"What? Jing Shu, what'd you say? Say it again, your uncle must've misheard."
Jing Shu sighed. "Uncle, in a few days we should butcher all these pigs." She repeated it evenly.
Wei Chang stared like she'd grown a second head. "Why? The pig market's great right now. Do you know how many virtual coins a jin of pork sells for? I get your angle, red nematodes are gone and feed's a problem, but our factory can still allocate my share of worm feed. I can raise a few hundred pigs on that. Holding out until the apocalypse ends isn't that hard, right?"
He made it sound like the apocalypse would end any minute. It was only going to get worse.
Jing Shu lifted a hand that looked no different from before the apocalypse, scooped a fistful of red nematodes from the pool, kneaded them, then shook her head. "Uncle, how long've you kept this batch?"
"Over two months. Once red nematodes started dying out, I treated these like ancestors. Sometimes I toss in feed too."
"It's been that long and you've still got only one tank like this. Don't you think the reproduction's off? Ordinary red nematodes have a super short cycle. Bacteria to eggs takes about three days, egg to larva just a few more. When I raised them before, one squeeze and you'd hear bubbles pop, that's high-activity eggs. Yours have very few eggs. I don't need to spell out what that means."
Few eggs, low hatch rates, and a long cycle meant they'd never bounce back the way they used to. You couldn't harvest half the tank for pigs and expect it to regrow in days anymore.
Wei Chang finally caught on. He bent down to check carefully. "I didn't notice that. I started with a small pool and they grew every day, so I was happy. But yeah, the speed's too slow. Reproduction can't keep up with consumption."
He frowned deeper. He'd figured that if he nurtured this one tank, he could at least feed a dozen pigs daily. Pigs eat more feed than any other livestock.
"Even if this tank's a bust, we still have our quota, at least a hundred tons of red nematode feed. That's enough to keep pigs going. We trade pork for rice and supplies, we'll make even more, won't we?" Wei Chang paced the pens, checking one pig, then another.
"Alright, Uncle, let me run the math you already know, and I'll lowball it. To keep weight steady, a pig needs at least 3 kg of feed per day. Let's ignore sows' lactation and empty cycles. That's around one ton per pig per year. With the few dozen pigs you have now, plus natural increase, your share of feed, even if you use all of it perfectly, only lasts about two years."
Wei Chang nodded. "Pigs sure do eat. If they lose weight, we lose money, so you've got to feed enough to put on meat."
"And after two years? Even if some get sold along the way, you'll still have a lot of pigs, but you'll be out of feed."
"In two years, maybe there'll be new feed sources. Or the apocalypse ends?" Wei Chang tried.
"What if it doesn't?" Jing Shu asked quietly.
"…If it doesn't, then I'll just butcher them all and trade for stuff. I still won't lose. Two years of selling dozens of pigs at current prices means I'll get a lot of food and goods."
Jing Shu shook her head. "You won't have a fallback, and you'll probably lose out in the long run. If you butcher now, you'll earn more over the next two years. Keep only breeding stock and switch to selling piglets. Live piglets are worth way more than grown pork, and you'll save dozens of tons of feed every year."
She went on, calm and clear. "That saved feed sustains your breeders. Two years later, you'll still have enough to keep breeding for years. And these live red nematodes can be your emergency buffer."
Wei Chang's eyes lit up. "You're right, Jing Shu. We don't know when the apocalypse ends. If we plan for the worst, it won't end at all. Growing crops might never recover. Piglets can sell to rich folks for great prices, and we'll get back more in trade. Live pigs are rare now. This slashes our risk. You always need a way out."
Jing Shu smiled faintly and let it drop. As long as he'd figured it out. Chasing short-term profit could bury the future. Expanding the herd wasn't the route. Soon enough, people would starve in swaths. Who'd have spare feed for pigs?
If a few years later Wei Chang ballooned the herd to several hundred, the first thing "they" slaughtered would be him. But if he kept only two or three breeders and treated them like protected stock, at least the pigs would have a path to survive. The authorities could see that much.
"Alright, it's only a few days anyway. Jing Shu, every day eats over a hundred kilos of feed. It hurts me just thinking about it. Let's do it today. I'll call in favors for oxytocin on the side. With dozens of pigs, I'll get Wang Mazi to help slaughter. One wasted day is that much feed gone."
Wei Chang was a move-fast kind of man. Once he decided, he acted.
"Uncle…"
"Don't worry, the idea doesn't need your aunt's approval. Whatever it is, she'll back it with both hands." He grinned.
"Uncle, I mean you don't need to call anyone. If word gets out we're butchering this many pigs when grain's tight, someone might cause trouble, or try to seize them. All our pigs, I'll do the killing. You handle the offal and cleanup. Let's finish before Sister-in-law goes into labor." Jing Shu cleared her throat. She usually did it in the Rubik's Cube Space. Inside absolute space, slaughtering was easy. She'd never tried it in the real world.
She wanted to try.
"Right, I forgot how strong you are. You'll be a natural at this. Fine, let's go."
Jing Shu started her first slaughter in the open. Uncle wanted to truss the hogs five-flowers-style to keep them from thrashing at the end. "No need, Uncle. I usually stun and go straight in. You boil water and set things up."
"Got it. We're not in a hurry, step by step."
Once she sent Uncle off, she finally began. If anything went sideways, she'd just pull the carcass into the Rubik's Cube Space and finish there. She'd already sharpened blades on dozens of cows, sheep, and pigs in that space. Now, the knives were itching to work.