69novels Chapter 81 The More Poisonous, the Better
Chapter 81 The More Poisonous, the Better
Chapter 81 The More Poisonous, the Better
At five o'clock in the morning, Luo Wei woke up early and went to the planting area outside the eastern granary as soon as possible.
It's unusually quiet here.
There was almost no sound of wind, nor the hissing sound of acid rain corroding metal.
Even the ceaseless roar of pistons from the distant factory seemed to be swallowed up by something unseen when it reached this area.
The air was so dry and pure it was unsettling.
The nauseating smell of sulfur was completely gone.
"Something's not right." Luo Wei frowned slightly.
Because his leather boots, when they stepped into the muddy ridges of the fields, couldn't make a "splat" sound.
He squatted down and grabbed a handful of soil.
It is no longer greasy, dark, and foul-smelling hardened frozen soil.
The sand flowing between his fingers was dry, pale, and as white as bone ash.
This land is "dead".
Died from overexertion.
Lovi retrieved the fragment of the Nuguri Amulet.
Normally, this chaotic creation would get slightly warm whenever it came near this wasteland.
However, it is now extremely cold.
Lowe knew exactly what this meant.
Psionic energy is not just lightning that only psionicists can unleash.
Within the empire's territory, it was more like an omnipresent background radiation.
It is the ripples of emotion, the breath of the soul, that permeate every inch of the daily living space where human activity takes place.
Although ordinary people are completely unaware of it, it does indeed form the most fundamental background of this universe.
But at this moment, even this thinnest and most basic layer of "natural spiritual energy," along with the bacteria at the microscopic level in the soil, has been completely drained by these greedy plants.
This place has become a black hole on both physical and psionic levels.
"Case".
Luo Wei called out in a deep voice.
"I'm here, supervisor. Real-time environmental readings have been generated."
A set of startling data was projected before Luo Wei's eyes:
Soil organic matter content: 0.01%;
Heavy metal residue: 0.05%;
Acidic substances are almost zero.
This is a "subspace low-pressure zone".
Luo Wei stood up and glanced at the gray-green wheat fields before him.
"Grey Mule-1" is in its seedling stage, about 20 centimeters tall.
They stand straight up in the ground, unlike normal wheat that sways in the wind.
The leaves turn a scorched yellow due to iron deficiency, and the edges curl up, which is a sign of extreme hunger.
Yesterday's industrial waste irrigation lasted for less than twelve hours.
"These animals have bigger appetites than I imagined."
In his mind, Luo Wei silently revised his previous estimation model.
If this "absolutely clean" vacuum state continues, according to the principles of subspace fluid dynamics, the high concentration of chaotic energy in the surrounding area will flow back into this place like water flowing downhill.
Nature abhors vacuum, and subspace abhors it even more.
Once backflow occurs, what grows will definitely not be wheat.
What grows out will be Nurgle, or perhaps some unspeakable flesh and blood monster.
"We have to filth this place." Lowe brushed the ashes off his hands. "The dirtier the better, the more toxic the better."
Eight o'clock in the morning, at the Eastern Grain Depot, in the Administration Building.
Not long after returning to the office from the Grey Mule No. 1 production site, Rowe issued instructions to the Case server.
"Kruger, the logistics officer who connects to the western granary, and the two leaders of the Bottom Nest Waste Guild."
3
The holographic projection flickered a few times, and Kruger's cyborg face, wearing a brass breathing mask, appeared.
At the same time, two other gang leaders with burly faces and gang tattoos were also brought in.
"Director Lowe." Kruger's voice sounded somewhat distorted as it was filtered through the sound unit.
"Yesterday's transaction went well, but I heard that your land didn't seem to have been burned by the waste liquid?"
The news spread very quickly, as expected.
Lowe picked up his coffee, his expression calm. "That's my trade secret, Kruger. Whether it's burned or I drink it, as long as I gave you an environmental feedback form," the score is even.
He paused for a moment, then threw out the real bait.
"I know you still have inventory. Yesterday's few hundred tons were just the tip of the iceberg."
Kruger's mechanical eye flickered, clearly indicating that he had been right.
Luo Wei didn't beat around the bush and said directly, "I plan to build a long-term, fixed sewage pipeline. We don't need a fleet of vehicles for transportation; that's too inefficient."
"I want you to either lay temporary pipelines directly or organize a 24-hour uninterrupted convoy of tanker trucks for transportation."
"Our eastern granary will accept all highly toxic, acidic, heavy metal-containing liquids, as well as strongly alkaline waste residue left over from ore washing."
The three men in the holographic projection looked at each other in bewilderment.
At the bottom of the nest, this waste liquid is a hot potato, evidence of a crime that requires paying a lot of money to have someone secretly dump it.
Now, someone is actually willing to turn their own territory into a garbage dump?
"Sir, are you serious?" one of the gang leaders asked again. "This level of waste liquid can even erode through rocks."
