Chapter 13: Tortoise Moss
Having reached the end of the trench without so much as powering on his terminal, Zhao Man’s face betrayed sheer disbelief. Seeing his expression, Tang Heng remarked, “This is the reality of scavenging. Why else do you think base potatoes are so cheap? Your yield rate is what’s abnormal here. Make sure you keep that under wraps.”
Hearing this, Zhao Man’s eyes went wide. He kept darting glances at Tang Heng—looking, looking away, looking back again—his fingers gripping his thigh. He wanted to ask how abnormal, but didn’t know how to word it.
The ditch dead-ended into a lateral trench running perpendicular. Tang Heng checked the time—twelve-thirty—and turned to Zhao Man. “Which way do you want to go?”
Zhao Man looked left, looked right, and pointed right. The two set off in that direction.
“Your harvest rate hovers around forty to sixty percent. Everyone else averages twenty to thirty. I won’t say a word, but you’d better hide it well.”
“Thanks.”
Gradually, the sandy gravel beneath their boots gave way to smooth river stones. The ground grew damp, and patches of moss began to appear, yet aside from the thicket overhanging the trench, the floor itself was barren of plant life.
They walked for nearly an hour. Zhao Man still hadn’t powered on his terminal once. They were now far from the main road, pressing deep into the foothills of Elephant Mountain. Just as Zhao Man was debating whether they should turn back, he noticed a rock shifting on the ground.
Tang Heng stepped forward and flipped it over with his dagger. It was a tortoise. Tang Heng had run out of words for Zhao Man’s absurd luck, settling for a dry explanation: “This is an Armor-Moss Tortoise. Inedible, but they carry energy stones in their bodies. More importantly, the habitats they occupy cultivate a specific type of moss that serves as excellent agricultural fertilizer.”
“You mean this?” Zhao Man asked, pointing at the patches on the ground. Tang Heng nodded.
Unleashing his mental strength, Tang Heng swept the entire colony. He selected and slaughtered five tortoises, extracting three energy stones. Wrapping two in a leaf, he handed them to Zhao Man. “Let’s go. It’s time to head back. I’ll come with you to harvest the moss next year.”
Zhao Man had no issue with the split. “Can’t we harvest it now?”
“No. The nutrient density of the moss is too low right now. If you harvest it now and don’t plant anything during the snow season, the fertility will bleed out rapidly. It’s best to harvest during the acid rain season when the moss is at peak nutrient density.” Tang Heng cast a curious glance at Zhao Man as he spoke. An agricultural student who doesn’t know about Armor-Moss?
Oblivious to Tang Heng’s probing gaze, Zhao Man kept pace. “No need to come with me. I’ll come by myself.”
“That’s when the tortoises lay their eggs. There will be snakes.”
The moment snakes were mentioned, Zhao Man clamped his mouth shut.
“Then are you bringing your squad? Does this need to be reported to the base? If it’s reported, will I still be allowed to harvest it?” Zhao Man fired off three desperate questions, fraught with worry.
“No squad, no report. Captains have higher performance quotas than regular members, which means captains get independent hunting windows.” Tang Heng turned to look at Zhao Man. “Consider this our secret base. We keep it between us. The moss is yours, the energy stones we split eighty-twenty.”
“Deal,” Zhao Man agreed. Getting a twenty-percent cut for doing nothing was fine by him; he wasn’t greedy.
The return trip was much faster. It took them forty minutes to reach the spot where they had initially dropped in. Tang Heng flared his mental strength to ensure the coast was clear above, then turned to Zhao Man. “Head back now while the road is quiet. In another half hour, this place is going to get loud, and you don’t want to get caught in the middle of it.”
“Got it.” Zhao Man swung his pack from his chest to his back, preparing to scramble up the wall.
Suddenly, Tang Heng crouched down, grabbed Zhao Man’s legs, and hoisted him straight out of the ditch in one clean lift.
Crouching by the edge of the trench, Zhao Man waved a quick goodbye to Tang Heng, shifted his pack back to his chest, and set off toward the base.
Just as he reached the city gates, he saw Sun Chao driving a tricycle out, with three men huddled in the back. The surrounding scavengers were all turning to stare. Zhao Man took advantage of the distraction to slip through unseen, sprinting all the way home.
Only after he was inside with the door securely bolted did he finally let out a breath. Inside his pack were two bundles of water dropwort, six fish, over a dozen bamboo shoots, and his water flask; the bag was practically bursting at the seams.
He gutted the six fish, scraped off the scales and viscera, washed them clean, and shook off the excess water. Pulling out his salt, he carefully rubbed it into every inch of the fish, inside and out, before setting them in a wooden basin to cure.
With the fish salted, Zhao Man grabbed another basin, added water, and began washing the dropwort, pinching off tough stems and yellowed leaves as he went. Once clean, he draped the stalks over a bamboo pole to sun-dry them into preserved greens.
He had never eaten dried dropwort before, but he had no other way to preserve it, and eating nothing but dropwort for the next several days wasn’t an option.
