CHAPTER 252: CHAPTER 250 UPGRADE PRIORITY

After a night’s rest, Chen Xin, along with his parents and his cousin’s husband who was responsible for driving, returned to the village’s refuge shelter.

Back at the refuge, it was naturally inevitable to exchange pleasantries and concerns. After dealing with that, Chen Xin finally found his second aunt to discuss his intention to take some chicks back to raise.

"That’s not a problem, but Xin, can you take the chicks back? It’s so cold right now, and the chicks can easily freeze to death!" Second Aunt expressed her concern while taking Chen Xin to the chicken farm in the refuge shelter.

Second Aunt opened the door to the chicken farm, and a warm air, different from the slightly chilly atmosphere of the refuge, came out, catching Chen Xin’s attention.

This chicken farm was converted from an ordinary room, with about seven or eight hens and a rooster inside. A chicken coop was built in the corner with bricks and asbestos tiles, and an electric heater was on the other side.

This was the first time Chen Xin saw a heater since coming to this refuge shelter.

"All the chickens are here. You can take the chicks back with no problem, even two hens if you’d like. But in such cold weather, I worry they might freeze to death before you get them back." Second Aunt opened the door panel at the entrance to the chicken farm, walked inside while feeling for eggs in the nest, and complained to Chen Xin: "Now these chickens live better than us. People don’t get to sit by the fire, but the chickens have to keep their nest warm, or they won’t lay eggs! What kind of world is this?"

Listening to his second aunt, Chen Xin could only smile back, saying nothing further.

Everyone knows what kind of world it is today. Second Aunt was merely venting and did not need Chen Xin to answer her.

However, Chen Xin was confident about whether he could take the chicks back and assured Second Aunt: "I don’t need hatched chicks. Just give me a few eggs that will hatch into chicks. I’ll take the eggs back and hatch them once I’m home. I have heating equipment there, and the temperature is not low, so raising chickens shouldn’t be a problem."

"That sounds good. Raising some chickens is beneficial; you get to eat a couple of eggs every day." Second Aunt, hearing that Chen Xin had the facilities to raise chickens, did not say much more and merely asked: "So, how many eggs do you want, Xin? Why don’t you take another hen? Otherwise, it’s hard to raise chicks without a mother hen to brood them."

"Three to five eggs that can hatch into chicks should be enough. It’s important to have both male and female chicks; it’ll be better that way." Chen Xin stated his request.

"I’ll pick ten eggs and give you a hen. Just build a coop when you get back, keep it warm, and let the hen brood the eggs; it should be fine." Second Aunt nodded, put the eggs she found into a basket for Chen Xin to take, and cleaned up the chicken droppings in the area before leaving the chicken farm with Chen Xin.

After delivering the collected eggs to the storage room with Second Aunt, Chen Xin, noticing the small room, frowned: "Second Aunt, you have so little stuff here! Is this all the supplies you have?"

"It’s quite a bit! Other villages around here are worse off than us." Second Aunt said with a deep sense of emotion, yet acknowledged Chen Xin’s point: "The food the town sends each week barely lasts a week, and we could gather these supplies because of the greenhouse and the few chickens you advised us to build and raise. This has allowed us to trade for some necessities each month with the vegetables and eggs we collect.

Other villages are much worse off. They can only rely on the weekly grain deliveries from the town to get by. If the town doesn’t deliver on time, they’d go hungry; it’s even caused starvation in some areas."

Second Aunt’s words sent a chill through Chen Xin. Starvation deaths had become but a memory from the past generation in Flame Country.

Flame Country is a nation deeply rooted in agrarian traditions, always reliant on the land to sustain its people. Even with modern technological advancements, natural disasters and human calamities can still greatly affect the annual harvests and livelihoods of farmers.

In fact, before Flame Country widely promoted hybrid rice, its grain yield couldn’t satisfy the populace’s needs, and its per capita arable land ranking was quite low globally.

That’s why, in the memories of the past generation, during the three years of natural disasters, a nationwide famine occurred.

If it weren’t for Grand Druid Yuan’s hybrid rice and the tireless efforts of numerous agricultural researchers, allowing grain output to grow despite shrinking farmland, Flame Country would have faced a food crisis long ago.

In fact, it was only after entering the 21st century that Flame Country transitioned from not having enough food to having enough to eat.

