225 The Arrival of the Demons
Zhao Zhitong thought for a moment and asked, "Grandpa Bai, do you have candy?"
Grandpa Bai, like a salesman, began his pitch. "Yes, of course! We have lots, all kinds and flavors—everything you could possibly want."
The moment he finished speaking, the window in front of Zhao Zhitong disappeared, replaced by a display filled with various types of candy. Furthermore, each type of candy was marked with the Merit Points required for exchange.
After looking for a while, Zhao Zhitong said disdainfully, "These candies are so cheap. You can buy a whole bag for just a few Merit Points. They can't be very tasty."
This little girl, Grandpa Bai thought.
Zhao Zhitong directly closed the page. She still had plenty of candy stored in her space and didn't need any more for now.
Thinking about the notebooks from before, Zhao Zhitong immediately said, "Grandpa Bai, Grandpa Bai, I want to see the notebooks."
Grandpa Bai agreed and brought up the notebook page for Zhao Zhitong.
Instantly, a dazzling array of notebooks appeared in the window. They ranged from ordinary sheepskin notebooks to loose-leaf ones with cute, adorable covers.
Zhao Zhitong was dazzled by the sight. "They all look so nice." Her eyes sparkled as she pointed to a loose-leaf journal with a light purple cover.
When opened, the pages inside were also colorful with some simple patterns. Purchasing the loose-leaf journal also came with several colorful pens and some beautiful stickers as free gifts.
Zhao Zhitong couldn't resist such a lovely journal. She jumped up and down excitedly in front of the window display, pointing at the journal and shouting happily, "I want this one, I want this one!"
Grandpa Bai glanced at the cute journal and said, "You can exchange this one for twenty Merit Points."
Zhao Zhitong didn't hesitate. "Then I'll exchange it!"
Right after the exchange, Zhao Zhitong saw another beautiful loose-leaf journal, and so, she began her shopping spree.
If Grandpa Bai hadn't stopped her, she would have undoubtedly spent all her available Merit Points.
Clutching her armful of treasures, Zhao Zhitong sat on the ground, grinning broadly for a long while.
Then, from the several pretty journals, she picked out a lovely pink one. Opening it, she found it was wonderfully stocked, with many beautiful rolls of decorative tape as well.
So, she lay down in her space and busied herself with decorating her journal.
It was the little one's first time, so she stuck anything and everything onto the pages. In the end, it was crammed full, and she even took her colored pens and crookedly scrawled some of her thoughts inside.
After she finished, she held up the journal, admiring it with smug satisfaction. "It's so beautiful! I'm so talented."
Looking at the garishly decorated journal the little girl had produced, Grandpa Bai was speechless. Perhaps I should try to refine this young girl's aesthetic sense, he mused.
Zhao Zhitong didn't care whether Grandpa Bai thought it was pretty or not; she was perfectly happy with her own creation.
She got so engrossed in her project that she stayed up late into the night, nearly making herself late for school the next day.
Of course, Zhao Zhitong didn't just buy journals for herself; she also bought a bunch of pencils—the kind without erasers.
She had gotten them for her older brothers and sisters. They didn't use writing brushes, so they often had to draw on the ground, their work easily ruined by a stray foot. That's why she had exchanged Merit Points for pencils for them.
Of course, she also exchanged Merit Points for a stack of white paper. It was very cheap; a large sheet cost only a few points. She planned to cut it into small pieces with scissors and then have her mother, Sun Mei, help sew them together with a needle and thread to make simple notebooks.
After school that day, Sun Mei had finished making them all for her. So, Zhao Zhitong carried the notebooks and pencils to her maternal grandfather's house.
All her older brothers and sisters were overjoyed to receive her gifts, and their enthusiasm for studying soared.
「——」
In the hustle and bustle of daily life, time seemed to fly by.
By July, with the arrival of the hot weather, the first batch of pigs raised by Zhao Dong and the others had reached slaughtering age. Each family's pigs were plump and robust, grown to a good size.
Just looking at them was a joyous sight.
But while they were rejoicing, they were unaware that a disaster was silently drawing near.
One day, while Zhao Zhitong was playing with Qiao Muchen and Zhao Yue in the street, she suddenly saw a villager running back frantically, shouting as he ran, "Oh no! Oh no!"
His cries were so wretched and alarming that many villagers came out of their homes to see what was happening.
"Hey, Lao Liu, what's with all the racket? Seen a ghost?" a villager called out teasingly from his home.
Lao Liu was in no mood for jokes. His eyes wide with terror, he stammered, "I... I..."
Whether from fear or haste, the words caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak.
"Hey, Lao Liu, when did you start stuttering? Did you really bump into a ghost?"
Lao Liu bent over, hands on his knees, panting heavily. After a long while, he finally caught his breath and cried out in terror, "More terrifying than ghosts! It's... it's locusts!"
The moment he uttered those words, everyone's expression changed drastically, as if they had truly seen a ghost.
Someone cried out in terror, "Lao Liu, what nonsense are you spouting? This is no joking matter! Things are fine here—no floods, no droughts. Where would locusts come from?"
The common folk feared locusts above all else; they even considered the very word taboo.
"Exactly, Lao Liu! Don't spread such ill-omened words! Quick, spit and stomp to ward it off!"
Lao Liu was frantic. "What warding off? It's true! I... I just heard in the county town... they've... they've already appeared over in Dongdu."
"Dongdu is close to us! If... if a locust plague has started there, it will reach us very soon!"
His words struck the crowd like a thunderbolt.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
Some still refused to believe it. "Really? Could you have misheard?"
Lao Liu shook his head. "No, I heard it with my own ears. The man said the imperial court has already dispatched people to Dongdu to control the locusts!"
This news made the villagers feel as if their world had crumbled overnight.
"Heavens!"
"How are we going to live through this!"
"Oh, Locust God, Locust God, why have you descended upon the mortal realm again!"
...
Standing in the crowd, Zhao Zhitong listened to the villagers' anguished cries, finding it somewhat difficult to empathize.
After all, she didn't yet understand what a locust plague truly was.
So, she asked Grandpa Bai in her space, "Grandpa Bai, are locust plagues really that terrible? Why are the villagers so scared of them?"
Grandpa Bai sighed and explained, "They are, young girl. A locust plague... it's nothing short of a nightmare for the common people!"
"Once a locust plague begins, vast numbers of locusts gather in swarms. They sweep across the land and fill the sky, a mighty, roiling mass that blots out the sun. Wherever they pass, not a single blade of grass remains."