Chapter 30: The Locusts Are Here
Sun Simiao sat on the ground, his hands trembling as he tried to grab Yun Ye’s sleeve. He tried twice, but failed to grab it. The words “locust plague” seemed to have drained all his strength.
Zhuang San and the others looked at Yun Ye, who had gone crazy, and felt only their heads buzzing. The world, the sky, and the trees seemed to be rapidly moving away from them, leaving only the tiny self in the darkness.
“After a great disaster, there will be a great plague. My emperor, are you prepared to face the plague? It is the hottest time of the year, the best time for the plague to spread. Are you prepared to cordon off your own people? After this disaster, will you still have the ability to conquer the Turks? You were just lucky to be able to kill Xie Li.”
The endless cursing finally stopped.
Yun Ye sat on the ground, his head buried in his knees, and he didn’t speak.
The forest was quiet again, and the squirrel peeked out from under the tree, looking at the seven listless monsters below with caution.
Sadness always spreads, just as happiness is contagious. The squirrel was probably praying at this time that the monsters would not take away his pine cones, looking melancholy and sad.
“Yun Hou, now is not the time for you to run away. You are the Marquis of the Great Tang, and you must naturally shoulder your responsibilities. Let’s go back, now.” Sun Simiao found the strength to drag Yun Ye up.
“My lord, I will carry you out of the mountains even if I have to carry you on my back. The whole village is waiting for you to save them.” Zhuang San-ting kicked the other four people up and said to Yun Ye urgently.
He had full confidence in his lord, and always thought that Yun Ye could turn the tide at the most critical juncture.
Yun Ye looked at Zhuang Santing strangely. He himself had no confidence, and he didn’t know where his confidence came from.
“Of course nothing is wrong with the village. What do you think I’m doing by letting them release chickens and ducks all over the mountains and fields? I want the chickens and ducks to eat all the locusts in the fields. When I came here, I saw that there were locusts in our village, but not as many as in other places. But this thing has wings, and our family doesn’t have them. If the bugs in other people’s fields eat up all their crops, they will come and eat ours. This is an unsolvable problem.”
“What should we do? The grain on our farm…” Zhuang San stopped crying. A man who had not cried after being stabbed nine times on the battlefield was now crying like a baby.
“What the hell are you crying about? What if we run out of grain on our farm? We still have chickens, ducks, and geese, and every household has a pig. We won’t starve to death. Before I left, I told Lao Qian not to collect eggs for a while, and to let the farmers exchange them for grain. It’s no problem to get through the famine. What’s wrong with a man crying like a baby in the postpartum period?” Yun Ye’s righteous reprimand completely forgot that he had just cried like a baby in the postpartum period.
Lao Sun suddenly calmed down, tidied up the herbs in his basket, picked up his hoe and headed back. Yun Ye had no choice but to follow him. It would be better to kill him than to let Lao Sun see the disaster victims in Guanzhong doing nothing while he was doing nothing.
Lao Sun suddenly turned around and patted Yun Ye’s shoulder, saying, “I also believe in you. When it comes to using me, I will give you my life if it means you can get through this disaster.”
The venting just now made Yun Ye feel a lot more relaxed. Before the disaster came, there was still fear, but now that it has become a reality, there is nothing to be afraid of. No matter how scared you are, the disaster will not stop on its own.
The ease and joy of entering the forest was gone. Lao Sun had never treated Yun Ye as a human being. They had been climbing mountains and crossing rivers all the way, and the five-day journey was almost over in two days. They had reached the edge of the forest, where the trees were getting sparser and sparser, and there were more and more traces of humans.
Yun Ye’s legs were swollen, but Lao Sun only gave him acupuncture and massage every night. Yun Ye could always barely catch up the next day. He regretted why he had persuaded Lao Sun to go deeper into the forest.
There were many people at the edge of the forest, and they all saw Lao Sun and Yun Ye as relatives. Liu Xian grabbed Yun Ye and wouldn’t let go, his eyes red with tears, saying, “Your Majesty summons you to return to the capital at once.”
Liu Xian told him that since the news came three days ago, disasters had occurred almost simultaneously in 27 states in Guanzhong. Locusts had emerged from the riverside, the river channels, and the reed fields, and had even formed groups. The earliest news came from Tongguan, and then urgent reports from other states and counties followed.
The magistrate of Zhouzhi County, Wu Jie, in order to prevent the locusts from spreading to other counties, ordered the burning of fields, so that the crops and locusts in the entire county would perish together.
Yun Ye said nothing, just sitting in the carriage as Liu Xian drove him to the capital. Sun Simiao was also in the carriage, looking out at the scenery without saying a word.
It was strange that Yun Ye could hear the roar of an airplane taking off, getting closer and closer. He was about to see if anyone else had been sent to the Tang Dynasty by airplane, so that he could welcome them, but he heard the driver scream in horror: “Locusts are coming!”
A yellow cloud of dust was rapidly approaching Yun Ye and the others on the horizon. Millions of locusts the size of a finger spread their wings and danced in the air, creating a huge roar similar to that of an airplane taking off, and covering everything in a blanket of dust.
In the face of this natural disaster, Sun Simiao, whose heart was as calm as water, turned pale, Liu Xian, who was brave and invincible, was trembling with fear, and the coachman, who wanted to bury his head in the ground, stuck his buttocks up high, and the horse, unable to stop moving, kept stomping its hooves in place.
Yun Ye loosened the brake on the carriage, and the two panicked horses galloped away in the direction where the locusts had not come.
He tore off the lining of his clothes and wrapped his head and face tightly in layers, leaving only his mouth and eyes. He also wrapped cloth strips around his hands, and then tied the collar, sleeves, and trouser legs tightly, so that the panicked old Sun and Liu Xian did the same.
Just as they were about to crouch down with their heads covered, they felt as if they were in the center of a sandstorm, with thick stones constantly hitting their bodies, causing them to feel a vague pain. Yun Ye knew that this was the locusts hitting their bodies, but he dared not open his eyes.
The impact continued for half an hour before gradually subsiding. When he no longer felt the impact, Yun Ye opened his eyes and looked at the unfamiliar land and laughed bitterly.
The green earth seemed to have been covered in a yellow coat, and there were wriggling locusts everywhere. From time to time, broken branches fell from the tall tree crowns, and the fat branches that had fallen into mid-air quickly lost weight and became thin. When they hit the ground, only bare branches without bark remained.
The rustling sound of silkworms nibbling on mulberry leaves could be heard in the fields on both sides of the road, but it was much louder and the nibbling was much more powerful than that of silkworms, which was creepy.
Several locusts were climbing on each crop, and the tender green veins were gone in an instant. Large swathes of farmland that were expected to be a bumper harvest had become a feeding ground for locusts.
Liu Xian knelt on the ground, muttering to himself. It was hard to make out what he was saying, but every now and then he could be heard to say, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Sun Simiao looked at the locusts nibbling on the herbs in his basket and his eyes welled up with tears.
Only Yun Ye took off a locust crawling on his body, feeling the powerful thighs of the locust, and said, “Well, it’s very fat, ten are enough to satisfy a person.”