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Chapter 209 - A Birthday Gift, Finally Settled

Liu Xing raised a loudhailer and shouted, "Young hero, please wait. You there with the shark sub, please wait!"

Jing Shu shot back, "Private salvage boats aren't allowed here. If I stay, do you want me arrested?"

Liu Xing rapped the man who had spoken earlier on the head with the loudhailer. "Treat what he said like a fart. I'm the supervisor here. There are classified documents inside, and we were afraid of leaks, but look at the state of things now. With the place flooded like this, who can still worry about secrets? From now on, you're free to salvage here. How about it? Take what you pull up for yourself, or trade it with me for virtual coins. I'll settle on the spot."

Jing Shu raised a brow. "Then why were you calling me?"

"To have Xiao Wang take you to try pulling up the people trapped down below." Sweat beaded on Liu Xing's forehead. Losing several people on the first day would scare the rest off, and the impact would be terrible.

Jing Shu frowned. So they were tangled up down there. In that case, there was usually no saving them. She did not yet know what had ensnared them.

"Alright, saving lives comes first. Let's go." She followed Xiao Wang without another word.

On deck, nerves ran high. People murmured over what had happened.

With Xiao Wang leading, Jing Shu guided the amphibious shark submarine to the top floor of the government tower, smashed through a pane of glass, and slipped inside. In moments, they reached the site.

Floodlights blazed. In a corner, a dense mass coiled around three people. One of them still twitched from time to time. The other two were motionless.

Xiao Wang pointed from a distance, not daring to get closer. He tossed a looped rope. Jing Shu swung the sub around, poured on the power, and dragged the tangled bundle toward the surface in one go.

It was fast. Barely over a minute.

The amphibious shark submarine surged up, leaping high as it towed the line. With a smack, the three bodies landed on a boat. Gasps rippled through the crowd at the fluid sequence of movements.

The glare lit the trio, and a hiss of breath swept the deck. Half the writhing mess around them had been hauled up too. Thick blood-red bugs pulsed and retracted. Leeches covered the victims from head to toe.

They looked like walking leech men. Each leech, swollen and taut, had gorged on blood.

Some leeches flew off with the momentum and splattered across the deck, drawing screams.

And the coils binding them were, of course, red nematodes.

It was the nightmare Jing Shu remembered from her previous life. This was why she had never salvaged then. When you worked underwater, the worst thing was stumbling into a nest of leeches or red nematodes.

The unluckiest encounter of all was when red nematodes and leeches fought and you drifted near. One red nematode lacked the strength to matter, but thousands upon thousands were worse than a bed of weeds.

"Quick, doctor, doctor! See if there's still a chance!" Liu Xing stamped his foot. A disaster on day one, what a curse.

A doctor in a sealed rain suit rushed over, examined them, and said, "This one, this one can still be saved. I need several people. Bring salt. Sprinkle it on him. Do not pull the leeches off by force.

And do not waste the leeches. They're valuable. Collect every last one," the doctor added, aghast when he saw people about to toss them.

Two were dead beyond doubt, drained of blood. The third had been stabilized for the moment, though whether he would live was uncertain. With post-treatment conditions like these, survival might as well be a coin toss.

"This is too dangerous. I quit. If I die, what happens to my kid?"

"I'm out too. With so many of those things down there, it's terrifying."

Liu Xing boomed through the loudhailer. "Listen up. Everyone gets a free serving of rice today. This job will only last a few days before we finish salvaging. You won't find work this good later. I guarantee this was an exception. It won't happen again."

Liu Xing ground his teeth. Next time someone went missing and did not resurface, it would be better not to search. Otherwise it only piled on trouble and panic. Better to die below than drag them up and terrify everyone.

For an extra bowl of white rice, people told themselves to be careful and got back to work.

Jing Shu turned and reentered the government building, returning to the spot where the leeches had appeared. She searched carefully and, sure enough, found several blood-red mushrooms in a corner.

In her previous life, she had heard the saying: where leeches and red nematodes battled, a mutant fungus would grow, called blood mushroom. It was said to be an evolved strain of China's earlier red mushroom.

Red mushroom was dubbed the King of Mushrooms. Its nutritional value was renowned, and it offered many benefits for women, from anti-cancer properties to nourishing the blood. Unfortunately, it could not be cultivated artificially.

The aquatic blood mushroom not only shared those effects, it had even stronger medicinal value. Rumor had it that it could prolong life. In the second year of the apocalypse, it became the top tonic and was listed as a rare species. A few years after the floodwaters receded, it went extinct.

Anyone lucky enough to find a wild blood mushroom that could not be farmed was like a carp leaping the dragon gate.

Jing Shu wanted to try raising the so-called impossible-to-cultivate red mushroom inside the Rubik's Cube Space. But mushrooms were not grown from seeds. As far as she knew, one method was spore isolation and test-tube culture. That was impossible under current conditions, and she did not know how anyway.

Another was sterile propagation, cutting a portion and coaxing it to grow quickly with careful handling.

Whatever the case, she would try. If it worked, this would be a perfect path to fortune.

Of course, she decided to set one aside for Yang Yang's grandfather. Who does not like something that promises longevity? It was precious, yes, but with the amphibious shark submarine, she could always find more.

"Looks like I should save people often," she mused. Over the next few days, she could linger here and dive whenever someone disappeared. Maybe she would net another patch of blood mushrooms. Cast a wide net, catch more fish. If she went hunting place by place across Wu City, how long would it take?

As for the legendary blood mushroom, this time she would feast. Blood mushroom stewed with an old hen would be unbelievably nourishing.

Days later:

Liu Xing: "I beg you, stop saving people!"

Jing Shu: "No. You wish."

The government complex was huge, and there were three towers. She only searched a few floors and found nothing else of real note, except a safe stuffed with several kilograms of gold bars. In the apocalypse, gold was not worth much.

Still, for someone who had never seen so much gold in her life, Jing Shu's eyes sparkled like a magpie's.

Hiding gold bars in the government building was the perfect example of the rule: the most dangerous place is the safest. Bold.

She planned to have Grandpa Jing hammer some into jewelry so she could enjoy the feeling of being rich.

It was getting late. Jing Shu picked up Su Lanzhi and headed home. Maybe, just maybe, she would finally sleep well tonight.

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