Extinction Mosquitoes

Chu the Second's carriage rolled into Lanyang Village, and Ma the Fifth personally welcomed her into Mengchun Garden. After opening a bottle of red wine and sharing a drink, Chu the Second handed the newspaper to Ma Junyang. Lanyang Village was remote, so newspapers arrived late; reading the headline, Ma the Fifth was quite taken aback. "The Lu Dongliang at Qianyue Tower was an impostor played by Lu Dongjun?" Ma the Fifth found it hard to believe. "Is this news reliable?" "Reliable or not, the Lu family is already in complete chaos. Didn't you always want the Paramount? Now is the perfect chance." Ma the Fifth gave a wry smile. "Even if an opportunity presents itself, I couldn't seize it. Where would I get the capital right now?" "You don't have it, but I do. I'll provide the money, and you provide the legwork. We'll take over the Paramount together. Help me calculate what kind of price would be appropriate." When it came to business, Ma the Fifth was sharper than anyone. You provide the money, and I provide the legwork? Once the work is done, whose business would it be? Wouldn't it still belong to you? When all was said and done, she was just tricking him into serving as her pack mule. Ma the Fifth had no interest in slaving away for someone else's bridal gown, so he tactfully declined. "You truly think too highly of me. Managing a single village already leaves me at my wit's end. How would I dare meddle in an enterprise that big?" Tucking her chin slightly, Chu the Second looked up at Ma the Fifth with upturned eyes. "Fifth Young Master, I came here in all sincerity to ask you to partner up." Truth be told, she looked rather terrifying like that. Ma the Fifth lit a cigarette to steady his nerves. "Second Miss, I truly believe I'm not up to it." The room fell silent. Wen Hongyan licked her forearm, preparing to resort to force. This was the contingency plan she and Chu the Second had agreed upon: if Ma the Fifth refused to comply, they would take him by force. Knock, knock! A knock sounded on the private room's door. Yang Yanzheng was startled and glanced sideways at the doorway. He sensed danger. Ma the Fifth called out, "Enter." Zeng Jincheng and Cao Zhida pushed the door open and stepped into the room, carrying two bottles of wine and several dishes. "Fifth Master, the wine and food you asked for are ready. We saw the server trembling like a leaf and feared he might spill it all, so the two of us brought it in for you." Ma the Fifth hurriedly gestured with his hand. "Thank you both. Sit down and eat with us." The two cheerfully agreed, but neither took a seat. Ma the Fifth uncorked another bottle of wine and said to Chu the Second, "Second Miss, shall we have another drink?" With a sullen face, Chu the Second said, "Let's settle the matter first. There will be plenty of time to drink once it's settled. Are you coming with me or not?" Ma the Fifth shook his head. "I truly lack the ability." Wen Hongyan's eyes flashed with anger. "Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit! Ma the Fifth, today you leave with us whether you want to or not!" "That's no way to put it!" Zuo Wugang strolled in from outside. "As the saying goes, a guest defers to the host. Our Fifth Master is the master of this house. Whether he wants to leave or not isn't up to anyone else to decide." Seeing Zuo Wugang, Wen Hongyan immediately moved in front of Chu the Second. This was the instinctive reaction of an underworld fighter upon facing a superior expert. "Old Zuo, found a new master so quickly? Wasn't embarrassing yourself enough with the Lu family that you have to come make a fool of yourself with the Ma family?" Wen Hongyan taunted. Zuo Wugang took no offense. "My luck ran out, and I indeed lost face at the Lu family. But Fifth Master doesn't look down on me, and I remember that kindness. If anyone tries to touch Fifth Master, I won't stand for it." Ma the Fifth intervened, "Chief Zuo, there's no need for that. Second Miss and I were just chatting. Come sit down and have a cup of wine first." Zuo Wugang smiled. "Thank you, Fifth Master, but I've been sitting all day and feel stiff. I was just hoping to loosen up my muscles and bones." He refused to sit, remaining standing cheerfully beside Ma the Fifth. This was a warning to Wen Hongyan and Yang Yanzheng: if they wanted a fight, he was ready at any moment. Would they actually fight? Wen Hongyan would almost certainly lose to Zuo Wugang, and Zeng Jincheng and Cao Zhida were more than enough to stall Yang Yanzheng. This was Ma the Fifth's territory. If a stalemate dragged on, Chu the Second would be the one to suffer. Chu the Second was a bit unhinged, but she was not stupid; she could not afford to make a move here. After a long, tense standoff, Chu the Second's face grew pale, and she rose, calling to Wen Hongyan, "Let's go." The group boarded their carriage and departed Lanyang Village. Ma the Fifth summoned Xiao Chuanzi. "Head to Lüshui City and find out what's happening with the Lu family." The following afternoon, Xiao Chuanzi returned. "Fifth Master, something