Records of Mysterious Things in the Southern Dynasties

Chapter 19 God helps those who help themselves
As the statue fell to the ground and shattered, the temple was filled with deathly silence. The old witch, who looked as if she had lost her parents, became silent in an instant, like a goose with its neck strangled.

All gods, no matter how big or small, will never tolerate anyone destroying their statues.

Now that his statue has been knocked down, the community god has no reaction at all, which can only mean one thing, that is, it is no longer there.

"It seems that the community god has made up his mind to ignore us." Ren Yuan's cold laugh rang out in the main hall. He pointed at the old witch and said, "Then I'll trouble you to go there. You can communicate with gods, right? Go and talk to the locust god about the truth."

"I won't go! The god has just gone out temporarily and will come back to punish you!" said the old witch in a stern voice.

"I'm not asking you, I'm ordering you." Ren Yuan jumped down from the altar and said, "Since you don't want to obey, I can only force you."

As he said this, he waved his hand, and two farmhands came forward, picked up the old witch, who was over 70 years old, and tied her up like a chicken.

The old witch was just a mortal who hadn't taken the pills to open her mind. She usually pretended to be a ghost, all by borrowing the magical power of the ghost elephant. Now that the ghost elephant was dead, she had lost all her magical power, and could only let them tie her up like a dumpling and put her in front of a red leopard.

The red leopard then carried the old witch out of the temple. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, it turned into a red shadow and rushed into the swarm of locusts in the distance.

After a while, it came back at a faster speed, but did not bring back the old witch.

Ren Yuan sat on the stone lion at the temple gate, looked into the distance for a while, and said, "Why hasn't the old witch come back yet? Tell her disciples to go and urge her!"

So the farmhand kidnapped another fairy boy and had a leopard carry him to the locust swarm.

After a while, Ren Yuan said, "It seems that one disciple is not enough. Let's send a few more this time!"

The farmhands tied all the remaining fairy children to a large cart, harnessed the poor leopard to the cart, and pulled the cart away.

After clearing out the temple, the first batch of torches were delivered from the village. Ren Yuan said to the village chiefs, "It seems that the people who came here are too low-level to convince the locust god. I have to trouble you all to go there."

The village heads were so frightened that they fell to their knees, kowtowed hard, and begged the terrifying second young master to let them go.

"So, you all don't want to negotiate?" Ren Yuan put his hands on his knees, leaned over and looked down at the village heads kneeling on the ground.

"Yes, yes." The village heads hurriedly said in a sad voice, "The locust god is definitely unreasonable. The old witch and the others are probably dead. If we go, we will die."

"Okay, then I'll give you two choices. Either go and persuade the locust god, or follow me to kill the locusts!" Ren Yuan said in a deep voice: "Now, tell me your choice."

"We choose the latter..." the village chiefs said in unison. In fact, they had no choice, because choosing the former would mean certain death, while choosing the latter might give them a chance to survive.

"That's right!" Ren Yuan stood up, stood on the stone lion, raised his voice, and said to the crowd in front of him:

"All of you folks have seen that we can't rely on the community god at all, and the locust god doesn't keep his word and wants to kill us! If we wait any longer, not only will the crops be eaten up by locusts, but even the leaves on the trees and the weeds in the fields will be gone. By then, everyone will starve to death!"

The villagers wept bitterly upon hearing this. Many cried loudly, and some pointed at the sky and cursed: "Oh, God, don't you give the poor a way to live?!"

"Since we are going to die anyway, why do we have to stay here and cry?" Ren Yuan shouted loudly: "Why not go all out and fight those damn locusts? Maybe we can find a way out!"

"Second Young Master is right, let's fight them!" The farmhands immediately echoed loudly.

"Let's fight! We'll die before our eggs are thrown into the air!" Many brave people also raised their arms and shouted. The shouts were sporadic at first, but soon spread like wildfire, and everyone roared together:
"Fight them!" Over the years, locust plagues have continued year after year, and the people have suffered terribly. Countless people have lost their homes, sold their children, and countless families have starved to death...

How could they not hate them? How could they not be angry? They had long wanted to eat those damned locusts alive, but because they were afraid of the gods, no one dared to take the lead.

Now the second young master of Xiejiazhuang stood up and called for action, finally igniting the endless anger buried deep in people's hearts!

"In order to encourage everyone to bravely eliminate locusts, I declare that if one hundred locusts are killed, there will be a reward of one cent!" Ren Yuan offered another reward.

Hearing that there is money to be made from killing locusts, people became even more excited.

Unexpectedly, Ren Yuan added: "It's a copper coin, not an iron coin!"

"Wow!" The common people were completely furious. The value of one copper coin was far greater than ten iron coins!

As the saying goes, a big reward will always bring about brave men. Stimulated by Ren Yuan's high reward, the people completely forgot their fear of the locust god. They rubbed their hands, stepped forward to pick up torches, and lined up to light them.

Ren Yuan held up a blazing torch and shouted, "Follow me!"

After saying that, he rushed to the fields where locusts were raging!
"Let's go together!" The people also raised their torches and followed closely. The burning torches gathered into a sea of fire, sweeping across the fields.

The locusts that were circling in the fields for food were immediately panicked when they encountered the sea of fire, running around like headless flies. However, there were so many of them and they were so dense that countless locusts had no time to dodge and crashed into the sea of fire, being burned to death and charred, falling to the ground like raindrops.

Those locusts that escaped flew high into the sky and dared not land again.

Ren Yuanming ordered the village heads to organize the elderly, the weak, women and children to pile hay on the ridges of each family's fields, and to set it on fire when they saw signs of locusts landing!

The young men were divided into several teams to guard various places in the countryside and provide support at any time.

The world had been at war for hundreds of years, and even in the relatively peaceful Southern Dynasty, the rural people had already formed a semi-military organization. Five households had a squad leader, ten households had a platoon leader, and a hundred households had a village head. During the slack season, they had to practice martial arts. So Ren Yuan kept these village heads, and he could use them to command and deploy the people.

With the concerted efforts of men, women, old and young, who held their ground in sections, thick smoke billowed everywhere in the fields in the southern part of the township, and all the locusts were driven into the sky.

The young people were naturally excited, but the old people were worried. Although fire could drive away locusts, it could not eliminate them after all.

There are only a limited amount of things that can be burned in the fields. When the torches and hay are burned out, the locusts will still fall down.

After hearing their concerns, Ren Yuan pointed to the mountains in the northwest and laughed, "Don't worry, God helps those who help themselves. Our reinforcements are here!"

Everyone followed the direction pointed by Ren Yuan, and saw tens of thousands of birds of all kinds flying in the sky. They followed a magnolia wood cart covered with osmanthus flowers and rushed towards the locust swarm with overwhelming force!

Those once invincible blood-sucking locusts, when they encounter the same flocks of birds that cover the sky, become delicious snacks. The birds peck at the locusts happily, feasting on them until their bellies are full.

Before long, the number of locusts decreased visibly and no longer formed thick leaden clouds.

The remaining locusts also fled in panic under the pursuit of the birds and disappeared completely.

ps. Ask for votes and collections on the weekend~~
(End of this chapter)