"That's not something you should be concerned about," Luo Wei said coldly. "As a gesture of goodwill, I can offer a freight subsidy. We'll use the inferior starch produced in the eastern granaries to offset the cost, and subsidize you with five kilograms of starch for every ton of waste liquid."
Upon hearing the word "starch," all three of them began to breathe heavily.
In Abundance II, starch is the hard currency, even more useful than credits.
Kruger practically roared, "Deal! I'll inform Manager Hammond immediately. We'll arrange for the engineering team to reconnect the abandoned B-7 pipeline!"
After hanging up the call, Luo Wei leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh of relief.
He wants to turn the eastern granary into the "kidney" of the entire Fengrao No. 2 project.
What are the functions of the kidneys?
Filters toxins and metabolic waste.
However, his kidney is quite special; it not only doesn't reject toxins, but it also feeds on them, turning them into glittering political achievements.
2 PM, at the construction site.
Father Alpha wields six mechanical prosthetics, directing a group of machine servants and death row inmates from the "Special Waste Recycling Team" to work.
Drip irrigation networks, originally designed for water conservation, are undergoing drastic modifications.
The thin plastic pipes have been replaced with corrosion-resistant ceramic pipes.
The joint was sealed with a crude welding process and then coated with a layer of holy oil as a sealant.
Father Alpha adjusted the booster pump, uttering a praise only a Mechanist could understand: "Praise be to the god of machines, this is a cyclical system brimming with paradoxical beauty. We infuse death into the earth, and the earth reciprocates with life."
"Less talk, more work." Wearing a gas mask, Lowe stood on a high place supervising the work. "Father, increase the pressure valve by 30%. Drip irrigation is too slow; I need intravenous injection."
"Yes, sir."
As the valve slowly opened, a muffled roar of fluid echoed from underground.
Thousands of tons of industrial "waste blood" from the western granaries and bottom nests are surging in.
The black, viscous, highly acidic waste liquid flowed through the newly laid pipelines and into the desolate, grayish-white sand.
"Sizzle sizzle sizzle".
The sound of corrosion instantly echoed across the fields.
Yellow acid mist rose into the air, completely tearing apart that eerie cleanliness.
The smells of sulfur, rotting corpses, and engine oil filled the air.
The comforting stench returned.
Rowe took out the Nurgle Amulet again.
This time, the cold metal sheet finally reacted.
It began to get slightly warm.
well.
This confusing reading is the best camouflage.
From the perspective of the subspace, this place has once again become a "normal" area filled with filth and toxins, no longer attracting hatred like a dazzling light bulb as before.
Underground, hundreds of millions of "Grey Snail-1" root systems felt this massive torrent of poison.
They felt no fear, only ecstasy.
The ground began to shake slightly.
That was the sound of countless roots frantically swallowing.
The originally withered and curled leaves quickly unfurled, turned green, and developed a metallic sheen.
This is a feast.
7 PM, underground A-3 core laboratory.
The heavy, airtight door closed with a hydraulic hum, isolating the suffocating industrial noise from the outside world.
After removing his protective suit, which was covered in acidic dust, and undergoing three high-pressure spray disinfection procedures, Luo Wei, dressed only in a thin shirt, came to the cold stainless steel dissection table.
-
Under the pale halo of the operating lights, several "Grey Mule-1" seedlings, freshly pulled from the wasteland, lay quietly in a tray.
The soil around their roots had been washed away, revealing dark red, vascularized rootlets that twitched slightly, almost nervously.
Luo Wei put on rubber gloves and asked, "How's the data calculation going?"
What Luo Wei actually wanted to ask about was the test results.
Father Alpha, standing before the array of bird-shaped instruments, had the red light in his mechanical eyes pulsating wildly with the data stream.
Several probes were inserted into the stem of the seedling.
"It's blasphemous metabolic efficiency, consultant."
"In just five days after being sown, their root systems have already reached a vertical depth of over three meters in order to extract deep toxins."
"At this insane rate of resource plundering, the original estimated maturation period of forty-five days has been revised by the logic engine to forty days."
Forty days.
For any agricultural planet facing famine due to insufficient production capacity, this is a number that would make the governor laugh in his sleep.
However, there was no joy on Luo Wei's face.
As a professional auditor, he knows all too well that there are no such things as exorbitant profits that come out of thin air.
Any unusually high rate of return often hides hidden liabilities that could lead to bankruptcy.
"What about the balance sheet? I mean the toxicity test." Lowe picked up the scalpel, the tip hovering above the seedling.
After a month and a half of getting to know each other, Father Alpha was not only able to correctly understand Lowe's thought process, but could also answer in professional terms: "Severe deficit."
He pulled up a spectral analysis chart.
The peak red line representing the heavy metal content almost pierces the screen.
"The seedlings we are currently cultivating are like a highly poisonous rod. The levels of mercury, lead, and arsenic are four hundred times higher than the Imperial food safety standards."
"If you grind it into powder and feed it to Oglin now, even those big, dumb guys with cast iron stomachs will die of multiple organ failure within an hour."