11: Chapter 11 Third Time

When the potatoes grew their fifth true leaf, Mom discovered it.

That day was Sunday.

Jiang Lin was squatting and watering the three flowerpots.

He was doing it so intently that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.

"Jiang Lin, when did you plant flowers?"

Mom's voice came from behind, Jiang Lin's fingers tightened, and the watering can almost slipped out of his hand.

He turned his head; Mom was standing at the bedroom door with flour on her apron and a rolling pin pinched in her hand.

Her gaze crossed over his shoulder and fell on the two flowerpots on the windowsill.

"Pumpkin, Soybean?" Mom took a step closer and saw the flowerpots placed next to the desk lamp again, "What is this?"

"Potato." Jiang Lin said.

Mom glanced at him and then looked at the flowerpots.

That look wasn't blame, but a kind of bewilderment of my son suddenly growing three pots of vegetables on the windowsill and I having no idea how to react.

"Why are you growing these?"

"Combining work and rest." Jiang Lin pushed out the excuse he had thought of long ago, "Senior year of high school is stressful, planting something to relax a bit."

Mom looked at the flowerpots again.

"They're growing quite well." Mom said.

She reached out and gently touched the leaves of the Soybean with her thumb, her movement very light, as if afraid of breaking them.

"Your grandma used to grow Soybeans too. After harvesting them and drying them in the sun, she would stir-fry them to eat in the winter, and they were so fragrant."

Jiang Lin didn't speak.

He never knew Grandma had grown Soybeans.

Grandma passed away when he was in the third grade of primary school, and what remained in his memory was only the red envelope stuffed into his hand during the Chinese New Year and a bowl of sesame paste with a lot of sugar.

Mom switched the rolling pin to her other hand, glanced at the three pots of crops again, and turned and walked away.

The excuse of combining work and rest was very clumsy, but Mom didn't press further.

Perhaps it was because the three pots of green on the windowsill really looked good, or perhaps because she felt that it wasn't easy for her senior high school son to do anything, and growing a few pots of vegetables was still better than playing video games.

In the most recent major exam, the midterm exam, he ranked 45th in the grade.

This time he made a big progress, advancing twenty-six places compared to 71st in the first monthly exam of senior high school.

In Jiangcheng No. 7 High School, this ranking basically secured the tier-two university admission line.

But for Jiang Lin, it was of no use.

January 3rd, 5:58 in the early morning.

Jiang Lin stood in the center of the bedroom.

The duffel bag was strapped to his back, and under his feet were two fully loaded snakeskin bags.

Tent, moisture-proof mat, sleeping bag, two solar camping lights, military shovel...

These things were left in the Wasteland last time, so they didn't need to be bought again, nor did they need to be carried on his back once more.

Food compressed biscuits: considering the farming cycle, he brought 40 jin more than last time, as much as 80 jin, but he only brought one 5-liter bucket of water.

Seeds: seed potatoes, five jin; Soybean seeds, two packs, one jin; Pumpkin seeds, two packs, less than half a jin.

These three things added up to less than seven jin, but they were the real core of this time-travel.

If they could survive in the Wasteland, he would no longer need to carry compressed biscuits from the Real World.

Quicklime, 5 jin, packaged into small bags of one jin per bag using self-sealing bags, jammed into various gaps of the snakeskin bags.

He didn't know how large an area he could reclaim, and 5 jin was an experimental number.

Plant ash, 2 jin, bought on Pinduoduo.

Compound fertilizer, five jin.

Farming tool: a small hand hoe, a little over one jin.

PE film, a roll weighing two jin, one meter wide and ten meters long, white and translucent, used to build simple small arched sheds.

The temperature at night in the Wasteland dropped to around zero degrees, and it was only ten degrees during the day. Potatoes and Pumpkins could barely endure it, but their growth rate would be extremely slow.

Covering it with film could raise the ground temperature, accelerate seedling emergence, and shorten the growth cycle.

