Chen Hao stared at the sky, his mouth half-open, the chili stem he was holding slipping silently from his lips. He didn't pick it up, but slowly sat up straight, his eyes still fixed on the scrolling data on Nana's terminal.
"They...turned a corner?" His voice trembled slightly. "Really turned? Or am I seeing things?"
Nana didn't turn around; her optical lens remained locked on the distant low sky. "The migration path has shifted by twelve degrees, the flight speed has decreased by forty-one percent, and some individuals have shown signs of falling." She paused, "Preliminary assessment: the acrid smoke has had a repelling effect."
Chen Hao slapped his thigh, but then quickly pulled his hand back—his palm was covered in black ash and charred cotton rope fragments. "Oh my god, it worked! Our old-fashioned method actually blew the locusts away!" He grinned, but then choked on the air and coughed so hard he pounded his chest. "Cough cough... the air is still spicy, like I inhaled a mouthful of hot pot broth."
He struggled to his feet, his legs as weak as overcooked noodles, and staggered two steps to the nearest wrecked pottery jar. The jar was shattered into pieces, its inner walls charred black, and a ring of dark red powder on the ground still emitted faint steam. Several locusts lay beside it, their six legs twitching, their antennae askew, looking like drunken men who had been rendered unconscious by the spiciness.
“See?” He lightly touched one with his toe. “Even the insects are knocked out by the spiciness, which means the concentration is strong enough.”
Nana walked over, and the robotic arm deployed a miniature sampler, extracting a small amount of residue from the ground. "The capsaicin diffusion efficiency reached 73% of the expected value. The peak concentration in the air occurred four minutes after the explosion and lasted for 17 minutes." She looked up. "The coverage area matches the preset model, and no direct grazing traces were found in the main crop area."
"So we won?" Chen Hao rubbed his face, trying to force a smug smile, but his eyelids were so heavy they were practically glued together. "At least all that hard work last night wasn't for nothing... What do we call this? Scientific farming, earthy explosion?"
As he was speaking, he suddenly noticed several bees lying on their backs in the grass near the beehives by the field, their wings still fluttering slightly. He squatted down and poked at them, discovering that there were more than just one or two bees.
"Hey, Nana, look at this." He pointed, "Why are the bees lying down too? Are they tired? I didn't see them come out last night."
Nana immediately changed the scanning direction, and the data stream refreshed rapidly on the terminal. A few seconds later, an alarm sounded softly.
“Abnormal activity of pollinating insects was detected.” Her tone remained steady, but her pace quickened noticeably. “In the past three hours, the colony’s outbound rate has decreased by 59 percent, and the number of dead individuals in the hive has increased by 32, a 30 percent increase from the baseline.”
Chen Hao's hand froze in mid-air. "Wait...you mean, we bombed locusts, and the bees died?"
“The conclusion is valid.” Nana pulled up the ecosystem simulation diagram. “The pungent smoke indiscriminately stimulates the nervous system of insects, and the sharp decline in the number of bees will directly affect the pollination success rate of subsequent flowering crops. The expected yield reduction can reach more than 40%.”
Chen Hao plopped down on the ground, leaning against a sun-heated stone slab. "So we're not farmers, we're ecological killers?" He looked up at the still clear sky, his tone tinged with a resigned absurdity. "We worked so hard to prevent the locust plague, and now we have to find matchmakers for the crops?"
He raised his hand to wipe his face, his palm feeling damp and sticky—he couldn't tell if it was sweat or residue from the exploding pot. "I should have boiled some neem bark water. I heard that stuff only attracts insects and doesn't harm bees; it's environmentally friendly and natural."
“The chinaberry tree has not yet been introduced and cannot be replaced at this stage,” Nana added. “Furthermore, its extraction process is complex and lacks timeliness, making it unsuitable for emergency defense.”
"Alright, alright, I guess I was narrow-minded." Chen Hao sighed, propping himself up on his knees as he tried to get up again. "So what do we do now? We can't exactly give each bee artificial respiration, can we?"
Before he could finish speaking, Nana's terminal suddenly changed color.
A flash of red light appeared, and a weather map popped up on the holographic screen. A dark purple cloud was rapidly approaching from the northwest, its edge already torn open with a jagged rip.
“Warning.” Nana’s voice carried a sense of urgency for the first time. “A strong convective system has formed, with a sharp drop in central pressure and humidity rising to 98 percent. It is expected to arrive in this area in two hours, accompanied by short-term heavy rain, with a maximum rainfall intensity of 85 millimeters per hour.”
