Breeding Factory

The flames on the distant mountains, once visible from the shelter, had mostly died down.

However, the dark clouds overhead had not lifted. Instead, they had grown even lower and denser. Even at midday, when the sun should have been at its brightest, the world outside remained shrouded in an eerie twilight.

The only silver lining was that the temperature had stopped rising uncontrollably. It had stabilized between 62 and 65 degrees, marking a period of relative stability.

On this day, Su Wu used his survival points to upgrade the rough construction waste on the ground into a solid, seamless concrete layer.

With this, the excavation of the third underground floor was officially complete.

"The third underground floor..."

"Let's call it the breeding factory."

Sitting in the cool control center, Su Wu watched the real-time 3D model of his shelter on the large screen. The artificial intelligence had meticulously mapped out every detail, showing the gradual expansion of his underground domain.

Seeing the results of his efforts taking shape gave him a deep sense of satisfaction. His shelter was growing, becoming more and more complete.

After admiring the layout for a while, he opened a pre-prepared document and transferred the design plans to the AI, assigning the next phase of construction tasks.

The third underground level would focus entirely on food production, specifically the breeding of chickens, ducks, and fish—animals that were relatively easy to manage in an enclosed environment.

While the concept sounded straightforward, the execution was anything but.

Building a fully enclosed, self-sustaining breeding facility was akin to recreating a miniature ecosystem.

From cultivating feed to regulating temperature and lighting, to managing breeding, feeding, and disease prevention—every step was interconnected. A single miscalculation in any aspect could halt operations, or worse, disrupt the entire shelter.

"Breeding rooms, chicken coops, duck coops, fish ponds, a slaughtering and processing line..."

Su Wu studied the various sections of the blueprint.

Most of the space was dedicated to feed production, using stacked hydroponic shelves to cultivate high-yield, fast-growing crops like barley sprouts.

The actual breeding areas—housing up to 2,500 chickens and ducks, plus a 100-square-meter fish pond—took up only a fraction of the available 700-square-meter floor.

Compared to the hydroponic farm on the first floor, the breeding factory felt more like a large-scale agricultural operation.

But this was necessary.

Without access to external feed supplies, only by allocating such a significant portion of space to plant cultivation could the facility remain self-sufficient.

For now, there were no live chickens, ducks, or fish. He would have to acquire them from other shelters later.

There was no need to rush the third-floor renovations.

He decided to transfer some construction robots from the machinery manufacturing center to start the initial setup gradually.

Meanwhile, the original excavation team could move on to the next task—digging out the fourth underground floor.

Expanding downward was always a wise choice.

That night, the network showed signs of recovery.

Though still intermittent, Su Wu could once again access some information from the outside world.

Reports indicated that government teams had begun emerging from their underground shelters to conduct emergency repairs on vital infrastructure and transportation routes.

Some private and corporate shelters that had suffered critical failures were even receiving official assistance. Rescue efforts ranged from relocating survivors to public shelters to providing limited supplies of clean water and medicine.

However, the power grid in Jianghe City remained offline, with no foreseeable restoration in sight.

Electricity had become one of the scarcest resources among all the shelters.

After gathering what little intelligence he could, Su Wu tried reaching out to others.

In the large public doomsday chat group, most members' avatars were grayed out—either disconnected or gone entirely.

However, in the smaller group of private shelter owners from Jianghe City, most were online, actively discussing their situations.

"Brother Su is online!"

"How's your situation over there?"

The first to greet him was Wang Jianguo, the owner of the steel shelter and one of the people Su Wu was most familiar with in the group.

"Luckily, I'm in the suburbs, surrounded by gravel terrain. No major threats so far," Su Wu replied.

Compared to most shelters, his location was one of the safest near Jianghe City.

Far from the river, high in elevation, and surrounded by barren land with little vegetation, there was almost nothing that could burn.

If not for the toxic gases from the fires, even an ordinary person with a simple underground vegetable cellar could have survived here.

"You're lucky," Wang Jianguo sighed.

"Not like Old Li and his crew... His shelter was in the mountains. They were trapped by the fire and toxic smoke for days. By the time the official rescue team got there, they found nothing but corpses."

Old Li was a wealthy man in the group.

He had bought an abandoned air-raid bunker in the mountains, a massive 5,000-square-meter facility, and spent over a billion yuan converting it into a high-end shelter.

By all logic, he should have been among the best-prepared survivors.

Yet, when disaster struck, even his fortress had been powerless against nature.

Fate was unpredictable.

Su Wu silently took in the news, feeling an odd sense of relief.

He had once considered a similar plan—buying an underground bunker in the mountains. But he hadn't had the money or the connections to pull it off.

Now, it seemed that being poor had saved his life.

"Brother, how's your side? Your factory had decent terrain too, right?"

"Terrain means nothing if the fire still reaches you."

"The flames spread to the windbreak outside my factory and burned down several buildings."

"And we weren't prepared for the toxic smoke. Over a hundred people collapsed on the first day."