Chapter 258: No News on Harvesting the Locusts
The palm-sized locusts filled the barbed wire. Xia Xiaoman had just electrocuted one wave of locusts when another wave flew over and crawled on the barbed wire.
There are so many insects that if you have trypophobia, you would be scared to death.
The electric baton Xie Yi gave her was of very good quality. Generally, if it is fully charged and not used very often, it can last for about a month. Xia Xiaoman used it for more than three hours in a row, and the battery of the electric baton was completely exhausted. Then she blocked the iron net and waited for the electric baton to be fully charged before catching locusts again.
…
In seven days, there were four waves of locusts, each one more ferocious than the last. When the last wave of locusts saw that all the food in Fucheng had been eaten, they actually killed each other, fighting with each other and eating their own corpses.
During these seven days, Xia Xiaoman frantically caught locusts to store food for the family's livestock. After seven days, there were no large numbers of locusts for three consecutive days. Seeing that the locusts in the yard were almost caught, Xia Xiaoman went out with a bucket to catch insects.
Even though the government has not announced that locusts will be collected, there are still many people going out to catch locusts. Seeing that there are many people catching locusts outside, Xia Xiaoman did not dare to go too far and just wandered around near her home.
Sun Haiyun from next door also came out to catch locusts. Xia Xiaoman saw him standing there staring in one direction, and followed his line of sight.
In the distance, a thin little girl was being beaten by a boy. The little girl didn't cry or resist, but just held on to a bag tightly. Seeing that the girl was holding on to the bag, the boy beat her hard, causing the girl's nose to bleed and her face and hands to be covered with scratches and bruises.
It was unknown where the boy hit the girl, but she let go of him in pain. The boy grabbed the bag and ran away with a grin on his face, still provoking the girl.
At this time, a middle-aged man appeared. The boy took the bag to the middle-aged man and said, "Dad, look, these are the locusts I caught. My sister just played around and didn't catch any locusts."
The girl who was falsely accused was furious and argued loudly: "You are talking nonsense. It was obviously you who was playing. You stole those locusts from me, and you beat me..."
Before he could finish his words, the middle-aged man slapped the little girl and threw her to the ground. "I asked you to come out and catch locusts, but you only knew how to play. Your brother has caught so many locusts, but what about you? You still have the nerve to lie here? I'm going to beat you to death today, you lazy bastard!"
Seeing the middle-aged man about to kick her, the girl rolled over and ran away, cursing as she ran, "Phoenix man! Cheap bone, coward! Eat my mother's things, use my mother's things, and now my mother is dead, you come to abuse me! Just wait, when you fall asleep one day, I will chop you to death with a knife!"
"You bastard, don't run! When I catch you, I'll kill you!" The middle-aged man was furious and left the boy behind to chase after him.
When Xia Xiaoman saw this scene, she was about to praise the girl for her youthful demeanor, when she saw two strangers coming out from the corner, one covering the boy's mouth, and the other grabbing the boy's feet, and carrying the boy away. When the middle-aged man came back, his son was nowhere to be seen.
Xia Xiaoman blinked, "That little girl... is a human trafficker?"
Hearing Xia Xiaoman's voice, Sun Haiyun glanced at her and said, "It shouldn't be. The little girl might have been abducted by human traffickers. I don't know what she said to the traffickers, and then she came back to cooperate with the traffickers to take her brother away."
Two days ago, after the third batch of locusts left, he came back from the power station and saw the little girl being abducted by human traffickers. He also specifically told the security team about this.
I just saw the little girl in the neighborhood and thought I had misjudged her, so I looked at her a few more times. Unexpectedly, I saw the whole process of the human traffickers kidnapping her.
"I'll go find the security team and tell them about this." As he said this, Sun Haiyun hurried towards the gate of the community.
If the little girl was just seeking revenge on her brother, he would not bother to intervene. But he was worried that the little girl would cooperate with the traffickers to kidnap other children in the community. There were many children in the community, some of whom he knew, so he could not just sit back and watch.
Xia Xiaoman raised her eyebrows. This was also a kind-hearted person. But he was more measured than the coach. If it was the coach, he would have rushed up and fought with the traffickers. Sun Haiyun at least knew to contact the security team if there was any problem.
…
After catching locusts for five days, the authorities still hadn't announced that they would collect the locusts. The dead locusts piled up at home were almost stinking. People were very anxious and ran to the trading point to ask the authorities when they would collect the locusts. They also tried to force the trading point to buy or sell them.
Xia Xiaoman also went to the trading point, but she didn't come to sell locusts, but to sell a batch of supplies and exchange for some points. She planned to use these points to purchase a batch of locusts.
It was too much trouble to exchange supplies for locusts, and it was inevitable that others would have other ideas when they saw that she had so many supplies. But if she used points, she could save a lot of trouble.
Xia Xiaoman first bought the locusts caught by Sun Haiyun, and asked Sun Haiyun to convey the news that she wanted to buy the locusts to Chen Peiqiong.
Based on her understanding of Chen Peiqiong, since the locusts have descended and it is impossible to go to the planting area to work, and there are no wild vegetables to pick, Chen Peiqiong will definitely catch locusts to exchange for supplies like everyone else.
Sure enough, the next day, Chen Peiqiong, who received the news, came over carrying a large bag of locust corpses.
"I found a place to weigh them before I came here. There are 150 kilograms of locusts here. I heard from Sun Haiyun that your purchase price is 1 point for every five kilograms of locusts, right?"
Xia Xiaoman nodded. One point can be exchanged for one kilogram of coarse grains at the trading point. This price is not comparable to the price of five kilograms of locusts for one kilogram of rice two years ago, but two years ago, you could still find rice and flour in Fucheng, and now it's good to find some old rice. So five kilograms of locusts for one point is not a small amount.
"Okay, let's exchange it! We'll go to the trading point to redeem the points later." Chen Peiqiong said as she handed the bag full of locusts to Xia Xiaoman.
Xia Xiaoman put the bag away and took out a card reader-like machine from his pocket. "No need to go to the transaction point. I bought a card reader."
She bought this card reader when she applied for a new ID card. By inserting the new ID card, she can read the other party's information and conduct transfer transactions.
The price is not expensive, a card reader is only worth 10 kilograms of grain. However, most people don't want to spend 10 kilograms of grain to buy a card reader. If they want to trade, they can just go to a trading point to trade. There is no need to waste 10 kilograms of grain to buy this thing.
After transferring the points to Chen Peiqiong, Xia Xiaoman casually asked, "Sister Pei, do you know why the higher-ups haven't collected these locusts yet?"
Chen Peiqiong actually knows the answer to this question. "The locusts that appeared in this locust plague are all new species. The authorities are not sure whether these locusts are poisonous, so they have not been collected yet."
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