Chapter 96

In the next few days, there were still a lot of bugs coming every day.

But the chickens are eaten by people, and there are fewer and fewer insects to be seen in the community.

Sometimes a family may not be able to bring back three or two eggs after working all day.

The Shen family members were too embarrassed to go into the yard and compete with everyone else for insects, so they set their sights on the protective net on their roof.

At this time, Chen Cong and Tongtong became the biggest cheaters in the family.

The children now get up very early every morning and don’t need adults to wake them up.

After getting up, he didn't even eat, but dragged the adults to the top floor and made sure to catch insects before it was fully light.

The reason they did this was...

"Wait a minute, the uncles and aunts in the yard will get up and make so much noise that they will scare the bugs away!"

Hearing that silly girl Shanshan repeating seriously with her brother and nodding heavily to show her approval, Chen Cong couldn't help but want to laugh.

Isn't it time to lie on the ground in fear and dare not open your eyes?

It was the same roof, and there were the same black swarms of bugs. The little girl looked at them with the same eyes as she looked at eggs!

It turns out that delicious food can always give people the greatest courage.

At this point, catching bugs has become a game for children, and they are even able to cooperate with each other and no longer need help from adults.

Because Tongtong is still small and his supernatural powers are weak, the iron net above the top floor is difficult for him to control.

But children have their own ways.

The three of them asked the adults for a few vegetable leaves and put them in a plastic bucket.

Afterwards, they moved the plastic bucket to a position close to the railing on the top floor and placed it there. They also rubbed the leaves to let the juice seep out and make the taste stronger.

After the two girls are ready, Tongtong will use her special powers to tear a gap in the iron net near the plastic bucket.

The originally dense iron net now had gaps, and the smell of vegetable leaves inside attracted the insects, so they naturally swarmed in and rushed to fly in.

When she saw this scene for the first time, Cheng Ru was a little anxious.

I wanted to try to stop it, but I was afraid that the children were too young and insecure and might not be able to control the situation.

But before he could open his mouth, his wife grabbed him.

"Don't worry about it, just watch what they do." Shen Jianyi stood aside and watched with a smile.

In fact, the three children did not disappoint the adults.

After making sure that most of the insects had been put in, Tongtong repaired the net as quickly as possible.

Cancan wet the insects' wings with water mist so that they could no longer fly.

Afterwards, the three children gathered the insects that fell to the ground and could not fly and put them into a bag prepared in advance. They even remembered to put a stone on top to press it down to prevent the insects from running away.

After doing all this, they started the second wave, poking open the wire mesh again and using vegetable leaves to attract the insects in.

But later on, Shanshan couldn't bear to see this, and when the bugs came in again, she would imitate her sister and radiate cold air at them.

In the end, the insects that fell to the ground were covered not with water, but with a layer of snow foam.

The children’s performance was truly amazing and reassuring.

Shen Jianyi laughed out loud with relief.

If the children are so active, how can the adults be lazy?

Their movements were faster and their coordination was more seamless.

So the insects that would have taken a whole morning to kill were finally killed in less than two hours.

We collected five woven bags in total, which looked like they weighed hundreds of pounds!

Eggs are difficult to store in the summer, so the community leaders are not stingy when exchanging them for residents. Basically, as long as you can kill the bugs, you will be able to exchange them for eggs.

In this situation, how can we calm down everyone's emotions?

As a result of the high spirits, within less than a week, the number of insects coming to the community decreased, and recently they were almost extinct.

How could the villagers, who had finally tasted the sweetness, be willing to give up such a good opportunity?

They turned their attention outside the community.

Soon, people began to move out in groups of three or five, going to other gathering points to help catch insects for free.

How could such a good thing be kept secret for too long?

But within a day, someone from outside the community came to ask tentatively if the community would accept the insects if they were caught from outside.

Because the insects in the community are really gone, it seems that it won’t be long before the chickens’ food becomes a problem again.

The leaders of the community discussed it and set up a special point at the entrance to start collecting insects.

This time, the way of collecting insects is different from the previous collection method in my community.

Now they only accept killed and dried insects, and they exchange five pounds for one egg.

Actually, this price is much lower than the previous price for residents in the community, but no one cares.

The insects that were originally disgusting and were about to be burned to ashes could actually be exchanged for eggs. This was something that no one had ever dared to think about before.

Word spread quickly, and soon there was a long line of people waiting to exchange insects at the entrance of the community.

