Talent! Spirit Insect Master

"Fourth Brother, do you not believe me?" Wang Luojing's little face fell.

"Fourth Brother, I suggest you listen to the girl." The older Wang Luotong also stepped forward. "Although Luojing is young, she has loved playing with insects since she was a child. She understands them deeply, and for some reason, she is particularly attractive to them."

"Interesting~" Wang Shouzhe's interest was piqued, his gaze burning. "Tell Fourth Brother first, how do you plan to deal with the honey insects? Don't rush, speak slowly; we have plenty of time."

"In recent years, I've always heard Grandfather complaining about the honey insects and how the grain harvest isn't as good as in previous years," Wang Luojing said softly. "So I thought, if I could solve the honey insect problem for Grandfather, he would surely be very happy. Then I could beg him not to marry off Sister. I don't want Sister to leave~"

Wang Luotong's face turned pale, and she lowered her head, not daring to speak. Such matters were not for her to decide.

"If you can truly resolve the honey insect plague, Fourth Brother promises to protect you both," Wang Shouzhe vowed firmly. "As long as you don't want to marry, you won't have to."

"Thank you, Fourth Brother." Wang Luojing's face lit up with joy. "Actually, I read in the 'Insect Classic' long ago that the ancients used lacewings to control honey insects, but they have become increasingly rare in recent years. Last year, I raised some honey insects and lacewings, and it was indeed effective. That's why this year I entrusted my brother to catch two Lacewing Insect Kings in the mountains. It took some effort, but I managed to domesticate them..."

"Wait..." Wang Shouzhe's expression shifted. "What is the 'Insect Classic'? And you actually managed to domesticate Lacewing Insect Kings?"

"The 'Insect Classic' is just the 'Insect Classic,' an ancient book I found in the clan's library," Wang Luojing said with an innocent look. "It explains how to domesticate insects; it's not that hard. If Fourth Brother wants to learn, I can teach you."

Not that hard!?

Wang Shouzhe's face darkened slightly. Having integrated the memories of his predecessor, he had a decent understanding of the Profound Martial World. In this world, there was a tiny group of people who enjoyed producing goods or fighting by controlling spirit insects; they were generally known as Spirit Insect Masters.

However, the path of a Spirit Insect Master was quite obscure, and the threshold for talent was extremely high—even higher than that of an Alchemist. The reason was simple: an ordinary person with some intelligence could barely learn alchemy, at most suffering from huge resource consumption and limited achievements.

But for a profession like a Spirit Insect Master, if you lacked the rare talent to communicate with spirit insects, you couldn't even get your foot in the door.

Consequently, Spirit Insect Masters were extremely rare, and ordinary clan descendants had never even heard of them. To Wang Shouzhe's knowledge, only the Changning Xu Clan and the Shanyin Liu Clan secretly cultivated a couple of Spirit Insect Masters.

If Wang Luojing possessed the talent of a Spirit Insect Master...

For a moment, Wang Shouzhe's heart began to pound.

"Fourth Brother, Fourth Brother, what's wrong?" Wang Luojing waved her hand in front of him, pouting in annoyance. "Is it that Fourth Brother doesn't believe me either?"

"I believe you, I believe you," Wang Shouzhe nodded vigorously. "My Luojing is the smartest. Fourth Brother is very interested. Let's go a bit further away, and you can demonstrate it for me."

"Mm-hmm, those two Lacewing Insect Kings are in Fourth Brother's carriage." Wang Luojing looked delighted to be taken seriously. "Sister and I will go get them."

Wang Shouzhe suddenly remembered that when he saw the sisters this morning, they were each carrying a strange, large box. He had assumed they were personal belongings, and since it wasn't appropriate to pry into a young girl's private items, he had simply told them to leave them in the carriage.

Thinking about it now, they must have already planned to try this out at the farm.

"Let the family guards go," Wang Shouzhe gestured.

A family guard waiting in the distance ran over quickly and bowed respectfully: "Clan Leader, what are your orders?"

"Wang Wu, Wang Yong. Go to the carriage and bring over Miss Luojing's two boxes."

"Yes, Clan Leader."

The two guards sprinted away with incredible speed. Within half a quarter of an hour, they returned, each carrying a box.

