13: Chapter 13 Sowing

The next day, before dawn, Jiang Lin woke up.

He fished out his phone to check, and it was only 5:06.

He had gone to sleep early last night, so he had obviously gotten enough rest.

He crawled out of his sleeping bag, his whole body aching.

His arms, shoulders, waist, and thighs—every single muscle he had used yesterday was protesting.

Especially his waist; after bending over all afternoon, it felt stiff even just straightening up now.

He sat on the moisture-proof mat, slowly moving his joints, turning his neck, which made a cracking sound.

He rotated his wrists, and they cracked too.

It felt as if all the joints in his body had rusted overnight.

Once his body warmed up, he turned on the camping light and pulled up a set of chemistry test papers on his phone.

The very first question was an industrial process problem.

The prompt was very long, describing a process where a certain ore underwent acid leaching, filtration, alkali precipitation, roasting, and a series of other steps to ultimately extract high-purity metal oxides.

In the past, Jiang Lin feared this type of question the most. The flowcharts made his eyes spin, he didn't know why various reagents were added, and he didn't even recognize the precipitated substances.

But today, looking at this question, he suddenly felt an unusual sense of familiarity.

"Acid leaching—isn't this just the acid rain on the Wasteland soaking the dark red mineral soil?"

"Adding alkali to adjust the pH value and precipitate a certain metal ion—isn't this just me adding baking soda to a bucket of water to precipitate the heavy metal impurities in the water?"

Chemistry was no longer cold and abstract equations on paper, but had turned into the reality that he did and experienced every day.

He traced down the flowchart.

To remove Fe3+ from the solution, he needed to add a reagent to adjust the pH value, but without introducing new impurities.

The options included ammonia water, sodium hydroxide, and calcium carbonate.

Jiang Lin chose calcium carbonate without hesitation.

Because adding sodium hydroxide would introduce sodium ions, whereas calcium carbonate would react to form carbon dioxide and escape, and calcium ions were easy to separate in subsequent steps.

This was just like when he treated water; he always had to consider whether what he added would bring new trouble.

He solved the complicated set of industrial process questions smoothly and fluently.

After finishing and checking the answers, they were all correct.

An inexplicable sense of achievement welled up in his heart.

By this time, it was already dawn.

Jiang Lin grabbed his entrenching tool and toilet paper, heading first to the toilet fifty meters to the southwest.

Coming back, he ate compressed biscuits, drank water, chewed a piece of dry yeast tablet, and swallowed a potassium chloride tablet.

Then he took off his military overcoat, picked up the entrenching tool, and walked to the edge of the plot.

The progress on the second day was a little faster than the first day.

It wasn't that his physical strength had improved, but rather that he had found a few tricks to it.

He turned four square meters.

On the third day, he turned four square meters.

On the third day, he turned four square meters.

From the initial unbearable aches and pains to gradually adapting to this high-intensity labor, his core strength visibly grew stronger.

...

Sixth day.

All twenty square meters were completely turned over.

The depth varied; in some places, it was turned to twenty-five centimeters, while in others it was only fifteen.

When he encountered a large rock buried in the soil, striking it with the entrenching tool caused sparks to fly, and since he really couldn't pry it loose, he had to work around it.

The gravel he dug up piled into a decent-sized heap at the edge of the plot. The largest piece was about the size of half a washbasin, and it took him nearly half an hour to pry it entirely out of the soil.

After prying it out, he sat at the edge of the plot panting for a good while. Looking at that rock, he thought that this was probably the heaviest thing he had ever moved in his life.

When he finished the last shovel, he stood at the edge of the plot, propping himself up with the entrenching tool, and looked at the twenty square meters of loosened dark red soil.

Six days, twenty square meters.

In the Real World, this was a job a farmer could finish in half a day, yet he had spent over one hundred and twenty hours on it.

He squatted down and grabbed a handful of the loosened soil.

Compared to six days ago, after being repeatedly pounded, turned, and cleared of stones, the particles of this soil had become finer, possessing a texture in his hand that could almost flow.

Although the color was still dark red, it had at least transformed into a soil form suitable for seeds to sprout.

Next was the main event of soil improvement.

Acid adjustment.

He moved out the five catties of quicklime and two catties of plant ash he had bought, put on gloves and an N95 mask, and began broadcasting according to the pre-calculated ratio of 150 grams of quicklime and 50 grams of plant ash per square meter.

The lime was white and the plant ash was grayish-white. Scattered over the dark red soil, it looked like a very thin layer of frost had fallen.

For twenty square meters, it took him over an hour to scatter it.

After scattering, he picked up the entrenching tool and began the second round of turning the soil.

He turned the lime and plant ash into the soil, thoroughly mixing them with it.

