Chapter 73: Chapter 70 Further Escalation of the Situation (Starting Today, Explosive Updates!!)
Generally speaking, there are usually two forms of the use of Cyanofipronil:
Intermediate powder and gel baits.
The intermediate powder is mostly used in agriculture, with large quantities and wide coverage, but the insecticidal efficiency per unit volume is relatively limited.
After all, insecticidal efficiency is directly linked to cost, and the term "agriculture" essentially means farmland or orchards, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands of acres.
If farmers were to purchase such highly effective insecticides, their income wouldn’t cover the cost of the pesticides.
Besides intermediate powder, Cyanofipronil commonly used in daily life mostly comes in the form of gel baits, which are high-specification and high-concentration polymer insecticides.
For instance, Bayer’s Baymex theoretically kills more than fifty cockroaches with just 0.2 grams.
The third-generation Cyanofipronil is already impressive, not to mention the fifth-generation Cyanofipronil developed by Xu Yun and his team.
milliliters of water weighs 150 grams, and the density of the fifth-generation Cyanofipronil gel bait is significantly higher than that of water. The gel bait contained in two 150-milliliter syringes amounts to about seven hundred grams altogether, approximately seven liang per syringe.
This amount of gel bait applied to walls...
You can simply imagine what kind of concept this represents.
More importantly, due to Ke Da’s location within Luzhou City District, the drainage facilities throughout the campus inevitably distribute from inside outward.
Located on the eastern edge of the campus, Building 14 is a major outlet node where multiple internal sewage pipes converge, with a cockroach population several times higher than in other areas...
Thus, the severity of the entire situation is far higher than what Chang Licheng observed within the dormitory.
.....
When Xu Yun arrived at Building 14, the area around the dormitory was already surrounded by a large number of spectators from nearby dormitories, who had tactfully maintained a distance of thirty to forty meters from Building 14.
"Please make way, I’m an assistant from the physics department, thank you..."
Xu Yun squeezed his way out of the crowd with some difficulty, only to see in the middle of the field—right outside the dormitory entrance—stood a few dormitory managers and night patrol staff who had rushed over.
Through the powerful flashlights in their hands, an immensely terrifying scene could be faintly seen:
Students who have lived in dormitories should know.
Each dormitory building typically has three to five white drainage pipes with a diameter of about fifteen centimeters arranged on the exterior, mostly between the walls of two adjacent dorms.
At this moment, countless cockroaches were slowly climbing up from below along the outer walls of several drainage pipes.
Then they turned left on the third-floor ledge, climbed through a staircase corner window into the fourth floor...
The remaining part simply flooded in from the first-floor main entrance, swarming toward the fourth floor.
Of course, for every entry, there’s also an exit.
For instance, some cockroaches already in a state of poisoning-induced excitement spread their wings wide open, flew out of the windows, with a large crowd of the same sex following behind...
Under the night sky, the onlookers outside seemed like Cao Cao’s army back in the day, forcibly stopped by Zhang Fei on Dangyang Bridge.
Interspersed in this horrifying scene were the tightly closed doors and windows of dormitories, along with intermittent strange calls and screams.
Seeing this situation.
Even the Ke Da night patrol team, with over a decade of security experience, stood there dazed, looking at each other while holding flashlights, baffled and at a loss.
The dormitory manager sister on the side was sharp-eyed and noticed Xu Yun coming out of the crowd with difficulty, her face immediately lighting up with joy:
"Assistant Xu, you’re here too? Come and see, what’s going on?"
Xu Yun approached and looked up at the densely packed cockroaches with a wry smile:
"Sister Liu, how long has this situation been going on?"
Sister Liu was a somewhat plump middle-aged woman. She and her husband had been doing dormitory management for over a decade, and upon hearing the question, looked puzzled and a bit frightened:
"I don’t know either. At that time, I was cooking for the guys in 203. Suddenly, there was a strange cry from somewhere, and then I saw a swarm of cockroaches rushing upstairs. That was quite a scene...."
Cooking with open flames is forbidden in Ke Da dormitories, so some dorm managers prepare small dishes like chicken giblets. If students want to enjoy some beer in their dorm on weekends, they can order a dish or two at quite a reasonable price, which also counts as a little extra income for the dorm managers.
Sister Liu, who was initially doing private work, hurriedly turned off the stove and ran out with her husband upon sensing something amiss.
Upon hearing this, Xu Yun couldn’t help but sigh:
"Sister Liu, have you contacted the school leadership?"
"I just called a few counselors and the branch leaders, and Dean Tian is on his way here..."
"Dean Tian? Hasn’t he rested yet?"
"No, he said he was doing some experiments, and upon hearing the news, he told me he would come to the scene immediately and mentioned not to call the fire department..."
Upon hearing this, Xu Yun felt a slight relief.
Throughout Ke Da, aside from a few project team members like Qiu Sheng, the only one who could quickly deduce the situation, besides Xu Yun himself, was Tian Liangwei.
If it had been any other department or school leader, who knows what kind of major incident might have erupted.
More composed individuals might handle it calmly, but encountering some more emotional leaders, they might start imagining scenarios as extreme as earthquakes or even start demonizing the event—after all, many schools are built over graveyards, and many school leaders are quite superstitious.
In almost every school’s top ten campus legends, there are always some ghostly connections.
And so, after about twenty minutes or so.
Tian Liangwei finally arrived quickly on the scene with his assistant.
Just as he split the crowd and reached the entrance, his scalp tingled, watching the swarming cockroaches, and instinctively blurted out in his hometown dialect:
"Oh damn, so many cockroaches? Xiaoxu, what the hell is going on?"
Xu Yun, who had been waiting here, sighed softly and recounted the entire process in detail, trying to shoulder as much responsibility as possible:
".... That’s about the situation, Director Tian. It’s mainly my responsibility for not clearly communicating the dosage issue with Li Cheng and the others..."
Tian Liangwei initially had his brows furrowed, but as he listened, a rather peculiar expression gradually appeared on his face:
"Well, you can’t be entirely blamed; it’s ultimately an issue of information discrepancy. Those two blockheads probably Googled agricultural Cyanofipronil and thought that the effect you gave them was just like that.....
Anyway, leave that aside for now. Xiaoxu, do you have any solutions?"
Xu Yun remained silent for a while and then spoke:
"Director Tian, the first thing we need to do is stabilize emotions. I have already contacted a few physics department leaders inside the dormitory. Through group-to-group and individual notifications, all the dorm rooms have been closed.
The students inside the dorms are mainly experiencing some anxiety, but otherwise haven’t been much affected, so we need to make more effort in comfort work."
He paused after saying this, then continued:
"As for subsequent suggestions, my view is... to wait!"
"Wait?"
Xu Yun nodded and said:
"After all, while the dosage was definitely excessive for two syringes of gel bait, the coverage area is relatively limited.
Ideally, it should already have been transmitted to the third set of receptors, and after two more cycles, it should basically stop.
So instead of manually intervening, why not just wait on the side and spray some pesticides around to prevent the cockroaches from escaping?
The only issue is that students in the dorms may need psychological counseling. Perhaps the end-of-semester score could be increased by 0.2 points for everyone? They’ll surely be bouncing back energically with no issues tomorrow!"
Tian Liangwei’s mouth twitched a few times:
".... You’re asking the school to compensate with grade points for something you caused?"
He then sighed:
"We’ll discuss compensation later. Let’s execute the plan as you suggested; I’ll explain to the college and school. Gosh, initially I thought we were facing a biochemical crisis..."
Meanwhile, as Xu Yun and others were conversing, the online world gradually started buzzing with activity...
....