Chapter 68 (continued)

Ming Chunxi noticed his movement and turned to look at him. "Tired?"

Qing Mengzhu: "The battery is dead, I can't do it anymore."

Ming Chunxi: "What kind of electricity?"

"Bioelectricity." Qing Mengzhu leaned over and rested her head on Ming Chunxi's shoulder. "I need to recharge myself with this."

Ming Chunxi reached out and touched his face. "Go to sleep if you're tired."

Qing Mengzhu: "Uncle Wenlei's field is swarming with insects, and I'm waiting for you to come up with a solution. I have to come up with one today."

Ming Chunxi kissed his forehead. "Shall we get it done tomorrow morning?"

Qing Mengzhu: "I have to pick vegetables tomorrow morning, so I won't have time to read. Reading yesterday morning was so painful, even more painful than reading at night."

Ming Chunxi: "I'll watch it with you."

Qing Mengzhu looked at Ming Chunxi, "Forget it, you can watch it with me. I keep thinking about how you taught me to do my homework in high school, and it gives me a psychological trauma."

For a period of time during high school, they remained platonic stepbrothers.

When Qing Mengzhu encounters homework she can't do, she occasionally asks Ming Chunxi for help.

Ming Chunxi's explanations of problems were much simpler than the teacher's. He would glance at the problem and list out the formula, saying it was a variation of a certain problem, and all he had to do was change the formula.

Qing Mengzhu was dizzy from looking at the formula. After pondering it for a while, Ming Chunxi, as impatient as a magician seeing a Muggle, simply wrote it out for him and let him figure it out at his own pace.

As a result Qing Mengzhu looked at the homework she had already finished, but couldn't figure it out. She didn't dare to ask too many questions, and later her attention was drawn to other things, so she simply forgot about it.

When the monthly exam came, Qing Mengzhu didn't do much homework, and her grades plummeted. She got a severe scolding from her dad and was in a very sorry state.

In a fit of anger, he refused to let Ming Chunxi tutor him on his homework, and if Ming Chunxi dared to touch his homework, he would make sarcastic remarks to her.

Ming Chunxi also recalled that time, "Back then, I wasn't sensitive to people's emotions; that was my problem."

Qing Mengzhu: "It's alright. I feel like most of the time you don't even notice when I'm angry. Getting angry at the air makes me even angrier."

Ming Chunxi kissed his cheek. "It's a bit of a regret that we missed so much time together."

Qing Mengzhu thought for a moment and told the truth, "It's alright. Even if you had said you liked me back then, we couldn't have been together. The age and circumstances were wrong."

Ming Chunxi: "I was too young then."

Qing Mengzhu agreed, "Yes, thankfully we now have a chance to make up for it."

They looked at each other, their eyes seeing only each other.

Ming Chunxi slowly approached Qing Mengzhu did not dodge, and the two shared a kiss.

Their lips brushed against each other, their warm breaths brushing against each other's faces, bringing a tingling sensation.

Qing Mengzhu momentarily speechless, then deepened the kiss.

After the kiss, Qing Mengzhu's heart was pounding. She turned back to her computer screen and murmured, "I'm not sleepy at all now."

Ming Chunxi's cheeks flushed slightly. "One more time?"

Qing Mengzhu then turned back and kissed him a second time.

Soon, both of their pants were tight, but since they had planned to take it slow and there were no suitable supplies at home, they had no choice but to go back to their bedrooms and take a hasty shower.

The two of them ultimately didn't finish reading the books or writing the papers they were supposed to, so they had to get up early the next morning to work overtime.

Qing Mengzhu was quite familiar with the pest situation at Tan Wenlei's house, as he had previously learned a lot about pest and disease prevention.

After two days of research, he invited Tan Wenlei to go to the field with insect traps, sugar-vinegar solution, and Bacillus thuringiensis preparations, intending to try integrated pest management.

During the two days they were conducting their research, the number of insects in Tan Wenlei's field increased significantly.

Without even looking closely, Qing Mengzhu could see at a glance that many leaves had been eaten by insects, especially the tender leaves of cabbage, radish, and rapeseed, which had been eaten away by insects to the point that only the veins remained.

Qing Mengzhu: "You have so many bugs."

