Siheyuan's Journey Through the Ages

Chapter 22: Supplies Collected from All Around

For a whole week, I did basically nothing else except collecting some supplies from farmers selling vegetables and fruits nearby when I met them on the road after school.

Of course, it cannot be said that he gained nothing. On Saturday night, after seeing off the last batch of visitors, Ma Qing closed the door and bolted it, and couldn't wait to enter his own fantasy land.

Ma Qing was slowly patrolling the canal in the space, and Xiao Qi's sarcastic voice came to his mind; "In accordance with the scientific plan of Chief Planner Ma, this week I led the robots to dig four straight canals on the basis of the circular canal. With the space column as the center, I wrote a big "米" character in the entire space, dividing the space, which is my space that you named Gensokyo, into eight equal parts." Xiao Qi paused heavily at "my".

"Don't worry about these details, Xiaoqi brother, how big is our Gensokyo?"

"According to your Earth's measurement units, Gensokyo is approximately 0.996 kilometers in diameter. Excluding the area occupied by the large circular platform and the canal in the middle, the current arable land area is approximately 1100 acres. It is more than enough to support you to live the life you have always dreamed of, of course, provided that you provide enough supplies."

"Seventh Brother, stop giving me empty promises. I'm hungry."

Xiao Qi ignored him. "The space is now divided into the main grain area, supplementary grain area, vegetable area, fruit area, breeding area, residential area, storage area, and mobile area. The main grain area is now planting rice. Because there are too few initial plantings, the number of rice seedlings cultivated with rice is too small. It will take about 1 year, that is, three cultivations before you can achieve rice freedom. You'd better find barley seeds, wheat seeds, and hops as soon as possible to realize your beer dream."

"Wheat is easy to find, but where can I find barley?"

"There is barley in the Northeast and Inner Mongolia, and there must be some in Sijiucheng. It's not that hard to find."

"Why don't we use the universal robots to collect supplies? Who can beat them?"

"No, the universal robot does not have the ability to be invisible. It does not conform to my underlying operating logic."

"Well, I have to do this job."

"You have to understand that I don't need to eat or drink. This is all for your own sake. You are still feeling wronged." Xiao Qi is becoming more and more humane, and not as cute as he was at the beginning. "The supplementary grain area currently has five kinds of coarse grains: potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, sorghum, and millet. In about four months, you will be able to have coarse grains for yourself. Then you can start raising a small number of livestock. The vegetable area is now raising seedlings for the cabbage, tomatoes, radishes, rapeseed, and green peppers you sent in these days. They will also mature in four months. The fruit area is now raising seedlings for apples, pears, oranges, and peaches. They will bear fruit in about two years. You have to endure the fruit freedom. Of course, if you can find annual fruits, you can eat them this year."

"As for the breeding area, living area, storage area, and mobile area, these four areas are empty. There are no resources. The most important thing for you now is to find a large amount of metal substances. According to your idea, you can't proceed without metal substances. In addition, there are some river fish in the canals in the space, but without any food source, it is difficult for them to grow. You still have to think of a way."

"I understand. I'm just trying to find a solution. Even iron is hard to find during this period, let alone other metals. In other words, within four months, this space can't give me anything, and I have to keep investing in it." Ma Qing said depressedly.

“So when God wants to give a man a great responsibility, he must first make his mind suffer, his muscles and bones tired, his body hungry and his body empty. That’s how difficult it is to earn the first pot of gold.”

"Seventh Brother, please don't be like this, let's talk properly."

Ma Qing left the space and lay on the bed thinking about the next plan. He slowly closed his eyes while thinking about it, and his regular snoring echoed in the small room. The next morning, Ma Qing finished his breakfast and went straight to the waste recycling station. Ma Qing came to the waste recycling station near Nanluoguxiang and found that it was really busy. There were carts coming in and out pulling all kinds of waste collected from the streets and alleys.

Maybe because it was busy, or maybe because Ma Qing looked like a student, Ma Qing walked straight into the waste recycling station. It was truly an eye-opener: there were chicken and duck feathers, waste batteries, toothpaste tubes, meat bones, turtle shells, orange peels, broken glass, torn cotton wool, cloth scraps, eye drops bottles, various material bottles, all kinds of "worn shoes", long and short braids, crumpled and stained garbage paper, light bulbs and fluorescent tubes. But the bad news was that there were a lot of staff in the waste recycling station, busy sorting and bundling the items. It seemed that Ma Qing's idea of ​​stealing was impossible. As for what you said about coming back after get off work, Ma Qing now lived in a courtyard house and was a celebrity, so it was very difficult to deal with him.

"Hey, who are you and what are you doing here?" Ma Qing was finally noticed by someone, and an old man shouted at him.

"Uncle, I'm a student living near Luoguxiang. I came to see if there are any used books or newspapers. They're cheap." Ma Qing naturally didn't dare to say directly that he wanted to buy scrap steel and iron.

When the old man heard Ma Qing's purpose, he took Ma Qing to a place full of torn books and waste papers and instructed him, "These were just collected. If you want to find something, look for it yourself. Don't touch the bundles over there. When you've found it, go to the house in front to settle the payment." The old man did not leave after he said this. It seemed that he wanted to watch Ma Qing find something.

"Thank you, uncle. Where are those scraps of copper and iron?" Ma Qing chatted with the uncle while looking for a book.

"What do you want these scraps for?" the old man asked, staring at Ma Qing.

People in this era are quite defensive. Ma Qing said hurriedly, "During the recent steel production campaign, all the ironware in my house was donated. Now I want to buy some tools and iron wires and bars to tidy up my house."

"You also know about the Great Leap Forward in Steel Production. Recently, there are very few ironware collected. Besides, the things collected by our collection station every day are sorted and sent to the recycling company. There are no more."

Ma Qing sighed inwardly. It was another day that he was misled by Siheyuan novels. It seemed that the road to the scrap yard was not feasible. Ma Qing pretended to select for a long time. After finding a few books, he settled the bill with the old man, paid the money, and left the scrap yard unhappily.

"What should I do, Brother Qi? Please give me some advice." Ma Qing asked Xiao Qi for help while walking on the road.

"The only way is to go treasure hunting. The Kuomintang's secret service organization should have a special storage warehouse in Sijiu City. However, after so many years since the founding of the country, it is hard to say how much is left. You can only walk around Sijiu City and use our radar scan to search."

"Seventh Brother, didn't you say that you have been on Earth for four hundred years and that you know all the valuable information? I have to find it myself. Will I be noticed if I walk around the city?"

"You've already been walking around the city, isn't it funny to say this now? I mainly collect information about the earth's nature, biology, humanities, life, history, technology, etc. Why would I collect information about the material storage depot of a low-level civilization? I basically don't collect any information related to materials, and don't even think about asking me to go mining by myself."

"Do you have to be so restrictive? I always feel that you have other purposes, Brother Qi." Ma Qing complained.

(End of this chapter)