"Wang Gui, Wang Wu, you lot go to Fourth Grand-Uncle's side and see if you can help with anything." Wang Shouzhe sent them away. He had noticed that Wang Xiaozhi's side seemed to be trying to use wood ash water and other methods to manage the aphids, so they were likely short-handed.

The family guards were all Profound Warriors; when used correctly, they were far more efficient than ordinary tenant farmers.

Most importantly, since the matter wasn't confirmed yet, he didn't want it to become common knowledge.

Once Wang Gui and the other four guards had left, Wang Shouzhe personally carried the two large boxes, taking Wang Luotong and Wang Luojing to a secluded wheat field.

The three thousand-plus acres of land were like a vast ocean. This area was empty and deserted, perfect for a demonstration.

Wang Shouzhe parted the wheat ears, and sure enough, there were some green aphids in the field. The sight of those tiny insects made his skin crawl.

"Luojing, let Fourth Brother see your methods."

"Mm~ This honey insect outbreak is earlier than I expected." Wang Luojing's expression was solemn and nervous as she carefully opened one of the boxes.

Wang Shouzhe peeked curiously into the box and immediately felt his trypophobia flare up, his hair standing on end. The box was filled with leaves, and those leaves had grown thread-like filaments covered in dense, tiny dots.

"Fourth Brother, Sister, please help me," Wang Luojing said, handing out the "leaves." "Place one leaf every ten feet."

Wang Shouzhe's mouth twitched. This little girl was bold enough to order the Clan Leader around. Yet, his hands were obedient, following her instructions. With his impressive cultivation, he pinched a "leaf" and tossed it casually, landing it steadily in place.

According to Wang Luojing's "instructions," about several dozen leaves were needed per acre. With only one of her two large boxes opened, containing a few hundred "leaves," they had only managed to cover ten acres. Compared to the thousands of acres of wheat, it was merely a drop in the bucket.

After a quarter of an hour of placement, Wang Shouzhe and Wang Luotong stood near Wang Luojing, waiting patiently as instructed.

"Fourth Brother, these lacewing eggs are three-day-old," Wang Luojing explained. "They hatch slowly in the dark box, but once they see sunlight, they will hatch very quickly."

Fine~ You are the technical expert in this field; whatever you say goes.

Wang Shouzhe had always been honest about the blind spots in his knowledge and never overstepped. Time ticked by, and in less than half an hour, the first few leaves they had placed began to change. Strange-looking little insects struggled to break out of their shells.

The leaves were right before their eyes, allowing them to clearly observe the tiny creatures. They were less than two millimeters long, shaped like elongated beetles, but with two large, ugly pincers on their heads.

After hatching, they remained motionless, hanging quietly on the filaments.

After a while, they finally began to move, sliding down the filaments onto the leaves. They crawled leisurely in all directions, as if they were born with the ability to sense where food was, climbing up the wheat stalks with ease.

Suddenly!

One of them encountered an aphid. It lunged ferociously, clamped the aphid with its pincers, and pierced its body with its mouthparts to begin feeding. In just half a quarter of an hour, the poor aphid was sucked dry into an empty shell, which blew away in the wind.

Then, the lacewing larva continued to climb, searching for its next prey.

"Impressive!" Wang Shouzhe exclaimed. "These little insects are truly ferocious."

"Fourth Brother, I calculated it when I was raising lacewing larvae before; they pupate in just ten days, and during that time, they can eat nearly a thousand Honey Insects. They're quite small when they first hatch, so for the first two days, they can only eat a dozen or so each day." Wang Luojing had been playing with these things for so long that she was quite unfazed by it all.

"If that's truly the case, then although this ten-acre wheat field that has just started to fill with grain will suffer a slight reduction in yield, it can still be saved." While Wang Shouzhe praised her, he added with deep concern, "But just in our Fenggu Farm alone, there are thousands of acres of wheat."

"Don't be anxious, Fourth Brother, I was just testing things out earlier." Wang Luojing opened another box, which no longer contained a dense mass of lacewing larvae, but rather small, brilliantly colored beetles.

"Isn't this..." Wang Shouzhe found the beetles familiar and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "A seven-spotted ladybug?"

"You recognize them too, Fourth Brother? However, the Insect Classic calls them Nine-Spotted Bugs, not seven-spotted ones." Wang Luojing took out a giant beetle the size of a fist, covered in nine spots, and caressed it joyfully. "From now on, I shall call you the Nine-Star Insect King."