really happened in the Lu family. Everything's in complete turmoil. Lu Maoxian, the patriarch elder of the Lu family, beat Lu Dongjun, and that very night Lu Dongjun led men to the railway station, gave Monkey Qiu a thrashing, and seized a whole shipment of Monkey Qiu's cargo!" "Seized all the cargo? What cargo?" Ma the Fifth had not expected the incident to escalate to such an extent. "Food. Grain destined for Haichiling. Haichiling suffered a disaster, and famine broke out. The Lus, Mas, Hes, and Chus all have considerable business in Haichiling. Afraid of unrest, they were all sending grain there. Lu Dongjun has lost his mind—he not only intercepted Monkey Qiu's grain, but seized the shipments from the other families as well! He dared meddle even with something like that!" "Haichiling suffered a disaster? Has this made the papers?" Ma the Fifth felt this had come too suddenly. The autumn harvest had long since passed; what kind of disaster could have struck Haichiling? "It hasn't made the papers yet, but I heard it's very severe. Many people have already starved to death." Ma the Fifth rubbed his forehead and muttered under his breath, "Chu Huaiyuan, if you still dare set your sights on the Paramount right now, you'll be poking a hornet's nest." *** Inside the He family mansion, He Yuxiu flung her shawl onto the sofa and cursed furiously, "That son of a bitch Lu Dongjun actually dared seize our family's cargo! I'm going to squeeze his yolks out and feed them to the flies!" The previous night, Monkey Qiu had gone to the station to deliver the shipment, only to be blocked right at the entrance by Lu Dongjun. Lu Dongjun had intended to kill Monkey Qiu, but Monkey Qiu had arranged an escape route at the station in advance; suffering minor injuries, he managed to flee. For reasons unknown, Lu Dongjun seized all the cargo waiting to be loaded onto the trains—including the Lu family's, as well as the He, Ma, and Chu families'. This shipment was disaster-relief grain bound for Haichiling, a matter of paramount importance to the entire Puluo Province. Yet Lu Dongjun had brazenly targeted it. "He has lost his mind, completely lost his mind." The head of the He family, He Jiaqing's father, He Haiqin, sat on the sofa shaking his head repeatedly. Even he could not fathom what Lu Dongjun was trying to do. He Yuxiu smoothed her clothes. "I don't care whether he's mad or stupid, I'm going to burn his mansion down right now!" He Haiqin stopped her. "Eldest Sister, don't be hasty. We still can't see the angle here. I'll send men shortly to investigate thoroughly. Lu Dongjun isn't a clever man, but he isn't foolish to this degree either. Even if he isn't afraid of offending the major families, he shouldn't dare offend people from the Outer States. Why he was able to make a scene at the railway station is something we must look into clearly." *** That night, the entire Lüshui City erupted into an uproar. The Ma and Chu families gathered their men, preparing to demand an explanation from Lu Dongjun. Lu Dongjun waited for them at his mansion, but after two days of commotion, no one actually dared show up. Why didn't they come? First, Lu Dongjun was an eighth-layer Martial Cultivator. As long as he was prepared, ordinary men entering his residence would merely be courting death. Second, another major power had remained entirely quiet: the Garrison Commissioner had yet to make any statement. Lu Dongjun had seized the goods at the railway station, and a portion of the disaster-relief grain had been purchased with funds from the Garrison Commissioner. Doing this was tantamount to slapping the Garrison Commissioner across the face. Yet the Garrison Commissioner had shown no reaction whatsoever. This left every major family utterly bewildered. Even Monkey Qiu could not discern Lu Dongjun's intentions. In the early morning, reporters arrived at Lu Dongjun's residence, and Lu Dongjun calmly accepted an interview: "Regarding the grain at the railway station, please rest assured, everyone. I, Lu Dongjun, will certainly deliver this grain to Haichiling. Not only will every single grain be accounted for, but I will also add a token of my own goodwill by doubling the shipment sent over." The reporter was puzzled. "Mr. Lu, then why did you detain the grain in the first place?" "Because the timing of the delivery was wrong," Lu Dongjun explained patiently. "Haichiling has been struck by an insect plague. Bugs are everywhere. Several shipments of relief grain were sent earlier—were they of any use? None at all! The moment the grain touched the ground, the insects devoured it completely; the victims didn't get a single bite. Sending grain now is merely feeding the bugs. When the grain is truly needed later, there won't be any left to offer. How could that be the proper way to provide relief?" Haichiling had indeed been struck by an insect plague, and an extraordinarily rare one at that. These insects were a variety of mosquito—mosquitoes that fed exclusively on grain. In the past, no one would have believed that grain-eating mosquitoes existed in this world. Mosquitoes