Jing Shu's mouth twitched. Of course she remembered that thing. The first time she'd boarded the minibus, she'd spotted it right away and wondered what kind of bored mechanic would install a bicycle pedal inside a car. She'd thought maybe they wanted to work out while driving.
Only now did she realize the pedals were for propulsion in water. The mechanism was easy to figure out, too. It worked just like those little paddle boats in park ponds she'd played on as a kid. You pedaled hard, the propeller underneath spun, and the boat moved forward. As for the power behind it—well, let's just say it was better left unmentioned.
So with a heavy minibus like this, could a single set of bicycle pedals really move it?
Either way, the real problem now was the swamp blocking their way.
"Maybe we should look for another route, or come up with a different plan?" someone suggested.
Everyone started racking their brains. The minibus's modifications were one-time use. If they switched to water mode, it would destroy its land configuration, which was a big problem since no one knew how much farther they'd need to go. They all agreed to avoid using that function unless they had no other choice. Even if the minibus was slow, at least it still had an engine. Once that failed, they'd have to rely on their own legs—and none of them wanted to end up dead-tired.
Yang Yang tied two wooden boards to his feet, planning to test the mud ahead. "Wanna go skiing?" he joked.
"You go first, I'll watch from here," Jing Shu replied, though she couldn't deny she was a little curious. She'd always had a knack for fun, even in situations like this.
But this mud was more like a swamp—sticky, elastic, and unpredictable. Yang Yang could barely move, inching forward one board at a time.
It wasn't fun at all. Jing Shu shook her head.
Hong Bin started checking the surroundings, seeing if they could climb the nearby slopes to bypass the swamp. Lǚ Liu, meanwhile, sent out a drone to map how big the mud pit was and what the terrain looked like around it.
Even though Jing Shu was dressed warmly from head to toe, the cold seeped through the mud beneath her boots and made her uncomfortable. She hated that icy feeling and worried she'd get sores on her feet. She couldn't help but envy Jun Bao—he got to soak and wash his feet every night. She wanted nothing more than a hot foot bath right now.
No, she decided she'd add another layer of wool socks when they got back. Her feet were freezing.
Xiao Dou strutted around the swamp in its special shoes, fluttering happily without splashing a single drop of mud. Every so often it darted down, pecked up a bit of mud, and swallowed it with a satisfied cluck.
"Cluck cluck cluck!"
It sounded delighted. Apparently, the mud here tasted great—exactly to its liking.
Jun Bao brought over a bucket and started digging in the mud again. He wasn't just scooping aimlessly, though. He kept choosing specific spots carefully. His waterproof boots only reached his knees, but he still wanted to go deeper. He looked a little regretful, as if the mud further in was more valuable for his research.
"Maybe we can stop by the center later," he said. Being the one in charge meant he could make that kind of call whenever he wanted.
Xiao Dou flapped its wings and skimmed over the swamp's surface, still eating the mud as it went. When Jing Shu looked closer, she noticed it wasn't just eating at random either.
Jun Bao watched the bird thoughtfully. "Your chicken seems to have found something interesting. Looks like it's sensing the same thing I did." His tone carried a hint of teasing, as if to say, "even your chicken noticed before you did."
Jing Shu raised an eyebrow. "Mud? What's so special about it?" She'd seen more mud in her two lives than she cared to count. After the fourth year's landslides, mud was everywhere. It was all the same, wasn't it?
She didn't want to bother with whatever this idle man was up to, but she still humored him. "What's different about it? My chicken eats mud and water every day. It's normal." Though she had to admit, Xiao Dou had been in an unusually good mood these days.
Jun Bao handed her the bucket and said matter-of-factly, "This mud contains traces of the crimson liquid you brought back from America last year. Only one or two gene strands match, but I think it's worth studying. The fact that your chicken likes it might just confirm my theory. Maybe this is a key to breaking through in dark food research."
Crimson liquid.
Jing Shu's heart skipped a beat. She knew exactly what that meant. It was the only thing she'd ever seen that could stand up to the Spirit Spring.
That same crimson liquid was what she'd used to breed the dino-chickens, which had become one of her family's most valuable resources. In the apocalypse, they were another layer of security. Even without grain, those birds could survive on Dark Day alone—and still lay eggs. No one understood better than she did how precious that was.
The downside, though, was that they were incredibly hard to reproduce.
When she'd gone to America last year, she'd carefully stored 99% of the crimson liquid in her Cube Space. The tiny bit that had leaked out had been picked up by Zhen Nantian and Yang Yang, who must've handed it over for research. She never imagined that this quiet man, Jin Tiansi's nephew, would have access to that kind of data.
She glanced down at the bucket. Her Cube Space was completely calm, not a ripple of reaction. That puzzled her. When she'd handled the crimson liquid before, she'd felt it resonate immediately.
Jing Shu took off her gloves and dipped her hand into the bucket, focusing her senses through the Cube Space to try to draw a response. Nothing.
"You sure about this? How can you even tell the difference? This swamp's huge."
Jun Bao took out a metal spoon. "Simple. The ones that react with iron contain traces of what we're looking for. See? When you scoop it up, the mixture should look like flowing starlight. Here, this is what I managed to extract after several days."
He pulled out a tiny vial, no bigger than a thumb, holding less than a milliliter of black liquid—barely a dozen drops.
At first glance, it looked ordinary. But the instant Jing Shu touched the bottle, her mind exploded. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead as a wave of desire surged inside her. She wanted to take it, to make it hers, to pull it all into her Cube Space.
It took everything she had to resist. Her head throbbed painfully as she forced herself to hand the vial back. The moment she let go, the urge faded away like water receding into sand, as if nothing had ever happened.