Reborn before the famine, kicking away the scumbag's family and living a carefree life.

25. Locusts

When Su Jinru ran home, she found that both children were already asleep.

In those days, there were no electric lights and little entertainment, so children went to bed early and would fall asleep on their own when it got dark.

According to the timeline from my previous life, the locusts will arrive in two days.

Su Jinru had been struggling with how to save the locust plague, but now she realized that she was powerless to do anything about it.

Knowing that there was nothing I could do actually brought me a sense of peace.

Su Jinru did what she was supposed to do step by step.

Even on the day the locusts were about to arrive, after lunch, Su Jinru still let her two children go to school as usual.

At 1:52 PM, while the children were in school, the villagers were repairing ditches.

Suddenly, the sky, which had been clear just moments before, darkened, and everyone looked up at the sky in unison.

A dark cloud, obscuring the sky, loomed overhead, drawing ever closer.

"It's a flying insect!" someone exclaimed.

As they drew closer, people finally recognized them: "They're locusts!"

"How did so many locusts come?"

Amidst screams of alarm, swarms of locusts, their wings fluttering and buzzing, rushed towards us, landing in the fields, on the roadside grass, and crawling rapidly on the trees…

Then, it made a swishing sound, like the sound of gnawing on a plant.

Everyone was stunned.

There were so many locusts, tens of thousands of them, covering the ground completely.

Su Jinru shouted, "The locusts will eat all our food! We need to catch them quickly! Captain, send a few people back to get bags and basins to catch the locusts. Go to the broadcasting station and use the loudspeaker to tell everyone, including teachers, students, and the elderly, to bring whatever they can to put things in."

The team leader and everyone else snapped out of their surprise and bewilderment after hearing Su Jinru's words.

The captain quickly ordered some people to go back and get the containers for the locusts: sacks, basins, and pots.

He then rushed to the team's broadcasting station to urgently notify everyone to grab whatever they could find and go to the fields to catch locusts.

The remaining commune members knew the consequences of this matter were serious. If the locusts ate up all the grain that was about to be harvested, they would be eating their own food. Without needing anyone's orders, they dropped their hoes and started catching the locusts with their bare hands.

If you don't have anything to put the locusts in, take off your clothes and tie one side up to use as a bag.

There were so many locusts that you could grab a handful with any hand. And there were still a large number of locusts flying in from the sky. In the past, these locusts were nothing to fear in the eyes of these villagers, but at this moment, tens of thousands of locusts were swarming in, which was terrifying.

It was clear that the grain could not be caught completely, and it was being consumed at a visible rate.

Many people are in despair; the food supply is dwindling, it's going to be lost forever!

As Su Jinru caught more locusts, she said, "Our grain has been eaten by locusts, and we won't have any grain to eat for the next six months. Let's catch more locusts. Even if we can't save the grain, we can still eat the locusts. Everyone, hurry up and catch them."

Seeing that the ripe wheat, which was about to be harvested, was devoured by locusts in an instant, all the commune members were heartbroken.

They've worked hard for half a year to produce this food! And now they're just going to watch these locusts eat it all? What will they do for food in the second half of the year? Won't they go hungry?

With this in mind, everyone continued to frantically catch locusts, driven by hatred, a desire to vent their anger, and the urgent task of using these locusts as their food source.

Soon, the locusts they had caught had filled their clothes and pants.

Fortunately, those who went back to get their belongings arrived quickly.

They also joined the team catching locusts.

After hearing the broadcast, teachers and students at school, and elderly people at home, everyone found something they could carry and ran to the edge of the field.

The fields were a dark mass of locusts, and locusts swarmed in the air, their restless bodies creating a terrifying sight. The sound of the locusts munching on the grain was chilling to the bone.

But in order to snatch their own food from the locusts, they recklessly grabbed handfuls of locusts and stuffed them into sacks and baskets.

The sacks were full, and some people went to grab the locusts and crush them to death, then grabbed more and crushed them to death again.

The surroundings were instantly filled with a strong, fishy stench.

There were locusts, their saliva and excrement had a fishy stench, and there was also the fishy stench of people squeezing locusts to death.

For nearly an hour, people fought the locusts with tension and fear, and then they found that the locusts gradually decreased. Then, miraculously, they all disappeared, leaving behind a scene of devastation and a lingering, strong stench in the air.

Seeing the wheat that was almost ready for harvest, now reduced to bare stalks by locusts, everyone felt a chill in their hearts.

Some people even shed tears of regret.

This is the grain they painstakingly grew over six months! And it's all been destroyed by locusts.

Especially the village cadres, they know better than anyone that the team is now eating in the collective canteen, and the collective grain is running out. It can only last for a month at most, and they are counting on this harvest!

Now that the locusts have ruined their crops, what will they do for the rest of the year?

Not only the eight production brigades of Daben Village, but also the wheat fields throughout Nanyang County were completely devoured by locusts. Not only wheat, but all green plants were also killed.

Because many people have never even heard of locust plagues, let alone the fact that locusts come and go like a gust of wind, leaving many people in a state of panic and confusion, unable to react in time to what to do.

The third production team of Daben Village, thanks to the quick response of its leader, immediately organized everyone to catch locusts in the fields, saving three mu of land. Of these three mu, only one-third of the grain remained, meaning they protected the yield of one mu of land.

At the same time, they also captured 28 sacks of locusts, totaling more than 600 kilograms.

These locusts naturally became their dinner that day. All the commune members joined in the cooking: some cleaned them, some tended the fire, and some chopped firewood. All the locusts were stir-fried in the canteen by several people in turns using two large pots.

Instantly, a strong aroma of meat filled the canteen.

Unaware of what the locust plague meant, the children, upon smelling the delicious aroma, excitedly jumped and shouted, "We'll have something delicious tonight! Something delicious!"

The adults, however, looked worried.

The locusts they caught were enough to feed their third production team for three days.

Because they were difficult to preserve, all the locusts were stir-fried at once.

If the stir-fried locusts were placed in the communal canteen, they would definitely attract rats. In the end, it was decided to distribute all the locusts to each household according to the number of people, and let them keep them as their food for the next three days.