Chapter 338: Chapter 331: Caterpillar Rampage_1

“`

He had calculated that by scaling the ridge behind his own house, he could reach the location of the Ancient Banyan Tree and the Ant Nest directly.

The journey would be considerably shorter than before.

It is said that a cunning hare has three burrows.

In the future, his access to the deep mountains would also be more convenient, and he could avoid prying eyes.

In case of a powerful enemy attack, he could even escape directly into the deep mountains.

He was already considering raising some poisonous insects on the mountain behind his house, and planting some aggressive plants as well.

In time, the mountain behind his house would become a forbidden area.

Additionally, he now had a vast area of land for planting various precious medicinal herbs.

Most medicinal herbs are not suitable for planting in fields, but rather in the mountains.

…

In the blink of an eye, eight days had passed.

Only two days remained until his wedding.

The Wang Family had already started purchasing supplies in preparation for the wedding banquet.

The Tang Family was probably making preparations as well.

Qin Niu, on the other hand, was saving trouble by directly enlisting Auntie Hua and Xu Zhenchang to handle the arrangements for him.

It was something that couldn’t be helped, as his family only had Xiao Qing as a servant, without a steward or slaves, nor any other relatives to handle such a grand celebration, and Qin Niu had no experience in such matters.

Auntie Hua and Xu Zhenchang were both pleased to curry favor with Qin Niu.

The opportunity to serve him was met with great pleasure from both, and they handled everything with diligence.

Recently, Qin Niu was so busy with cultivation that the two of them withdrew silver coin quite frequently.

And there was a lot of calculation needed too.

So he simply said to Xiao Qing, “Xiao Qing, please ask Sister Wanyan to come over, I need her help with something.”

It wasn’t long before the white-clad Wang Wanyan floated over.

Not having seen her for several days, she seemed even more beautiful and charming.

“Wanyan, these past few days I’ve asked Auntie Hua and the village head to organize the wedding. There are many items that need to be purchased. I would like you to take charge of the finances, keeping the silver money with you. When they need to withdraw silver money, they will come to you. Is that okay?”

Qin Niu felt that she had a talent for financial management when they went clothes shopping together that day.

After all, they will soon be family, so it would be quite appropriate for her to start playing the role of the lady of the house a bit early.

“Of course I can. But with the multiple expenses involved, aren’t you afraid that I’ll embezzle?”

“Haha, you are mine, what’s the harm in giving you all the silver money? And you are one of the people I trust most. It’s not just a mere hundred taels of silver money—if I gave you all of our entire family’s assets, I’d be completely at ease.”

Qin Niu laughed and gave her a hundred taels of silver money.

A simple wedding could be carried out with just two taels of silver money.

If one were to have a grand celebration, fifteen or sixteen taels would suffice to make it quite spectacular.

But he was not one to skimp, providing a hundred taels for the wedding feast to be used freely.

“Drum and gong troupes, suona bands, all must be complete, and there must be a bridal sedan chair carried by eight, with a banquet done properly. We’ll have a banquet with dishes served like a flowing stream, treating all the villagers of Shuangfeng Village and Daoyuan Village to a day-long feast. Also, we need to hire an opera troupe. There’s only one such occasion in life, I can’t let you or Cai Xian be wronged.”

Qin Niu gave his instructions.

Hiring an opera troupe was a major expense; without at least four taels of silver money, one could not hire anyone.

If one wanted a somewhat famous opera troupe, ten taels would be on the lower end. The appearance fees for some well-known performers started at a minimum of seven or eight taels.

“That’s so much money to spend on the event! Maybe we should skip hiring the opera troupe!”

“Don’t say that, being able to marry you and Cai Xian is a blessing I’ve cultivated over eight lifetimes. This money must be spent. Don’t worry about spending it, the right thing to do is to use up these hundred taels.”

For Qin Niu, the matter of setting up a family was of utmost importance.

“Alright, I’ll listen to you.”

She chose to follow her fiancé’s wishes.

With this settled, Qin Niu could now head into the mountains to cultivate with peace of mind.

Upon reaching the Ant Nest, the young ants he had cultivated using Worker Ants last time had already advanced to the next level.

He discovered that even after advancing, these young ants remained young ants.

He then fed them “Thousand Eyes Tree” Blood, and one by one, they all successfully evolved to have mental control or mental attack abilities.

And the “Thousand Eyes Tree” Blood consumed was very minimal.

After discovering this breeding plan was feasible, Qin Niu gradually expanded his ‘cultivation expert’ operations.

