I became a farmer in the apocalypse.

Countless eyes turned to look.

The three metal-powered individuals each manipulated a coin, causing it to levitate.

"When superhumans use their abilities, we detect a weak magnetic field emanating from the energy core within their bodies."

"What is an energy core?" someone asked.

"It's where the body's energy gathers. By scanning their bodies, we discovered a small mass of unstable medium circulating in the center of their bodies, which is the source of their superpowers."

Someone asked, "Can these three metal-type ability users only levitate a single coin? What if they used a heavier object?"

Xu Jiu shook his head. "Larger objects won't work. They only awakened their abilities four days ago, so we currently speculate that their abilities might be able to be enhanced. Perhaps in the near future, their power will be enough to shake such enormous creatures."

Everyone understood.

In other words, they still need to grow and cannot be immediately put to the front lines to play a role.

"I have another question," someone asked. "Have we only discovered metal-type abilities so far? Are there any other elemental ability users?"

Xu Jiu: "Based on real-time data reported by various bases, a total of 87 superhumans have appeared so far. Among them, metal-type superhumans account for the largest proportion, followed by earth-type, water-type, and fire-type superhumans."

"What about the Wood element?" someone asked. "There should be five elements in total: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth..."

Xu Jiu paused for a moment, then frowned and said, "As of now, there haven't been any wood-type ability users. Not a single one."

"..."

Jiang Li squatted in the vegetable garden, holding up a small, tattered umbrella.

Several eggplant plants, after being repeatedly forced to grow, have become old, either no longer flowering and fruiting, or producing small and unattractive fruits.

Jiang Li cut down all the old eggplant plants, turned around and went back to the safe house. She took out an eggplant, cut it open to extract the seeds, and planted more than a dozen seeds in the ground, hoping to grow some new eggplant plants.

As a result, all the resulting strains turned red in Jiang Li's view. Some mutated during the seedling stage, some during the flowering period, and some mutated as soon as they bore fruit.

After all her efforts, Jiang Li got nothing.

On the contrary, the energy I had accumulated throughout the day was almost completely depleted.

Jiang Li sighed.

It seems that seeds that are not from the Agricultural Research Institute are indeed poor at resisting mutation, especially under the influence of red rain, the probability of mutation increases even more than the original 90%.

Back at the safe house, Jiang Li tallied up her points. Her sister had transferred the 2520 points from selling eggplants and peppers, so she now had 9217 points.

I need to buy some new seeds tomorrow.

The next day, Jiang Li slept until nine o'clock, and after getting up, she ate six steamed buns and three roasted eggplants.

"It's so dry, I wish we had some soy milk."

Jiang Yan's eyes lit up upon hearing this. "Sister, I'd like to try the soy milk too."

Jiang Li: "I just happened to go to the seed station today to see if they had any soybean seeds. If they do, I can drink soy milk every day from now on."

Jiang Yanxing nodded enthusiastically, "Okay!"

Sure enough, following my sister meant eating and drinking well!

Jiang Yan has been indulging in gluttony with Jiang Li lately. On rainy days, the two of them would set up a small stove at the door and grill meat, eggplant, and peppers with a wire mesh. They've almost eaten Zhu Cuihua's mother alive.

Zhu Cuihua: "?"

After the meal, Jiang Li tossed a steamed bun to Zhu Cuihua, who ate it with relish.

Jiang Li rubbed her swollen belly, got up and went to the vegetable garden. After walking a few steps, her expression changed immediately when she saw the state of the garden.

The tarpaulin has been tampered with.

"Sis, what's wrong?"

Jiang Yan also stopped in his tracks. The next second, following Jiang Li's gaze, he saw the moved tarpaulin, took a few steps over, and lifted it up to take a look—

Yesterday, all the small eggplants and chili peppers that hadn't even fully grown were picked.

Even three chili pepper plants were dug up. Originally there were 14, but now there are only 11 left, and they are all bare. Not even the smallest chili peppers were spared; not a single one was left.

"That's outrageous!" Jiang Yan was furious. "Who did this?"

Why are you stealing vegetables?

That's so shameless.

Jiang Li glanced around and found a shallow footprint in the vegetable garden. Judging from its size, it belonged to a teenager.

The two were studying the vegetable garden when they suddenly saw Li Lan running briskly eastward in the distance, shouting as she ran:

"Liu Qing! Something's happened!"

"Liu Qing! Your son is eating a mutated fruit! Come out and see!"

Li Lan ran in the direction of Wei Dahai's house.

Jiang Yan looked puzzled. "What happened?"

Jiang Li saw Ye Qing and Ye Tong run out as well, following behind Li Lan.

She covered the rain with the tarpaulin, opened her umbrella, and walked over. "Ye Qing, what's wrong with Aunt Li?"

Ye Qing said, "Sister Jiang, Wei Dahai's son, Wei Zhou, was stealing poisonous wild fruit from the hillside. My mother saw him and went over to call for Wei Zhou's mother."

Jiang Li frowned upon hearing this. "Wouldn't eating something containing the mutated toxin cause mutation and death? Why did he still eat it?"

Ye Qing sighed, "I guess they ran out of food and were so hungry that they ate something poisonous."

This kind of thing happens every day, even within the safe zone. Even though the safe zone prohibits the sale of food containing mutated toxins, there are always some unscrupulous vendors who smuggle poisonous items in from outside to sell in order to make money.

Once outside, there's even less of a caretaker; wild vegetables and fruits containing mutated toxins are everywhere, and you can pick them at will.

Li Lan called Wei Zhou's mother over, and the two women hurriedly ran up the lush hillside.

Jiang Li followed and, after parting the lush mutated grass, saw a boy dressed in tattered clothes squatting on the ground, picking mutated fruits from the bushes.

Jiang Li recognized it; it was a goat's milk fruit.

When ripe, this fruit is vermilion, about the size of a date, and has a unique milky flavor.

Wei Zhou picked the fruit and stuffed it into his mouth as he went.

Liu Qing rushed over and knocked all the fruit out of the boy's hands, her eyes red as she shouted:

"You can't eat this! You can't eat this! It'll kill you! Do you want to die?"

Wei Zhou cried out:

"They'll die if they don't eat! My little brother is starving!"

Wei Zhou also has a five-year-old brother who is starving and on the verge of death, lying in bed unable to speak.

Liu Qing instantly went from sobbing to wailing.

Jiang Li looked at this woman who was so thin she was almost unrecognizable, and it seemed she hadn't eaten for several days.

Li Lan couldn't help but ask, "What happened? Are we completely out of food?"

Liu Qing shook her head. "No, that's all."

She cried as she said, "We still had some points at home, and I exchanged them for ten catties of rice seeds. Before I even planted them, Wei Dahai cooked and ate all the rice seeds."

"Now even rice seeds are gone."

Li Lan was furious. "This lazy bum, he even eats the seeds that are planted in the ground!"

Liu Qing: "He ate everything that was edible in the house by himself, leaving nothing for the two children. They went hungry for several days, and the younger one fainted from hunger."

She couldn't help but pour out all her grievances, "Wei Dahai used to not work in the safe zone and asked me to support him every day. I couldn't afford it, so I used my dowry money to buy land."