When he stood up suddenly, he almost dropped because of low blood sugar.

Many things planted in the factory have reached the fruiting period. Weeding, spraying pesticides, loosening the soil, and other tasks are enough to keep Wang family busy.

The remaining Zhang Qinqin and Grandma Ji are busy with various food processing tasks with other workers in the factory.

Liang Jincheng stayed at home for a while yesterday but left again early in the morning today. When everyone sat down to eat together in the evening, he still hadn’t returned.

If anyone in the family is idle, it is only Xiaochao, who is just over three years old. However, even Xiaochao was quite busy today.

“There’s a wormhole in the apple we ate today,” Xiaochao mentioned during dinner. “Uncle Ji, is the apple going to spoil?”

Ji Cha, who was busy scooping rice and preparing to go back to the warehouse to continue guarding, was stunned. Indeed, he hadn’t checked the apples for the past two days.

There are still more than thirty fruits picked from the apple tree, which Ji Cha originally planned to keep for everyone to eat daily. But after Xiaochao’s reminder, he went to check and found that the apples didn’t seem as juicy as before.

After dinner, Grandma cut two apples to eat, and when Ji Cha took a bite, he frowned tightly. It was not because it tasted bad, but because it was too sweet. Ji Cha hadn’t thought about eating apples for four or five days, and felt that the apple was twice as sweet as before. Even if a little bit of apple juice spilled on his hand, it felt sticky.

If he made apple sauce directly, he wouldn’t need to add sugar. The shelf life of apple sauce is about three months, which could solve the urgent problem now.

Ji Cha quickly wrote down “make apple sauce” on his notebook and waited until he finished taking care of the little chicks before finding time to do it.

He sat in the chicken-raising warehouse all night, waking up and falling asleep, but the result was barely satisfactory. Only five out of the remaining thirty eggs were hatched, meaning the success rate of hatching was only about 75%, far lower than the promised 90% or more by the online seller.

However, Ji Cha had no place to complain now and couldn’t even leave a negative review online. Moreover, even if he takes a step back, out of one hundred eggs, seventy-five chicks hatched, so he couldn’t say that the egg hatching machine was completely unreliable. After all, it took some time to accumulate the eggs, and he didn’t sort out the dead eggs in advance.

As Zhang Xing’s various mechanical tools were modified, the large piece of farmland behind the factory was gradually cultivated and repaired. Modern agriculture can now achieve out-of-season planting, and the rise in many crops grown in the greenhouse of the tea factory indicates that similar planting can be carried out in the current environment of S city.

The biggest problem at the S city base is currently the lack of various vegetable crops, while staple foods pile up like mountains.

Therefore, the military also meant for Ji Cha to immediately begin preparing for planting. The few technicians who were originally difficult to communicate with were now picked up and dropped off by military vehicles, and they discussed various planting matters with Ji Cha.

They were called technicians, but they were all young people, only two in total. Although they were specialized in their field, they did not have much knowledge about the cultivation of different crops. Nevertheless, it was better than not knowing anything. When Ji Cha picked workers to work with them, he chose those who were older and had rural backgrounds or experience with rural life, not those who didn’t even know how to grow potatoes.

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

Although the production and construction at the S city base occasionally encountered setbacks, overall, it was moving in the right direction. The people at the base did not have to worry about their safety and had returned to a socialized way of life.

However, for those who were still struggling to survive alone outside, the hardships and fears of the apocalypse did not diminish at all; on the contrary, they increased day by day.

***

Liang Jincheng parked the car at the entrance of a large supermarket, and the people in the car quickly got out after surveying the surroundings. The zombies around them immediately swarmed over when they heard the noise. The ability users were indifferent to the approach of the zombies, each wielding their own handy tools. Faced with the attack of the zombies, they cut down a large area almost like cutting vegetables.

“There are two tasks today. The first is to check if there are any survivors, the second is to survey the surrounding terrain, and the third is to see if there are any factors that may affect the safety of the base. Finally, everyone should be careful and not be careless.”

Liang Jincheng said these words in a deep voice, and the others nodded and left, blending into the surroundings in no time. In secluded areas, pairs of greedy or fearful eyes followed them closely.