A Sudden Water Shortage

Time flew by, it had already been a month since the end of the world. Chen Xin did not do much in the past month, he would wake up at the sound of his alarm clock. In the past, he would wake up whenever he wanted to.

However, the bunker had no daylight. He could not differentiate between daytime and nighttime so Chen Xin set up his alarm clock to avoid not knowing what time it was.

This was the first time he would set up an alarm in his entire life as a novelist.

The routine lifestyle was refreshing to Chen Xin, he felt like it improved his health, it was a brand new experience to him.

He had a lot of new habits following his routine lifestyle too. He would wake up, brush his teeth, wash his face. Then, he would tear open a packet of self-heating food as breakfast. He would exercise for ten minutes while waiting for his breakfast to heat up.

His appetite would be better after a warm-up too.

He would check on his equipment after breakfast, then fuel up his generator. 

Once he ensured the generator was providing electricity to the whole bunker, he would spend the rest of his morning tending to the greenhouse farm.

He did not need to worry about weeds and pest insects, but he still had to water the plants and fertilize them.

Planting and watering were relatively easy for Chen Xin. Although he had never done it before, he had his laptop video files to help him reach the standards.

The vegetables had not flourished, but at least they were growing healthily. There was nothing wrong with it.

Chen Xin could not stand fertilizing.

He did not buy fertilizers when he moved into the bunker. He got soil from the garden of his neighborhood old farmer, it was good but the soil was not fertilized. The neighborhood old man had a garden in his house and used it for his own vegetables only, it was why the soil was not chemically processed or fertilized.

He remembered when his neighborhood old farmer reminded him that the soil needed to be fertilized for the vegetables to taste good when he sold Chen Xin the soil.

The fertilizer he was talking about was not chemical, it was… natural.

It was simply the dirtied water previously introduced in the recyclable water system. The fertilizer was fermented dirtied water in liquid form. The fermented process would produce a certain type of smell, also famously known as swamp gas.

Farmhouses and countrysides would usually have a swamp site to dump feces and organic waste. The bacteria in swamp gas would produce methane gas. Methane gas could be used for cooking, warmth, lights, and generating electricity.

Swamp sites were a common facility in the countryside of Vermillion. It was huge in the nineties. It used to improve the lives of the countryside people by processing feces.

The recyclable system for water that Chen Xin installed had the same concept. The recyclable system used bacteria to recycle dirtied water, the organic particles in the dirtied water would be broken down and filtered out. Used water could not be dumped into a swamp site because it might have soapy liquid, detergent, shampoo, etc. These chemical ingredients would kill the bacteria in a swamp site.

Chen Xin tried to use swamp gas as an energy source, but he realized he could not produce enough feces to attain swamp gas so he eventually gave up on the idea.

However, a swamp site was important to recycle dirtied water.

The smell from the fermenting tank was…

Imagine a boys hostel filled with sweaty socks that had not been washed for a month, then imagine an expired jar that had not been opened for a month. It was kind of like stinky tofu or Surströmming.

The acidic impact… Chen Xin walked in with a gas mask but he still almost cried from the smell.

Thankfully, the process tank was outside of the rooms. Chen Xin powered up the ventilations beforehand too. The smell would not waft through the entire bunker.

The fermented liquid was collected in a plastic bucket that Chen Xin prepared in the greenhouse farm, then it was used on the soil with a ladle.

Although the acidic smell was horrible, it was truly a natural fertilizer. It was organic and could help the vegetables grow healthily.

After fertilizing the soil, Chen Xin had to water the plants. Halfway through watering, he suddenly realized the hose ran out of water.

It shocked Chen Xin. He hurriedly ran to the water tank and the fermenting tank. He discovered his water tank that could store three tons of water was empty. The dirtied water process tank was only half full too.

Chen Xin stared at the empty water tanks, he did not understand why this was happening. He had a recyclable system for water that could even collect water from the air, was the water used up?

It was too late, there was no more water. He still had a lot of drinkable water stored up, but the water for his greenhouse farm was coming to an end.

Chen Xin had to think of new ways to attain clean water, or else he would be facing a water shortage and forced to use drinkable water for his daily life.

That was his last resort, he would not do that if he had another choice.

Chen Xin had two choices.

First of all, he could take a risk, step out of the bunker to look for a water source.

A month already went by, the situation outside should have settled down by then. The cooling temperature would have stopped the fire. Step out of the bunker did not seem like much of a problem. 

Chen Xin was planning to do that anyway, he wanted to install the shortwave antenna outside the bunker to contact his companions in the group chat. If it was possible, he would like to trade resources with survivors in the same city.

Chen Xin knew there was someone in the city without a greenhouse farm. He could bring fresh vegetables and trade things with her.

However, there was a problem. How would Chen Xin bring back water to the bunker?