Safe City Ch.15.1

Chapter 15.1: Blue Sea Agriculture

The bigger the operation, the more useful Aether became.

Cheng Qisheng looked over the list and the rows of profile photos displayed on the virtual screen.

“That many people?”

Excluding those who were offline while working outside and unable to receive messages, there were still 10,600 professional breeding specialists who had received notifications from the AI and reported to the various districts.

“Yes. Aether notified every professional breeding specialist it could reach. However, because farmland and equipment are limited, there will still need to be three rounds of examinations.”

The moment exams were mentioned, Cheng Qisheng perked up.

It had been a long time since she’d seen an exam. Thinking about it actually made her feel a little nostalgic.

She enlarged the display and took a closer look. Although there was a written test, it was clear that, given the post-apocalyptic setting and the scarcity of equipment, Blue Sea had added many practical tasks designed to assess hard professional skills.

The simplest one was seed identification.

Not pictures printed on a test paper, but actual seeds placed in front of the candidates for them to identify.

Then came hand pollination, soil and water quality assessment, selecting the three most suitable plants from Branches No. 1–8 for seed preservation, choosing the three least suitable ones, identifying various diseases and pests, and designing a planting box on-site.

There was even a bonus question: various seeds and plant cuttings from the Zombie World were placed before the candidates, who had to evaluate them based on their own experience.

It could be said that the exam had a very distinct disaster-world flavor.

Naturally, preparing so many test items was a massive undertaking in itself.

As the candidates—ranging from the youngest in their early twenties to the oldest in their fifties and sixties—took their exams, the Minister of Agriculture, the Director of the Agricultural Research Bureau, and other officials watched the live feeds from the testing sites on a giant screen in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Dark circles ringed all of their eyes.

“Ah… I’m going to pour myself another cup of coffee.”

The Minister of Agriculture yawned, filled a cup with coffee, added some starfruit vegetable juice to it, and took a large gulp.

The Director of the Agricultural Research Bureau walked over as well.

“Pour me one too.”

The same coffee mixed with starfruit vegetable juice—this was an essential step whenever Blue Sea people drank coffee.

Come to think of it, even the names “coffee” and “cocoa beans” had been bestowed by the great Creator God.

This wonderful substance, capable of refreshing the mind and warding off drowsiness, had not been widely promoted at first. Only relatively wealthy people drank it.

It wasn’t because coffee was expensive to produce. Rather, Blue Sea people quickly discovered that while coffee could provide a short-term boost in energy, long-term consumption could lead to insomnia, heart palpitations, trembling hands, stomach pain, and other side effects.

For the Blue Sea people, who placed enormous importance on physical health and combat readiness, this was practically taboo.

From childhood, they were taught that health was the most important thing. Whatever one wanted to accomplish required a strong body. If one’s health suffered, what was the point of having more energy?

Moreover, coffee only boosted energy on the day it was consumed. If someone drank it regularly and then skipped a day, they often felt even more fatigued.

Coffee’s rise to popularity was thanks to the starfruit vegetable.

That year was a glorious year for the agricultural department!

The starfruit, which had been extraordinarily expensive since ancient times and required a full century to mature, became merely somewhat pricey that year—affordable enough that an ordinary family could buy two or three of them each month.

Even the great Creator God personally bestowed blessings upon the breeding specialist responsible for the achievement.

The deity not only granted the specialist a large house but also raised the salaries of both the specialist and their team, while maximizing their benefits, retirement plans, and various other forms of compensation.

For a time, the agricultural department became even more prestigious.

Soon afterward, someone discovered that drinking coffee together with cooked starfruit vegetable juice eliminated the side effects.

And the combination tasted quite good as well.

—Though once mixed with coffee, the starfruit vegetable no longer retained its rejuvenating or health-preserving properties.

But that wasn’t a problem. People who wanted its health benefits could simply eat the starfruit vegetable by itself, while those seeking an energy boost could drink coffee mixed with starfruit vegetable juice.

For the thrifty, a single starfruit vegetable was enough to supply five days’ worth of coffee.

From that point on, coffee officially entered the Blue Sea market.

Among all professions, aside from those that required constant mental focus and sustained alertness, the people who loved coffee the most were those in the Ministry of Agriculture.

The reason was simple.

The starfruit vegetable represented the golden age of agricultural science, and the rise of coffee was proof of that era’s achievements.

Was this coffee?

No—it was honor.

Now, a new honor, one that might even earn the recognition of the great deity, had appeared before the agricultural community.

Plant breeding.

If they could use alien seeds together with Blue Sea’s native crops to cultivate plants that were more productive and better adapted to the planet’s current environment, the glory would rival that of the starfruit vegetable—or perhaps surpass it.

Officials throughout the Ministry of Agriculture were so excited that they could barely sleep.

In truth, they didn’t have time to sleep anyway.

Even with the AI coordinating operations, tasks such as selecting seeds, choosing plant specimens, and preparing examination sites still required people to do the actual work. From the minister down to the lowest-ranking officials, everyone in the ministry had been working nonstop up to this very moment.

But busy as they were, they were happy.

Especially the Director of the Agricultural Research Bureau.

His bureau specialized in plant breeding. It had previously been rather neglected, but now it was suddenly about to gain so many experts that he could hardly stop smiling.

“Stay calm. This is only the beginning.”

The Minister of Agriculture sipped her coffee as she spoke.

“Plant breeding is a long-term project. We’ve given you the specialists, but we can’t allocate much more land right now. You’ll still have to find solutions yourselves.”

The director nodded repeatedly.

“Yes, I understand. Being able to bring professional breeders back and secure funding for them is already more than enough.”

