Chapter 34 - Chapter 34: Chapter 31 Poisonous Ant i (2/2)

From a distance, he saw Er Dan with a basket on his back, heading out of the village.

“Er Dan, are you going to herd the Yan Family’s cattle?”

There weren’t many jobs that children could do, and herding cattle for the big landlord in the morning was a decent gig.

Two wen money for a morning’s work.

The landlord’s family would have someone specially register and check. When the cattle were brought back after grazing, it had to be ensured that their bellies were full.

The supervisor would even press down on the cattle’s abdomens with their hands.

If the cattle hadn’t eaten their fill, they would dock wages.

If a child was found three or four times with cattle that had not eaten enough, they would be blacklisted and could not return to that landlord’s house for herding jobs.

“Yes, indeed! I had a bit of diarrhea this morning, so I went a little late, and I don’t even know if 1 can still snag a cow.”

Er Dan answered as he hurried forward, not looking back as he ran.

To earn those two wen money, many youngsters would arrive at the landlord’s cowshed before dawn to queue up.

There weren’t many cows available, and if one arrived too late, other children would have taken them all.

Very small children generally wouldn’t get one because the supervisor had to consider safety issues. Losing a cow, or a cow hurting a child, would both be troublesome matters.

Er Dan was a shrewd person and very responsible, so the supervisor preferred to give him the cattle to herd and rarely did he miss out.

“Come and find me at my house after you’re done herding.”

Qin Niu shouted towards his retreating figure.

“Sure thing! I knew you’d have me in mind, brother Ah Niu.”

Er Dan knew what it was about and grinned happily.

But he ran off as swift as the wind, disappearing from sight.

Qin Niu smiled and started walking towards the mountains.

Passing by Xie Laizi’s house unexpectedly, Xie Laizi was actually not dead.

It goes to show that good people don’t live long, but scourges last a millennium.

It seemed that Wang Haikun must have been worried about causing a death, so he had held back a bit when striking.

Faint groans could be heard coming from inside Xie Laizi’s house.

He would probably be bedridden for at least a month or two before he could get up.

This, too, was a good thing.

By the time this man could get out of bed, Qin Niu’s cultivation of the Everlasting Spring Technique would have made greater progress, and by then his cultivation level would be fully able to crush Wang Haikun.

And with Qin Niu’s wisdom, if he could outsmart Xie Laizi once, he could do it a second time.

If that bastard dared to continue being nefarious, Qin Niu would definitely put him in his place.

Once he entered the mountains, he headed straight for the Ant Nest.

Not a single Termite was visible.

Termites prefer to live underground, and they don’t like to come out and forage on the ground like ants do.

If they need to forage, they do it at night.

They are actually very afraid of sunlight, which is similar to the habits of cockroaches.

They like to hide in the darkness.

This was actually quite convenient.

They were now feeding on this large camphor tree, which provided plenty of food.

Moreover, they could expand and deepen their Ant Nest while gnawing on the tree, killing two birds with one stone.

“Fourth, come out!”

Upon Qin Niu’s arrival, two Young Soldier Ants that had just molted into adults scurried out.

“Looks like we’ve got some new members!”

He felt a wave of joy in his heart.

The total of two mighty Soldier Ants naturally had to guard the Ant Queen.

The newly molted Young Soldier Ants were assigned to stand guard at the entrance of the cave.

Soon, Fourth, with only one antenna left, emerged from the nest, moving swiftly.

Qin Niu now had mastered the language of ants, which made communication with them much easier.

If it had been before he acquired this skill, even if he placed bear meat in front of the Ant Nest, the Worker Ants would ignore it.

Unless there was a shortage of food, they were very obstinate about their food choices.

They only ate what they selected.

“Here, this piece of bear meat I cut today is a bit too large. Rally the other Worker Ants to come and eat it up!”

Qin Niu poured the bear meat from the small jar in front of the Ant Nest.

He hoped that the bear meat could also cultivate mighty Soldier Ants and mighty Worker Ants; otherwise, he would only have to wait until the next bear slaughter and prepare a porcelain jar in advance. After slaughtering a bear, he would collect some bear blood to feed specifically to the Termites.

Fourth waved its single horn, summoning the other Worker Ants.

Soon, the Worker Ants began to line up and emerge.

The five mighty Worker Ants looked especially formidable.

The shadows of the two mighty Soldier Ants were not seen.

Instead, nearly ten Young Worker Ants had joined.

Last time they were attacked by centipedes, they lost about seven or eight unmolted young ants. The loss was not very severe.

Now they were having a batch molt into adults every day.

As Fourth gnawed on the bear meat, Qin Niu noticed the areas it bit immediately turned black.

“This… could this be venom?”

He watched Fourth in shock.

Feeding it the corpses of one large and two small centipedes, could it be that Fourth evolved the ability to secrete poison?

If that were the case, the surprise would be enormous.

Fourth was now a mighty Worker Ant, inherently possessing some features of a Soldier Ant and also rapid in action. If it also developed venom, it was unthinkable how powerful it might become.

It could probably singlehandedly take on ten ants larger than itself without an issue.

Qin Niu closely observed the other Worker Ants and for the moment only discovered that the bear meat bitten by Fourth would turn black.

It seemed the other Worker Ants had not yet evolved this ability..