Produce sorted, Zhao Man took his dagger and set to work peeling the bamboo shoots. He made a diagonal cut near the tip, scored a line straight down the middle, and twisted with his index finger, shucking the shoot clean in a single fluid motion. He piled the peeled shoots into a basin.
Next, Zhao Man took a shower, changed into fresh clothes, and soaked his filthy work gear in the leftover bathwater. Locking his door, he headed to the market; he was completely out of nutrient solutions, and it was still early enough to restock.
With ten vials of nutrient solution in his pocket, he noticed the surrounding crowd rushing toward West Gate 3. Following the flow, he saw a massive throng gathered around the gates, while a long line snaked outward.
“I heard a patrol squad found low-radiation water!”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I just saw a patrolman drive a tricycle back hauling three massive vats of it.”
“I saw it too. If my family had a vat like that, my son and daughter wouldn’t have to buy water for the entire snow season. Think of the points we’d save.”
“How do you know it’s low-radiation? What if—”
Before the speaker could finish, the familiar putt-putt-putt of an engine cut them off. Sun Chao drove up on a tricycle, flanked not only by Brigade 12, but by two men from Brigade 7 as well.
A pack of Alphas jogged behind the tricycle, every one of them lugging a massive 16-liter jug.
“I can’t miss this! I’m sending my son out to draw some. One jug of that stuff goes for five points on the market. That’ll last us half a month!”
Five points? Zhao Man felt like he had just missed out on a fortune.
After watching the commotion for a while, Zhao Man headed home and set water to boil. Once it was bubbling, he sterilized two jars and set them on the counter to drain. He dumped the bamboo shoots into the pot, poured in a third of a pouch of salt, covered the lid, and let it simmer over a low flame. Fifteen minutes later, the shoots began weeping their own moisture. Waiting another five minutes for enough liquid to pool, he cranked up the heat, stirring continuously as they boiled. Half an hour later, all the moisture had evaporated, leaving the shoots coated in a crust of brown salt frost.
He scooped the shoots into a basin to cool, washed the pot, and set more water to boil. He poured out the bulk to cool for drinking, then tossed peeled potatoes into the remaining boiling water. Once cooked, he mashed them up, added a pinch of salt and some minced dried greens, and ate it straight from the bowl spoonful by spoonful, nodding in approval. It tasted marginally better than eating boiled potatoes plain.
Dinner finished, he washed the pot and packed the cooled, salted bamboo shoots into a jar. They had looked plentiful at first, but the salt dehydration had shrunk them down so much they didn’t even fill a single container. He set it beside his jar of pickled bracken ferns, then went to scrub his soaking clothes. By the time he was done with all these tedious, time-consuming chores, it was already seven o’clock.
With everything squared away, Zhao Man lay in bed scrolling through the base forums. The sparse educational posts were buried beneath an avalanche of gossip and entertainment threads; it was easy to fall down the rabbit hole and never resurface.
Come out and open the door, Tang Heng messaged.
Zhao Man sighed, dragged himself out of bed, and let Tang Heng in. “What brings you by today?”
“Zhao Qingjin arranged a little something for you, figured I’d drop it off on my way,” Tang Heng said, handing over a plastic convenience bag. Inside sat a slab of meat roughly the size of a palm.
Meat. Fresh, raw meat. Zhao Man’s mouth watered so fiercely he practically teared up.
Tang Heng also transferred ten points to his account. “Zhao Qingjin will also secure some of the rice and meat you requested for the winter. These ten points are your cut for the pool by the bamboo grove. We sold the location to the Flying Tiger hunting squad.”
“You can sell coordinates out in the wild?” Zhao Man asked, bewildered. The water was just sitting there, and the patrol squads wouldn’t be able to secure it tomorrow. What kind of sucker would pay for that?
“There were four pools. My squad and Brigade 7 locked down three. Even though they only have today to exploit it, the bamboo grove pool is extremely well hidden. With an extra half-day of exclusive access, they’ll make their investment back ten times over,” Tang Heng explained.
“It’s getting late, I’m heading back,” Tang Heng added. “I had someone look into your little incident this afternoon. The guy tailing you is connected to Ye Shu—he’s a member of the Flying Tiger squad. I had a word with his captain today. As long as you don’t wander into any secluded alleys, he won’t be able to lay a finger on you.”
The moment Tang Heng left, Zhao Man bolted for the kitchen. He washed the pristine white slab of fat, sliced it thin, added a splash of water to the pot, and began rendering the lard.
The sizzling eventually quieted, and the rich, intoxicating aroma of rendered fat filled the air. Zhao Man swallowed hard. Smells heavenly!
He stirred the slices constantly until the pure white fat rendered down into crisp, golden cracklings. Carefully, he poured the liquid gold into a freshly washed jar. The golden-orange lard filled it two knuckles deep. He leaned in to take a deep whiff, swirled it gently, and, after relishing his triumph, exhibited tremendous restraint by eating only two pieces of pork crackling. Finally, he packed everything away and climbed back into bed.
