Ask Sword

"Jun Qianzi is best known for his achievements in engineering and construction.

But he himself likes to study all kinds of insects the most. "

Pu Liuxuan showed a reminiscence expression on his face, and said slowly: "He was fascinated by all kinds of insects. In the first year of school, he used the fee he got for writing articles for Neo-Confucian journals to buy a glass cabinet with a height of one person. In the school dormitory, observe the insect ecology inside.

Later, when he took agronomy class, he specially applied to the teacher for an extra piece of farmland, which was filled with weeds.

When school is over, other students go to Chang'an City to eat, drink and have fun.

He was alone in the garden, holding a large drawing board, humming a little tune, and drawing images of insects.

Ants, bees, butterflies, praying mantises, beetles, and even spiders, dung beetles, and moths that most people hate.

At that time, I lived in the same dormitory with him. Watching him make insect specimens every day, I also received a lot of knowledge by ear.

For example, cicadas can't hear rough sounds at all, but can only hear sharp sounds;

The white-fronted tall spider is docile and well-behaved, and it is a beneficial insect for humans—it is non-toxic and likes to eat cockroaches, flies, moths, and crickets;

When the honeybee hive is invaded by wasps, the bees will swarm up, wrap the wasps into a ball, and roast the latter alive by the heat;

He often told me that seemingly weak, dull, and ignorant insects are far more intelligent than people think.

Without the maggots that decompose corpses, and the dung beetles that decompose dung, our world would not be long before it would be filled with filth.

Without the pollinating flies and bees, our world would soon be without flowers, without fruit, and without growing food.

Insects abide by the rules, and in order to survive and reproduce, they can make sacrifices and efforts that humans cannot. "

Pu Liuxuan paused, then said: "He likes insects very much, and at the same time he also loves the State of Yu and the people of the State of Yu.

Therefore, when floods and droughts occur frequently, he chooses to put aside his hobbies and devote himself to construction projects that he doesn't really like. "

Li Ang was thoughtful. These detailed information can only be obtained from Pu Liuxuan, Jun Qianzi's former confidant and friend. The traces left by Qianzi.

"Let's go back to that expedition to the 100,000 Barren Mountains,"

Pu Liuxuan sighed and said, "At that time we had just cured a flood and were about to graduate from the academy, it was the time when we were young and frivolous and full of ambition.

Relying on his cultivation at the Xunyun Realm, and disregarding the rules of the school, he left behind a barren guide and secretly explored deeper into the Hundred Thousand Barren Mountains.

As a result, not surprisingly, we got lost. "

He spread his hands and said: "The deeper the barren mountain goes, the heavier the barren atmosphere becomes.

Each tree is at least thirty feet high, and the canopy is densely covered with blood-sucking vines, and there are hundreds of man-eating birds hovering above the canopy.

There are countless poisonous insects hidden in the grass, and a small drop of venom is enough to kill an entire town.

In the stream lies a giant golden python, with patterns on its body that look like giants with one eye,

There are strange and incomprehensible outliers everywhere.

Since the sky is blocked by the tree canopy, we don't even know how long the outside time has passed, we only know that we have been wandering in the dense forest for a long time. I didn't see many wonders, but half my life was lost. "

Pu Liuxuan pulled up his cuffs, showed Li Ang the dense old scars on his arms, and said in a complicated tone: "We once thought that we would die in the barren mountains,

They even made an agreement half-jokingly that if someone died, another person would have the right to dispose of his body and get out by eating jerky—this should be one of the few reliable sources of food deep in the barren mountains.

Suddenly, we found an ant nest. "

"The ant nest was made of sand and was as high as four or five stories.

Surrounded by many strange beasts with wounded heads and bleeding, exuding a powerful aura.

If calculated according to the standards of the Academy, each of them is a first-class monster, which is enough to set off a bloody storm in the Yu country, and break through thousands of troops like entering a land without people.

However, they just looked at each other vigilantly, and just stayed quietly around the ant nest, as if they were queuing up. "

"Jun Qianzi and I were overwhelmed by the momentum around us. We didn't dare to move. We stayed where we were and observed carefully. But we found that the beasts approached the ant nest in turn, knelt down on the ground, and let groups of ants climb up their bodies .”

"The ants suck the pus and blood from the body of the beast, use natural silk thread to sew up the wound of the beast, and even clean up the dirt and parasites on the beast's body. The whole process is silent and orderly."

"It was only then that Jun Qianzi and I realized that this place turned out to be a 'peaceful zone' in the barren hills. The alien beasts reached an agreement with the ants. The ants provided the alien beasts with medical and sanitation services, while the alien beasts had to protect the ant nest. Safety.

The weak ants have reached a cooperation with the powerful beasts. "

"When Jun Qianzi and I approached the ant nest, the ants also climbed onto our bodies. They stitched up our wounds, cleaned up the bugs on our bodies, and even provided clean honey water."

"I was amazed by the wonders in front of me, but Jun Qianzi, who loves insects, noticed something deeper."

"The millions of ants living in this ant nest are not of the same race, but more than 300 kinds of ants. This is very rare. In Jun Qianzi's cognition, ants pass through Smell communication, different types of ants don’t kill each other, let alone live together.”

"In addition, he also noticed that different types of ants in the ant nest come from all over the world, and each type of ant has its own division of labor and positioning."

"Leafcutter ants, native to the South China Sea, cut off leaves in barren mountain forests, use the leaves to grow fungi, and feed larvae;

The big-headed ants, native to the Central Plains, are responsible for building nests and cleaning up gravel and fine sand in the nests;

The weaver ants native to Tianzhu are responsible for spitting out silk threads;

Honey ants native to the Western Regions are responsible for storing honey juice;”

"This surprised Jun Qianzi very much. What surprised him even more was that there lived in the ant nest a black stink ant that was native to the Endless Sea and was brought back to the Central Plains by the Academy's scientific research team two hundred years ago."

"This kind of stink ant has a very developed odor organ, which can secrete different smells to express different meanings. You should have seen this in the book "Taxonomy of Alien Animals". Dr. Doer was the first to discover this kind of ant , calling it 'the smartest ant'.

Before he brought the stink ants back to Yu country, there was absolutely no such ants on land.

And their positioning in the giant ant nest is the mind—the stink ants are evenly distributed throughout the ant nest, secreting odors with different meanings, and commanding and coordinating all the ants. "

"Based on the volume of the ant nest, the construction speed of the worker ants, and the depth of the ant nest extension under the ground, Jun Qianzi determined that the history of this ant nest is no more than 170 years. There is a correspondence between the two, so the answer is obvious. .”

"Man's voyage and exploration activities have brought different kinds of ants to the depths of the barren mountains. These weak ants have to survive in the human kingdom. A heavy rain, a wheel that is run over, and water poured by a naughty boy, all It is enough to destroy their ant nests. Not to mention the depths of the dangerous barren mountains."

"However, when all the ants are gathered together, the division of labor and cooperation between them is enough to make the strange beast submit."