Chapter 916 You Guys Figure It Out
The Heavenly Lord's grave tone immediately clued in Gao Chuwu and Xing Honglang.
Such rigorous precautions could only mean one thing: this was immensely powerful stuff.
Neither dared to delay. They quickly sent the orderly to take Gao Zhengjing away, then donned thick clothing. They even found two large glass covers to wear over their heads...
It was the best protection their era could offer. The Puppet Heavenly Lord specifically inspected them, instructing them to seal the gaps between the glass covers and their necks with strips of cloth. These strips, while rudimentary, would provide some filtering effect, making do.
Only then did he slowly place a Nongfu Spring bottle cap, filled with diluted neem extract, before them.
Gao Chuwu: "Oh? Is the Heavenly Lord bestowing upon us more Happy Fat Water?"
Xing Honglang: "The Heavenly Lord made us protect ourselves so thoroughly before giving us this water. Clearly, it's poison. Is your first thought really Happy Fat Water? Are you an idiot?"
Gao Chuwu: "That's right, I am an idiot."
Xing Honglang: "..." "Alright, her teasing couldn't sway Gao Chuwu. This, she realized, was 'formlessness triumphs over technique.' Xing Honglang had to concede."
Having dealt with all sorts of illicit goods during her days as a salt smuggler, Xing Honglang was no stranger to poisons. She immediately grasped the situation. "I understand, Heavenly Lord! We will, under strict protective measures, decant this poison into jars and dispatch it to the areas plagued by locusts."
"To use this, it would be best to spray it from the sky..."
Li Daoxuan sighed. "However, you lack the means to spray it from the sky. Hot air balloons aren't reliable for this task either. Therefore, you'll have to rely on manual spraying. I trust you'll find your own ways to overcome this challenge."
Xing Honglang's spirits lifted. She cupped her fists. "How can we always rely on the Heavenly Lord for everything? Please watch our performance this time."
The Puppet Heavenly Lord nodded...
With a series of thuds, he provided Gao Chuwu and Xing Honglang with several more large bottle caps full of the pesticide. He also placed the pre-printed instructions for use before them.
Then, shifting his perspective, he offered Wu Shen, Fan Shangzheng, and Bai Yuan each a portion of the pesticide and distributed the instruction manuals.
Henan, Luoyang, the Governor's Yamen.
"My lord, we've caught the locusts you requested."
Several household servants rushed in from outside, carrying a cloth sack. Something inside writhed, constantly distorting the small bag's shape.
Fan Shangzheng stared at the bag, a look of disgust on his face. "This official asked you to catch a few locusts, not a whole bag! Isn't that disgusting?"
The servant grinned, tilting his head. "It's not so bad, really. When they're not in swarms, they're just overgrown grasshoppers. Not that gross. I used to catch grasshoppers all the time when I was little."
Fan Shangzheng: "Fine, bring one over. This official will test it."
The servant opened a small slit in the cloth bag, reached in, and pulled out a massive locust, bringing it before Fan Shangzheng.
Fan Shangzheng glanced at the fiercely struggling locust, wrinkling his brows in distaste.
He turned to another servant. "Bring forth the divine medicine bestowed by the Heavenly Lord."
The servant, with an expression of profound piety, reverently held out a small porcelain bottle.
This was the insecticide that Fan Shangzheng's men had "decanted." Treating it as celestial elixir, they handled it with utmost caution during repackaging, not daring to spill a single drop or get it on themselves.
Everyone wore protective gear, carefully using the wooden ladles typically employed by oil peddlers to transfer the "divine medicine" into bottles and jars.
Fan Shangzheng carefully uncorked the small porcelain bottle, tilted it, and let a single drop of the "divine medicine" fall onto the large locust.
This substance could instantly kill locusts when atomized. Drip an entire drop on one, and what would happen?
The locust struggled violently, then, in mere moments, stiffened and became motionless.
Fan Shangzheng was filled with both joy and alarm—joy at the medicine's potency, and alarm for the very same reason.
"The celestial elixir is truly extraordinary; locusts die upon contact," Fan Shangzheng declared. "You've all witnessed how potent this divine medicine is. Should anyone accidentally ingest it..."
The servants were drenched in sweat. "We wouldn't dare."
"Under no circumstances should it touch your skin!" Fan Shangzheng commanded. "Memorize the Heavenly Lord's instructions for use one hundred times, then each of you will take ten buckets and proceed to the various counties to poison the locusts."
"My lord, how are we supposed to spray this medicine onto the locusts in the sky?"
Fan Shangzheng: "Do you expect this official to think of everything? What good are you then?"
And so, the leaders passed the buck down to the next level of implementers, who, naturally skilled in the same art, passed it further down to the lowest strata of the working people.
The lowest strata of the working people, with no one left to pass the buck to, had no choice but to activate their ingenuity... What followed was a moment for witnessing miracles.
All sorts of strange devices began to emerge.
Some poked numerous fine holes in one end of a thick bamboo pole, poured the poison into the tube, and used a plunger to push it out. Fine streams of poisoned water would then spray forth—a capillary-action version of a bamboo water gun.
Others climbed onto hillsides, and when the wind picked up, they would scatter the poisoned water from the summit, letting it drift downwind. Of course, this method required ensuring no one was downwind.
Still others, with a stroke of genius, heated the poison in a large wok, hoping to evaporate it into a mist that would float into the sky... The result was that the mist lost its toxicity, utterly failing to kill the locusts. It was a failed attempt.
The militia's hot air balloons were also borrowed by the villagers, who then used bamboo water guns to spray downwards from high altitudes. However, when the locust swarms arrived, they blotted out the sky, forcing the hot air balloons to fly exceptionally high to avoid being attacked by the locusts. But flying so high meant the poisoned water drifted off course as it fell, becoming another failed attempt.
These various makeshift and haphazard methods were, of course, less effective than modern aerial spraying. Yet, with collective determination, they still managed to achieve some results.
In the southeastern Shanxi and northwestern Henan regions, the locust plague was gradually brought under control.
As for southeastern Henan...
The Gao Family Village's star reporter, Miss Zhou Daya, the Flower Queen, who had brought back the most valuable video footage, once again arrived at Gubai Ferry.
Today marked another day for delivering food to Lao Huihui. The Flower Queen once more volunteered to go to the front lines to record precious video.
The people of Gao Family Village had already had multiple encounters with Lao Huihui. A certain level of trust had been established between both sides; gone were the days of tension, replaced by casual conversation.
Lao Huihui cupped his fists. "Instructor Jiang, Miss Zhou, Henan has been suffering from a locust plague recently. My army has been harassed by swarms several times, leaving us quite disheveled. How are things on your end at Xiaolangdi?"
Jiang Cheng smiled. "Thank you for your concern. Things are well on our side; we've largely avoided the disaster."
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