"I... I'm here," the middle-aged woman said nervously, her voice barely a whisper as she stepped into the weak light. Her wrinkled face was tense, her brow furrowed with a mixture of fear and hope.
Jing Shu looked her up and down. The woman was tall and thin, but among this starving, grime-streaked group, she was actually one of the cleaner ones. Her clothes were patched but lacked the heavy layers of filth that coated the others.
Jing Shu nodded slightly. "Captain Li told me you have been cooking for everyone lately, right? I would like to hire you as the camp cook for the next few days. Your pay will be two meals a day."
A sudden, wide smile spread across the woman's sallow face, revealing the deep lines of hardship around her mouth. "Ah, thank you! I have a daughter. Could she help me out? She is a hard worker, and cooking for so many people takes more than one pair of hands."
The daughter looked to be around seventeen or eighteen, but her body was so frail and her shoulders so narrow that she looked more like a young child. She stood there clutching her tattered sleeves, watching Jing Shu with wide, nervous eyes that darted back and forth.
Jing Shu thought about her plan for a moment, her gaze lingering on the girl's trembling hands, then she nodded. "Alright. You can pick a few more women to help you. You will be in charge of all the cooking. Before each meal, check the headcount with Wang Dan, then come to me to get the ingredients. Today we will eat early. Once Wang Dan finishes counting, come find me."
Every person's portion would be fixed and measured. No one could eat to their fill, not when there was only so much to go around in this wasteland. Jing Shu planned to save the better portion of the compressed biscuits for the convoy. She would mix the rest with soil to make "mud patties" for the villagers, a practice she knew all too well from her previous life.
Auntie Wang looked surprised. For this many people, the cooking didn't seem complicated. Why would they need so many helpers? Was it not just a matter of dissolving compressed biscuits in water? Still, she kept her thoughts to herself and bowed her head gratefully.
Once Jing Shu finished speaking, the others who had been kneeling and crying on the deck scrambled to their feet. They didn't hesitate anymore. They rushed off to register with Wang Dan, their footsteps heavy and frantic. Who cared what the job was? As long as it meant getting food in their bellies, that was all that mattered. They knew that if they were too slow, there'd be nothing left for them.
No matter what the task was, it had to be better than eating handfuls of dry dirt every day.
After tallying the numbers on a scrap of paper, Wang Dan scratched his head awkwardly. "So... what do we have them do? I can't trust them with the seeds or guarding the hold. If they steal or eat any of them, we're done for."
Jing Shu's lips curved slightly in a cold, practical line. "Take apart every house in Gashan Valley. Collect all the burnable materials—beams, furniture, frames—and bring them to us. We will need them for cooking and keeping warm these next few days. Have them dig large mud pits around the area and gather the fine soil from the bottom. Filter it carefully and give it to Auntie Wang to start making mud patties. Before the rescue team arrives, we will store as much as possible for the road ahead."
She paused, looking out over the desolate landscape, then added, "Set a daily workload for everyone. Pick two who work best as group leaders. They will watch over the others. Anyone who slacks off doesn't eat."
Her plan was simple: make them feed themselves. Everyone outside in the wider world was already working hard just to survive. Why should these people sit around doing nothing and still expect to eat? In this apocalypse, if you want to live, you work for it. Counting on government aid or on her personal generosity was a fool's errand.
The convoy members and the villagers of Gashan Valley, who had all been in a daze before her arrival, suddenly had a purpose. Order replaced the aimless chaos, and for the first time in a long while, there's a faint sense of motivation in the air.
Wang Dan moved quickly. Some villagers grabbed rusted shovels from their abandoned homes to dig the mud pits, the metal clanging against frozen earth. Others filtered the fine soil just like Jing Shu had ordered. Another group began dismantling the houses in Gashan Valley, carrying back heavy beams, wooden posts, and bed frames. Anything that could burn went straight to the pile by the convoy's side.
The village head and a few idlers stood aside, their arms crossed as they laughed mockingly. "Idiots," the man spat. "You are working for free, and who knows if you will even get food in the end."
Near the ship's hull, a deep pit had formed, filled with murky, stagnant water. That's the only water source everyone had. Next to it stood a rough, makeshift twin-stove setup built from stones and scrap metal.
Auntie Wang arrived with her daughter and two other women. They glanced nervously at Jing Shu as they explained how they'd been cooking lately. Wang Dan, who'd just finished his headcount, added his own observations.
"Our convoy and Gashan Valley got shoved here when the tectonic plates shifted. We already ran out of real food weeks ago. It was Auntie Wang who gathered bits of leather and tree roots from everyone's homes. She chopped them up, boiled them for hours, and even dug up soil to mix with spoiled seeds. She ground it all into a paste, and somehow, it kept us half-fed."
Jing Shu nodded, acknowledging the woman's resourcefulness. "Smart. Staying alive is what matters most. Leather is made from animal hide; it's protein in it. It's just hard to chew and even harder to digest."
She thought to herself that Li Dayou really was a bit of a fool. If he had done that, he wouldn't have gotten so sick from overeating dirt.
Auntie Wang smiled shyly, her eyes downcast. "My parents' generation went through famine. That's how they survived. Back then, at least we still had grass roots and bark. Boil them long enough, and you can eat them."
Wang Dan looked at his notes. "There are thirty-five workers today. The filtered soil and fuel will be here soon. When do we start making the mud patties?"
Jing Shu took ten compressed biscuits and three eggs out of her backpack, handing them over to the cook. "Start with something better this time. Boil the biscuits into a porridge and stir in these three eggs. After everyone eats, Auntie Wang, you will lead your team to start making the mud patties. Mix the biscuit porridge with the soil, shape it into patties, and roast them dry over the fire. They will be crispy and flavorful. Better than leather at least."
"Alright!" Auntie Wang agreed immediately, her eyes brightening at the sight of the eggs. Just the thought of eating soil mixed with actual biscuits is enough to make her content. "That girl is right," she thought. "Staying alive is what matters."
She looked over at her daughter. So many children in Gashan Valley had already died of hunger or cold. She would do whatever it took to keep hers alive. If they lived, there would always be hope. One day, they would see the sun again.
Once everything here was settled, Jing Shu and Wang Dan boarded the big ship. According to him, the canal they'd been on suddenly dried up during the shifts, trapping the ship on dry land. Then the moving plates carried it here, slamming it into a row of Gashan Valley's houses.
The ship was spacious, but every sealed compartment was packed to the ceiling with seeds. Only the bathroom, the control room, two sleeping cabins, and a small kitchen were still usable. Jing Shu had Wang Dan fetch a few buckets of water to the ship's kitchen. She took out a portable filter and began purifying the murky water.
Wang Dan clicked his tongue in amazement as he watched the clear liquid trickle into a clean container. He never thought she would carry such sophisticated equipment around. Who even bothered with filtered water these days? But then again, she wasn't an ordinary person. Of course she would be particular.
He followed her eagerly as she moved through the galley. "Are we eating biscuit porridge too? With egg flowers?"
"I can't stand that stuff," she said flatly.
Before he could ask what she meant, Jing Shu clapped her hands. "Come on, let the filter run. We will cook once it's done."
"Where are we going?"
"To find your captain."
Five minutes later, Li Dayou stared at the bowl in Jing Shu's hand. Inside, a handful of live, segmented bugs wriggled around, their pale bodies twisting in the light. He swallowed hard, his face turning a shade paler. "You are serious? Eating those will really cure indigestion?"