Although the Jade Cauldron had excellent utility, Ding Yun couldn't think of any immediate use for it. Her original parents earned decent salaries, and while not wealthy, they could provide a comfortable life for her and her two siblings.
Extreme weather was indeed frequent, but it didn't lead to food shortages. At least, not domestically. Prices might have risen, but there was no pressing need to duplicate items with the Jade Cauldron.
However, letting it sit idle felt like a waste.
After much deliberation, Ding Yun ordered some ultra-compressed survival biscuits online – nearly devoid of moisture and with a shelf life of over five years. She placed these biscuits into the Jade Cauldron, letting it replicate them infinitely.
Once that was done, Ding Yun shrunk the Jade Cauldron to the size of a pendant, attached it to a chrome-plated stainless steel chain, and wore it. She then proceeded to live her life as if the artifact didn't exist.
Or, to be more precise, after school started, she embarked on a journey to become an academic star.
Regardless of her ultimate goal, she needed to gain influence in this world and leave her mark. While she had no concrete direction yet, presenting herself as exceptional was the safest bet. After all, people would readily accept accomplishments from someone already perceived as brilliant. Conversely, a perceived underachiever's successes would likely be met with skepticism.
Therefore, Ding Yun reasoned that excelling academically, regardless of her future path to influence, would be nothing but beneficial. This led to her decision to return to school and focus on her studies, starting as a diligent student.
Her family noticed her academic improvement without any suspicion. Her parents simply thought she had matured, realizing that as she was entering the crucial final year of high school, it was time to buckle down and study. Most parents, unless completely disillusioned with their child, tend to believe their child isn't unintelligent, but merely lacks effort or focus, explaining their mediocre or poor grades. Thus, her improved performance was seen as a natural consequence of her increased effort.
Time flew by as Ding Yun consistently excelled. By the mid-term exams of her second year, she was first in her class. By the final exams, she ranked first in the entire school. In the mid-term exams of the following semester, she was fifty points ahead of the second-place student. The county-wide mock exam at the end of the year saw her achieve first place in the county.
She quickly became a focus of the school's attention and protection. The school's primary objectives were to prevent her from transferring and to ensure her studies remained uninterrupted.
That year, her elder sister was accepted into a university in another province.
Their hometown experienced a severe drought that summer, with temperatures soaring to forty-five degrees Celsius, leading to over a hundred heat-related deaths. Fortunately, the previous autumn, the county's power company had renovated and re-laid all the power lines, preventing blackouts that year.
Ding Yun and her classmates started the new academic year, entering their final year of high school, in early August, as usual. The school, showing some consideration, kept the air conditioning on in classrooms from morning till night, charging a modest fee for its use. Fifty yuan per person per month was easily affordable, especially considering the unbearable heat without it. Forty-odd students in a classroom under forty-degree heat would struggle to focus, let alone learn. Air conditioning was essential for even a semblance of academic progress.
The summer that year was longer than usual, with temperatures in the forties persisting until late September before gradually dropping to the thirties. Within less than half a month, by mid-October, the temperature plummeted drastically to zero degrees or below. Overnight, countless people caught colds, and numerous plants suffered frost damage.
The transition between summer and winter, the brief period that could be considered autumn, lasted less than two weeks. This short span was insufficient for plants to complete their growth cycle and reach harvest. Some fruits, which should have been ripening in autumn, had only just begun to form and were far from maturity. Now, the sudden drop to sub-zero temperatures killed them or caused their fruit to freeze and fall.
Compounded by the summer drought, many local plants had already seen reduced yields or complete crop failure. This sudden cold snap further exacerbated the already poor outlook for agricultural produce.
Across the nation, or rather, in regions at similar latitudes, a comparable situation unfolded. All encountered unexpected cold fronts.
However, discussions mostly revolved around the peculiarity of these extreme weather events, the worsening environment, and the inevitable rise in winter fruit prices. The more crucial issue of grain supply, thanks to effective state control, was never a concern and thus rarely discussed. People had unwavering faith in the government's ability to manage it.
As for price increases, they had been a constant in recent years, and most had grown accustomed to them. Only the elderly, who had lived through times of famine, felt unease, either stockpiling food themselves or urging their children to do the same.
This was just the beginning. By November, the impact of the cold snap began to manifest in the market. For instance, fruit varieties in stores dwindled, and prices soared. The cost of various agricultural products, including vegetables and grains, also increased. However, compared to fruits and vegetables, the price hikes for staple crops were relatively manageable, with increases of only a few cents. The surge in fruit and vegetable prices was truly exorbitant. Cucumbers and tomatoes, previously priced at three to five yuan per jin, now ranged from nine to ten, even thirteen to fifteen yuan per jin. Even cheap cabbage had risen to three yuan ninety-eight per jin, let alone string beans.
In fruit stores, aside from two types of inexpensive pears, some blemished apples, and ordinary bananas at eight yuan per jin, no fruit remained under ten yuan. The premium Pielon melons, usually priced at nine yuan eighty per jin, now cost twenty-nine yuan eighty. Fruit vendors were hesitant to stock large quantities, fearing they wouldn't sell and would be stuck with them.
Consequently, canned fruit sales surged, and online sales of frozen fruits also climbed. Unable to afford fresh fruits, people sought alternatives, and canned and frozen fruits became prime substitutes.
However, as the prices of essential daily necessities did not rise significantly, overall, apart from general grumbling about the exorbitant cost of fruits and vegetables, there were no other major issues.