People trained in agricultural science were not afraid of hardship.

The saying ‘facing the soil with your back to the sky’—spending one’s days laboring in the fields—was no exaggeration.

If there wasn’t enough farmland, they could dig up soil and build more planting boxes. And if even stacked planting boxes were no longer sufficient…

Well, they could always go farm in the Zombie World.

At present, many officials from the agricultural sector were stationed outside the city, helping develop new territories. When the Temple relocated, the “Fence” settlement had left behind a portion of its soldiers and agricultural workers with the intention of growing crops locally and transporting the harvest back to the city.

“Minister, could our department be allocated a bit more land outside the Temple?”

The Minister of Agriculture thought for a moment.

“At the moment, every piece of arable land within Blue Sea’s sphere of control is already planted with crops. We’ve invested resources into those fields from the beginning. There’s no way we’re going to uproot existing crops now just to free up land for your projects.”

Disappointment immediately appeared on the director’s face. Before he could say anything further in an attempt to persuade her, the minister patted him on the shoulder.

“However, I’ve heard that we’re going to continue expanding outward. It shouldn’t take too long. When new territory is secured, I’ll see what I can do about allocating a larger share of the newly opened land to your department.”

She let out a sigh.

“But our God once gave a prophecy: sooner or later, this world will perish, and we will leave it behind. We just don’t know when that day will come. Because of that, many breeders may end up doing work that never bears fruit.”

Plant-breeding projects often encountered unexpected situations requiring crops to be relocated from their fields. Yet not every plant could survive being moved to a different environment.

And even for those that could adapt, the space inside a Safe City was far too limited. There would be no way to bring everything with them.

When the time came, a great many breeders whose projects had not yet produced results would be forced to abandon their research.

Now that he had received a promise of additional land in the future, the Director of the Research Bureau relaxed considerably and said with a smile:

“People in agricultural science are used to putting in effort that leads nowhere. The path of plant breeding has always been like ten thousand people crossing a single-log bridge—nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of them fall off.”

“That’s true.”

The minister lifted her gaze toward the giant screen overhead.

The display was divided into countless smaller windows, and in each one a candidate was working with complete concentration.

In her eyes were both determination and a deeply rooted hope.

“May our God watch over us. Out of these ten thousand people, if even one can make it across that bridge, then for Blue Sea, that will be a victory.”

—The great Creator God gave that statement a like.

Cheng Qisheng was drinking something as well.

However, she was already energetic enough and had no need for coffee. What she was drinking was starfruit vegetable juice.

Although starfruit vegetables had little effect on her “mortal body illness”, they really were excellent for general health and wellness.

She was quite looking forward to the results of the breeding program.

Who knew what kind of crops might emerge from combining the seeds of two different planets?

If they managed to develop something as remarkable as the starfruit vegetable, she would definitely convert some of her basic rooms into planting zones again and personally give the new crop a thorough taste test.

—

“I passed! I passed!!!”

Zhu Feifan stared at the message sent by the AI and burst into tears of excitement.

Looking at his score, he had only barely made the cutoff. The position he obtained wasn’t Project Leader for Plant Breeding but rather a Field Breeding Technician.

But at least—

He had a job!

During the examinations, he had met quite a few breeders with calm and relaxed attitudes. They felt that passing would be great, but if they failed, they could simply wait another two years. Maybe there would be another recruitment drive by then.

Zhu Feifan couldn’t possibly be that relaxed.

He was twenty-five years old and had just completed his master’s degree.

Back in university, he had studied like his life depended on it. He spent countless hours managing experimental fields and had memorized textbooks on botany, plant physiology, genetics, and many other subjects until he practically knew them by heart.

His grades in every related discipline had been excellent.

He mixed culture media in laboratories, performed hand pollination in the fields, measured sunlight exposure, humidity, and temperature. There hadn’t been a single day when he could truly call himself idle.

At only twenty-five, years of fieldwork and never bothering with sunscreen had left him looking more like a man in his thirties.

All that hardship had finally earned him the qualifications needed to join the Ministry of Agriculture.

And then—

Before he could even officially start his job, the black hole appeared.

The planet was destroyed.

All of Blue Sea fled together.

With so little land available, the Ministry of Agriculture underwent massive downsizing, retaining only the most elite and experienced experts.

Zhu Feifan had not even begun work before he was effectively laid off.

In fact, there were quite a few young people like him. If they couldn’t get into agriculture, they would just find another job.

But Zhu Feifan was called Zhu Feifan for a reason.

He was hemophobic.

For a Blue Sea person—who was supposed to become energized at the sight of blood—Zhu Feifan was an unfortunate outlier: a rare case of blood phobia.

When he was one year old, his name had been Zhu Zheng. After discovering his condition, his mother changed it.

“My child is truly extraordinary, even able to faint at the sight of blood. From now on, you’ll be called Feifan.”

Zhu Feifan had never thought this condition would affect his life that much. After all, he could just avoid joining the military.

But who could have predicted it? The entire Blue Sea had arrived in a zombie world filled with blood everywhere. The military had become the mainstream path, and serving in the armed forces was the best option for young people.

And for Zhu Feifan, who fainted at the sight of blood, the only remaining way to earn more points was construction work.

Honestly, he was young and strong, and he worked diligently in construction crews. He earned enough points each month to live on, with even a little left over.

But Zhu Feifan simply loved farming.

And after studying so hard for so long, finally being on the verge of results—changing careers now felt unbearably frustrating.

Who would have thought things would take a turn for the better again? He could go back to the fields!

May the God bless me! I will work hard!

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