Doomsday: Humanity shrinks 100 times

Chapter 56 Material Extraction and Chemistry

The four of them prepared to transplant the shepherd's purse back.

But it's not easy to dig it out completely.

First, we have to loosen the surrounding soil, and then dig it down little by little. For a person of their size, the workload is not small.

The shepherd's purse roots are still in the grass, so it is a bit dangerous to go in directly. Lu Yuning still remembers the last spider incident.

To be on the safe side, they cleared a path first so that they would have room to maneuver in case of danger.

The next step was digging. There wasn’t much skill required for this, so Lu Yuning simply took out two shovels.

He was responsible for loosening the soil first, and then Wu Xiao and Zou Yunxin were responsible for digging.

It had recently rained, so the soil nearby was still relatively soft, so it was quite quick to dig.

The three of them were digging hard when Wu Xiao suddenly felt something was wrong when he dug with a shovel. Before he had dug very far, he felt a soft feeling coming over him.

Just as he was wondering, the soil in front of him suddenly bulged up, and then a python-like thing suddenly broke out of the soil.

The four of them were immediately frightened and broke out in cold sweats. They threw down their shovels and ran out frantically.

As Lu Yuning was running, she realized where these pythons came from. They were less than two centimeters tall, and the smallest snake should be more than ten times bigger than them.

Obviously, the thing just now was not a snake. He slowed down and gradually calmed down.

The three were a little surprised to see Lu Yuning suddenly stop, but they immediately stopped and surrounded him, looking at the wild vegetables with nervous expressions.

"What's wrong, Yu Ning? Is there something in front?" Wu Xiao asked in a low voice.

"No, that thing just now should not be a snake. If I'm not mistaken, it should be an earthworm." Lu Yuning said.

The three of them were slightly stunned, and then they reacted.

"Damn, you scared me." Wu Xiao cursed as he looked at the thing in front of him.

The four of them carefully walked back to where they had been, and were speechless as they looked at the earthworms that had already broken out of the soil in front of them.

Zou Yunxin picked up the mace and was eager to try, but Lu Yuning stopped him.

"Don't fight, this thing might be useful." Lu Yuning said hurriedly.

"Ah? Can it be eaten?" Zou Yunxin asked in confusion.

Zhang Xinyue immediately looked at him with disgust.

Lu Yuning blushed and began to explain, "I saw some fireflies near the shelter last time. Maybe I can use this earthworm to trap one."

"It turns out that fireflies eat earthworms."

"Well, it's just a larva. Fireflies mainly feed on snails, earthworms and other insects in the larval stage, but they don't eat these things after they become adults. So maybe you can catch a larva and raise it." Lu Yuning explained.

When Lu Yuning was young, he lived with his grandmother in the countryside.

There used to be quite a lot of fireflies in rural areas, and Lu Yuning was quite familiar with these insects.

"So what about taking this back? Can it fit into Old Wu's space?"

Wu Xiao shuddered inexplicably, looking at the earthworm wriggling in front of him with some disdain: "I can't let it go, not even a living thing."

Lu Yuning shook his head: "Let me take care of it and transport it back with these wild vegetables."

He thought about it and asked Wu Xiao to take out some plastic materials. Just as he was about to move forward, the earthworm burrowed into the soil.

He was quick to pick it up in his arms. Wu Xiao and Zou Yunxin also came to help immediately. Zhang Xinyue naturally stayed away.
A few minutes later.

Lu Yuning clapped his hands and nodded with satisfaction as he looked at the earthworms wrapped in plastic like dumplings in front of him.

The force with which it burrowed into the soil was astonishing, nearly causing it to flee. Luckily, Lu Yuning was quick to wrap its head in plastic. The thrashing of the earthworm was quite frightening, though. Fortunately, it wasn't too large, probably no more than 2 grams, or else the group wouldn't have been able to handle it.

After dealing with the earthworms, the four continued to dig wild vegetables.

Some roots that are too deep cannot be pulled out and can only be cut off, which should not affect planting.

After working for a while, I finally dug out the shepherd's purse with its roots.

It was getting late, so Lu Yuning got out another two-wheeled vehicle.

This time I made it a little bigger, and then threw earthworms and wild vegetables on it.

Although the earthworm is quite long, it doesn't take up much space.

Wild vegetables are a bit troublesome. They are huge in size and weigh a lot, at least more than ten grams.

After much difficulty, I moved it onto the car and dragged it back unsteadily.

The four of them started chatting while pushing the cart.

"If this vegetable is grown well, we won't have to worry about the source of vegetables in the future." Wu Xiao was a little happy.

"It's okay. This dish is actually not the best choice. It's quite oily." Lu Yuning said.

"Well, shepherd's purse contains a lot of oil. If you continue to eat it on the diet we have, you will become fat sooner or later." Zhang Xinyue pinched her cheeks worriedly.

It seems that even in the end of the world, beautiful women still pay more attention to their image.

"Can we squeeze out some oil? Can we research some new recipes? Eating boiled food every day is a bit greasy." Wu Xiao reminded.

Lu Yuning was stunned: "Huh? That makes sense. I actually forgot about this."

This reminded Lu Yuning that many kitchen condiments are extracted from nature.

Although there is no way to deal with artificial condiments such as MSG and soy sauce, we can think of ways to deal with some simple seasonings, perhaps they can be extracted from some plants.

For example, sugar.

There is probably no sugarcane in this park, so they can't make sucrose, but fructose can be extracted from fruits, which is enough for them to use for seasoning.

However, what they lack most is salt, which is very difficult to produce. Although shepherd's purse also contains salt, extracting salt requires special processes and technologies, which they cannot do now.

"Let's go back and study it!" Lu Yuning suddenly became interested.

"Speaking of oil, if we can find some alkaline substances, maybe we can make soap out of it, so we can take a bath." These words were naturally said by Zhang Xinyue again.

She is most concerned about personal hygiene.

"Soap? Soap is made of oil?" Zou Yunxin was naturally confused.

"Of course, the method of making soap is quite simple. It's just a simple chemical reaction, but the main thing is that there is no sodium hydroxide," Zhang Xinyue explained.

"Is there any way to make it?" Lu Yuning was interested.

Zhang Xinyue shook her head. "That's probably difficult. Sodium hydroxide is produced through chemical reactions. Industrially, it's usually produced by electrolyzing sodium chloride solution or brine. That's obviously not possible for us. We'd have a hard time getting salt alone, not to mention the reaction conditions for electrolysis."

"Okay." Lu Yuning was also a little disappointed.

But, chemistry? I might pay attention to it later.

　Thanks to Xingkong Anguang and 6318 monthly tickets.

　　Thank you all for your recommendations, especially those whose IDs I saw when the book was first published and have continued to support it until now. Thank you.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)