Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Compared to Yelena's carefulness, Xia Lin, who was harvesting cabbages, didn't have much sentimentality. She simply and roughly pulled the whole cabbage bundle up, cut it off at the root with a knife, and then threw the cabbage leaves, which were about to fall apart due to such a rough harvesting method, into the cart.

The greenhouse is filled with the fresh aroma of vegetable juices and the faint earthy smell of soil; for any farmer, this is the scent of a bountiful harvest.

Even Yelena, who had never been a farmer, was touched by this pure, unadulterated joy of harvest, which stemmed from the most fundamental human experience.

The more arduous the cultivation, the purer the joy at harvest, especially since, in her view, it was undoubtedly a time of abundance.

Although in Xia Lin's eyes, half an acre of Star Alliance potatoes only yielded about 300 jin, which was almost a complete crop failure—back in his hometown, that would be a harvest that would make the Star Region News and require government relief and subsidies.

Of course, if such a situation were to actually occur, the star sector government would probably be extremely anxious and would urgently dispatch food from the nearest agricultural storage and distribution center. Otherwise, given the time and distance of interstellar transportation, if they were too slow, they would have to open emergency storage facilities.

In a sense, the reason why the Covenant's total population is only over 40 billion and the food shortage is still huge is because of two factors: first, industrial food demand; second, the uneven distribution of production and storage areas due to environmental issues, and the excessively long investment cycle.

The primary demand is from industry. As a cheap and convenient biomass material, it is used in large quantities, just like corn in the real world, which is used in pharmaceuticals and corn syrup.

Furthermore, the level of human consumption in the interstellar era is as vast as the difference between modern people and people in the feudal era. Undoubtedly, it will require a large amount of interstellar transportation capacity. It is impossible to expect humans to have so-called "necessary consumption" like swarm intelligence or robots. Don't even think about it.

"Take the potatoes to the seed processing station. The automatic sorting will select medium. Then put the chopped potato pieces into the sprouting box. Make sure you put them in the right place. Look carefully at the markings on the inlet. One is for planting the next round, and the other is for eating." Yelena nodded and pushed a whole cart of potatoes out.

Speaking of which, isn't this girl's arm strength a bit too high? Xia Lin looked at her back and touched his chin. The reason why his strength and physique were stronger than hers was because, as part of the labor insurance for the Pioneers, he had undergone implant surgery.

It contains implants that enhance muscle fibers and improve endurance, and also has the added benefit of a symbiote's permanent presence.

However, this little girl did achieve this effect purely through her physical body. Is it because of those disordered genetic modifications?

Automated processing equipment wasn't new to Yelena, but it was still awe-inspiring and filled her with curiosity. She had some understanding of the automated equipment that controlled water and fertilizer supply, mainly because Xia Lin had guided her through several simulated hardware malfunctions.

Although I still don't understand the technical details of the inner layers, I have a general understanding of how it works.

These automated processing devices presented a different kind of misunderstanding. She understood how they worked, of course, since a significant portion of the processing was uninterrupted. However, she couldn't comprehend the specifics of how the machine operated.

If she hadn't felt some fear and unfamiliarity with this place, she probably would have unleashed her suppressed nature like any other ten-year-old child.

The potatoes tumble happily in the washing tank, where high-pressure water brushes scrub them clean. A small sorting port automatically separates potatoes smaller than a certain size from the conveyor belt, allowing them to enter the food processing process rather than the seed processing process.

After being processed through what was essentially a "black box" for Yelena, a large quantity of diced potatoes were discharged from the outlet. Potatoes that were not worth keeping for seed were broken down into potato slices, potato strips, potato shreds, and mashed potatoes based on their volume. The parts that were worth keeping for seed were meticulously divided and cut according to the potato sprouts.

Yelena needed to smooth these parts out, keeping the buds facing upwards, and place them on a tray piled up to the side. Then she would send them into the germination box next door to allow them to germinate in a suitable temperature and environment.

Next to the germination chamber, delicate seedlings, like strands of soft green silk, swayed gently in the warm breeze in a water dish. These were seedlings cultivated by Xia Lin, ready to be planted once the weather warmed up.

The first batch did not select those super rice varieties with a yield of about 2 tons per mu, but instead selected this other type of super rice variety with a yield of only 700-850 kg per mu.

It was artificially hybridized and genetically modified to cope with the harsh alien environment.

Although the yield is not high, it can minimize the difficulty of planting. It is said that as long as you are not stupid enough to pour pesticides into the paddy field instead of fertilizer, you can just stand on the ridge and throw a bunch of seedlings into the paddy field and they will take root and not fall over.

