Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 675: Canned Food from the Old Era
"This is impossible... This is absolutely impossible..." Collins murmured. If he could accept that the Alpha civilization had food and canning technology similar to that of humans, the appearance of this string of Arabic numerals was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue.
This almost directly proves that the food that humanoid monster eats comes from the human world... This also indirectly shows that "she" is most likely human.
Or, used to be human.
A human who lived for more than four hundred years.
Under the impact of such a huge amount of information, the members of the 776 Special Forces Team could not help but fall into a brief silence.
Ke Lan kept thinking about various possibilities in his mind...but no matter which possibility it was, the probability was so low that it was almost impossible to happen. He simply could not find a reasonable reason for this can with Arabic numerals on it to appear in this strange relic.
Liao Xing stepped forward and took a can from Martin. He took out a folding knife and scraped along the inner wall of the can. He put the scraped meat to his nose and smelled it. Then he pinched a small handful with his index finger and thumb and rubbed it gently a few times.
"That's right... the artificial luncheon meat found in the monster's stomach came from this can." Liao Xing said, "Or rather, from an identical can."
"Have any of you seen cans like this?" Sergeant Ken looked at the other soldiers and asked.
This is a cylindrical can with a capacity of about 300 to 350 grams... Based on Sergeant Ken's experience of more than 20 years of service, no matter which unit it is, the logistics department will not provide cans of this specification as military supplies.
As for canned foods on the civilian market, this shape of packaging is rarely used.
Whether in the era of interstellar drifting or in this era of pioneering on Alpha Planet, the biggest requirement for canned food is easy storage - and the three words "easy to store" include not only extending the shelf life, but also factors such as convenience in storage and carrying.
To put it bluntly, it is a question of space utilization.
As we all know, if cans are made into round shapes, there will be large gaps at the corners when stacking them, which is a huge waste of tight storage space - compared with the original storage space, these round cans will cause at least 21.5% of the space to be ineffectively utilized. The same cargo compartment will carry nearly 20% less load when carrying round cans than square cans, which is a gap that cannot be ignored for military logistics supply work.
Because of this, 99% of the military canned food on the Ark is made into an elliptical cylinder that is similar to a rectangular block. When stacked, they are as neatly arranged as bricks for building a wall, and the gaps between the corners are also utilized to the maximum extent. Influenced by military products, civilian canned food is rarely made into a perfect cylindrical shape. Although the product transportation pressure in the civilian market is not as great as that of the military supply line, just changing the shape of the product's outer packaging can save 20% of the warehousing and logistics costs. Why not do it?
"I've seen one kind of round canned food," said Connelly. "It's a canned eel produced by an aquaculture company called 'Pacific Sea King'. They coil the whole processed eel into a circle and stuff it into a flat round can ... But as you know, eels are not cheap, so this kind of canned food is only for the rich. The production volume is not large, so there is no need to consider the storage and transportation space."
"But this thing is not canned eel." Liao Xing shook his head, "Also, the contents of the can seem a little different from the artificial meat we usually eat."
As he said this, he actually put the finger covered with grease and minced meat scraped from the can into his mouth.
"Dr. Liao!" Cornelius was stunned. He wanted to stop it, but it was too late.
"This... aren't you afraid it might be poisonous?" Collins stared at Liao Xing in surprise.
"The digestive system of that monster is almost exactly the same as ours. If it can eat, then of course we can eat it too." Liao Xing said, even smacking his lips.
"Did you taste anything?" Sergeant Ken asked in a deep voice.
"It's hard to say... I don't know how to describe it..." Liao Xing frowned, "It's not fresh... Of course, this is a common feature of canned food ... But it's not rotten or spoiled, it shouldn't have been opened for a long time... And... the salt content is too high, it's very salty."
The canned food on the Ark, whether for civilian or military use, will not have a high salt content, because if the salt content is too high, it will easily cause people to be thirsty, and on the battlefield, clean drinking water is much more precious than food - people in this era prefer to use supplies such as pills to supplement the trace elements and minerals lacking in synthetic foods.
But the salt content of this canned meat was so high that Liao Xing felt that he only needed a small spoonful to eat with a large bowl of rice.
He thought about it and said, "This can... is produced according to the standards of the old era."
"What?" Sergeant Ken couldn't help but frown.
"It was most likely produced on Earth," Liao Xing added.
"No way!" Cornelius slapped his thigh vigorously. "It is now the 902nd year of the New Era. Even if the cans have a strong preservation property, after 900 years, if the contents haven't rotted, the outer iron sheet should have corroded through! Maybe this thing was produced by a canning manufacturer for a retro gimmick ?"
"My second uncle makes a living in the food canning industry. I can assure you that there is no such canning factory on the Ark. As for those illegal small workshops, without large-scale processing equipment, it is impossible for them to produce metal cans of such high quality." Liao Xing retorted, "As for this string of digital inscriptions, I thought it was the production date at first, but now it seems that it should be just the serial code of a production line. There is no point in cracking it."
