radicalducati Chapter 70 Food Problem
Chapter 70 Food Problem
Lu Chen nodded. He had thought about the issue Sun Xiulan raised before, but he had been busy with rescue and clearing operations all day and hadn't had time to calculate it in detail.
The further we go, the harder it will be to get fresh meat. Tomorrow will be the 5th day of the apocalypse. The refrigerators in the neighborhood have been without power for 4 days. Meat that is well sealed can still be eaten, but meat that is not well sealed will probably spoil.
Lu Chen immediately approved, "Okay! Then when we collect supplies tomorrow, we should prioritize collecting edible meat."
"Put the rest of the supplies aside and focus on salvaging the meat that can be saved first. As for what happens when there's no meat left, there's nothing we can do but use canned meat and cured meat to tide us over."
Sun Xiulan added quietly, "Each household doesn't keep a lot of canned meat in stock."
"When registering supplies this afternoon, I paid special attention and found that all the canned meat that was found in each household only amounted to a few dozen cans, not even enough for one can per person."
"I feel like I might have to collect from supermarkets later. The supermarket shelves are piled high with canned meat and luncheon meat, and one trip there can last a long time."
"Okay, I'll go there later!" Lu Chen noted down the suggestion.
At this moment, Gao Yuan looked up from his laptop and added, "If we're going to a supermarket, I think we should prioritize large warehouse-style supermarkets, like Yonghui or RT-Mart."
"These supermarkets have their own medium-sized cold storage facilities to store fresh meat. The sealing and insulation of these cold storage facilities are much better than those of household refrigerators. Even if there is a power outage for several days, as long as the cold storage door has not been opened, the temperature inside will still be relatively low."
"So the meat should still be in good condition, and there's a large enough quantity... It's normal for a medium-sized cold storage to have several tons of frozen meat."
Upon hearing this, everyone's eyes lit up slightly.
That's a good idea indeed. How big is the freezer compartment of a household refrigerator? Even if you searched through all the refrigerators in the entire community, you wouldn't be able to salvage much frozen meat.
However, a supermarket's cold storage can easily hold several tons of inventory. If a supermarket's cold storage that has not yet been used can be found, the meat supply of the base can be solved by a large part.
"Then we should do this as soon as possible." Zhao Yongqiang sat up straight in his chair, his face showing an eager expression.
"If we can think of the supermarket cold storage, the other survivor teams can too. Didn't they say on the radio yesterday that several superhumans were also leading rescue teams? What if someone else gets there first and empties the cold storage? We won't even get a taste of the spoils."
Lu Chen nodded. "Okay! I'll go once I've finished rescuing the survivors nearby."
There are priorities, and at this juncture, the most important thing is to rescue the survivors in the surrounding area and earn merit points for yourself.
His current rank is captain, and the next rank up is major. At this level, he should already have a certain amount of influence within the military system.
Therefore, he planned that once he accumulated enough military merits to reach the rank of major, he would use military channels to contact the shelter in Ningcheng City and send a rescue team to his hometown village to pick up his parents and sister.
This is the core objective of all his actions, and it has remained unchanged from the first day of the apocalypse until now.
"I should contact Zhang Zhenhua again tomorrow if I have time, and ask about the specific standards for military rank promotion," Lu Chen thought to himself.
At this moment, Sun Xiulan spoke up again. Perhaps because her suggestion had been adopted, she had become bolder and brought up another question that she had been holding back for a long time.
"There's also the issue of vegetables. Fresh vegetables are difficult to preserve, so if we want to develop in the long term, we definitely need a stable source."
"My idea is very simple." She pointed to the direction of the square outside the window, "Those flower beds in the square downstairs, and the green belts between the buildings, those places are planted with ornamental plants, which can neither be eaten nor used now, it's such a waste."
"Why not just uproot them all and plant vegetables instead? Leafy greens like bok choy and lettuce grow quickly and can be harvested in less than two weeks."
"Tomatoes and cucumbers need trellises, which takes a little longer, but if we plant them now, they can be harvested in a month. Anyway, electricity will be available soon, and water will be brought in soon, so irrigation won't be a problem."
Lu Chen readily agreed to this.
Gao Yuan quickly jotted down the suggestion in his notebook, calculating in his mind how many people would be needed, which varieties to plant, and where the seeds would come from.
There are no ready-made vegetable seeds in the community, but you can look for them in the old apartment buildings around. Many elderly people living on the first floor like to grow vegetables in their own yards, so they must have seeds stored at home.
Seeing that no one had anything to add, Lu Chen patted the armrest of the sofa and announced that the meeting was over.
He specifically instructed that everyone should go back and talk about these things with others... to reveal the future plans in advance so that everyone knows what changes will happen next, and to give everyone more hope.
Soon, the group got up and left one after another.
Only Gao Yuan remained in the room, still sitting in his folding chair. He turned to the last page of his notebook and moved the chair forward a little.
"Boss, have you finalized the selections for the remaining five field personnel?"
Gao Yuan changed his form of address, which sounded much more intimate than "commander".
Lu Chen didn't pay much attention to these details and picked up the conversation by asking, "Do you have any good candidates to recommend?"
"These are the people who worked efficiently this afternoon. I've made a list." Gao Yuan stood up and handed over his notebook.
The notebook had a page with more than a dozen names, each followed by their age, pre-apocalyptic occupation, specific tasks they participated in that afternoon, and their completion status.
Lu Chen picked up the notebook, glanced at it twice, and put it down. He had saved too many survivors today, and he had only glanced at most of them. He couldn't match the names on the list with anyone.
He thought for a moment, then began to describe his options, "I have a few candidates, but I don't know their names."
"The first one is the one who sat at table number 3 by the window at dinner. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, had a short buzz cut, and looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The second one is the one who sat in the middle at table number 5. He was a little overweight and wore glasses. The third one..."
He named the physical characteristics and seating positions of several people one by one.
These were the people he had specifically noticed during the pre-dinner thanksgiving ceremony... They were the group of newlyweds who felt the strongest sense of gratitude towards him.
As Gao Yuan listened, he quickly circled the corresponding names in his notebook.
After he circled all five people, he turned the notebook around and showed it to Lu Chen for confirmation.
"That's 5 for now."
"Okay, I'll arrange it in a bit." Having confirmed the matter, Gao Yuan got up and left.