Chapter 11: Extreme Heat

The best way to use mugwort to repel mosquitoes is to burn it. Its distinctive aroma quickly drives them away. As a medicinal herb, it also has antibacterial and antiviral properties, dispels dampness, and can even help regulate menstruation.

Applying mugwort to the skin or spraying it on clothes can also effectively repel mosquitoes.

If a room were filled with mugwort, you might just be able to avoid the disaster.

When the outside temperature reaches over seventy degrees, even heat-resistant mosquitoes won’t be able to survive.

Lu Zhifeng stood by the river, holding his daughter. He had been hesitating to catch fish because he’d noticed strange-looking eggs in the water.

After Jiang Si’s warning, he crouched down for a closer look. Sure enough, they were tiny larvae—mosquitoes that hadn’t yet fully developed.

He couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be if all those massive eggs hatched.

Lu Zhifeng hugged his daughter tighter, thanked Jiang Si, and then rushed off to look for mugwort.

Jiang Si gazed at the forestry protection gun on Lu Zhifeng’s back, feeling a bit envious.

She had bought so much gear, yet none of it was as powerful as that single forestry protection gun in Lu Zhifeng’s hands.

The Longquan Forest Nature Reserve was quite large and had a lot of poachers. Lu Zhifeng had become the captain of the ranger team a few years ago, so he likely had more than one forestry protection gun.

’If the timing was right, maybe she could trade some supplies with Lu Zhifeng for one of those guns.’

Jiang Linhai asked Jiang Si, "Should we go get some mugwort too?"

Their house was right next to the back mountain, so they had plenty of snakes, insects, and other pests in the summer. They had planted some mugwort in their yard, but after seeing those densely packed eggs, Jiang Linhai’s skin crawled. He knew what they had at home was nowhere near enough.

Mugwort had so many benefits; naturally, the more, the better.

Jiang Si nodded. "Yeah, let’s gather a lot more to take home!"

Jiang Linhai knew where to find plenty of mugwort. Before long, the father-daughter pair had harvested several large bundles.

Many other people were also harvesting it, not to ward off insects, but to use as fuel for their fires.

Suddenly, a tall figure emerged from the edge of the forest.

Everyone looked up, letting out quiet gasps of surprise.

Qin Shen had somehow managed to catch two more massive wild boars!

Were wild boars really that easy to catch!?

Fearing they would have no meat in the future, many families had stopped eating their own stocks of cured pork. Seeing Qin Shen catch one boar after another, everyone grew envious and started thinking about catching one for themselves.

The cured meat from the two pigs at Jiang Si’s house was enough to last them a long time. Besides, she had plenty of other meat products in her space.

She wasn’t interested in Qin Shen’s boars, but he took the initiative to walk up to her. "Want some boar?" he asked. "I need salt."

Jiang Si was a bit surprised. Of all the people here, he had chosen to speak to her.

’Maybe it’s because our houses are close, making it convenient to trade?’ she wondered.

The locals had a tradition of making pickled vegetables, so they typically bought salt by the case.

Domestic pigs couldn’t handle the high temperatures, so every family had already slaughtered theirs. Some families hadn’t raised pigs at all and were growing dizzy and weak from the lack of meat in their diet.

Jiang Si considered this. "How much boar meat for three bags of salt?"

The others nearby pricked up their ears.

Qin Shen pointed casually. "A whole hind leg."

A single hind leg weighed a good twenty jin, and he was offering it for just three bags of salt.

What a deal!

Before Jiang Si could even agree, someone beside her jumped in. "I’ll trade! I’ll trade! Three bags of salt, you said? I’ll go get them from home right now!"

Qin Shen looked at them. "She was first." He turned back to Jiang Si and asked earnestly, "Deal?"

’There are plenty of ways to get salt,’ she mused. ’Qin Shen probably wants it to preserve food.’

’Three bags of salt is a really good deal.’

Jiang Si nodded. "Deal."

"I’ll cut the meat. You go get the salt for the trade," Qin Shen said.

"Okay."

Zhang Mayi, a relative from her grandmother’s side, also wanted some of the boar meat but couldn’t come up with three bags of salt. So, he decided to try his luck with Jiang Linhai.