This round of turning the soil was much less laborious than the first, because the soil was already loose; the shovel didn't take much effort to insert, and turning it wasn't too strenuous either.

But he still did it very carefully, ensuring every shovel completely turned the soil over so that the white lime and grayish-white plant ash disappeared into the dark red soil.

After turning, the ground was slightly higher than before.

He then used a small hand hoe to rake the ground flat and even, making the surface look smooth and level.

Then he took a step back and looked at the plot.

Twenty square meters.

Dark red, loose, and raked flat and neat.

The lime and plant ash had already been mixed in and were no longer visible.

They were quietly undergoing chemical reactions in the soil, neutralizing the acidity that this land had accumulated over hundreds or even thousands of years, adsorbing heavy metal ions, and preparing a slightly milder hotbed for the seeds.

Next was waiting one to two weeks for the lime to react completely.

He couldn't be idle during this time.

He began building a small arched greenhouse.

A roll of PE film, one meter wide and ten meters long, white and translucent.

He squatted down at the edge of the plot and unfolded the film.

The film was very thin; his fingers could barely feel any thickness when pinching it, and when the wind blew, the entire roll of film would rustle.

He cut the film into three sections, each a little over three meters long.

Then, using the grayish-black rock pieces he had picked up, he weighed down the edges of the film by placing one every half meter along the edge of the plot.

There was no frame for the arched greenhouse.

He had forgotten to bring bamboo strips or iron wire, and on the Wasteland, he couldn't find anything that could serve as a frame.

He squatted at the edge of the plot to think for a moment, and finally used the entrenching tool to pile two low earthen ridges on both sides of the ridges, covering the film directly over the earthen ridges with a suspension of about ten to fifteen centimeters in the middle.

It wasn't a standard small arched greenhouse, but rather looked more like a thin layer of air propped up above the ground.

But at least it could keep warm and reduce the loss of soil heat at night.

After the film was covered, through the translucent white, the dark red soil underneath could be seen.

Sunlight shone on the film, reflecting a blurry matte finish.

He pressed the film with his hand and felt that the air underneath was slightly warmer than the outside.

During the days waiting for the lime to react, he began digging drainage ditches.

The rain on the Wasteland was acid rain, and last time it had rained for over an hour.

The rainwater falling on the ground wouldn't seep down like in normal soil.

Beneath the compacted layer was still a compacted layer; only the topsoil had been loosened.

If it rained heavily and water accumulated in the plot without being able to drain out, the seeds would rot.

Around the turned plot, he used the entrenching tool to dig a circle of shallow drainage ditches, about fifteen centimeters wide and ten centimeters deep.

The excavated soil was piled at the edge of the plot, forming a low ridge that enclosed the plot.

The bottom of the ditch left an exit facing the direction of the gentle slope, allowing excess water to flow away along the terrain.

Digging the drainage ditches took him most of the day.

The bottom of the ditch had to be level, the slope uniform, and the exit position chosen at the lowest point.

These were all things he saw in agricultural technology videos. Following the template clumsily, he dug it crookedly, but the general idea was there.

After digging the drainage ditches, he dug two water pits not far from the bottom of the ditches, lined them with film, and used them as reservoirs.

Waiting for the sky to rain.

Eighteenth day.

Jiang Lin estimated that the acid-base neutralization of the soil should be about done.

He took out a small pinch of the improved soil, added water, and tested it with pH test paper.

The color of the test paper stayed around 6.0, slightly acidic, completely within the tolerance range of potatoes and Soybeans.

"It's time to sow."

Jiang Lin took a deep breath, suppressing the excitement in his heart.

He dealt with the potatoes first.

Out of the five catties of seed potatoes, he picked out one catty and cut them into small pieces with a folding pocket knife.

Every piece was guaranteed to have more than one bud eye.

The cut surfaces were somewhat moist. Following what he had learned online before, he rolled the cut surfaces in the remaining plant ash, wrapping them in a layer of grayish-black protective coating to prevent them from rotting in the soil.

Squatting at the head of this twenty-square-meter plot, he carefully calculated: potatoes were the staple food providing carbohydrates and had to take up the lion's share, directly carving out ten square meters.

Measuring the remaining ten square meters with his eyes, he decided to allocate six square meters to plant Soybeans, used to supplement plant protein and fertilize the field.

Finally, the four square meters along the edge of the drainage ditch were left for the Pumpkins.

Pumpkins were vine plants that took up a ton of space; if it were a proper farmland, this little bit of land wouldn't be enough for them to crawl on at all.

But Jiang Lin had his own calculations.

Planting the Pumpkins at the edge, once the vines grew longer later on, he would directly guide them along the earthen ridges of the drainage ditch to crawl onto the uncultivated Wasteland.