However, with the arrival of the apocalyptic disaster caused by the meteor impact, the food crisis has loomed over the people of Flame Country.

The disaster wrought by the meteor impact affected many aspects, the most direct being the destruction of all national farmland.

Though pre-disaster state grain reserves could feed the country’s population for three years, without production, this grain will eventually run out, even if it could last ten years.

Thanks to the nation’s efforts before the disaster, 80% of the population survived, providing abundant manpower for the current post-disaster reconstruction efforts in Flame Country, but also creating significant pressure on logistics, especially food supply.

Before the disaster, Flame Country’s grain output reached 650 million tons annually, with per capita grain availability of about 470 kilograms. This was enough to meet the consumption needs of its people, explaining why pre-disaster, Flame Country had transitioned from insufficient food to adequate food consumption.

But now, this 650 million tons of annual grain production has turned to dust; all farmland nationwide was destroyed by the meteor’s disaster, and given the current climate, can no longer be cultivated.

Now, Flame Country’s main food sources are the greenhouses within various shelters and specially designated cultivation areas, producing a limited amount of food. This is enough to meet certain needs and consumption, but cannot fulfill the demands of nearly a billion survivors nationwide.

Simply put, if the nation cannot resolve the food supply-demand issue before the reserves run out, a significant portion of the survivors will starve in two to three years.

As for Chen Xin, affecting the entire nation and ensuring everyone has enough to eat is beyond his ability, but ensuring his relatives can have enough food during this apocalyptic disaster is within his grasp.

The key to achieving this naturally lies in using the system to upgrade the refuge shelter.

However, upgrading cannot be done blindly without any plans, throwing survival points around. Such actions could easily lead to various problems, and Chen Xin must also consider his relatives’ actual needs, even if he wishes to upgrade the shelter.

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Chen Xin sought out his second uncle, intending to ask about the current issues and most urgent needs of the village’s refuge shelter, so he could prioritize the upgrade projects.

"The problems and needs of the village now?" Second Uncle, after listening to Chen Xin’s questions, pondered for a moment before responding: "The issues mainly revolve around basic necessities. At present, travel is unnecessary given the cold, so heating is the only concern in the shelter.

As for food and clothing, these are less problematic. With weekly supplies from the town, coupled with the greenhouse and the chickens raised in the shelter, everyone can at least fill their stomachs."

Chen Xin nodded, summarizing: "So, the most pressing need in the village now is heating?"

"You could say that. The weather is getting colder; during the day, people can endure while working and moving about, but at night, it’s very uncomfortable when sleeping." Second Uncle expressed his worries to Chen Xin, feeling quite helpless: "The shelter relies on a generator for heating, but it runs on a little gasoline the town provides monthly. If the next gasoline delivery is insufficient or not delivered at all, we’re in trouble."

Chen Xin understood immediately after hearing this.

Indeed, even in different places, the needs are generally the same.

"I’ll try to work out some solutions to address these issues for the village." Chen Xin assured Second Uncle while also making some requests: "I can help renovate the village’s shelter, but I might need some materials, which I’ll need you to obtain or exchange from the town."

"Renovation? Xin, can you really do that? What can be developed from the renovations?" Second Uncle showed his interest upon hearing Chen Xin’s words.

"There’s much that can be improved, but the initial step is to resolve the power supply issue. I’ll take a battery from my car and connect it to the shelter’s electrical system. This way, the power supply issue can be temporarily resolved. I’ll conduct more renovations later, aiming for self-sufficient electricity." Chen Xin explained his plan, elaborating his intentions to Second Uncle.

Upon hearing Chen Xin’s plan, a joyful expression appeared on Second Uncle’s face, and the wrinkles on his forehead relaxed significantly: "If we could really solve the power issue, it would be tremendously helpful! When constructing the shelter, we followed your advice, Xin, and installed a heating system. It’s just a pity we’ve been unable to turn it on due to power shortages."

"The shelter has a heating system?" Chen Xin raised an eyebrow, but then it dawned on him.

Evidently, when the country initially built the shelters, they had considered many problems, and Chen Xin had also advised them on various considerations during construction; addressing heating would naturally be part of it.

It was only the energy shortage that turned the heating system into a mere decoration.

Then, let’s first solve the power supply problem and get the heaters running! Chen Xin settled on the decision in his heart.