Zhang Mayi approached with a fawning smile. "Lin Hai, we’re family. How about you lend your uncle here three bags of salt for the boar meat? I’ll send some millet your way afterward."

This Zhang Mayi was the most tight-fisted man in the village; Jiang Linhai didn’t believe for a second that he’d ever see any millet once Zhang Mayi got his hands on the meat.

Jiang Linhai looked directly at Qin Shen and asked, "Can you trade boar meat for millet, too?"

Qin Shen nodded. "Yes. One hundred jin of millet for twenty jin of boar meat."

The same twenty jin of meat that could be had for three bags of salt had suddenly jumped to a price of one hundred jin of millet.

Zhang Mayi was not about to accept that. "Lin Hai, your family has plenty of salt! It’s just three bags, don’t be so petty."

Jiang Linhai shook his head, his expression serious. "We don’t have much left after making our pickled vegetables. Three bags is the absolute limit of what we can spare. If it weren’t for wanting my kid to have some meat, I wouldn’t be willing to part with it at all."

Zhang Mayi’s expression faltered, but he wouldn’t give up. "Well then, you live close to Qin Shen’s place. Why don’t you front your uncle the hundred jin of millet, and I’ll pay you back later."

It was too hot for Jiang Linhai to waste any more breath on him. "No. We don’t have that much millet to begin with. Enough talk. Any longer out here and we’ll be cooked alive."

Jiang Linhai cut the conversation short, giving Zhang Mayi no opportunity to take advantage of them. It made Zhang Mayi so angry he stomped his foot. "You won’t even help with a little thing like this! You have no regard for family! What a waste of all your years on this earth, you’re just too selfish!"

Jiang Linhai paid him no mind, shouldering the bundles of mugwort and heading home with Jiang Si.

Zhang Mayi saw Qin Shen getting swarmed, the boar meat about to be completely spoken for. He rushed forward and said, "I’ll give you half a bag of salt for ten jin of your loin meat."

"No trade."

Zhang Mayi said angrily, "The loin isn’t as good as the ham! You should be content with half a bag of salt."

Qin Shen just hoisted the boar onto his shoulder and started to walk away.

Zhang Mayi blocked his path. "You’re a young man, how can you be so rude? You’ve got all this boar meat, but without salt, it’ll spoil in two days. I’m offering you half a bag, which is a great deal. Better than letting it rot and get infested with maggots, isn’t it?"

Qin Shen shot him a cold glare. "Move!"

Zhang Mayi refused to move, insisting on trading half a jin of salt for ten jin of loin. When the people around them started calling him shameless, he just shouted louder, claiming that Qin Shen was a murderer’s son and that anyone who ate his boar meat would be poisoned.

"AARGH—"

A bloodcurdling scream tore through the air.

Qin Shen had kicked Zhang Mayi, sending him flying onto a nearby field embankment. The people who had been planning to trade with Qin Shen suddenly lost their nerve.

’The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’ they thought. ’Qin Shen is quick to violence. What if he really did poison the meat? If they died, who could they even complain to?’

When Jiang Si got home, she didn’t rush to get the boar meat. Instead, she fumigated all the potential entry points for mosquitoes with mugwort, sprayed a powerful insecticide, and then installed double-layered screens on the doors of all the rooms they used.

She even temporarily blocked up the toilet, opting for a makeshift commode instead. The collected natural waste would be transferred to her space to fertilize her vegetable garden.

Finally, she directed Jiang Chengwu and Jiang Linhai to build a special, honeycomb-like airlock structure at the main entrance.

This would minimize the number of insects getting inside, should they absolutely have to go out.

She sent Jiang Linhai to Qin Shen’s house to pick up the boar leg. As she stood watching from the window, she saw a huge crowd of people surging toward their home.

From the way they were pounding on doors and blocking villagers, they had to be survivors from the city, desperately searching for food and water.

There were so many of them, they were like a plague of locusts.

If the villagers refused to give them food, they would take people hostage and force their way into their homes.

Jiang Si had only been looking through her binoculars for a few seconds before she saw the gates of several houses in the village get smashed open.