Chen Hao's foot, which had just taken a step, stopped in mid-air.
"Rain?" He looked up at the sky, where the once clear blue sky was now covered by a layer of gray gloom. The wind had also changed direction, making the withered grass in the fields rustle. "With such heavy rain, won't all the seeds we just planted be washed into the ditches? And those granaries... their roofs are just thatched!"
Nana has activated the emergency protocol, and the data interface has switched to a material distribution and structural load-bearing analysis chart. "The main grain silo has a storage capacity of 3,200 kilograms, and the current filling rate is 67%. The roof material's compressive strength limit is 40 kilograms of water accumulation per square meter. If it is not reinforced, the probability of collapse exceeds 70%."
"Then we have to race against time." Chen Hao gritted his teeth and stood up straight. "We need to take care of the beginning first, then the end; the granary can't collapse!"
He turned to run towards the storage shed, but stopped after taking two steps, glancing back at the scattered fragments of pottery jars and the still-smoking ground. "These wreckage need to be cleaned up, otherwise the rain will wash away the toxins, and even the earthworms won't survive tomorrow."
“Leave it to me.” Nana quickly disassembled a set of robotic arms and modified them into a small cleaning device. “You are responsible for reinforcing the grain warehouse, and I will handle the contaminated area at the same time.”
“Okay, let’s split up.” Chen Hao grabbed the shovel leaning against the edge of the field and pulled out a few thick bamboo poles from the pile of waste. “If the rain comes too fast, use the heating device to dry the ground for a while before the liquid spreads.”
He walked toward the granary as he spoke, his steps becoming increasingly hurried. The granary was built on a slightly elevated platform, with a simple retaining wall of stones around it, but the roof was indeed a temporary thatched structure, which had become somewhat loose after being exposed to the wind for a while.
He rushed into the storage room, rummaged through all the usable waterproof tarpaulins and hemp ropes, and dragged out a pile of old wooden planks. Just as he was about to move them out, Nana's voice came from behind him.
"Reminder: There are slight signs of water seepage on the west slope. It is recommended to lay diversion channels first."
"Got it!" Chen Hao didn't even turn his head, picked up a roll of canvas and rushed out. "Cover the roof first, then drain the floodwater. The order can't be messed up!"
He climbed onto the roof of the granary, knelt on the thatched roof, and began to lay down a waterproof tarpaulin. The tarpaulin was thick and rough, and the edges chafed his palms until they burned. He gritted his teeth and secured the four corners with wooden nails, then went around to the back and tied knots to reinforce it.
The wind picked up so hard that he almost slipped off the roof. He clung tightly to a beam, gasped for breath, and turned to shout to Nana, "How's the clearing going over there? The rain won't wait for us!"
Nana stood at the edge of the contaminated area, as the robotic arm packed the last piece of medicated soil into a sealed bag. "Eighty-nine percent of the work is complete; the remaining area can be finished within forty-five minutes." She looked up at the sky. "The cloud formations are moving faster, and the estimated arrival time has been brought forward to one hour and twenty-three minutes."
“There’s still a little over an hour left…that should be enough.” Chen Hao wiped his face and continued hammering nails. The last piece of cloth was finally laid out, and he jumped off the roof to begin digging drainage ditches around the perimeter.
The shovel cut into the soil, splashing mud onto his trousers. He dug quickly, and just as the ditch was completed, rain began to fall.
The first drop hit his forehead, and the coldness sent a shiver down his spine.
The second drop landed on the waterproof cloth with a crisp "smack".
The third drop, the fourth drop... followed by a series of crackling sounds.
Chen Hao looked up and saw that the dark clouds had pressed down to the ridgeline, and the rain curtain was like a piece of gray cloth that had been suddenly torn open and poured down.
"They're here!" he yelled, throwing down his shovel and running towards Nana. "Cut up! Get out of here!"
Nana was closing the last sealed container when she heard the shout. She immediately activated the propulsion system and slid the tools back into her body. The two of them rushed to the eaves of the granary almost simultaneously.
The rain pounded on the tarpaulin, the sound as dense as drums. Chen Hao, panting heavily, watched the rapidly rising puddles outside and murmured, "Hopefully this roof can hold..."
“Roof?” Nana turned to look at him.
"Oh no, I mean the roof!" Chen Hao waved his hand. "I meant the roof!"
Before he could finish speaking, the waterproof tarpaulin above his head suddenly made a piercing tearing sound.
The two looked up at the same time.
A thin crack was slowly spreading in the center of the canvas, as if someone had gently cut it open with a knife.
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