Tan Wenlei sighed, "Yes, it seems we can't afford to be complacent. We need to rotate crops when necessary and leave land fallow when appropriate, otherwise we'll end up like my family's field, where once a pest outbreak occurs, there's nothing we can do."

Qing Mengzhu unloaded the large bucket of sweet and sour liquid from the car. "Your family has been farming these fields for several years now."

Tan Wenlei: "This is the fourth year of uninterrupted planting."

Qing Mengzhu: "That's been quite a long time, with absolutely no free time in between?"

Tan Wenlei: "Has the field been empty for about half a month? It hasn't been empty for a long time, but I've changed the crops. Sometimes I plant eggplants and peppers here, and sometimes I plant rapeseed and garlic."

Some pests and viruses have specific hosts. For example, some pests and viruses specifically harm chili peppers. If chili peppers are planted in the same field for several years, the accumulated pests and viruses will become very serious.

If a different, non-host crop were used, this field would not be troubled by related pests and diseases.

After two years, once the pests and diseases have been eliminated, you can replant the relevant crops without any problems.

Qing Mengzhu: "It seems we really should take a winter break when necessary; we can't cut corners on this cost."

Tan Wenlei nodded. "I've learned my lesson. Next year, I'll plan things out better."

As they spoke, they divided the sweet and sour liquid into individual boxes and placed them in various parts of the field to lure and kill insects.

Many insects are sensitive to sweet and sour tastes. They will go to eat after smelling the aroma. Qing Mengzhu added dichlorvos to the solution. The insects will die after sucking the sweet and sour solution. At the same time, the sweet and sour solution can drown some pests.

In addition to the sweet and sour solution, the insect-catching boards they brought could also kill some pests and reduce the insect population in the field.

As for Bacillus thuringiensis preparations, these are biological pesticides that are sprayed directly into the fields to kill insects.

Bacillus thuringiensis can metabolize and produce insecticidal crystalline proteins, but it is harmless to mammals. Even if Bacillus thuringiensis is sprayed, vegetables can still be sold the next day. Compared with other pesticides, it is safer and easier to pass market tests, so the vegetables will not have to be returned.

After the two of them set up various pest control measures, Tan Wenlei felt a little more at ease. "Thanks to you, otherwise I would have had to give up on this batch of vegetables."

Qing Mengzhu: "I haven't seen any results yet, so I'm not sure if it will definitely work. The insect population density in your field is too high; it might not be able to kill them all. By the way, did you put some not-fully-rotted cow manure in your field?"

Tan Wenlei: "I don't think so. I'm not sure."

Qing Mengzhu dug away some soil to show him. "I feel this batch of cow dung isn't fully decomposed; look, there are quite a few grubs inside."

Tan Wenlei looked at it carefully. "It really is."

Grubs love uncomposted feces and often lay their eggs in them. Using uncomposted feces can easily lead to outbreaks of grubs and root-knot nematodes.

Qing Mengzhu: "Let's deal with the other insects first. In a few days, I'll bring over the pheromone lure for the grubs and see if we can trap and kill a batch of them."

Grubs are actually the larvae of scarab beetles. By trapping and killing a batch of adult beetles, the next generation of grubs will be reduced, which can be considered a method of integrated pest management.

With Tan Wenlei's support, Qing Mengzhu began to manage his family's fields with full force.

Unfortunately, there were simply too many insects, and the problem was far too complex. Even though Qing Mengzhu had reached a basic level in planting lotus, chili peppers, and bamboo, and had some experience in preventing and controlling pests and diseases, she still encountered setbacks in dealing with the insects.

Their efforts had some success, but they failed to completely eradicate the insects.

While they were trying to find a solution, the insects swarmed again, first devouring all the vegetables in the field, leaving only bare stalks.

The only fortunate thing was that when Qing Mengzhu was controlling the pests on Tan Wenlei's land, she paid close attention to protecting her own fields and also reminded the owners of several nearby fields. Thanks to these strict precautions, the pests did not spread to other fields.

Tan Wenlei remained optimistic, saying to Qing Mengzhu and the others, "Forget it, I've learned a lot these days. I'll learn from this experience, and there won't be so many bugs in the other fields."

Deng Linjia, the owner of the neighboring field, said, "The main problem is that your pest outbreak is happening too fast, and there are so many insect eggs in the field. Before the last batch is even killed, the next batch has already hatched. There's just no way to deal with it."