Moreover, as long as the extreme cold, heat, acidity, alkaliness, and salinity of the alien planet do not reach an excessively harsh level, they can all grow. This is the crop that Xia Lin plans to grow in the wild outside the greenhouse. The wheat seeds he brought are more inclined to sacrifice yield and endurance in exchange for flavor.

This super rice variety was originally designed to combat the accumulation of metals in the soil of the colonies. The metals were concentrated in the rice straw, which was then sent for treatment. After several rounds of planting, the soil was improved to the point where cash crops and high-quality wheat could be grown.

The colonies' main cash crops were coffee, spices, and fruits, with melons being the primary type of fruit.

The staple crops are wheat and industrial high-sugar corn. The latter is used to make corn syrup and industrial alcohol compounds, which are important raw materials for beverages, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. It is not advisable to eat them directly.

As for the other type of super rice, it was purchased because the local site successfully blasted at the North and South Poles, creating large areas of mudflats and marshes, which were then prepared for development into large-scale paddy fields.

Rice was an extremely unfamiliar crop to Yelena. She was very curious about why these little green creatures were in an incubator, and what kind of fruit these delicate little things would eventually grow into.

So every few days she would come and check on the rice seedlings, as if these swaying little green seedlings had some kind of mysterious magic that attracted people's attention and minds.

As Yelena curiously looked at the potato chunks and seedlings in the incubator, Xia Lin also carried over a large basket of cabbages. She dumped them into the feed chute as if dumping garbage, and after automatically washing and removing the roots, she could cut them into various shapes or process them into vegetable juice, vegetable puree, and vegetable shreds, just like the pre-processing equipment of a cooking machine.

Xia Lin chopped all the cabbages into small pieces. Some of the cabbages were used to feed the fast-growing chickens that were getting bigger and bigger. They would be able to eat them in another week. The rest of the cabbages were used to feed the laying hens. The chopped cabbages were mixed with calcium tablets and earthworms that the chickens raised so that they could lay high-quality organic eggs.

Amidst the rumble of the machines, the harvest of the past month and a half was quickly devoured, transformed into a dazzling array of roughly processed products. Xia Lin and Yelena exchanged a glance, and both of them smiled from the bottom of their hearts. Finally, they wouldn't have to eat cookies every day anymore.

"You're adapting well, keep it up! Let's make French fries today!" "French fries?" Yelena tilted her head, her white rabbit ears twitching slightly. "What are French fries?" Her dark brown eyes were full of confusion.

"Ah, it's just fried potato strips, it's very simple."

It's really simple. Even Xia Lin, with her terrible cooking skills, could make it. Just throw the sliced ​​potatoes into the air fryer and fry them until crispy, then sprinkle with salt and MSG and it's ready to eat. Unfortunately, those are the only two seasonings Xia Lin has right now.

Salt comes from the excretion cycle and soil extraction, while monosodium glutamate, or monosodium glutamate, comes from the decomposition and extraction of plant raw materials. These are two types with relatively abundant and unrestricted sources.

Yelena reached out her little hand and touched the golden potato strips in front of her. She picked one up and put it in her mouth. The crispy outer shell cracked open with a gentle touch, and the soft, chewy inside was filled with a rich salty and savory flavor. This delicious taste, which she had never experienced before, instantly won over Yelena's heart.

"Once the weather gets a little warmer, after we plant the rice, let's start planting peppers and coffee beans..."

"Pepper?" Yelena looked up at Xia Lin, puzzled. She didn't know what pepper was, but she had heard her grandmother mention coffee.

"Ah, a spice blend, besides pepper, also includes ginger, garlic, chives, star anise..."

Xia Lin started counting the types of spices on her fingers, and finally realized that although she had brought enough seeds, she didn't have enough land.

Moreover, many of these things cannot be grown together in one greenhouse, which means he has to build a dozen or twenty greenhouses, making it look almost like a modern rural greenhouse vegetable base.

Considering the farmland and field management required for staple crops, he increasingly felt the shortage of manpower and the strong demand for mechanized agriculture. Fortunately, he only needed to support two people and did not have to pay taxes or rent to them, and the yield was also acceptable; otherwise, he would have been living a miserable and desolate life.

Xia Lin, who has not yet witnessed the scene of local Ursus farmers carrying wooden farm tools to cultivate the frozen soil when the temperature is still very low, may not be able to understand the true "misery" and "poor peasant" life.

Others use wooden farm tools to clear land, but he uses steel farm tools and even wears a powered exoskeleton to clear land. The efficiency and labor intensity are incomparable.

The next day, Xia Lin and Yelena began to work on the greenhouse soil. After sterilizing, fertilizing, and loosening the soil, they planted the sprouted potato tubers in the ground, keeping the sprouts facing upwards. They spaced the holes as far apart as possible, not too far apart or too close together, and finished once the entire acre of land was planted.

