Chapter 53

“Too much bullying!”

At 7 p.m. on July 20th, in the Longhu Bay community in Hubei Province, Gao Shengliang slammed the news with frustration. Gao Shengliang was a liquor sales manager. With global grain prices rising, the prices of liquor had also gone up. He had been busy with the liquor business recently, and had just taken a break when he saw the overwhelming international news.

Right now, the world was calling for Longxia to release its seeds. According to the Natal initiative, this not only required Longxia to empty its grain reserves but also to provide free land for global farming. There was no way the world should be this unfair!

The more Gao Shengliang thought about it, the angrier he became, so he grabbed a crispy cucumber.

“I’m making cold dishes for dinner, save some for later,” Xu Xiucai quickly stopped him.

“There are more on the balcony,” Gao Shengliang pointed to the balcony. The government had supported home farming, so they had grown some cucumbers and bok choy. The cucumbers were bought from Longbao and had already produced five small cucumbers. He felt a great sense of achievement looking at them.

Gao Shengliang had just finished speaking when Xu Xiucai became unhappy. “The supermarket cucumbers are 15 yuan per kilogram, we only have a few here, save some.”

After the Harma storm, 70% of the vegetable bases in Hubei Province were affected. Vegetables were even more important than grains for daily life. In the community group, there were already exchanges of garlic for celery, and radishes for potatoes. This would have been unimaginable just six months ago.

“Just one cucumber…” Gao Shengliang said, but he still put the cucumber back on the table.

Xu Xiucai came out of the kitchen and handed Gao Shengliang 200 yuan. “Go buy some eggs and milk, and pick up some pork too.”

“Fresh milk or yogurt?”

“Fresh milk.”

Gao Shengliang put on his shoes and asked, “Will Xiao Shuai be home?”

Two months ago, his son Gao Shuai had come back from Jinghe to volunteer. Now that most of the post-disaster reconstruction in Changping was done, he mainly worked on road clearance, often not returning home for ten to fifteen days at a time.

“I’ll call him.” Xu Xiucai called her son, and after half a minute said, “He’ll be back by nine.”

“Okay!”

Gao Shengliang hummed a little tune as he went to the supermarket. He had originally planned to buy some pig heads and hams, but when he arrived at the store, he froze. The pig heads and hams were sold out, and there were long lines for both the eggs and milk sections.

“So many people?” Gao Shengliang asked in confusion. There had been a shortage of poultry eggs before, but since the Longxia app had been launched, things had started to improve. He didn’t expect it to be a problem again.

“The feed for chicken farms isn’t enough. I’ve heard some factories are selling hens,” an elderly man ahead explained. After the acid rain, the material supply in central and southern regions had been plentiful for a while. But now with vegetable greenhouses reducing production and egg factories lacking feed, these issues were piling up like small mountains, one more serious than the next.

“Sigh…” Gao Shengliang sighed.

Half an hour later, he returned home with one kilogram of eggs and a box of milk. His son Gao Shuai was following him.

“Have you seen the news? The foreign media are disgusting!” Gao Shuai said as soon as he walked in the door. The WaterBlue conference and the Natal initiative had been trending for the past few days. The volunteers had been chatting together, deeply concerned that Longxia might not be able to withstand the pressure and might give in and export its seeds.

“Foreign countries want us to give them food?” Xu Xiucai asked as she served a plate of dumplings. She had heard Gao Shengliang talk about it all afternoon and had gotten some understanding of the current hot topics.

“Yes,” Gao Shuai looked at the dumplings. “What kind of flour did you use?”

“Fuman Tianxia,” she replied. Fuman Tianxia was an old brand, and she had bought five bags of it earlier.

Gao Shuai took a bite of the dumpling. “I’ll stock up on Longfeng 001 tomorrow. Now that the country is growing grain, we must let them know we support the new variety.”

The meal was finished amidst a lively conversation. The next morning, Gao Shuai was getting ready to head out, and Gao Shengliang stuffed two boiled eggs and two bags of milk into his bag.

Gao Shuai opened his backpack. “One egg and one milk is enough.”

“You’re busy running around every day. One egg won’t be enough.”

“We’re having lunch together with the volunteer team, and there will be eggs there.”

After saying that, Gao Shuai left with his backpack.

Gao Shengliang stared at the eggs on the table. He hadn’t been to the supermarket for a week. After dinner yesterday, he had chatted with colleagues. Now, not only Changping but other regions were also facing shortages of supplies.

Poultry eggs, meat, vegetables…

Longxia wasn’t lacking in grain anymore, but there was a shortage of everything else.