The two-jin film, when rolled up, was only as big as a roll of toilet paper and stuffed into the side pocket of the backpack.

Ten meters long, if used sparingly, could probably cover two to three ridges of land.

Low-accumulation crop seeds.

A few things he found when searching online for low-radionuclide accumulation crops: mustard greens, oil-seed lettuce, leeks.

The seeds were very small, the three combined totaling less than two liang, packed in a small self-sealing bag.

They were not staple food, but experimental products.

He wanted to see whether these crops claimed to be low-accumulation could actually live in the Wasteland soil, and whether what grew out could be eaten.

Enema, 5 boxes, 50 pieces.

On the tenth day of the last time-travel, he discovered an awkward problem rarely mentioned in wilderness survival videos.

Constipation.

He squatted by the earthen pit in that depression, and nothing could be excreted.

It wasn't that he didn't want to, but that he couldn't.

Compressed biscuits were too dry, heavy in salt and oil, with almost no dietary fiber, and he drank very little water, making intestinal peristalsis slower and slower.

By the twelfth day, he had squatted for nearly half an hour, his legs had gone numb from squatting, and finally he barely excreted a few dry and hard fecal balls, his anus burning with pain.

That kind of pain he didn't want to experience a second time in his life.

After coming back, he specially searched for what to do about defecation difficulties in wilderness survival.

The search results told him that constipation caused by compressed biscuits was a common problem in wild survival, and there were several solutions.

Drink more water, supplement dietary fiber, take laxatives.

Oral ones, like Maren Pills or Senna leaves, but those need to take effect in the intestines and would stimulate intestinal peristalsis; in the Wasteland, in case of diarrhea, it would be even more troublesome.

Instead, it was not as good as local medication enema, which could take effect in a few minutes without affecting intestinal function.

He bought it.

Dried yeast tablets, 5 bottles, 500 tablets.

This was also searched after coming back.

Eating a single food for a long time in wilderness survival, what was most easily lacking was not calories, but B vitamins.

Vitamin B1 deficiency causes beriberi, B2 deficiency causes angular cheilitis and glossitis, and B6 deficiency causes dermatitis and anemia.

Although some vitamins were added to the compressed biscuits, they would degrade after long-term storage and were unreliable.

Dried yeast tablets were made from brewer's yeast, rich in B vitamins, cheap, resistant to storage, and chewing two tablets a day could make up for it.

Potassium chloride sustained-release tablets, 5 bottles, 300 tablets.

Another easily overlooked problem in wilderness survival was electrolyte imbalance.

Eating compressed biscuits for a long time, sodium intake exceeded the standard, but potassium intake was insufficient.

Sodium-potassium imbalance would lead to muscle weakness, arrhythmia, and in severe cases even cardiac arrest.

He saw someone sharing an experience on an outdoor forum: staying in the mountains for half a month, bringing only instant noodles and compressed biscuits, and as a result, on the tenth day he started feeling weak all over, panting even going up a small slope, thinking it was altitude sickness, and later going down the mountain to check blood and finding out it was hypokalemia.

Potassium chloride sustained-release tablets were for potassium supplementation, one tablet a day could maintain blood potassium levels.

The weight of these things could be ignored, but they were all related to health.

During the last camping period, his young body endured it, but this time he planned to stay for over a year, and he couldn't gamble.

The rest were routine consumables.

Water purification materials: baking soda, coffee filter paper, absorbent cotton, activated carbon, toilet paper, table salt.

As for medicines, he brought some last time, montmorillonite powder, iodophor, ibuprofen, and Band-Aids were all still left, no need to buy again.

In addition were fully charged power banks and mobile phones, scratch paper, ballpoint pens, and refills.

...

The countdown in the upper right corner of the vision had ten seconds left.

[00:00:00:10]

He took a deep breath, bent down, and gripped the handles of the snakeskin bags tightly with both hands.

[00:00:00:03]

[00:00:00:02]

[00:00:00:01]

His vision went black.