The protagonist's heart, which was burning because of the new idea, didn't heat for long, and it was drenched in the continuous rain.

The rain lasted for several days, as was expected for the worst.

When the clouds are at their thickest, the day is like a cloud, and the rain is pouring down, making it almost impossible to distinguish between day and night, and if it continues like this, I am afraid that the protagonist of the ship will not even understand how many days have passed.

Fortunately, the rain is both rapid and slow, as long as the rain is not too heavy, the protagonist will poke his head out to take a look, roughly judge whether it is day or night by the faint light that shines through the clouds, and then record the change of days on his calendar.

When he hooked the date to June 1 on the calendar he carried with him, the rain finally lightened a little, and there were longer periods of rain intervals from time to time.

In the past few days, although there were occasional times when the rain was weak, the ants did not dare to venture out most of the time.

Unless there is a real shortage of food in the holds, some ants will take the risk of picking up a little stock in the hold where the food is concentrated when the weather permits.

After all, there is usually only a small amount of food in the cabin where the ants gather, and most of it is still in the nearby supply ship.

Since leaving his homeland, the protagonist has only eaten hot food at a makeshift camp on a sandbank, and these days he copes with dry food. Other ants can also eat raw meat, but the protagonist is not sensitive.

But today, there is not much food on the entire fleet, and the meat has been eaten up, so there is no need for the protagonist to be entangled.

The food stock on the fleet was originally replenished in the water forest, but it was enough for nearly 10,000 ants on the whole ship for seven days, but now it is the sixth day, and the food stored on the ship is only enough for one day, which has reached a very dangerous level.

If food is not replenished, even if the food ration is restricted, after three days at most, the ants on board will have to feed themselves on the corpses of their companions or the various eggs they have preserved.

The day before yesterday, the protagonist had already learned about this situation, and it was he who took advantage of the fact that the rain had stopped for a while, and sent heralds around to check the information obtained by each boat.

But then the rain intensified, and the protagonist had no choice but to hide in the cabin, hoping for a sunny day and praying that the whole ship could survive this crisis.

Maybe it's the endless road, or maybe it's the mercy of the god of crossing. The day before the fleet ran out of food, the rain finally became less visible to the naked eye, about the same extent as it had rained on the first day, and the tender rain scattered crookedly.

For some people who have a poetic heart in their hearts, this is the apricot blossom light rain that can enjoy the rain without having to play an umbrella without worrying about getting sick.

Ants on the verge of starvation don't have the same leisure, but they can also venture out and prop up a few sails in the rain.

After a few sacrifices, the flotilla finally began to move away from the center of the river and toward the north bank, driven by the wind.

Yes, on the north bank of the Qing River.

At this time, the Qinghe River has changed from a north-south direction to a roughly east-west flow, which is also in line with the inertia of "the big river flows eastward".

According to the protagonist's assumption, he should have landed on the west or south bank of the Qing River two or three days ago, so that he could return to the swamp by land.

But none of his plans have gone smoothly since he set sail. Now the fleet is almost dead, even if it is a southerly wind at this time, I can't care about it, let's stop at the shore to forage for food first. Peerless Tang Gate fo

On the north bank of the Qing River, there was a dense field of reeds, these reeds were tall and dense, and the walnut fleet swung towards the reeds, like a small car driving into a huge forest.

Although these reeds are dense, they grow in large clumps with a natural bay in the middle.

The protagonist holds a long stick and enters the state of "gods descending from the heavens" from time to time, single-handedly controlling the fleet from crashing into the reeds and becoming entangled, along the narrow bay road until it comes to a tidal flat that will be exposed to the water.

The flotilla was no longer able to move forward, and the shore in front was full of reeds, which were so tightly covered that it was impossible to pass.

The fleet can only anchor here. At this time, the rain finally stopped, and the sun leaked out of the gaps in the clouds for the first time in a long time, and the sun that the ants longed for was generously poured down, and shone right on this section of the river and its banks.

The sailor ants fasten the cables to a few nearby reeds, and then the ants go out almost all of them to find food in the vicinity.

Despite the fact that there is nothing but reeds, there is also a lot for the ants to eat.

Although the original fresh bamboo shoots are already old at this time, the fresh new reed leaves, as well as the immature tidbits of the newly grown reed flowers, can be eaten, and there are some calamus growing nearby, and the tender green tidbits in the shape of ham sausage can also be eaten, which is enough for ants to comfort the hungry stomach because it has begun to limit the amount of rations.

Of course, if they could, the ants would still prefer to eat meat, and there happened to be some insects in the reeds.

For example, the larvae of this insect are also worm-like, and they like to burrow into the inside from the base of the stem at the lower end of the reed to feed on the pith of the stem.

Ants can determine the location of Spodoptera exigua larvae based on the wilting of the reeds, and then burrow into the burrows to capture them for meat, and they can also dig up some of the fresh starch-rich stem pith of the reeds by the way, killing two birds with one stone.

There is also a thorny grass borer that is also common in the reeds and is also a good prey.

Although this reed swing is not as abundant as the water forest, it is enough to replenish the fleet with a lot of supplies.

Moreover, there are no indigenous ants here, ants do not like water, and the reeds close to the surface of the water, even though the stems and leaves form a criss-cross road, there are prey in it, but there is no local ant activity.

The ants can be troubled by some of the small bees and the cocoon bees, which also feed on the two main insects in the reeds, which sometimes collide when the ants are hunting, and there are often several conflicts that erupt.

Fortunately, these bees are not strong in combat, and most of the time they take the initiative to withdraw after entanglement, and they have become food for ants before they have time to escape.

The protagonist sits on the ship, watching the ants take advantage of the good weather to bring back food, while counting the number of ants on the ship from the male ant commanders.

It has been half a month since the voyage from the homeland, and more than 300 ants on board have been lost due to various reasons, and there are still less than 9,700 of them.

In the evening of the same day, the ants returned to the ship, and the granary was slightly full, which was about enough for the whole ship of ants for three days.

The nearby reeds have been swept away by ants, and even if they stay, there will be nothing to gain.

The protagonist decides to sail tomorrow and try to get as close to the south shore as possible. The wind is unfavourable now, but at least leave the barren reeds, land on the real shore, set up a camp, and wait for the north wind to arrive.