Nighttime.  

Lin Hongying spent a long time in the shower, finally washing away the faint stench of pig manure clinging to her.  

Once the pig farm’s renovations were complete, she’d be able to shower right at the facility and have a dedicated work uniform, so she wouldn’t have to go around smelling like manure everywhere. At the thought of this, the furrow between Lin Hongying’s brows eased slightly.  

The house’s fireplace was blazing warmly, and the thick brick walls kept the interior cozy as long as they didn’t skimp on coal.  

After getting dressed, Lin Hongying stepped out of the bathroom and saw Shao Qingfeng busy setting up a cot.  

The bed was placed right in the living room, and seeing it, she let out a quiet sigh of relief.  

Clearly, he had no intention of sharing a bed with her—he planned to sleep on that cot.  

Though theirs was an arranged marriage, it wasn’t like they were pigs being bred on the spot. The idea of two strangers sharing a bed was still awkward. Lin Hongying bid Shao Qingfeng a quick “good night” and hurried back to the bedroom to lie down.  

The bedroom light was off, but through the crack under the door, she could see the faint glow of the living room lamp.  

In the quiet of the night, the soft sound of running water from the shower seemed even more pronounced.  

Before long, Shao Qingfeng finished his shower. His tall silhouette cast a shadow against the wall as he knocked on the bedroom door and stepped inside.  

Lin Hongying’s heart clenched, her body stiffening—was he planning to sleep here tonight?  

As the door opened, the living room light spilled into the bedroom. Lin Hongying saw Shao Qingfeng draped in a shirt, his short hair damp, making him look clean and sharp. His chiseled face, freshly washed, had an even more striking, rugged handsomeness.  

The skin exposed to the sun was a light wheat color, but beneath his collar, it was fair.  

He had the kind of build that looked lean in clothes but was solid underneath—tall and straight-backed. The damp shirt clung to his abdomen, faintly outlining the defined ridges of his torso. A few droplets of water trailed down his neck, disappearing into the firm, massive expanse of his chest.  

So sexy… it was deadly.  

Lin Hongying tightened her grip on the blankets, suddenly feeling overheated from all the nourishing food she’d been eating lately. She immediately shut her eyes, but her mind was flooded with images of that strong, athletic physique.  

Maybe… sharing the room with Shao Qingfeng wouldn’t be so hard to accept after all.  

But with a soft creak of the wooden door, Shao Qingfeng merely opened the wardrobe, grabbed a few pieces of clothing, and left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.  

Lin Hongying: “…”  

…

The next day.  

Lin Hongying woke up with dark circles under her eyes, roused before dawn.  

Bleary-eyed, she turned on the light and checked the time—only five in the morning. But remembering that Liu Xinmin would soon arrive to pick her up, she quickly got out of bed.  

She made herself a cup of milk, fried an egg, and bought two flatbreads from the canteen.  

Lately, Lin Hongying had been obsessively fortifying her body—research demanded a lot of physical stamina. She needed to build up her fitness to regain the energy required to handle heavy workloads.  

Shao Qingfeng mostly ate at the canteen, where the officers’ meals were quite decent.  

That morning, he drank a glass of milk and ate a fried egg before preparing to leave.  

He glanced at Lin Hongying in surprise. “Up so early?”  

But then, remembering she had to commute to the neighboring county for work, he understood. “Want me to ask the logistics department’s procurement team to give you a ride?” he said mildly. “They go to the pig farms in the next county every day for fresh meat.”  

In the early morning, his voice carried a rough, sleep-laden huskiness that was undeniably sexy.  

Lin Hongying kept her head down as she finished her milk, mumbling, “No need. I have a ride today.”  

She didn’t dare look at Shao Qingfeng for too long. Last night, she’d had a dream—a very suggestive one—and upon waking, she had spent a long time reflecting in mortification against the wall.  

Now, seeing Shao Qingfeng in the morning, neatly dressed and clean, his gaze clear and bright, she felt another wave of awkwardness. The crisp pine-green uniform accentuated his handsome, resolute features, giving him an almost sacred, untouchable aura—the epitome of restraint.  

Just looking at him while recalling last night’s dream made her flush with embarrassment.  

Shao Qingfeng walked downstairs with Lin Hongying.  

As soon as she stepped out of the compound, she spotted the familiar sedan and mentally applauded Liu Xinmin for his punctuality.  

…

Zhenhua Pig Farm.  

Yu Liang hadn’t slept all night, working with the farm’s technicians to monitor and record the pigs’ reactions to the medication hour by hour.  

He personally inspected every pen. The aggressive swine fever outbreak hadn’t spread further—instead, there were signs it was being contained. The excitement kept him up all night.  

In the early hours, the others urged him to rest, but Yu Liang refused. It wasn’t until dawn that he finally dozed off in a chair.  

When Lin Hongying arrived, this was the scene she encountered: a chair haphazardly placed in the middle of the pig farm, with the gray-haired Yu Liang snoring away. The technicians, unable to bear seeing the older man like this, had draped a thin blanket over him.  

But the moment they did, Yu Liang woke up.  

The sight of Lin Hongying electrified him. His booming voice could’ve pierced through the entire farm: “Comrade Lin, excellent, excellent!”  

“The medicated sow from yesterday is still alive!” His bloodshot eyes burned with fervor. “We’ll continue the medication tomorrow and observe for three more days!”  