From the initial ten to now a hundred.

He no longer had to worry about breeding termites.

Providing them with enough Ancient Banyan Tree Blood was all that was required.

The Ant Queen reached a stable state around the fifth day, transforming back into an egg-laying machine. At a rate of a thousand eggs per day, she expanded the colony.

However, the newly laid ant eggs had to wait for about twenty-one days before they could hatch.

“`

Qin Niu could only wait patiently.

The Ant Queen was now a grade six queen insect, and the eggs she laid would hatch into progeny of even higher grades.

Moreover, the new ant species would possess advanced self-healing abilities.

This was something worth looking forward to.

If one day he possessed a large number of termites like the Taiyin Yaoyao, fearless of swords and blades, who could swiftly heal even when chopped into eight pieces,

then he should be able to contend with Innate Realm experts using termites alone.

To deal with Spirit Qi Realm experts, besides granting the termites an immortal body, they would also need to possess extremely powerful offensive capabilities.

Merely the aura shield of an Innate Realm was enough to prevent termites from getting close.

Spirit Qi Realm experts could directly create an aura armor, which was even more formidable in defense.

Not to mention ordinary termites, even Fourth didn’t have the ability to bite through an enemy’s aura armor.

Lately, Fourth and the Demon Ants, after feeding on numerous high-grade insect corpses, showed signs of evolving and advancing.

They shouldn’t need much time to level up.

After all, even the Ant Queen had advanced.

Their difficulty in advancing should be far lower than the Ant Queen’s.

However, after consuming the high-grade insect corpses, most were fed to the Ant Queen, and they absorbed only a small portion themselves.

Termites are communal creatures, and they don’t possess selfish desires.

This is something that other animals can hardly compare with.

While observing the termites, a caterpillar fell from the tree.

Covered with black poisonous spines, it was only as thick as a pinky finger and a bit longer than an inch.

It was resilient to the fall; after hitting the ground, it righted itself and quickly crawled forward.

Searching for new tender leaves to eat.

Qin Niu subconsciously looked up at the tree, noticing that the leaves of this camphor tree had been nibbled to the point of being spotted and many leaves were damaged.

Looking at the surrounding trees, they seemed to have also suffered from the caterpillar infestation.

It’s normal for there to be caterpillars in the mountains.

When did so many caterpillars appear?

Previously when the locust plague occurred, Luofeng Mountain wasn’t greatly affected.

Qin Niu believed that the many birds, spiders, and others in the mountains would deal with the locusts.

Added to that, Qin Niu stopped the locusts at the entrance of the village, hence Luofeng Mountain remained unscathed.

The sudden appearance of so many caterpillars in such a short time made him suspect that it might be the work of an enemy.

Upon closer observation, he discovered that there were several species of caterpillars on the trees, not just one.

The most numerous were these black caterpillars.

There were adult and larvae alike.

They ate the tender leaves with abandon.

With time, the caterpillars would spin cocoons and then turn into butterflies.

Some caterpillars undergo the process from egg to butterfly, which includes hatching into a larva, forming a cocoon, becoming a pupa, and emerging from the cocoon as a butterfly, altogether taking about three months, with the longest duration being close to nine months.

Where did all these caterpillar larvae come from?

They couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere.

Could it be that a mass of butterflies laid eggs in the mountains one or two months ago?

Qin Niu spent each day in the mountains practicing or cultivating insects and hadn’t noticed large numbers of butterflies.

“Fourth, lead the swarm to work, clear all the caterpillars in this area.”

These termites really aren’t up to the task.

So many caterpillars have appeared nearby, and yet they allowed the caterpillars to feast on the leaves.

Soon, if the trees die, there will be issues with the termites’ food supply.

The Ant Queen probably didn’t know about the large quantity of caterpillars outside, or else she would have commanded the swarm to protect the trees.

After all, she now possessed advanced intelligence.

Fourth was very brave, leading a large number of termites out. They swiftly climbed the trees and began clearing the caterpillars.

These caterpillars were simply no match for them.

As the battle progressed, Fourth even developed a more efficient method for eradicating caterpillars.

Currently, there were about six thousand Ghost Ants and Puppet Ants with the ability to perform mental attacks.

They didn’t need to approach their targets and could launch attacks directly from the tree trunks.

One by one, the caterpillars, subjected to mental attacks, fell painfully from the trees to the ground, where they were then bitten to death by the Soldier Ants and Worker Ants waiting below.