Next, the work of felling trees and removing shrubs outside the fence began. The logs inside the woodworking shed were ready for use after being air-dried and kiln-dried.

However, Xia Lin is temporarily unable to teach Yelena woodworking, and there is no need for so much wood right now.

The original plan was to process these logs into wooden frames for what purpose? To make drying racks and livestock sheds. After all, compared to processing them into carbon fiber or polymer materials, using wood directly, although a bit extravagant, is much more convenient and faster.

In addition to the livestock shed, Xia Lin also plans to build a wooden warehouse on one side of the workshop to store the increasing crop yields and agricultural machinery that may need to be driven out after parking. The warehouse in the workshop will only store those easily damaged items, since space is limited.

Not to mention the current rudimentary conditions, even in the colonies, everyone did the same thing, as space in low-temperature cold storage was limited.

For example, dried wheat and rice are packaged and stored in ordinary warehouses. The only difference is that their warehouses are built with polymer boards.

In addition to these tasks, Xia Lin also plans to harden the ground on the other side of the workshop to use it as a grain drying yard. Although there is a special dryer, the processing speed is still not enough.

In the colonies, people would use natural conditions to dry things directly in the sun whenever possible, and avoid using dryers as much as possible.

Otherwise... if we relied on a dryer for that quantity of stuff, the electricity and labor costs would be unbearable.

Moreover, there are high-value cash crops waiting to be used, and ordinary food crops naturally have to give way to these valuable cash crops.

The already quite large white-feathered chickens strutted arrogantly outside the newly built chicken coop. The alien environment seemed to have no effect on these creatures with their thick, warm feathers. These clucking birds glanced at Yelena, who was carrying a basket of feed, with disdain and arrogance, while she responded to their pride with an extremely warm gaze.

"Eat more, get fatter," Yelena said as she scattered the prepared feed into the chicken coop, attracting the white-feathered chickens to fight over it. According to the farmer, Xia Lin, these chickens would be ready to be slaughtered in a few days, and everyone would be able to eat meat, except for the laying hens living in their individual pens.

Yelena, who had only heard of roast chicken in her grandmother's stories, had been looking forward to it for a long time. Whenever her grandmother talked about the roast chicken during the Midwinter Festival, how delicious and nostalgic it was with its golden and crispy skin and tender white meat, paired with dipping sauce. The miners, who were as numb as walking corpses, would show longing and reminiscing in their eyes, and then become even more numb and dull afterward.

Chapter Eleven: Originium and Chicken

Chapter 11

The construction of the farm is a long and arduous task. After nearly two months of work, only the water intake, storage, irrigation and fencing facilities have been completed. Xia Lin's farm is a rectangular area centered on the workshop and spanning the stream.

The longer side runs north-south and is about 300 meters long. The southern end extends to the stone steps where the stream cascades down to form a small waterfall, while the northern end extends to the edge of the downstream area that spreads into a mudflat wetland, right in the runoff section where the stream's flow rate is moderate.

The shorter side runs east-west, about 200 meters long, extending to the edge of the forest where it was first cut down in the west, and to the slope on the opposite bank of the stream in the east.

To the north of the workshop, near the downstream area, are two simple water towers and a greenhouse. Space was reserved here for the future expansion of the greenhouse. It looked like an open space, which turned into a muddy mess as the snow melted.

Near the workshop and the entrance to the fence are the carpentry sheds and cattle and horse sheds, but there are no large animals there yet.

Therefore, the latter is currently only used to store a pile of ore samples, pebbles, and river sand for deep dredging and water storage treatment of the stream.

On the south side of the workshop, Xia Lin has planned a breeding area. Currently, there is only a lonely chicken coop and less than 200 white-feathered chickens inside, which looks somewhat desolate. Later, it will be expanded to include sheep pens and fish ponds.

On the opposite bank of the stream lies the barn and hardened drying ground that Xia Lin has planned. Furthermore, due to the spaciousness and lack of vegetation, the area can later be used to install solar panels to address the inevitable problem of running out of fuel rods.

Although fuel rods can last for about 15-20 years under the current conservation mode, the issue of electricity fuel need not be considered for a considerable period of time.

However, considering that the reactor's output power is limited, and that fuel consumption will accelerate under high loads.

Therefore, the supply of solar, wind and hydropower will inevitably increase in the later stages, while thermal and nuclear power will not be considered for the time being.

As for the area directly beneath the workshop, it also needs to be utilized. The entire workshop is on a support structure about two meters high, accessible via a folding ramp. This support structure itself needs to be enclosed at the back for both safety and to make use of the area below.

On sand-prone planets, buildings cannot extend too far upwards. Therefore, it is necessary to dig deep downwards. The workshop itself can also be expanded, but that is scheduled very late in Xia Lin's schedule.

