Cheng Xiao Xiao’s appearance quickly caught everyone’s attention. Everybody greeted her one after another. Cheng Biyuan saw her as well and called out to her, “Xiao Xiao, quickly, come take a look and see what kind of bugs these are!”
“I’m coming, dad!” She handed her sister over to Yezu and Yecao to look after as she walked over to the field.
What was originally a bright green field only has roots left; all the leaves were already gone. Cheng Xiao Xiao quickly noticed the bright green and meaty bugs. Frankly speaking, it was also the first time she had seen these bugs.
She walked into the middle of paddy, some of the seedlings still had some leaves left on them. One each seedling was a bright green, meaty bug, happily eating away. It only took a few seconds for the bug to eat all of the leaves, leaving only the stem. What was worse was that the meaty bug, soon as it had finished, quickly jumped to the seedling next to it and started feasting again!
Looking at the way it was eating away, Cheng Xiao Xiao couldn’t help but worry that her own family’s rice paddy would become the next victim.
When she returned from the rice paddy, Cheng Biyuan and the lot all looked at her, hoping that she could offer some sort of a solution. After some observation, Cheng Xiao Xiao sighed and shook her head amidst everybody’s hopeful look, “I don’t know what kind of bugs these are either. They looked to be some sort of mutant, they ate way too much.”
“Exactly, maiden Xiao Xiao. We have been farming for dozens of years and this was the first time we have seen anything like it. The worse part of it all was that they were resistant to our bug spray. We had sprayed so much already. But that only slowed them down for a little bit before they resume eating!” said the old patriarch as he frowned.
Cheng Xiao Xiao paused for a bit and frowned. She asked, “You have already applied bug spray?”
“Xiao Xiao, what is the matter?” Cheng Biyuan had noticed something unusual about his daughter.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” said Cheng Xiao Xiao as she shook her head and said, “Dad, I was thinking about calling some mystical bug-eating beast to eat the bugs, but if there were already chemicals on them, I wonder if they will have an adverse effect on the mystical beasts.”
“Aiya!” exclaimed the old patriarch. He smacked himself on his head and said regretfully, “How come I didn’t think about that? We should have went and gotten Xiao Xiao way before now!”
“Then what can we do?” asked another villager urgently. “If there’s nothing we can do about it, we will be out of food. On top of that, judging by the way it looks, I’m afraid it’d move onto other kind of leafy plants. They seem even worse than locust. What are we going to do?!”
“Xiao Xiao, any other ideas?”
Even though Cheng Biyuan was now a powerful martial artist, but he knew almost nothing about plants. He had to resort to asking his daughter.
Ever since Cheng Xiao Xiao had been resolving issues, everyone started looking toward her like she has answers to just about anything. Whenever they run into any sorts of problem, they’d immediately turn to her.
“Dad, Old Patriarch, Uncle Hanlin, calm down. Let me grab a few of these bugs and study them for a bit and see what we can do to get rid of them all. For the time being, gather some people and start collecting these bugs and start a fire to burn them. That ought to kill get rid of them for now!”
Cheng Xiao Xiao thought about it for a little bit. This was a temporary patch for now. She wouldn’t know whether little Yuteng could take care of the bugs until she got back into the dimension.
Everybody nodded in agreement to her suggestion. It wasn’t like they could come up with a better idea for the time being.
Cheng Xiao Xiao grabbed a few of the meaty bugs and hurried back into her living quarter. Soon as she got back, she immediately flashed into the dimension and handed them over to little Yuteng.