Lu Jiamei and Xin Wan were doing this, of course, to get on Ren Yuanyang’s good side. As long as he thought favorably of them, they could count on his continued support.
And it had to be said, they’d succeeded. Ren Yuanyang was very pleased with their performance.
’It feels pretty good to be the one everyone relies on!’
In the end, Ren Yuanyang still gave Lu Jiamei and Xin Wan a few pieces of meat. He ate most of it himself, though; after all, he was the one who needed the evolved crocodile meat the most right now.
After they finished a quick dinner, Ren Yuanyang gave an order. "You two clean up first. Afterward, we’ll go over the situation outside together."
"Yes!"
Ren Yuanyang returned to the shipping container and first checked on the rice seeds he’d started soaking during the day. He was surprised to find that they had already grown into seedlings, packed densely together in the jars he was using for germination.
’These strengthened rice seeds really are something else!’ Ren Yuanyang marveled as he began transplanting the seedlings into the small pond they had prepared.
The seedlings from the strengthened rice seeds could stand upright in the water, just like cordgrass and other similar plants.
The root systems of the strengthened plants became exceptionally developed. These dense roots acted like lead sinkers, holding the upper parts of the plants upright and keeping them balanced so they wouldn’t sink completely underwater.
After spacing the seedlings out evenly in the small pond, Ren Yuanyang noticed a problem. Since their roots weren’t anchored, the slightest ripple on the water’s surface would cause the seedlings to drift and clump together.
After a moment of thought, he immediately grabbed two of the bitter grass plants he had just strengthened and placed them in the pond. He used their runners to wind around the seedlings, securing them at even intervals.
This way, as long as the runners remained taut, the seedlings wouldn’t clump together.
Once that was taken care of, Ren Yuanyang grabbed his phone and went to the speedboat.
Xin Wan had already cleared the dishes. Ren Yuanyang opened the unknown app on his phone, switched to the regional channel, and set it on the table.
"You two look through it for now. I’m going to rest for a bit," Ren Yuanyang said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes to recuperate.
The unknown app required the owner to open it. Once it was open, however, anyone could browse the messages, though they couldn’t send any.
Lu Jiamei and Xin Wan immediately gathered around the phone. Seeing the "999+" unread messages in the regional channel, they both felt a little overwhelmed.
"Should we start from the beginning?" Xin Wan asked quietly.
Lu Jiamei nodded. "Of course. The boss is so busy, so we should help him filter out all the useless information."
"That’s true. Let’s get started then!" Xin Wan tapped on the unread messages, and the two of them began to scroll through them.
Most of it was pointless chatter, pleas for help, or speculation about the current situation.
It took them a full forty minutes to get through all the messages. There was only one piece of useful information. Lu Jiamei used the phone’s screenshot function to capture and save the relevant parts of the chat log.
Ren Yuanyang was still resting with his eyes closed. Lu Jiamei didn’t disturb him, instead beginning a quiet discussion with Xin Wan.
"It looks like no one’s having an easy time," Lu Jiamei lamented quietly.
Xin Wan nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I prepared so much in advance, and I’ve already run out of everything. Most people probably weren’t as well-prepared as I was."
"What about your parents?" Lu Jiamei asked casually.
"They’re at a research institute overseas. They barely paid any attention to me before, and now... they don’t have to worry about me at all." Xin Wan’s expression darkened as she spoke.
"You had a phone before, too. Did you try to contact them?" Lu Jiamei pressed.
"I tried, but I couldn’t get through. Not even with that unknown app that suddenly appeared," Xin Wan said, shaking her head helplessly. "Of course, I couldn’t reach them before the flood, either. They were always the ones who would contact me every once in a while."
Lu Jiamei was taken aback for a moment, then sighed. "It seems we’re all in the same boat."
"You haven’t been able to contact your mother either?" Xin Wan asked, frowning.
Lu Jiamei’s mother was a food influencer with a hundred thousand fans on a short-form video app; it was unlikely she would have lost her phone.
Especially since the flood didn’t happen in an instant. Everyone had some time to prepare. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many survivors who’ve made it this far.
So Lu Jiamei’s mother must have run into some kind of trouble.
"Yeah, still no word," Lu Jiamei’s voice was filled with worry.
"Don’t worry too much. I’m sure a good person like her will be just fine," Xin Wan said reassuringly.
Lu Jiamei nodded. "You’re right. It has to be! We have to do everything we can to survive, so we’ll have a chance to see them again!"
"Yeah, we really do. But staying alive from here on out won’t be easy," Xin Wan lamented.
It was clear from all the pleas for help that the vast majority of survivors were short on food. At the same time, they had to face the threats of evolved creatures in the water and other survivors.
"If that thing everyone’s talking about in the regional channel is true, maybe there’s a chance," Lu Jiamei said. "But no matter what, we’re the lucky ones."
Here with Ren Yuanyang, they had enough food and were safe. Even though they were still missing a lot of things, compared to other survivors, this place was practically paradise.
"What was everyone discussing in the regional channel?" Ren Yuanyang’s voice came from beside them.
Lu Jiamei immediately placed the phone in front of him and pulled up the screenshots of the chat. "A survivor discovered that plants submerged in the water are still alive. It doesn’t matter if they were originally aquatic or not; it seems they can all be cultivated in the water now. The only thing is, they need some kind of support, otherwise they just fall over."
Ren Yuanyang nodded slightly, not particularly surprised. He had already pulled several types of plants from the water, and every one of them was still alive, which proved the same point.
"Right now in the regional channel, everyone’s still talking about it. This discovery seems to have shown everyone a new way to get food," Lu Jiamei continued.
"It doesn’t seem very realistic. Just finding food crops would be hard enough, but growing them to the point of harvest would take even more time," Xin Wan said, shaking her head. "Most people can’t hold out that long."
Ren Yuanyang glanced over the screenshots of the discussion, then switched to the live regional channel.
"You could try to find things with short growing cycles, like bok choy, water spinach, or lettuce!"
"That makes a lot of sense, but where are we supposed to find seeds for those things now?"
"Even the fastest of those take twenty days to grow. I’ve probably only got two days left, tops!"
"Based on my observations, some of the plants soaking in the water are also mutating, or evolving, you could say!"
"Hey, person above, can you give us more details?"
"I pulled a tomato plant out of the water that already had fruit on it. I feel like its growth cycle has gotten shorter!"
"A feeling? Feelings aren’t very reliable!"
"I found it about a month ago. Back then, the tomatoes on it were small and green, like they’d just started to form. Here, take a look at it now!"
After typing that, he took a picture and posted it.
When the other survivors saw the photo, they all gulped.

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