High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1151: Chapter 213: Ecological Imbalance

On Friday at noon, after Alchemy class and lunch, with five minutes to spare before twelve o’clock, Zheng Qing arrived early at the entrance of the Hundred Herb Gardens, ready for his last volunteer work of the week.

The night patrol around Lin Zhong Lake took a total of five hours, distributed over three days, averaging a little over an hour and a half each day.

Forty minutes at noon, forty minutes in the afternoon.

Originally, there was more than forty minutes of labor this afternoon, but to avoid needing rest after the practice class, Zheng Qing had worked a little harder yesterday afternoon, so today’s noon work would mark the end of this substitution for Saturday’s night patrol.

Compared to the summer and autumn seasons, the large oak at the entrance of the Hundred Herb Gardens seemed much more subdued, its leaves had dimmed, and the twin-tailed squirrels that darted amongst the branches were nowhere to be seen.

Zheng Qing looked up for a while but never caught sight of those lively little creatures. He had even prepared a handful of peanuts, intending to replenish their nutrition.

”I am just so kind-hearted,” the warlock thought of the old incident when he first came to the Hundred Herb Gardens and was hit in the head by a squirrel’s nut, he couldn’t help but feel self-righteously good about himself, ”This must be the legendary ’returning good for evil’...”

Shortly after twelve o’clock, the ’temporary school workers’ who came to work arrived one after another.

The leader was naturally the in-charge of the Hundred Herb Gardens, Old Man Sitangda, and unexpectedly, Mr. Huang, the Professor of Potion Making, was also at the garden’s entrance. As for the others present, they all looked somewhat familiar to Zheng Qing, but he mostly couldn’t remember their names; they must be students from Jiuyou Academy.

However, those students obviously recognized Zheng Qing, whispering to each other, occasionally nodding towards Zheng Qing, showing curious glances and friendly smiles. As if silently encouraging him.

Zheng Qing would rather they pat his shoulder vigorously and greet him in a carefree manner.

He, under this somewhat awkward atmosphere, changed into his dragon skin work clothes, put on his deer-skin gloves, and slowly moved next to Professor Li and Old Man Sitangda, waiting for instructions.

”Everyone should be clear about today’s work.”

After everyone gathered, Old Man Sitangda called the roll and then began the pre-work briefing, ”You have all attended Potion class and been to the Hundred Herb Gardens. I won’t go into the precautions.”

”Two tasks.”

”First, hand pollination, helping several herbs in the garden with pollination. Due to the recent disappearance of many bees, and many herbs are almost past their flowering period; second, tracking the honeybees in the garden to see where they have disappeared to.”

”Those responsible for hand pollination, be careful not to get scared by the passing Earth Dragons or the sprinting Rabbit Masters. There are no Wild Demons in the garden, only herbs, and the most dangerous ones are just a few Big Mouth Gulus, which are all corralled in the glasshouse, so don’t scare yourself and trample my herbs.”

At these slightly teasing warnings, the students let out a soft chuckle.

”Additionally, if you find Taste Thorns sprouting in the fields, have no doubts, they’re all weeds. Pull them out clean for me; you won’t be wrong.”

Zheng Qing’s first task in the Hundred Herb Gardens had been pulling up Taste Thorns, and he hadn’t expected that after so long, he’d still be doing such things. Indeed, nothing new under the sun; it seems like everyday in the Hundred Herb Gardens also consists mostly of this kind of repetitive work.

Old Man Sitangda continued to instruct:

”Those responsible for tracking the bees, pay attention to the direction where they finally disappear. Also, remember to check the hives. Although no mass deaths were found in previous checks, we can’t completely rule out this possibility.”

”There are a total of ten bee colonies, each belonging to different categories. Each of you only needs to investigate one colony. The specifics will be arranged by Professor Li later... Any questions?”

Everyone shook their heads in unison.

The old man looked back at Professor Li.

Professor Li nodded, flipped open the notepad in his hand, and began to call the roll and assign tasks.

Fortunately, this time Zheng Qing didn’t need to worry about damaging the flowers and plants during pollination or cutting his fingers while cleaning Taste Thorn. He was assigned by the professor to investigate the disappearance of bees.

”Before assigning tasks, I need to let you all understand the situation specifically,”

Professor Li led everyone to a bee colony, opened a hive, and inside, the milky bee larvae, the corpulent queen bee, and the wriggling young bees all stayed obediently in their own little nests.

But Zheng Qing keenly noticed that in such a large bee tribe, only a few worker bees were diligently traveling back and forth to gather nectar, which was completely inadequate to meet the needs of the entire hive.

”As you can see, most of the worker bees from this colony have disappeared. This is abnormal.”

Professor Li’s voice was always so ethereal, and Zheng Qing tried hard to discern every word he said, ”Normally, worker bees are born here, grow up here, and die here. They are born in the hive, grow up in it, collect honey from the flowers around the hive, and rest eternally in the graveyard behind the hive—the dead worker bees will be carried to the bee’s graveyard by their companions.”

”But as with this hive, most of the workers go out to collect nectar and never return.”

”They don’t return to the hive. They don’t rest in the graveyard. There isn’t even a sign of a large number of bee deaths near the floral sources.”

”This is abnormal,” Professor Li sighed softly, shaking his head.

”Could it be some kind of vanishing disease?” a tall, skinny boy pushed up his glasses and asked, ”Like Acute Bee Paralysis Virus in the Mediterranean bee colonies, which is highly contagious and virulent, affected colonies lose their sense of direction and ultimately get lost in the wild?”

”Very keen,” Professor Li nodded in appreciation, but then he denied, ”The health of the bee colonies is under real-time monitoring by multiple magical rune arrays. If there are sick bees, they will be detected immediately. Because of this, the likelihood of a large-scale epidemic is extremely low. We’ve already thoroughly vetted diseases such as Acute Bee Paralysis Virus, the Assam bee virus, Resurrection Poplar Honey Spores, and didn’t find any similar cases in the early stages.”

”So, were these bees eaten by a Wild Demon?” a chubby boy asked with a chuckle, poking at the wriggling larvae in the hive.

”That means you weren’t listening carefully just now,” Professor Li glanced at him and spoke languidly, ”Uncle Sistanda just mentioned that there’s nothing more dangerous than Big Mouth Gulu in the garden... You can rest assured about that.”

The chubby boy curled his lips and put his hands behind his back, staying quiet.

Professor Li turned his gaze to the other students:

”In fact, according to what we know now, the disappearance of these bees is very likely to be part of a series of cases involving ecological imbalance on Buji Island... including the early return of the Silent Tide at the end of last year, the mouse plague, and this year’s insect plague and Blue Dew outbreak.”

”All you need to do is record in detail what you investigate, and other matters will be handled by more specialized professionals.”

”Before tracking the bee colony, I need to re-emphasize the discipline to you again: First, listen to the teacher’s commands; second, don’t act rashly; third, listen to the teacher’s commands and don’t act rashly!”

”Let’s begin the action!”