Bizarre Developments (First Update, Please Subscribe)

As mentioned before, China had responded to this matter more promptly than any other country in the world.

While populations in other countries had fallen like wheat before a scythe, China had lost less than seven percent of its population—the neighboring A San had roughly the same population as China, yet its population loss rate had exceeded thirty percent.

That figure was not especially accurate,

because it was an average derived from sampling and calculations across multiple regions.

As for truly precise data,

who had the time to compile that at a moment like this?

Protecting so many people was certainly a great merit, but keeping so many people alive also made feeding them a deadly serious problem.

The nation's current grain reserves could last less than two months if rationed tightly,

though they could originally have lasted much longer, except many grain storage depots had been destroyed.

And even if they began rushing to cultivate crops now, they were already somewhat short on time.

They could scrape together supplies from supermarkets, cold-storage facilities, and food ingredient warehouses across every region and company, but in the face of more than a billion mouths, it still would not be enough.

It was like the forty thousand tons of pork released by the authorities during last year's Lunar New Year...

It sounded like a lot,

but even if every household bought only ten jin a month, it would only be enough for four million households.

If they wanted to be picky about it,

that amount would not even cover half a month's supply for a second-tier city.

Spread across the entire country...

Would each household get two liang just to smear a little grease on their food? That would be pretty much like those Douyin short videos at the end of the