relied on a needle to suck up food; they simply lacked the biological means to consume grain. Yet this had genuinely come to pass. In Haichiling, a black-skinned mosquito with white spots had appeared. This mosquito did not drink blood, feeding exclusively on grain. Upon hatching from its egg, the mosquito's wriggler fed solely on water fleas, reaching full size within a single day. On the second day it pupated, and on the third day it emerged as an adult and began devouring grain. Taking polished rice as an example, this mosquito could bore a hole into a grain of rice and spit out an acidic secretion, turning the rice from the inside out into liquid starch before sucking it into an empty husk. A single mosquito could consume two grains of rice a day, which might not sound like much. However, by the fourth day, the newly matured mosquitoes could mate, and immediately after mating, they began laying eggs—over a hundred per mosquito. On the fifth day, the mosquito could lay yet another clutch of over a hundred eggs. At such an efficiency, a mosquito with a lifespan of roughly ninety days would spend more than eighty days laying eggs, producing upwards of eight thousand eggs over its lifetime. Could all eight thousand-plus eggs survive? Eighty percent of them could. These mosquitoes were venomous. From their eggs and wrigglers to the adult insects, they were intensely toxic; neither bird, beast, fish, nor insect dared eat them. A creature without natural predators could multiply at a snowballing rate. Throughout Haichiling, these mosquitoes were everywhere. They could smell grain—whether it was rice, millet, wheat, or corn, as long as it was grain, they rejected nothing. Haichiling had tried every conceivable method to combat them, using smoke, laying poison, and in some areas even hiring Poison Cultivators to cast techniques that could kill hundreds of thousands at a stroke. Was it effective? Virtually useless. The figure of hundreds of thousands was negligible to this breed of mosquito. Even if every mosquito in a village were exterminated, vast swarms would fly in from outside the village the very next day to strip the grain bare. Some villages guarded their stores with desperate vigilance, saving a meager amount of grain in hopes that the mosquitoes would vanish once the twelfth lunar month arrived. Who could have imagined that these mosquitoes were impervious to cold? Now that the twelfth lunar month had come, their numbers had barely diminished, and the food supplies of Haichiling were almost entirely consumed. This was the domain of Food Cultivators. If a Food Cultivator went without eating for a single day, they risked losing their life. Across Haichiling, countless people had already perished, and these black-skinned pests were known by all as Extinction Mosquitoes. The reporter asked bluntly, "Mr. Lu, with the Extinction Mosquitoes running rampant and people dying every day in Haichiling, do you intend to just keep waiting like this?" Lu Dongjun shook his head. "Of course I will not just wait. I will mobilize the full might of the Lu family to eradicate this scourge entirely within one month." Click, click! The photographer depressed the shutter repeatedly. This declaration carried immense weight. The various families of Puluo Province had deployed countless resources and had yet to find any way to deal with these mosquitoes, yet Lu Dongjun claimed he would eliminate them completely within a month? The reporter grew tense as well. "Mr. Lu, are you currently the one in charge of the Lu family? Do the words you just spoke represent the stance of the entire Lu family?" Lu Dongjun rose to his feet. "My elder brother entrusted the family's heavy burden to me; this is a solemn trust bestowed upon me by my brother. No matter how petty villains attempt to stir up trouble, my brother's trust in me will not waver. Now that disaster has struck Haichiling, my Lu family will never stand idly by, nor will we merely send a few wagonloads of grain to make a token gesture and then wash our hands of it. I must save Haichiling; I must save the tens of thousands of suffering, starving citizens! This is my Lu family's duty, and it is my, Lu Dongjun's, responsibility!" Click! Lu Dongjun's resolute expression and posture were captured on film. *** Once the reporters had left, Lu Dongjun summoned Wan Jinxian. "Is this method truly reliable?" Wan Jinxian brought over a glass bottle and placed it into Lu Dongjun's hands. "Master, take a look. In this bottle, not a single mosquito survived. This is a measure I exhausted my heart and soul to devise: if one mosquito becomes infected, any mosquito that comes into contact with it will die. Spreading layer by layer, within half a month the mosquitoes of Haichiling will surely be wiped out. When that time comes, you will be the god of Haichiling, and Haichiling will be your domain alone. What is urgent right now is to quickly liquidate our businesses in Lüshui City and turn them all into hard silver and gold. We must relocate; the chaos and petty squabbles of Lüshui City must not hold you back any longer."