In addition to the community, news soon spread from the town, and news came from several bases that they had started purchasing dried insects.

The prices vary slightly, some are exchanged for eggs, others for vegetables or even dry food.

Gradually, catching insects in exchange for daily necessities has become a new way of making a living for the residents in the surrounding gathering places.

Those bugs are no longer the evil creatures that people originally thought they were.

The way things turned out was something no one had expected.

Not only did no one expect such a result, but Chen Cong also never expected it.

When the insect swarm came in her previous life, both she and the people around her chose to accept it.

Wait silently and endure until they leave.

The state also provided subsidies, but those subsidies were better than nothing. They only guaranteed a minimum living standard for everyone so that they would not all starve to death.

Her parents died shortly after the insect plague came, and her father-in-law had passed away before that.

At that time, their family had long been out of food, and they relied on the little bit of relief food from the government every day to survive.

Later, the government ran out of food, so it started purchasing insects and making them into dried insects.

However, in the previous life, those dried insects were not used to feed chickens. Instead, they were ground into powder as a protein substitute, mixed with coarse grains and wild vegetables, and made into vegetable dumplings to be distributed to everyone as food.

Even now, whenever I think of the taste of those vegetable dumplings, I still can't help but feel like vomiting...

I don't even dare to think about it.

Compared to now, life back then was much harder.

Not only their family, but everyone's life was hard.

Chen Cong thought about it carefully, but couldn't figure out how much less natural disasters he had experienced in this life than in his previous life?

To be honest, the situation may be even worse than before.

At least there was no land subsidence in my previous life, and there were no such big cracks in Beining.

The insect swarm in the previous life came a little later than this time.

What makes life so much better now than before?

Chen Cong knew that this must be related to the formation.

Because the formation was obtained in advance and quickly applied to various production bases, the grain output in many places increased by at least one season compared to the previous life.

Don't underestimate this season's grain. A little bit of it adds up to a lot and it can significantly reduce the burden on the country.

In addition, Chen Cong feels that there should be hope.

Because no matter how severe the disaster is, there is always hope ahead.

It is this kind of hope that makes people put aside their evil thoughts and makes them willing to make more efforts to fight for the future of themselves and their families.

Just like now, even though the bugs have eaten the food, everyone is still cursing but they haven't stopped working at all.

Even though they were participating in catching insects, every household also re-sowed seeds at home and replanted vegetables and grains.

This didn’t happen in my previous life.

People in the previous life seemed to have chosen to give up early on. Although they were still alive, they lived numbly and just got by from day to day.

-

Maybe the insects also felt the danger, and gradually, not only in this community, but also in the entire area, there were fewer and fewer insects.

The insect swarm passed by so silently.

Although their arrival still brings panic and disaster to people, at least the disaster is not fatal.

They did destroy a lot of crops.

However, because they stay for a short time and high concentrations of pesticides are not used when eliminating them, the impact on the soil is much smaller than people once worried about.

Moreover, their appearance has promoted the development of animal husbandry in another way.

Not long after the insect infestation ended, people came to the community asking to sell chicks and breeding eggs.

Although the community had not yet paid off the debt for the 1,000 chickens, it did not even have these things.

But the few gathering points nearby actually lined up spontaneously.

We will wait until the property starts to be sold and then go to buy it immediately.

You know, the city has encouraged people to raise chickens in the past, and has even introduced a series of preferential policies for this purpose.

But because there was not enough food and people could not be fed, no one dared to take the lead.

In the end, apart from several large chicken farms built by the government, Yingshui Village was the first to take the plunge.

During the insect swarm this time, the damage to Yingshui Village was less severe than that to the residential area.

It can even be said that it is the place least affected by the disaster in the entire Bac Ninh area.

This is not only because they raise a lot of chickens, but also because the terrain of their village has changed.

Their village has now basically become a mountainous area with barren land that is not suitable for large-scale cultivation.

In the past, their villagers were unwilling to give up and worked hard to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land, but the results were completely disproportionate to their efforts.

Later, the working group went to the site to survey the terrain and designed a suitable farming plan specifically for them.

The situation is similar to that in the residential area, that is, rational use of land and small-scale planting.

Those lands that are too barren would rather be abandoned temporarily.

In addition to developing a farming plan specifically for them, the working group also provided them with specially made fertilizers that were easy for plants to grow.

After mixing these fertilizers with the soil in proportion, although the planting area is smaller, the harvest is more than before when they had to work hard to water the wasteland.

