In the past ten days, after the patient and meticulous teachings of the senior brother, the protagonist finally mastered the basic knowledge related to the Big-headed Ant Empire. At the same time, the protagonist also has an understanding of the current season.
It is now late spring and early summer, and the young male ants are about to make their nuptial flight. After completing their material reserves, the big-headed ant army will launch a counterattack on the six sub-nests that were lost in the winter. This also means that the protagonist’s theoretical coming-of-age (marriage flight) ceremony and first battle in the ant world is about to come.
This is not good news for the protagonist. Marriage means that you may have sex with female ants, but it is said that the ratio of the number of male ants to female ants is very different. The male ants who can have sex with female ants are only a few lucky ones. But I, the protagonist has a way to avoid it. The initial formation means engaging in a huge battlefield with tens of thousands of ants. Although the big-headed ant kingdom is the attacker and has the advantage in numbers, the ants' close-quarters fighting tactics and mainly the nest tunnel and street fighting On the battlefield, the protagonist is not sure that he can escape unscathed. If he accidentally gets injured, it will be unacceptable.
The wedding flight ceremony will be held only two or three days later. Today, the first rain since spring has fallen outside the nest. This rain not only heralds the coming of the rainy season, but also informs the young male ants in each sub-nest that it is It's time to set off to the main nest for the wedding flight ceremony.
The ants can feel the changes in air pressure and humidity before it rains through their bodies, but the protagonist feels nothing. Compared to Chu Yu, the protagonist is more curious about why these male ants come to participate in the wedding flight ceremony during the dangerous rainy season. You know, rain can be fatal to ants exposed on the ground. When it gathers into running water, it will easily wash away and drown them.
The protagonist confessed all his doubts to the senior brother, who told the protagonist: The time for the wedding flight has been set at the beginning of the rain at the turn of spring and summer since ancient times. However, now because there are too many secondary nests, some in remote areas The king and queen even had to walk for three or four days on the road before they arrived. During this period, many unfortunate kings and queens would die from floods, getting lost, and being attacked by wild beasts. However, this was also a test from God. Only the truly strong and lucky kings and queens could arrive. The main nest fulfills the important task of reproducing offspring.
After listening to this, the protagonist couldn't help but feel lucky that he arrived at the main nest early and didn't need to rush on a rainy day.
The protagonist left the eldest brother's lair, called Xiao Mi and Hua Mulan, and decided to go to the ground to take a look.
The protagonist was afraid of the rain pouring in, so he climbed out from the relatively high exit of the hill castle. It was now mid-morning, and the rain had stopped, but the ground was still wet. It looked like a light rain had fallen during the night or early in the morning. The entire main nest was not affected by the rain. The soldier ants were still patrolling in groups near the main nest, while the worker ants went out to further places to collect food rations.
Speaking of food, the protagonist has always thought that the main nest has insufficient food storage due to too many ant colonies, and even the granary is about to bottom out. Now I know that most of the food was actually transported to the sub-nests on the front line. After the wedding flight, the entire Big-headed Ant Kingdom army will gather there to launch a fatal blow to the pavement ant barbarians in the six fallen sub-nests. These troops going on expeditions are not engaged in production and need to have abundant reserves of food and fodder to ensure their combat power. As the saying goes, "before the troops and horses move, food and grass go first." The ants also have this awareness.
The protagonist is looking down at the ground from a high position on the hill, and some foreign teams have appeared one after another (the team is composed of male ants, female ants and their subordinates). The ones with developed chests are male ants, and those with developed abdomens are female ants. They are generally much larger than worker ants, and a little larger than soldier ants. These kings and queens came from the nearby secondary nest. After dawn, as soon as the rain stopped, they couldn't wait to set off from the secondary nest. Each king and queen brought several soldier ants and subordinates, walking on the muddy ground towards the main nest. Come. By the time they arrived near the main nest, they were all covered in mud. After a brief review by the patrol team, they were placed inside the main nest and settled temporarily.
But they are also relatively lucky. The journey is short and they do not need to spend the night in the wild, which allows them to avoid many dangers. And the kings and queens of remote lairs have to face more than just distance, rain, and threats from wild beasts. After consecutive heavy rains, the pheromones left by the male ants on the rocks or tree trunks beside the ant expressway will also fade or even be washed away. The kings and queens who have lost their way forward will not be able to get help from their subordinates if they get lost. If you correct your route as soon as possible, you will die in the rainy season sooner or later. Every year, the secondary nest close to the main nest only needs to give birth to ten kings and one queen. In order to make up for the losses on the road, the most remote secondary nest like "Dongyang City" will give birth to twenty kings and two or three queens.
There are usually only one or two queens responsible for laying eggs in the secondary nest. There are only more than 600 queens in the main and secondary nests, but there are as many as three to four hundred newly adult queens after participating in the nuptial flight every year. After these queen ants return to their respective nests as adults, if they find that the original queen is old, they will brutally attack the old queen, kill or expel her, and take her place themselves. This kind of queen In the internal fight, other ants in the same nest will just stand by and watch without helping each other. If the queen of the secondary nest is in her prime and these newly adult queens evaluate that they cannot defeat her, they will take the initiative to leave the nest with a small number of soldier ants and worker ants and go to a distant place with abundant food to open up a new nest.
This kind of secondary nest established by the outlying queen is also an important way for the big-headed ant empire to expand its territory. The other two ways are to conquer the enemy's nest, or to actively migrate a large number of ants to establish secondary nests due to food crises and other reasons. It is much more difficult for a stray ant queen to take a few subordinates to build a secondary nest than it is for a large number of ants to actively migrate and build a secondary nest. It often fails due to disease, climate, hunting by wild beasts, etc. This is why Big-headed Ants have experienced so many years of The reason why the kingdom only has more than 400 sub-nests.
The protagonist recalled the knowledge taught by his elder brother and became very interested in the female ant (that is, the future queen). Since I traveled through time and became an ant, I have seen many male ants, soldier ants and worker ants, but I have never seen the queen ant once. Although queen ants generally live in seclusion and hide in the deepest part of the nest, the protagonist actually visited the "Dongyang City Deputy Nest" almost once, which is indeed a bit strange.
The protagonist ran to the lower exit of the hill castle in the main nest. He had seen the king and queens coming from the east come in through this entrance. He asked the nearby worker ants who were repairing the holes that were loose due to rain, and asked about the temporary settlement site of the new queen ant, and then rushed there with Xiao Mi and Hua Mulan.
As a result, when they arrived at the temporary resettlement site, the protagonist was driven away by the snarling guard soldiers at the door. These guards are the soldier ants of the main nest. They are responsible for protecting the females who have arrived at the main nest. At this time, the female and male ants have been placed in different nest chambers to prevent them from eating the forbidden fruit before the wedding ceremony due to strong hormone secretion. The subordinates of female and male ants were also placed separately. All reception and security work were done by the ants in the main nest, and there were five kings who were directly responsible for this.
As a result, the protagonist who came to visit the female ant was regarded as a male ant with strong hormone secretion and was driven away unceremoniously by the guard. There is no way, why is the protagonist still wearing a pair of wings? At first glance, he is a newlywed who is going to participate in the wedding flight ceremony.
This result made the protagonist very disappointed, and he could only crawl back to the fourth bedroom in despair.
