Chapter 38: Locust Plague (Part 2)

"Sound? How did this official not hear it?"

Chi Nan Yi glanced at him and couldn't help thinking to herself: Why is this Lord Xie so long-winded? Is this the time to be looking into such matters?

Ever since awakening her space, she found that her perception of everything around her—whether taste, touch, or hearing—had become far more acute than before.

Naturally, she could hear sounds earlier than others.

"Light the fires!"

As the words fell, dozens of torches were thrown into the fields one after another. Seeing the torches thrown at the village entrance, the people in the distant fields followed suit and hurled their torches out as well.

In an instant, Yuping Village was engulfed in firelight.

It was as if a high wall built of flames, the firelight illuminated the entire sky. Just then, a villager pointed at the dark, dense mass in the distance and said in alarm, "That… that's…"

"Mother of heaven! Locusts! Locusts filling the sky!"

"The locusts have really come!"

"They're here! They're really here!"

Having lived in this area for so many years, they had never seen so many locusts before, and for a time all of them were terrified.

Chi Nan Yi watched with a grave expression as the locusts blotted out the sky and covered the earth in the distance. As the locusts drew nearer, people's hearts rose into their throats.

Flames blazed up, thick smoke drifted, and the wind that had been blowing gradually died down. Those locusts crashed into the thick smoke, and the crackling sounds accompanied by the stench of burning reached their noses.

Everyone stared intently at the other side of the curtain of fire. After a long time, not a single locust flew out from behind that wall of fire.

After a while, the fire gradually died down, but the number of locusts was enormous, and an endless stream of locusts kept flying toward them. The medicinal powder had mostly evaporated by now, and exterminating the remaining locusts would not be so easy.

"Add more fire!"

As Chi Nan Yi's words fell, everyone threw out firewood, and the flames that had just weakened slightly blazed up once more.

The great fire burned through the entire night, only gradually dying down the next morning. Though they had not stopped all the locusts, they had eliminated the greater part of them. The other villages followed the same method, and it would not be long before the locust plague could be completely eradicated.

Chi Nan Yi wiped the soot from her face. Despite not having slept all night, her eyes still shone bright.

"Wonderful! Wonderful! Truly wonderful!" Xie Yuwei said with a smile. "With this method, there won't be a total crop failure." He bowed to Chi Nan Yi once more: "I, Xie, thank you here, miss. I still have official duties to attend to, so I shall take my leave first. I will certainly call at your door in the future to express my gratitude."

After Xie Yuwei left, Zhao Xifeng walked up to Chi Nan Yi and said with a smile, "Girl Chi, we owe it all to you this time! If not for you, who knows what our village would have become. With so many locusts devouring everything, our village would likely have had a total crop failure. Without grain and without silver, the people of our village would never have survived this winter. You've saved the lives of our entire village!"

"That's right, Girl Chi, your auntie here must thank you properly."

The villagers all gathered around Chi Nan Yi expressing their gratitude, except for Zhao Shi, who snorted coldly: "I'm dead tired. Tell me, our village's crops are all harvested, so why did we have to go help other villages harvest their grain? And go up the mountain to chop firewood? It's nothing more than—our grain is already stored away, so even if there's a locust plague, they'd just go ravage other villages' crops. We're here working ourselves to death while the villages behind us sit back and enjoy the fruits. Why should we?"

Hearing this, everyone fell quiet, and upon careful thought, it did indeed seem to make sense.

They had exhausted themselves working for a day and a night here—wasn't that just doing the heavy lifting for the villages behind them? Put that way, what Zhao Shi said did seem to have some reason to it.

"It does seem to be the case."

"We toiled for nothing."

Seeing that some people supported her, Zhao Shi lifted her chin even higher: "I said it from the start—you've all been duped by this girl!"

Wen Zhilan shielded Chi Nan Yi behind her and said loudly, "Zhao Shi, you can't put it that way. Yi'er told you all to harvest your crops, and you benefited from it. Now that you've put in a little effort, you stand here making snide remarks. Is that any way to behave?"

"What I'm talking about isn't the harvesting, it's being made to do all those useless things for an entire day yesterday…"

"Useless things?" Chi Nan Yi gave a cold laugh. "Auntie Zhao, you think everything I had you do was useless?" Her gaze swept over the villagers standing together with Zhao Shi—they presumably shared the same thoughts as Zhao Shi.

"Beyond foolish."

"What did you say?"

"Auntie Zhao thinks everything I had you do was useless. Have any of you considered—if we ignore the other villages and let their crops be devoured clean by locusts, leaving them with nothing, what good does that do us? Auntie Zhao, you don't think that with grain prices rising, you could make a little silver, do you!"

Chi Nan Yi's words struck right at Zhao Shi's heart.

She had indeed wanted to seize the opportunity to make a tidy sum of silver.

"So what if I did? We can't earn much silver all year round. With such a good opportunity, why should we let it pass?"

"An opportunity? An opportunity to make silver, or a sickle that reaps lives? If the other villages have a total crop failure, then what fate awaits those who do have grain? It would be a mercy if they don't grind your bones to dust! People will do anything to survive. When that time comes, not only will our grain be robbed, we might even lose our lives. I suppose Auntie Zhao has never heard the tale of 'when the lips are gone, the teeth are exposed to the cold.'"

Hearing her say this, everyone suddenly understood.

That's right!

When that time came, it would be far more serious than simply going hungry.

Zhao Shi couldn't help but feel a lingering fear, yet for the sake of face she still refused to back down.

"If you ask me, you're just fear-mongering!"

"Whether it's fear-mongering or not, Auntie Zhao knows in her own heart." Chi Nan Yi smiled. "But after this incident, I've got a clear picture now. Rest assured, Auntie Zhao—if there's ever such a thing again, I simply won't inform you."

Wen Zhilan spat at Zhao Shi: "Pah! Can't tell a good heart from a bad one."

"You!" Zhao Shi glared at Wen Zhilan and turned away, fuming: "What tale, what lips and what cold—just using a bit of learning to bully people."

Zhao Xifeng waved his sleeve with some displeasure: "Long hair, short sight."

He smiled at Chi Nan Yi and said, "Girl Chi, you've performed a great service this time. If your Chi Family ever needs anything in the future, just say the word. Every household in our village is grateful for your kindness!"

Just then, a voice from the space sounded in her mind.

"Congratulations, Host. Merit increased! Space upgraded. Medicine field and farmland planting area doubled."

Increasing merit also helped upgrade the space. In that case, as long as she did more good deeds, the hidden functions within this space could be unlocked little by little.

With the divine artifact of the space, becoming the wealthiest person was just around the corner!