This proved Lin Hongying’s medicine worked!

During this period, the pig farm had been collecting over twenty dead pigs daily. Assuming each pig weighed around a hundred jin, that meant a loss of more than two thousand jin of pork. The stress had given Yu Liang blisters in his mouth and robbed him of sleep.  

Once the infection spread on a large scale, the situation would become even more dire. Agricultural experts in Heilongjiang Province predicted that the pig slaughter rate would plummet by 70% in a month, rendering a year’s hard work utterly wasted.  

If the situation hadn’t been so critical, Yu Liang wouldn’t have rushed to the capital, swallowing his pride to beg experts and professors for help.  

Every pig here was a precious national asset, each one raised on vast amounts of grain. In the famine-stricken south, where people were starving to death, these pigs were supposed to become food—nourishing the people, strengthening their bodies… not dying in a plague!  

Every time Yu Liang read the newspapers, he sighed heavily. He had wasted so much grain yet failed to raise these pigs properly—he was a criminal in the eyes of the nation!  

Lin Hongying was satisfied. The data matched her expectations—the mortality rate followed a normal distribution, and since it was still in the early to mid-stage, drug intervention could still control the outbreak.  

Yu Liang had taken timely measures as a leader.  

She said, “The herbal medicine must continue to be administered… there’s no miracle cure for swine fever. Next, I’ll need a proper laboratory to develop a vaccine for the pigs.”  

“Disinfectant must be arranged immediately—every four hours today. If that’s not possible, at least minimize the intervals!”  

Yu Liang responded firmly, “Don’t worry, Comrade Lin! We’ll handle it.”  

Stepping outside the pig farm for a smoke to clear his head, he added enthusiastically, “The bureau called Heilongjiang University yesterday—the medical school agreed to lend us a lab.”  

“We’re procuring disinfectant now. Sodium hypochlorite needs to be sourced from chemical plants, but we have plenty of limewater for the time being.”  

“Fine, limewater will have to do for now…” Lin Hongying knew she couldn’t demand too much—extraordinary times called for flexible solutions.  

She watched as workers hauled several dead pigs from the critical zone, their faces heavy with sorrow. Some pigs in this area weren’t dead yet but were barely clinging to life, yet they too were loaded onto the truck.  

Casually, Lin Hongying asked, “How will these pigs be disposed of? Buried or incinerated?”  

Silence fell over the scene. No one answered her.  

“Hmm… why the silence?” Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Lin Hongying turned to Liu Xinmin. “Xiao Liu, tell me.”  

Liu Xinmin opened his mouth but hesitated for a long time before finally turning away. “Instructor Lin… I don’t know either.”  

“But we can’t just waste food like this.”  

Lin Hongying instantly understood, her expression darkening. “You’re not planning to slaughter these dead pigs and sell them as normal meat, are you?!”  

“This is outrageous!”  

“Did yesterday’s regulations mean nothing? I explicitly emphasized that sick and dead pigs must undergo harmless disposal!”  

Liu Faying, mustering her courage, spoke up bluntly, “We have no choice! Every single pig is precious food! Look at the situation now—each resident gets at most one or two liang of pork a month.”  

“Lin Hongying! You yourself fled the famine down south! In the provinces of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, people have stripped the land bare of roots and bark! The streets are full of malnourished people with swollen legs who can barely walk. And you want us to bury or burn this pork? We can’t do something so heartless!”  

“Those who are full shouldn’t forget the hungry!”  

Tears welled up in her eyes as she finished speaking, and she turned away and stormed off.  

After yesterday’s eye-opening revelations, Liu Faying had already changed her opinion of Lin Hongying—she was undoubtedly capable.  

She deeply regretted ever mocking her. But right now… Lin Hongying deserved to be scolded!  

Hearing this, the others in the pig farm silently lowered their heads, wiping their eyes.  

Lin Hongying stood frozen, stunned by the verbal lashing.  

She… she knew all of it. Her eyes gradually reddened.  

Fragments of the original host’s memories flashed through her mind—how she had clung to her last breath to reach the military camp, witnessing the barren mountains along the way, the parched earth without a drop of water, the tree bark and roots all stripped clean by desperate hands.  

She had seen a mother nursing her baby, the infant unable to draw any milk, while the woman begged passengers with a broken bowl for scraps.  

She had seen starving passersby collapsed on the roadside, their bellies grotesquely swollen.  

And yet, she had to uphold her duty as a researcher…  

Lin Hongying steeled herself and spoke sternly, “Pigs that die from swine fever are riddled with pathogens—E. coli, Salmonella, anthrax, tetanus, tuberculosis, cadaverine, putrescine, neurine… the list goes on!”  

“Every single one of these is deadly! They destroy the central nervous system, attack the brain, cause meningitis, neurotoxicity, kidney failure, and systemic dysfunction. People will suffer high fevers, convulsions, diarrhea, and fatal poisoning…”  

“So—” Lin Hongying raised her head, exhaled deeply, and declared resolutely, “Listen to me. Burn them.”  

By the time she finished speaking, her eyes were wet with tears.  

The worker pushing the cart of dead pigs stiffened, then lifted a hand to wipe his face as he broke down sobbing.  

Seeing the reddened eyes of everyone present, Lin Hongying raised her voice. “I promise we will overcome this swine fever! No matter how much we lose today, we will recover it tenfold in the future!”