Ten minutes later, Xu Xiucai came in with two bags of flour.

Gao Shengliang froze. “You bought flour?”

Xu Xiucai had the habit of going to the morning market, so he had thought she was just out for a stroll, but she had brought back two bags of flour.

“Didn’t our son want this brand yesterday?”

Xu Xiucai placed the flour on the table. The brand of flour: Fuman Tianxia – Longfeng 001. This flour was made from Longfeng wheat, and besides the flour, she had also bought a bucket of oil and ten bags of salt.

“Salt has gone up in price.”

The price of salt had increased from 1 yuan to 3 yuan per kilogram. It wasn’t a huge jump, but from chatting with the grain and oil shop owner, she had learned that the Longnan salt mine had been polluted, and the price would keep rising until the end of the year. If the problem wasn’t solved by then, they might face a salt shortage next year.

Grain, vegetables, meat, eggs, salt… The two had initially thought that the acid rain crisis was only a food issue, but now it seemed that food was just the beginning.

Gao Shengliang thought about the news from earlier. The world was short of grain and flour, yet some people still complained about the new Longfeng variety? If it weren’t for the development of Longfeng 001, they wouldn’t have had time for such complaints!

It was purely out of boredom.

“Are we really going to send food aid?” Gao Shengliang suddenly became worried.

There were two main international focal points: 1) Multiple countries, led by Natal, wanted Longxia to export food to solve the global food crisis. 2) They hoped Longxia would plant wheat globally and provide Longfeng seeds. Both of these requests clearly harmed Longxia’s interests.

Gao Shengliang wasn’t cold-hearted, but Longxia was still facing a food crisis, and countries like Natal and Campeshin were clutching onto food like it was their own… this was bullying!

“Stocked up three bags of Longfeng! Support the new wheat, support domestic research!”

“Longxia can assist with food aid, but only if we’re well-fed. Longxia’s crisis isn’t over, so the international community should stay out of it.”

“Ignore the international chatter. We should just focus on developing our own country.”

…

Gao Shengliang was seething with anger. Some netizens were also posting comments on Longxia Daily and Longxia News official accounts, worried that Longxia couldn’t withstand the pressure and might end up exporting its newly developed crops.

Netizens were waiting for Longxia’s response. But before Longxia could reply, Cyberla suddenly called.

With the acid rain crisis, global oil prices had risen from 400 Huaxia Yuan per barrel to 800 Huaxia Yuan per barrel, with crude oil now priced but unavailable. Cyberla’s phone call was straightforward: they hoped to use crude oil as currency to exchange for a certain amount of food from Longxia. Cyberla’s economy was primarily based on fisheries, and they also had abundant oil resources. According to the price offered by Cyberla, their wheat purchase price was 20 yuan per kilogram.

Such a price was not only high for Longxia, but it was also quite expensive globally.

“Cyberla…”

“It seems like they’re in a pretty bad situation.”

…

Netizens, watching Cyberla’s plea for help, fell silent. They could stand up to a big country like Natal, but Cyberla was truly in a dire state! With a population of 12 million, Cyberla had not released waste into the environment during the Harma disaster, yet it was one of the countries most severely affected by the crisis.

“Cyberla may be collapsing, but they’re quite resilient.”

“They’re not shamelessly begging for handouts.”

…

Some netizens shifted their focus to the content of Cyberla’s call. While asking for help, Cyberla didn’t play the victim, but rather decisively listed their resources for exchange. As a small country, Cyberla had managed to avoid widespread violence, indicating that the people still held some hope and solidarity for their country.

“Should we offer support?”

Some netizens began to worry. With Longfeng 001, Longxia could still grow grain in the acid rain. When winter wheat was planted, they would have enough surplus. Still, even if they weren’t lacking, they couldn’t be sure what might happen next year. Having grain on hand would be reassuring…

“It’s worrying.” This was a difficult choice.

Amidst the heated discussion, on July 25th, the Longxia Ministry of Agriculture released a news report.

1: Longxia has developed acid rain-resistant corn, the third acid-resistant crop after Longfeng 001 and Zhongzhi 002, named Frostwind 003.

2: Longxia plans to use Zhongzhi sweet potatoes as trade grain for Cyberla. Specific cooperation details will be further discussed.

…

“Ahhh, I love corn! The Agricultural Research Institute is amazing!”

“Using sweet potatoes as trade grain… Does this mean Longxia has agreed to cooperate with Cyberla?”

“Have the sweet potatoes from Longnan ripened?”

…

Though the Ministry of Agriculture’s two news items were brief, they caused a huge stir. As soon as the news was released, netizens nationwide began to passionately discuss it.