Chapter 160: Chapter 160: Bug Infestation
Even though they knew there was no antidote for the snake venom, everyone couldn’t help but feel dejected.
Jiang Si and her group had no solution. A single bite meant certain death. This made everyone even more terrified of the snakes on the beach. They also feared that as the temperature rose, the swarms of snakes would spread everywhere.
Zhang Aihua thanked Jiang Si before adding a word of caution, "Miss Jiang, the snakes seem to be getting more active with the rising temperature. You all need to be careful!"
Jiang Si acknowledged her and ended the communication.
At that same moment, Aunt Zhang’s son took his last breath.
A look of agonized resolve flashed across Aunt Zhang’s face. Everyone sighed deeply, knowing that no one could stop her now.
While Zhang Aihua’s group worried that the high temperatures would expand the sea snakes’ territory, Jiang Si’s group had already made a troubling discovery. Once the scent of realgar faded, the sea snakes began trying to climb onto the Icebreaker’s deck. They had to come up with a solution, designing a sprinkler system to spray realgar at regular intervals.
To prevent any mishaps, one person was always assigned to patrol with the monkeys, Little Black, and Big Black, guarding against the possibility that the sea snakes might adapt to the realgar and climb aboard anyway.
But living on such high alert wasn’t a sustainable solution. No one was sleeping well. The moose living in the ship’s hold sensed the threat from the snakes and grew restless, constantly trying to charge out.
Jiang Si began to seriously consider whether they should just move ashore and abandon the ship.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do it when she thought of all the convenient facilities on the Icebreaker.
The temperature had risen, but it was very likely to climb even higher.
If they abandoned the ship, it would quickly become a snake’s nest and be ruined.
The yacht in her spatial storage couldn’t break through ice.
Besides, the ship was still loaded with supplies.
Rather than let it go to waste, it would be better to just haul it ashore.
Just as they were trying to figure out how to drive off the sea snakes, a series of long, piercing cries echoed from the sky.
Jiang Si and the others grabbed their binoculars. They had never been so desperate for the Vultures to show up.
The circling shadows in the sky alerted the swarms of snakes to the danger. But they had to lay their eggs, so they were forced to crawl ashore despite the threat.
The Vultures picked them off one by one, but the beach was still teeming with snakes.
Niu Niu asked worriedly, "Sister, will these Vultures get poisoned to death too?"
The last flock of Vultures were clearly starving. They’d finally found food, but had accidentally punctured the venom sacs and were poisoned as a result.
This time, they were catching live prey. Instinct would guide them to avoid the sea snakes’ fangs and attack their heads. Once the snakes were incapacitated, the Vultures would only eat the meat, so they definitely wouldn’t be poisoned again.
Jiang Si shook her head. "I don’t think so."
She was more worried that once the Vultures had their fill of snakes, they would turn their attention to the humans.
Faced with these mutated creatures, humanity had completely lost its control over the food chain.
Qin Shen noticed Jiang Si’s concern and reassured her, "Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they know what’s on the menu and what isn’t."
Jiang Si smiled. "Right."
’Even if Qin Shen didn’t step in, they still had plenty of weapons. Shooting down the Vultures wouldn’t be much of a problem.’
’She was just being a little greedy, hoping the surrounding ecosystem would reach some level of stability.’
The flocks of Vultures swept across the beach, devouring the snakes and most of their eggs.
Everyone was on edge, worried the Vultures would target them next. But surprisingly, as the ice around the beach melted and the sea snakes were devoured, schools of fish began to thrive in the waters.
With the venomous snakes—which had to surface to breathe—and the sea fish as food sources, the Vultures showed no interest in Jiang Si and her group at all.
After all, animals have an instinct for self-preservation.
Prey their own size was certainly more dangerous than prey smaller than themselves.
Just when Jiang Si thought the ecosystem had reached a point of balance, a new problem emerged.
A species of soft-bodied insect, similar to termites in that they gnawed on everything, appeared.
They first appeared on the radishes, which they were found to devour rapidly.
Everyone hastily gathered the radishes to prevent more from being eaten.
But these insects reproduced at an incredible speed.
They stored the radishes in their temporary wooden cabin, but when they opened the door the next day, they found nearly half had been devoured.
What was even more terrifying was their discovery that the insects had also started gnawing on the cabin’s wooden foundation.
In other words, if this wasn’t controlled, the houses they had worked so hard to build wouldn’t last more than a few days.
Jiang Si collected some of the insects to test whether insecticide would have any effect on them.
As it turned out, the insecticide only killed them temporarily. In less than a single night, hundreds, even thousands of smaller insects would hatch from their corpses.
Their growth rate was also frighteningly fast.
The most outrageous part was that they could even corrode and consume iron.
If these insects got onto the Icebreaker, the entire ship would be in jeopardy.
This put everyone on high alert. Before returning to the ship, they had to meticulously check themselves from head to toe for any insects.
They had originally thought the giant radishes were so big they’d never be able to eat them all.
They couldn’t finish them, all right—because something else was helping them eat.
Zhang Aihua’s group had also discovered these insects. They went to sleep every night worried they’d wake up to find their beds gone, and that they’d have to move back into the caves.
They managed to get by for the first week. By the second, their houses had been chewed down to nothing but scraps.
The radishes in the fields and the grain Jiang Si had given them were not spared either.
Even the meat they had buried in the snowdrifts was devoured.
This forced them to go fishing at sea every single day.
If they didn’t catch anything, they would go hungry.
Zhang Aihua considered asking Jiang Si’s group for help, but she figured they were probably having enough trouble with the insects themselves. All she could do was preserve their few remaining soybeans, chives, rice, and wheat in glass jars, hoping to plant them after this crisis passed.
Jiang Si sprayed their cabin with as much insect repellent as she could, but she couldn’t stop the inevitable. Their little nest, shared with Qin Shen, was gone in less than a month.
The insects were edible, but they were too small, and there were too many to possibly eat.
The monkeys ate them every day now, but even they couldn’t make a dent in their reproductive rate.
’There has to be a natural predator.’
’The natural predator of insects is birds.’
’But the extreme cold had probably frozen most of them to death.’
’And the Vultures wouldn’t deign to eat insects that weren’t even as big as their talons.’
Jiang Si and the others were worried sick.
’Maybe they really would end up living in caves like Zhang Aihua’s group.’
As everyone gathered around the fire grilling fish and trying to come up with a solution, Jiang Si picked up a freshly caught sea fish. It was coated in a layer of frozen seawater, which began to melt rapidly in the warm air.
Suddenly, Jiang Si noticed something. Wherever the seawater dripped, the ubiquitous insects neatly skirted around the spot.
Her eyes widened at the huge discovery.
She quickly tested it again with the fish in her hand, melting more seawater and letting it drip near the insects.