The result was that when the bugs came, they had no large tracts of farmland to protect.

With so many chickens, there won’t be much loss.

The situation in the residential area and Yingshui Village deeply touched the surrounding gathering places, so they also started to think about raising chickens.

While these relatively large and powerful gathering points are focusing on raising chickens, several gathering points with average strength are focusing on growing forage grass.

The leaders of these places are very practical. They have few people and small places, so they cannot afford to buy chickens and raise them.

Then they can go buy seeds.

How much does forage grass seeds cost? After buying them, spread them along the walls and fields. If they don't grow, treat it as a test. If they grow, you can cut them and sell them to those large bases.

At worst, the price won’t be lower than that of dried insects, right?

So without anyone realizing it, raising chickens and selling eggs has gradually developed into an industry.

After staying at home for another week, Gu Kai and the old man showed no signs of coming back.

Chen Cong couldn't stay any longer.

At this time, there was nothing wrong with the house, even the iron net on the roof had been removed.

So Chen Cong and Shi Chen said goodbye to their family and prepared to return to Bac Ninh.

Knowing that they were leaving, Jiashu couldn't stay any longer and he also wanted to go back.

Because of the insect infestation, the drilling team had to suspend their work, so he had nothing to do just staying at home.

But now that the insect swarm has passed, everything should gradually get back on track, and he naturally has to go back to work.

Knowing that the children had to go back to do important things, the old couple did not try to keep them. They just sent them to the gate of the community. They were reluctant to leave even after the car had driven a long way away.

When Chen Cong returned home, even though he was mentally prepared, he was still disturbed by the scene on the balcony.

The damage in Bac Ninh was obviously more serious than in the residential area. When they left, they only built iron nets on the roofs and did not plant any vines.

As a result, several places on the upper layer of the iron net were bitten by insects.

Although Zhou Ying and her team tried hard to save the vegetables, an entire floor of vegetables was destroyed by those bastards.

Seeing them come back, Zhou Ying burst into tears, her expression full of guilt.

Xiaoyu also cried and told them how he fought with the insects. There are still bruises on his little neck and face from the insect bites.

All the vegetables on an entire floor were ruined by bugs. It would be a lie to say I didn't feel bad.

Chen Cong's heart ached with distress, not to mention Shi Chen and Can Can.

Cancan is young and doesn’t know how to hide her feelings, so she started sobbing along with Xiaoyu.

Shi Chen was so angry that his face turned pale.

Faced with this situation, what can Chen Cong do?

She could only tell them over and over again, "It's okay, don't be afraid, we can start over again."

But my heart is full of fatigue.

Chen Cong had never missed her husband so much before.

If Gu Kai were here, he would definitely be the one standing in front of this situation.

All I have to do is hide behind him and slowly deal with my emotions.

Moreover, if he were there, everyone would definitely not be so panicked.

After all, with his wood-related abilities, it is not impossible to make those vegetables grow again.

But where is Gu Kai now?

Chen Cong suddenly couldn't wait to go back to the regiment headquarters.

She wanted to find Liu Tuan and ask him what he was doing. Why did he take her husband and father-in-law away for almost a month without giving her any news?

What did this do for them?

What Chen Cong didn't know was that Gu Kai was already very far away from them at this time. He, his father, and several other members of the expert group had already arrived in Beijing.

The reason they came this time was not about the insects, but because the country had another very important task for them to accomplish.

They and several other colleagues in the expert group will accept the country's arrangement to go abroad to a neighboring country that has friendly diplomatic relations with the country to help the people there rebuild their homes.

Their task was naturally to help them set up the formation and teach them how to use the formation. They also had to assist them in completing the work of seedling cultivation and breeding.

Gu Kai and his companions did not know what kind of mutually beneficial conditions had been reached between the countries, but they knew that they were representing the country on this trip, so everyone could feel the heavy responsibility on their shoulders.

This operation was kept secret, and even family members could not be told in advance, so Gu Kai had no chance to tell Chen Cong about it.

The only thing that made him feel relieved was that after arriving in Beijing, he finally heard good news that the insect swarm in Beining had ended.

Gu Kai has always had unshakable faith in his wife's abilities. He believes that she can live a good life even when he is not at home.

He comforts himself like this every day.

But when he thought about not knowing when he would be able to come back, Gu Kai still felt a little uncomfortable.

He couldn't help thinking, how great it would be if he could see Congcong again, or even just have a phone call with her!

The author has something to say:

See you tomorrow, my friends!

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