Meng Yan's Transformation

Chapter 159 Eliminating the "Four Evils"

The ice and snow melted, and all things woke up from their slumber. Spring came quietly, the grass sprouted tender shoots, the willows spit out goose yellow and green buds, and every corner of the earth was filled with a vibrant scene. Various insects were also ready to move. In order to eliminate pests, Xinxing Township organized a national campaign to eliminate the "four pests". (The four pests refer to flies, mosquitoes, mice, and sparrows. Later, they were changed to flies, mosquitoes, mice, and cockroaches. Why are sparrows classified as "four pests"? Because food is scarce, mice steal food, and sparrows also steal food. Later, people excluded sparrows from the "four pests" and replaced them with cockroaches or bedbugs.) People are looking for and digging insect pupae by the river, in the woods, next to the toilet, and around the garbage dump. For sparrows, it is to dig out the bird's nest to prevent it from having a place to live; and then to prevent it from falling and making it tired. To drive away sparrows, you spread groups of people in places where sparrows often fly over. When they see a sparrow flying over, the group of people will beat gongs, bang pots, and iron sheets and shout in unison. The sparrows will fly away in fear, and just as they are about to land over there, they will be immediately coaxed by the group of people over there. The little sparrows will fly back and forth like this until they become dizzy and fall down exhausted.

The method of driving away sparrows was very effective. Since then, sparrows have not been seen for many years. Nv'er River was originally the home of red-crowned cranes and black swans, where flocks of red-crowned cranes and pairs of black swans gathered every spring. Since then, there have been no more.

The chirping of swallows has disappeared, and the chirping of magpies has also disappeared...

As for rats, people will put poison and place mousetraps in places where rats appear.

Xinxing Middle School held a mobilization meeting for the "Eradication of Four Pests" campaign. The quantitative results of "Eradication of Four Pests", such as digging pupae and killing flies, were included in the assessment of labor and ideological and moral courses. Teachers will give praise and rewards to students with outstanding performance.

Every day the school teacher calls the labor committee member of each class to count the number of rat tails and insect pupae brought to school by the students.

Every weekend, Zhan Mengyan led her classmates to organize extracurricular activities of digging pupae. Completely metamorphosed flies grow from fly eggs into maggots, and then into brown hard-shelled fly pupae, which are the size of rice grains and barrel-shaped. After they mature, they break out of the shell and crawl out as flies with complete whiskers and claws. Digging fly pupae, referred to as "digging pupae", is to eliminate flies in the egg state by digging pupae and removing pupae. Five or six people in a group, led by a team leader, go to toilets, garbage dumps, vegetable fields, stinky ditches and other places where fly pupae may breed. Each person has a target of 300 fly pupae a day (some female students are afraid of dirt, stench, and fear of not completing the task and cry anxiously). Each person has a shovel and a glass bottle. The side of the manure pool and the toilet are full of small pits where students dig pupae. The students wear masks and gloves and carefully use small wooden sticks to clamp the fly pupae into the glass bottle. The warm spring breeze carries the stench of feces, and it also becomes a spring scenery.

Digging pupae is like studying academic subjects. There are tricks to follow and different vision and ability. If you are not as good at digging pupae as others, you will not dig too many fly pupae. It is the same as the difference in academic performance and sports competition. However, as long as you overcome the fear of dirt and odor, digging pupae as an extracurricular activity will still make you very rewarding and benefit a lot...

In order to exceed the target in the school's "four pests" eradication campaign, Zhan Mengyan asked Zhan Ziqiang to help her catch mice.

On this day, Zhan Ziqiang took a pair of big scissors and gave Zhan Mengyan a pair of big scissors. The two came to the warehouse where the livestock fodder was stored in the original production team. When the two tiptoed into the warehouse, many mice heard the sound and "squeaked" and drilled into the hole. The two held their breath and waited quietly for a while. The mice poked their heads out again, and their tails appeared from the cracks in the stones. Zhan Ziqiang cut off several mouse tails with a lightning speed. Zhan Mengyan also saw a mouse tail exposed outside the crack in the stone. She stared at the mouse tail with her eyes wide open, not daring to breathe. The gray fur tail was covered with layers of scaly flakes, which made people feel sick. Her hand holding the scissors trembled, but she was reluctant to do it. Finally, she just cut the tip of the mouse's tail, and the mouse escaped in pain...

With the help of Zhan Ziqiang, Zhan Mengyan successfully completed the task of counting the number of rat tails, but the number of fly pupae had not yet reached the standard. She had to go to her own and her neighbors' toilets to dig fly pupae every morning and evening. In the morning, because Zhan Mengyan occupied the neighbors' toilets to dig fly pupae, the neighbors came to Yunqing to complain.

One morning, just after dawn, my neighbor, Mrs. Zhang, went to the toilet in a daze. As soon as she entered the toilet, she saw a person squatting in the corner of the toilet. Mrs. Zhang screamed, "Who is it!?"

"Mrs. Zhang, it's me, Mengyan. Did I scare you? I'm here to dig fly pupae again. I thought you wouldn't get up so early. I'm sorry. I'll come again after school in the evening." Zhan Mengyan ran out of the bathroom with a glass bottle.

After Zhan Mengyan went to school, Zhang Ersao came to Zhan Yu's house and was invited by Yunqing to sit on the kang.

"Aunt Yunqing, please take care of your daughter Mengyan. She comes to our toilet every morning these days and says she is digging out maggot pupae to get rid of the 'four pests'. We can't even go to the toilet. How can a girl not dislike the stench of the toilet? Besides, don't you have a toilet at home too? Don't you have maggots and pupae in your toilet? Why does she have to come to other people's homes to dig?" said Mrs. Zhang.

"Her second sister-in-law, don't be angry. When Mengyan comes home from school, I will tell Mengyan today that she is not allowed to go to your toilet to dig fly pupae early in the morning. Aunt Shen from the front yard also came to complain that Mengyan and her fifth daughter catch mice in her warehouse every day. Her cat died because it ate a dead mouse. She thought that the dead mouse must have eaten rat poison and died. She suspected that Mengyan asked her daughter to put rat poison in the warehouse, and she insisted that I compensate her for the cat. I don't know what's wrong with Mengyan recently. She is busy counting mouse tails or fly pupae every day. She is really obsessed. When she comes home from school in the evening, I will ask her father to beat her up to make her wake up." Yunqing said.

When Mrs. Zhang heard that Zhan Mengyan was going to be beaten, she changed her expression and tone and said, "Aunt Yunqing, what did we say? I don't mean what I say. I was just scared by Mengyan this morning and I complained to you. Don't tell my uncle Zhan that I complained. I don't want Sister Mengyan to be beaten. I will feel bad if she is beaten. Sister Mengyan is a good student and will have a promising future. It would be really bad to be beaten for digging fly pupae. It will be so embarrassing for Sister Mengyan. Girls can't afford to hurt their self-esteem!"