The roots would take root in the improved safe zone to absorb nutrients, while the vines went outside to expand territory—the main idea was getting free space.

Afternoon.

The sun slanted westward, and the dark red light shone on the film.

He lifted half of the film, revealing the dark red soil underneath.

After nearly two weeks of reaction and precipitation, the color of the soil had no obvious change.

He squatted at the edge of the plot and used the sharp corner of the entrenching tool to carve a shallow trench on the soil surface.

The row spacing was sixty centimeters, and the trench depth was about ten centimeters.

This was the trench for planting potatoes.

After the trench was carved, he placed the air-dried potato pieces into the trench one by one, with the bud eyes facing up.

For each one placed, he used his hand to push the soil from the side to cover it and pressed it down gently.

The plant spacing was thirty centimeters.

He used the blade surface of the entrenching tool as a ruler. The blade width was about twenty centimeters, and he placed a piece at a distance of one and a half blade widths apart.

Over forty potato pieces planted about three ridges.

Soybeans were easier to plant than potatoes.

He poked holes with his fingers about two centimeters deep, placing two or three light yellow beans in each hole, with a row spacing of forty and a plant spacing of fifteen.

Finally, the Pumpkins.

In that four-square-meter corner plot, he dug three bowl-sized deep holes spaced apart.

Pumpkins liked fertilizer, so he specially padded the bottom of each pit with an extra handful of plant ash to supplement potassium, and then carefully opened the bag of Pumpkin seeds.

Picking out nine plump-looking Pumpkin seeds, he laid three flat in each hole, covered them with two to three centimeters of thin soil, and then pressed them down firmly with his palms.

As for those low-accumulation experimental seeds, Jiang Lin still didn't dare to scatter them directly into the ground.

The nighttime temperature on the Wasteland was too low, and he was afraid that this first wave of soil improvement wasn't quite perfect yet. Good steel had to be used on the cutting edge; he would wait until this batch of common goods succeeded in testing the waters before deciding.

After finishing all the planting, he covered the film back up and weighed it down tightly with stones all around.

Twenty square meters.

Three ridges of potatoes, six square meters of Soybeans, three holes of Pumpkins.

In the following days, he went to check the plot once every morning and evening.

Lifting a corner of the film to check the moisture level of the soil.

If the topsoil was dry, he would pour a little water.

The grayish-black liquid fetched from the water pit, after filtration, baking soda neutralization, and static precipitation, had its pH value adjusted to around 6.5 and was used to water the land.

He didn't dare to water too much, fearing that accumulated water would rot the seeds.

"Next, it depends on whether your lives are tough enough."

In the days that followed, Jiang Lin's life entered a completely new rhythm.

Aside from memorizing, doing problem sets, and dealing with eating, drinking, and relieving himself, he added another unshakable task.

Patrolling the farmland.

Every early morning, the first thing he did was walk to the head of the plot to take a look.

The climate on the Wasteland was indeed too harsh. Even with improved soil and the heat preservation effect of the PE film—where the ground temperature inside was several degrees higher than outside—the still low temperature significantly delayed the germination of the seeds.

Jiang Lin wasn't discouraged; he watered and studied as usual every day.

He discovered that the process of waiting for life to grow was in itself an excellent form of psychological massage.

Whenever he was tormented to the point of dizziness by a complex Physics derivative final question, he would walk out of the tent and take a look at that plot.

Thinking of those seeds deep underground that were desperately accumulating strength, trying to break through the soil.

"Even a single potato refuses to admit defeat, what reason do I have for not being able to solve it?"

He would return to the tent, bite on his pen tip, and launch another charge at that question.

Twenty-fifth day.

Soybeans poked out their heads first.

They didn't grow as fast as in flowerpots on Earth, but those yellowish cotyledons stubbornly pushed open the hardened skin of the Wasteland, defiantly greeting the grayish sky and the dark red sun.

Twenty-eighth day.

There was movement in the Pumpkin holes.

Pumpkin seeds were large and had strong explosive power.

Two thick, huge green cotyledons forcefully pushed the soil surface to split open several conspicuous cracks, like a chubby baby stretching, plump and fleshy, emerging right out with dirt on top.

Looking at that vibrant green, Jiang Lin squatted beside it and smiled happily for a long time.

Thirtieth day.

The potatoes that had been playing dead all along also sprouted.

On the soil surface of the potato ridges, a small mound the size of a Soybean bulged out.

The soil was pushed up from underneath by something, splitting a fine crack, and a tiny bit of green was revealed in the crack.

Its sprouting method was the same as on Earth; it walked horizontally for a short section before poking obliquely out of the ground.

However, the potato sprouts growing on the Wasteland had a deeper color than those on Earth, presenting a dark green hue.