Chapter 539: Chapter 539
"There are no eternal friends or enemies in the world, only eternal interests. As long as we tie our interests together, we will be everlasting friends. You won’t have to worry about your identities being exposed anymore because if you’re exposed, my own interests would be harmed..." Jing Shu smiled, revealing her white teeth. "Isn’t it simple?"
"But... do we have the same interests?" Wen Jun thought carefully; it seemed like they didn’t.
"Of course, we do. Think about it, what are you lacking most right now? Isn’t it daily necessities, salt, vitamins, bedding, and cotton clothing? Wouldn’t it be perfect if you could eat some vegetables and white rice every now and then, maybe even drink some milk or eggs?" Jing Shu asked, her eyes narrowed.
Xiao Wei nodded. "I want to eat. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything. There’s nothing else to eat in the village apart from insects," she said, a bit of biscuit crumb still on her mouth.
"Ah? You don’t eat?" Jing Shu was surprised.
"Yes, the Snail Queen feeds herself, eating the mud in the fields. We share nutrition since we are one, so naturally, I don’t need to eat anymore. But if there is food, I would also like to eat."
Wen Jun cautiously asked, "We certainly want those things, but what do you want in exchange for them?" He had a hunch.
Jun Bao inwardly lamented being a step too late, but the corners of his mouth lifted slightly as he squinted. The outcome would be the same: in the end, Wu City would consume the supply, which would sustain even more people.
"Of course, it’s a large number of Abdominal Foot Worms. You said the worms mature in just one month, and the Snail Queen is constantly eating and laying eggs every day. By now, you should have quite a few, right? How much can such a small village consume? Isn’t it a waste to have so many? It’s better to exchange that unpalatable insect meat for those delicacies. Don’t you want eggs? Don’t you want rice?"
Xiao Wei swallowed and nodded affirmatively. Ever since she became an insect, she’d had the desire to eat everything.
"Then it’s settled. We’ll exchange things for mutual benefit, and if we help each other, we have no reason to expose you, right? Otherwise, we would be damaging our own interests," Jing Shu said with a smile. Good, this would lessen the burden on Qian Duoduo a bit. Without people starving, what reason would the tyrant have to exploit them anymore?
Jing Shu thought to herself. Wait a minute, the tyrant... Jun Bao... Could there be any connection between them? No, that couldn’t be. Jun Bao is so weak and incompetent—a gentle and educated person, a chatterbox who is meddlesome, compassionate, and so positive. How could he be that brutal tyrant who sounds cold-hearted and merciless, a man who killed hundreds of thousands without blinking an eye? Their ages and personalities don’t match, and neither do their backgrounds. In my previous life, the tyrant should have taken office around this time, especially since Jin Tianci died. But because of my butterfly effect in this life, the tyrant might not take office. Still... it doesn’t seem likely. Not at all.
Jing Shu hadn’t delved deep into this thought when she was interrupted.
"Hold on!" Wen Jun was conflicted. "Who knows if you’re just talking sweetly now, only to turn around and send people to wipe us out, capture Xiao Wei, torture her, and make her endlessly breed Abdominal Foot Worms? You could get everything without paying any price..." The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed, and the warier he became.
Jing Shu rolled her eyes. "Are you stupid? If we really did that, wiped you out, wouldn’t Xiao Wei just kill herself? If she did that, she couldn’t breed the worms, so what would we gain?" Jing Shu was also thinking ahead: if the tyrant still wanted to exploit them, she would have Xiao Wei threaten to kill herself.
"Right." Wen Jun laughed; it seemed they really had found something mutually beneficial. "But how many Abdominal Foot Worms do you want? We never wanted to breed too many, so the eggs laid each day are frozen in the incubation room. We only hatch a very small fraction of them, perhaps one out of every twenty or thirty, to maintain our daily consumption."
"Can you take us to see the bug alleys and the incubation room? That way, I can determine how much insect meat you can provide, and how many daily necessities we need to offer in return. Also, I’d like to take a look at that Black Water you mentioned, Xiao Wei, if it’s convenient for you?" Jing Shu looked at Xiao Wei’s lower half—her abdomen was as massive as a bed, which might make it difficult for her to move. Perhaps, like the Ant Queen, she was immobile.
"Sure, sure, I’ll take you to the bug alleys. The people in the village are too scared to go there." Xiao Wei snapped her fingers, and four gigantic Abdominal Foot Worms with huge pincers emerged from four sides, lifting her with their pincers.
Xiao Wei’s upper body remained very stable. She had already adapted to this mode of transport.
Here, Xiao Wei was the true queen.
Wen Jun, holding a flashlight, followed. Jing Shu and Jun Bao kept close, placing Yang Yang on the ground and kindly covering him with a blanket.
The Abdominal Foot Worms came in several varieties. Some were specifically for fighting and defending the queen. Others were for feeding the queen; if there was no food, they would offer themselves as sustenance—these insects also transmitted sperm while feeding the queen. Some were for foraging, and others for cleaning and digging the bug alleys. Each type looked different.
The fighters had enormous pincers and incredible strength. The sperm-transmitters possessed specialized tubular mouthparts. Those that dug the bug alleys had excavator-like mouthparts, were of huge build, and possessed good stamina.
The bug alleys were like a huge maze. The Abdominal Foot Worms shuttled back and forth, each performing its duty, all with one purpose: to serve the queen.
Wen Jun said, "There are currently 30 fighting types, over 80 sperm-transmitters, more than 300 responsible for foraging, about 30 diggers, and 50 immature ones. The lifespan of these Abdominal Foot Worms is generally short, with some lasting only one or two months. The ones that live longer still haven’t died..."
He looked at Xiao Wei with some concern. "It’s also unclear how long the Insect Queen’s lifespan is."
Xiao Wei waved her hands dismissively and turned her head to reassure him. "An Ant Queen can live for twenty years." She then started counting on her fingers. "Let’s provide you with insect meat from the foragers. Their meat is firm, grows quickly, and there’s plenty of it. All thirty-six legs are edible, and one unshelled insect weighs about forty thousand kilograms. Oh right, do you want them shelled or..."
"No need to shell them, we want them alive," Jing Shu interjected, her mind already working cleverly. "The shells are edible too—food is so precious now! Later, we can crush the shells with the meat, sprinkle some salt and flour, and mold them into meatballs. Just like that, another meat dish!" Official source ıs 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⁂𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⁂𝘯𝘦𝘵
Jing Shu looked at the insects scurrying below and found them quite endearing.
"By the way, if you let them breed freely, how many can you cultivate in a month?"
Xiao Wei first led them to the incubation room next door, which connected to a small pavilion in the village.
"Normally, we can reproduce 450 in a month, but now the incubation room holds 2,500 eggs. However, the insects’ appetite is also large, and the surrounding mud pits are limited in number, so we can currently only mature up to 1,000 insects a month."
Jing Shu quickly started to calculate. The number was beyond her expectations. This was wonderful!