Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Liang Chen Ranch

Ling Mo parked her cart where the arrow directed.

A mechanical arm immediately extended, lifted the entire cart, and ran it through a series of operations she couldn’t follow. Fresh dung poured into a larger machine and burned without pause.

The moment her cart was taken, Ling Mo hurried into the plant.

There had to be more than cow dung in here.

Sure enough, she soon spotted a machine burning wool.

At first, she didn’t recognize it. Only when the heavy sheep smell hit her did she realize what it was.

Sheep on a ranch made sense. She had sheep in her pocket space too—lambs for now, but still.

Ling Mo rushed over and started stuffing the wool into her pocket space. It could be spun into yarn, knitted into clothes, or made into blankets. Winter would be a lot kinder with wool.

This wool was incredible—softer than anything she’d felt back on Blue Star, clean and pristine, just aggressively sheep-scented.

The plant seemed fully automated, which meant no one came to stop her.

By the time she’d collected every last bit, more than an hour had passed.

Outside, night had fully fallen, but Ling Mo was too excited to feel tired.

Wool was only the beginning.

She found cleaned cow bones and sheep bones—meat gone, but marrow still intact, and marrow was precious. She found slaughter scraps, entire cowhides and sheepskins, even donkey hide. There were huge metal tanks of animal blood, but she didn’t know how long it had been sitting, so she left that behind.

Everything else went into storage.

She couldn’t help feeling smug. Back on Blue Star, she’d resisted buying too much meat because she planned to raise animals in her pocket space. She’d only bought some ready-to-eat food to get by.

Good thing. Buying meat didn’t compare to taking it for free.

Besides, the animals here were gigantic. One cowhide spread out was bigger than the hides of five or six Blue Star cows combined.

When she examined it more closely, she discovered the hide still had hooves attached—four of them—as well as the head and tail.

Probably too little meat, too annoying to process, so they’d tossed the whole thing.

Every hide she checked was the same.

Ling Mo’s grin threatened to split her face.

Then she found an actual mountain of fat—pale, piled carelessly like it was worthless.

Into storage it went.

The time in her pocket space’s warehouse area was frozen, so she didn’t worry about anything spoiling.

Deeper inside, she found stacks of bottles and jars.

She cracked one open. A rich, creamy scent flooded out.

Milk.

Considering Liang Chen Ranch’s whole purpose—supplying premium dairy and meat to the Interstellar—it made sense.

The problem was, milk that ended up here was probably expired or near-expired.

Ling Mo didn’t care. Near-expired was basically a gift, and “expired” didn’t automatically mean spoiled—it just meant past the best-by date.

She collected bottle after bottle.

Then she found milk powder.

Hours slipped by. By the time she’d shoved the last can into her pocket space, she collapsed onto the floor, panting, and a heavy wave of sleep tried to drag her under.

No. Not now.

Ling Mo dug out a sour candy, steeled herself, and tossed it into her mouth.

The sharp, puckering sourness hit like a slap, twisting her face and jolting her awake. She followed it with an iced Americano and a sandwich.

Sleep could wait.

She was only in this instance for three days. Daytime belonged to tasks. Nighttime belonged to her.

She kept scavenging, grabbing anything that looked useful—expired products, random discarded items that were probably the ranch owner’s, anything at all. If she didn’t know how to use it, she’d figure it out later.

By the time the sky began to pale, she’d even collected the mountain of dried dung patties outside.

Only then did she step out of the waste processing plant, satisfied to the bone.

She set an alarm and grabbed a quick nap.

An hour later, the alarm pulled her back up.

Ling Mo changed into workout clothes. After a full night in the waste plant, her pajamas were soaked with sweat.

She patted her cheeks and let out a breathy laugh. “Being young is nice. One hour of sleep and I’m ready to go again.”

Today’s tools were a small metal bucket and rubber gloves.

Guided by a gray bird, Ling Mo finally saw the ranch animals up close.

She’d expected big.

She hadn’t expected massive.

Huge cows. Plump sheep. The kind of livestock that made her stomach ache with envy.

She wanted to raise them all.

The gray bird landed on the back of a black-and-white dairy cow and stared at her as if to say: Work.

Ling Mo nodded obediently and moved into position beneath the cow.

She’d never milked one before, but she’d watched videos. It didn’t look impossible.

She tried once. Nothing.

She tried again. Still nothing.

She forced herself not to get frustrated. Getting rough would hurt the cow—and if a normal cow kicked her, she’d be in the hospital. A cow like this could kill her outright.

“I bought a book for this… I’m sure I did.”

She’d bought books on everything. Of course she’d bought one on raising cattle.

She pulled it out of her pocket space, flipped through, and found the technique. Then she tried again.

This time, milk streamed into the bucket, warm and pale, and the air filled with a fresh, clean dairy scent.

She’d done it.