The protagonist slept for a while, but he didn't know whether he had a dream or not. When he was in such agitated mood, he would easily dream!
If he wakes up and doesn't remember anything, then he doesn't have a dream. Maybe he has a dream, and if he doesn't remember it, it's the same as not having a dream.
But after a good night's sleep, his mood felt much better. Maybe last night's massacre allowed the protagonist to vent all the depression in his heart.
When he got out of the cabin, the sunlight was as bright as his mood at that moment. He couldn't help but feel a irritation in front of his eyes. He quickly used his forelegs to cover the single eye on his head. It took him a while to get used to it.
It turns out that the sky is already bright at this moment, and the sun has reached near its highest point. The protagonist has been sleeping all morning to catch up on his sleep. Just coming out of the dark cabin and suddenly exposed to the noon light, it's no wonder that I couldn't adapt to it for a while.
Ants perceive light with one eye and image with the compound eye, so they only need to block one eye to overcome the discomfort of strong light without affecting the compound eye's vision.
At this time, the Walnut Fleet was drifting in the middle of the Qinghe River. Looking back, Shuishu Shulin had long disappeared. Also, no matter how slow the boat moved, it would have traveled several kilometers in a few hours in the morning, and it would have been out of sight long ago.
Obviously, the Bachie ants could no longer catch up. The battle in the early morning was the last futile resistance of the Bachieye ants.
The protagonist couldn't help but become curious. Could it be that the eggs they stole back actually contained the eggs of the queen ant? That's why these Bachie ants are so gnashing their teeth that they won't stop fighting.
With this in mind, the protagonist started to walk towards the back of the fleet. The eggs of Bachie ants captured last night were placed in a boat at the rear.
He walked to the destination along the cable connecting the ship's mast with ease, climbed down the mast, walked around the rain cover under the mast, and opened the hatch. Accompanied by two worker ants who were looking after the ship, the protagonist inspected the loot.
Apart from some debris, this ship only had one kind of ant eggs, the eggs of Bachie ants seized yesterday, and there was no need to admit their mistake.
There are four types of egg sizes in this egg, which correspond to the four types of worker ants of Bachie ants that the protagonist has seen.
There are four of the largest eggs, and the protagonist is wondering whether these are queen ant eggs or male ant eggs. Among big-headed ants and pavement ants, the eggs of queen ants and male ants are the largest in size. I don’t know if this is the case in Bacher ants. But like the hunting ants, the eggs of ordinary warriors are larger than those of male ants.
These large eggs may also be the eggs of worker ants, the largest species of Bachie leaf ants. However, the desperate posture of the pursuers last night made the protagonist believe in the former possibility even more. Maybe he also hoped so subconsciously.
In fact, the simplest way to verify it is to hatch these large eggs and then raise them until they emerge from pupae and turn into adult ants. The answer can be obtained in just a month.
After all, the hatching of ant eggs is not like that of birds, which require the body temperature of the mother bird to hatch. Ant eggs can hatch on their own as long as they are kept at a suitable temperature, ideally around 30 degrees Celsius.
On the other hand, if you don't want the ant eggs to hatch now, you only need to provide a room temperature below about 25 degrees to prevent this process. Ant eggs can survive at lower temperatures for up to nearly a year waiting for suitable hatching conditions.
There are a large number of ant eggs on the walnut fleet, including eggs of various ant species such as big-headed ants, pavement ants, and hunter ants, as well as a batch of eggs of mealworms, flies, aphids, scale insects, etc., all of which are dependent on Maintain low temperatures to prevent hatching for long-term storage.
The ants' method of maintaining low temperature is very simple, which is to place their eggs near the bottom of the boat and cover them with some plant fibers.
The bottom of the boat is under the water and surrounded by river water. The river water can maintain a temperature of about 20 degrees even in midsummer. It is a natural "coolant" and keeps the temperature of the four walls of the bottom of the boat lower.
The plant fiber plays a role in blocking and weakening the temperature conduction from the upper level of the cabin, and can also play a buffering role in preventing collisions.
If that doesn't work, the ants guarding the eggs will notice that the room temperature is high, and they will bring water droplets and apply them to the cabin to take away the excess heat through evaporation.
Relying on this method, the Walnut Fleet is like a Noah's Ark, carrying the eggs of various ants and insects in the Angel King's army, preparing to go to the swamp area where there is no "Destroyer Flood" to repopulate.
It is not difficult to hatch these eggs on a boat. If you let more ants live in the boat, the heat they emit will be enough to raise the temperature to a suitable level, and the incubation process in the eggs will start on its own.
But now the fleet really does not have the conditions to support more ants. The space on the ship is limited, and the food can only be stored for seven days at most. This is already a very dangerous bottom line.
The rainy season is about to begin. Once the rain continues for several days, the fleet that cannot dock for supplies will immediately fall into a dilemma.
But in order to carry these eggs, there are other necessary materials, such as mysterious balls, ropes, ant wire, etc., and the protagonist cannot make room to store more food.
Once the ants are hatched, space must be made for a cabin to raise the young ants, and space for the pupae, and additional worker ant sailors, which are already few, must be dispatched to take care of them. Adult ants also need living space, which is much larger than the space occupied by an egg. You still have to take care of eating.
Even if it is proven that the egg belongs to the queen ant, there is no way to make the queen ant lay eggs. It is just asking for trouble and can only raise it with nothing to do. Naturally, it is impossible for the protagonist to move his whole body just to get an answer. Anyway, sooner or later we have to go back to the swamp, let’s talk about it when we get to our destination.
After a day or two of sailing forward, the protagonist decided to dock, abandon the ship and walk.
——I am the dividing line——
Not many clues were found from the eggs of Bachie ants, and the protagonist couldn't figure out the unusual and desperate behavior of Bachie ants chasing the soldiers, so he simply gave up.
He climbed out of the cabin and just climbed onto the cable when he suddenly felt a violent shake on the ship's hull. The protagonist held on tightly and was fine, but he saw several other ants walking on the cable fall into the water.
Fortunately, the places where these warriors of the Envoy King fell into the water were inside the fleet. They were surrounded by boats, wooden poles and ropes. It was easy to climb up. As long as they didn't choke on the water and hurt their internal organs, they would be fine.
The protagonist is very confused. The vibration just happened suddenly. The surroundings were calm and the sea was calm. It didn't look like it hit a rock or a large floating object. Why was there such a big impact-like movement?
The protagonist climbed up the mast on his hands and knees and looked around. There was nothing strange around him!
Could it be that the impact came from under the water? ?
The protagonist suddenly wakes up and looks down. Sure enough, under the blue waves not far away, there is a group of dark shadows that are moving rapidly. If you don't look carefully, you will ignore it.
The black shadow is moving rapidly from the water towards the position of the fleet!
