The protagonist leads a large number of subordinates from the main nest and heads east towards "Dongyang City".
Excluding the protagonist, this team includes 32 male ants, 12 female ants, more than 200 soldier ants, and more than 1,000 worker ants.
The mighty team moved in a single column along the Ant Expressway, with the protagonist and the six-headed and eight-carrying sedan in the middle of the team. Among the six sedans, one is dedicated to the protagonist, and the other two contain food dedicated to the protagonist. There are three more fires stored in them, and several worker ants are responsible for taking care of them all the way.
Gun led his direct team to identify the direction and lead the way at the front of the team, while Lan Bofei led his team to the rear.
The team moved forward quickly following the guidance of the pheromones. On the afternoon of the first day, after passing a secondary nest, the protagonist asked the entire army to take a short rest in this secondary nest to avoid spending the night in the wild.
Continuing to set off the next day, around noon that day, the protagonist saw a familiar rock. This is the place where the protagonist was attacked by centipedes at night when he was camping on the way from "Dongyang City" to the main nest.
The protagonist looks around for the place where the five sacrificial soldier ants were buried, and a sunflower seed shell was inserted as a tombstone. But nothing was found, and heavy rains had washed away all traces of the past. The protagonist had no choice but to keep going.
That night, the team stayed overnight in another auxiliary nest. Although it reduced the time of marching during the day, it also eliminated the risk of camping in the wild.
For two days, the entire team had not encountered any danger, and no ferocious insects dared to challenge the swarms of ants.
The next day, the protagonist leads the team to move forward. After the sun crosses the highest point in the sky, the protagonist gradually becomes familiar with the scenery along the way. This is the road he walked when he left "Dongyang City". The positions of the trees, stones and shrubs were all so familiar, which meant that "Dongyang City" was not far ahead.
The protagonist is eager to return home, urging the team to speed up. But the further they go, the more the protagonist discovers something is wrong.
It was too quiet along this road, and we were gradually approaching the core area of "Dongyang City", but we didn't even see a worker ant or soldier ant of the big-headed ant on the road.
Aphids were sucking their flesh on the plants, but without the protection of ants, a greedy ladybug swallowed the aphids that had lost their shelter one after another. There were a few naturally dead insect corpses on the ground, but they were not removed by the ant foraging team.
When we arrived at the entrance of "Dongyang City", the huge poplar tree still stood proudly, but there was no longer a bustling ant colony at the entrance. Even the sandy soil near the originally clean entrance was covered with debris due to deforestation. Grass sprouts have grown due to management.
The protagonist has a bad premonition. Are all the ants in the entire sub-nest dead? Who did it? Are they the suspected murderers? Or encountered an enemy attack?
The protagonist did not dare to go underground in person, so he issued an alert order, and the entire team stopped.
Later, Lambofei, Lambov and Rambo Wan were each ordered to lead a team to explore, while the other teams were on alert on the ground in full formation.
After about half an hour, Rambo Wan took the lead and climbed out of the underground lair with his subordinates. The protagonist leans in and reads his packet.
Lamborghini's information pack shows everything visually from going underground, exploring around, and back to the surface. Through the information package, the protagonist sees that the underground lair is not littered with corpses as he imagined, but empty of ants.
"Dongyang City" became an empty city and a ghost town.
In the empty underground city, tunnels and nests everywhere showed signs of being damaged by the rain. But this kind of damage was not caused by water immersion, but caused by soil seepage during heavy rain. In other words, "Dongyang City" was not destroyed by floods, but at least it had become an empty city before the last heavy rain. There were no dedicated worker ants to repair the damage.
After the other two teams came up, the protagonist, who confirmed that there was no danger, took his followers down to the underground in person.
As the protagonist walked deeper and deeper, he smelled a faint different smell in the lair. These smells are mixed, some are the smell of oleic acid left behind after the ants die, some are the exclusive smell of the big-headed ant kingdom, some are the smell of "Dongyang City", and some are smells that the protagonist has never smelled before.
The protagonist patiently searched every nest, but there was not a single ant, not even a corpse. All the granaries, nurseries, and hatcheries were empty; not a hair was left.
Thinking of the smell in the air, the protagonist wonders: Was "Dongyang City" attacked by the enemy? Or did a civil war break out because of the murderer? The protagonist cannot guess. All we know is that the victors moved the entire city away.
The one who wins should be the enemy or the murderer, otherwise the guardians of the kingdom will not abandon this sub-nest at will. So where will they move to? Could it be somewhere near here? Is there some connection between this and Lao Wang's death and Gun's attack?
The protagonist has two heads. He originally thought that the previous mysteries would be solved after he returned to "Dongyang City". Who would have thought that this has now become an empty city, all the suspects are gone, the truth is suddenly hard to find, and more mysteries follow.
While it is still daytime, the protagonist first orders Gun to command ten teams to search the area around "Dongyang City" carefully. Even if they find ants with the same nest smell, they must be careful.
Before exploring the secrets hidden in "Dongyang City", the protagonist must first settle down his legion.
First of all, this team did not carry any military rations, except for the nuts that the protagonist prepared for himself. The original plan was to use the food stored in the city after arriving at "Dongyang City", but now the granaries are empty. Fortunately, the ants can eat a meal for several days without any problem, and there is plenty of food on the ground, so there is still time to start collecting food tomorrow.
The protagonist first orders other members of the legion to enter the interior of "Dongyang City" and repair the tunnels and nests.
The protagonist personally took some of the guards and carefully dumped the fire in the three sedans into a large chamber near the entrance of the nest. He also brought a large number of dry branches to light a small fire.
The fire is placed near the exit to facilitate ventilation. The protagonist does not want to be poisoned by carbon monoxide in his sleep for no apparent reason. However, if it rains in the nest near the exit, water will easily seep out and extinguish the fire, so it is only a temporary measure.
The safety of the fire can only be ensured by placing the fire deep underground in a safe and waterproof place like the main nest. However, making a fire underground requires the design and construction of a flue that can exhaust smoke, ventilate, and prevent rainwater from flowing in. The protagonist has not carefully looked at the structure of the main nest flue, so he can only redesign it himself.
The protagonist hopes that the combustion chamber where the designed fire is located also needs to be able to realize some other functions, which poses a great challenge to the design and construction.