Furthermore, deep digging is not suitable near the stream. However, after enclosing it, it becomes a cylindrical indoor space, and after the ground is hardened, there is a very open indoor area.

He hasn't decided what to do with it yet. Perhaps it could be used as a testing range for weapons, or as some extra storage space, or at the very least, as an indoor swimming pool, etc.

Yelena's hair, which had been shaved during her pre-operative cleaning, has grown back into fine, soft, pale white strands, playfully peeking out from under her headscarf. However, it's not long enough, and combined with her flat-chested figure, she looks almost like a boy.

Kids' hair grows very quickly; it'll probably be shoulder-length in a while.

However, her unique pale white hair did surprise Xia Lin, and her light brown, slightly golden eyes looked very beautiful.

However, perhaps due to the lingering effects of the previous events, Xia Lin noticed that the color seemed to be gradually fading, beginning to transition towards silver-gray.

I initially thought she had an iris or lens disease. Normally, a sudden change in a person's pupil color or eyes is more likely to indicate a serious eye disease or infection, such as cataracts, than the so-called awakening of some cool power.

After undergoing vision testing and scanning using a simplified medical terminal, it was found that there was only a slight lack of iris pigment, which did not affect vision. The lack of pigment was caused by a decrease in the number of particles in the blood that Yelena called Originium minerals and an increase in the binding rate of somatic cells.

According to Xia Lin's tests and observations, this substance has a very peculiar characteristic: at low concentrations, it can bind to somatic cells relatively quickly and participate in life activities and metabolic processes.

Because these particles rapidly bind to and oxidize a certain protease in Yelena's body fluids, releasing a large amount of ATP-like substances that are absorbed by cells as energy, they generally gain greater physical strength and arm strength than normal people.

If this substance is as widely present in the world's air, soil, and drinking water as detected, then the abnormal arm strength of local people, such as Yelena, can be explained.

Conversely, at high concentrations, they exhibit a low metabolic rate, similar to being supersaturated. This leads to the production of a large number of Originium particles in the blood. As the number of Originium particles increases, the binding rate of somatic cells decreases. Meanwhile, Originium dust or soluble substances entering the body through respiration and diet continue to accumulate in the blood, causing a further increase in particles.

As the number of particles increases to a certain threshold, the somatic cell binding rate will increase dramatically to a very high value because the metabolic rate will decrease to almost zero. According to the experiment Xia Lin conducted on Yelena's tissue sections, this binding rate is approximately 7% to 12%.

As the binding rate increases and the metabolic rate decreases, the blood becomes supersaturated and precipitates out. The final result is the formation of a large number of Originium particles inside the cells. Like crystal growth, these particles eventually pierce the cell membrane. While further increasing the blood particle content, a large number of star-shaped clusters of Originium particles gradually chain together, eventually becoming crystals that can be seen growing on the body surface and organs.

According to Xia Lin's current medical analysis and his own haphazard experiments, the symptoms of Oripathy are essentially similar to heavy metal poisoning, causing an overreaction in the body that leads to an avalanche. It is not a contagious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, or other reasons.

The real cause of the disease is the large amount of Originium dust in the air and the particulate matter in the drinking water. Normal people can metabolize these trace amounts of ingested substances.

However, patients with Oripathy cannot stop breathing or stop eating and drinking. Under the influence of Oripathy, they gradually lose their ability to metabolize, and this accumulation eventually leads to Oripathy.

After determining the cause of Oripathy and that Yelena's pupils had lightened due to changes in the Originium binding rate, all Xia Lin could do was remind her to take her preventative medication and undergo hemodialysis on time.

Of course, given that Originium components are highly involved in life activities, Xia Lin suspects that the reason for the genetic modifications on her body is to enable her to use this energy material to carry out life activities in an Originium environment.

The so-called blocking drug is not strictly speaking a drug, but a chemical substance synthesized from cell fluid extracted from Yelena's body. After being ingested, it causes Originium particles from food and water to crystallize in the stomach. Once the crystals exceed the size required for digestion and absorption, they are excreted from the body as waste.

With the addition of filtration for drinking water and air, Yelena's Oripathy was essentially "cured," or rather, completely suppressed.

Based on Xia Lin's current information, strictly speaking, almost every local person suffers from Oripathy, but they only experience it because they haven't come into contact with any irritants. Since it is a symptom based on the local people's physiological and chemical reactions and environment, Oripathy is not strictly speaking an exogenous infection.

The external "source of infection" is just a kind of allergen-like irritant. The essence is that their own Originium metabolism is problematic. This problem may come from radiation, natural diseases, aging, contact with allergens, and of course, direct inhalation of high-purity Originium dust and blood contact, etc.