Chapter 28: The Proposal of Insect Cakes, and a Deal
Su Ning watched Jiang Nana running off and felt a bit puzzled. She couldn’t understand what that woman was trying to pull.
Looking at the bottle of perfume that Jiang Nana had stuffed into her hand, Su Ning frowned. “Is she crazy? Why give me perfume?”
Back when they first started working, Jiang Nana had treated her with such disdain—rolling eyes and cold shoulders. And now this?
“Whatever, not my business. It’s probably not a bad thing,” Su Ning shrugged and didn’t reject the gift.
Humans are social creatures. Without the strength to change the rules, she wouldn’t just start conflicts with people around her—especially in a post-apocalyptic world where even the strongest person had their limits.
Su Ning gathered her things and pulled out three Thermo Flowers she had planted from her backpack.
Thanks to the Mega Fertilizer and her title of [Breeder], the flowers, which were still just seedlings, had already grown significantly.
A lush and beautiful green plant appeared before Su Ning, refreshing and calming. Even though the Thermo Flowers hadn’t yet bloomed, their size had already increased dramatically.
The room, which had been a bit stuffy, instantly became cool and comfortable.
She placed the flowers near her bed.
Then, she pulled out a flower pot from her backpack.
Inside were potatoes she had been growing. But now that she wanted to plant more things, her current room simply didn’t have enough space. Su Ning knew she had to find a new method and a new location.
Of course, within the base, she couldn’t plant anything too shocking. Strange things like Meaty Chickens and JuJu Flowers had to be kept secret. Without the protection of a safe zone, she’d just be making herself a target.
“Sigh… another day of envying those with magical planting spaces. When will I get my own planting realm?”
Suddenly, Su Ning thought of Researcher Yan Wentao. As someone focused on breeding studies, the base surely provided him with lab space.
So, she decided to take her pot of potatoes and head to Yan Wentao’s lab.
This pot of potatoes, grown with Mega Fertilizer, was her ticket to gaining a private planting zone. If all went well, perhaps she could negotiate access to a clean plot of land.
When she arrived at the research sector, the security was clearly tighter—after all, this place held humanity’s last hopes.
Under the influence of the unknown magnetic field, most soil could no longer produce crops. These researchers were working day and night to find a solution.
Su Ning was stopped at the entrance.
Afraid of being misunderstood, she quickly said, “I’d like to speak with Researcher Yan. I’ve made a new discovery I’d like to share with him.”
Seeing the plant in her arms, the guards weren’t stupid—they realized this wasn’t something they could block and went to inform Yan Wentao.
At the moment, Yan Wentao was still researching how to use Insect Mushrooms to cultivate edible insects.
Food was running scarce. The shelter’s daily consumption and the amount of rescue supplies were astronomical. If things continued like this, they would eventually run out. He had to find a solution—this was something Base Commander Liu had personally entrusted to him.
Although Insect Mushrooms initially brought a lot of destruction and panic, their potential applications were vast once their properties became understood.
One avenue was to use them to breed edible insects.
Thus, the concept of Insect Cakes was proposed.
As the name suggests, they were cakes made from bugs.
But the main issue now was the soil required for cultivation.
Just as Yan was deep in thought, someone came to see him.
When he reached the door and saw it was Su Ning, he was even more surprised.
“Su Ning, you’re here to see me?”
Su Ning nodded and got straight to the point, handing over her homegrown potatoes.
Upon seeing the potatoes, Yan Wentao was completely stunned.
“You… how did you grow these?”
What shocked him even more was that her seedlings were far better than the ones grown with nutrient solutions at the base—healthier and stronger in every way.
“If you have this ability, getting a place to grow things is not a problem at all. This could be a breakthrough for the entire world!”
Yan was ecstatic.
But Su Ning immediately knew he misunderstood.
“Researcher Yan, you don’t actually think I’ve solved a problem that all your scientists have failed at, do you?”
Yan had been so excited by seeing the soil-grown crops that he hadn’t thought of anything else.
Now that Su Ning said that, it was like cold water being dumped on his head.
She explained, “This soil—I brought it out from an instance world. That’s the only reason I could grow anything.”
Yan’s face instantly fell.
“You want a place to plant things? I can help with that. But Su Ning, I suppose you can’t bring out more soil, right?”
Then he watched as Su Ning pulled out a bottle from her backpack—something about the scene felt familiar.
During the Bug Mushroom crisis meeting, she’d done the same thing: taken out a glass bottle and revealed the mushrooms’ properties.
Curious, Yan asked, “What is it this time?”
“This,” Su Ning explained, “is a magical fertilizer I got from a farming instance. I’m not sure if it can fix the existing soil issues, but maybe you can study it. Perhaps it can solve the problem of barren land.”
She offered the Mega Fertilizer and the thriving pot of potatoes in exchange for a personal planting zone.
“This fertilizer… is it really as amazing as you say?” Yan was skeptical. Though he knew instance worlds could produce incredible things, it was still hard to believe.
Su Ning shrugged. “You can try using it on your insect mushrooms. Maybe it’ll solve your current problem.”
As they talked, Yan explained the Insect Cake Plan at the shelter.
Su Ning didn’t want to comment. Insect cakes? She’d only eat that if she was completely desperate.
For her, the food issue had been mostly solved after two instance worlds. She no longer had to worry about basic survival.
Unless she wanted to improve her lifestyle, her food now wasn’t just about staying alive—it was also about enjoying the healing power of good meals. That was her next goal.
“Sigh, if it weren’t for the survival instances, life would be even harder.”
Yan took Su Ning on a tour of the planting area under his supervision.
It was bleak—mostly vegetables grown in nutrient solution. The resource input was immense and still failed to address the root problem.
“There are vegetables?” Su Ning was skeptical. Who were these for?
Seeing the look in her eyes, Yan understood the unspoken question.
“As for where these go…”
He didn’t finish, but Su Ning understood—some people are just born privileged.
She sneered inside but didn’t say anything. She was selfish too.
Getting what she came for, Su Ning left, while Yan started researching the Mega Fertilizer.
Su Ning gave it to the shelter not just for personal gain, but also in hopes that this world—or its researchers—might uncover its secret. Maybe they could reproduce the effects and make unusable soil fertile again.
Even if the new fertilizer didn’t match the Mega Fertilizer’s power, as long as it could produce crops, it would be enough.
(End of Chapter)
