Old Meng lives in Gacha pasture in Inner Mongolia. As soon as it gets dark this evening, Old Meng goes out. He has a can full of sawdust hanging from his waist, a flashlight in his left hand, and two wooden sticks in his right hand - these are all scorpion-catching equipment. When he was young, Old Meng used to be a famous scorpion-catching expert, known as the "Scorpion King", but later he suddenly washed his hands and quit. After many years, why did Old Meng go to catch scorpions again? It turns out that his grandson is about to go back to the pasture for a while after the summer vacation. The child was clamoring to see the scorpions on the phone. Old Meng was concerned and planned to catch two small scorpions for his grandson to keep and play with. When he returned to school, he would put them back in the pasture.

Outside the village, there is endless Gacha grassland. Between 8 a.m. and 3 o'clock in the morning on summer nights, it is a good time for scorpions to come out of their burrows to feed.

Old Meng walked for a while in the pasture and squatted down quietly. He pricked up his ears and listened to the "rustling" sound, which was the scorpion crawling. Old Meng looked at the position and suddenly shone a flashlight on the lamp post.

After a while, Old Meng grabbed a few small scorpions and muttered, "It's almost done."

Old Meng turned his head and walked back, suddenly noticing that there were a lot of blue lights flashing back and forth in the distance. Old Meng's heart skipped a beat.

These people held scorpion lamps in one hand and long tweezers in the other. The ultraviolet beam of light from the scorpion catcher shone on the ground, and the scorpion on the ground immediately emitted crystal clear light. There is a photosensitive substance in the scorpion body that can emit green fluorescence under ultraviolet light. The scorpion lamp uses this principle to make the scorpion have nowhere to hide.

Whether it was an adult scorpion three or four centimeters long, or a young scorpion one or two centimeters long, these people pinched one by one and ate all the size. Looking at the bottle on their waists, there was nothing in it, and the scorpions huddled together in the bottle, fighting each other inexorably, and the scene was tragic.

Old Meng shouted, "What village are you from, how did you come to our pasture to catch scorpions?"

A stocky young man walked over and raised the scorpion lamp in his hand: "Yo, isn't this'Uncle Meng, Scorpion King, it's me, Dongzi. Why are you out too?"

Old Meng frowned and said, "Dongzi, didn't you go to Ningxia to work?"

Dongzi "snorted" and said contemptuously, "How much money can I earn by working part-time? Or catch wild scorpions to get money quickly..."

It turned out that in the first few years, Dongzi discovered in Ningxia that wild scorpions were not only precious as medicine, but also gradually became a precious delicacy in high-end restaurants. Therefore, Dongzi learned from others and organized a group of people to go into Helan Mountain to catch scorpions. After catching them for a few years, he moved all the way into the grassland and began to catch scorpions in the grassland. This summer, when he arrived in his hometown of Gacha grassland, he found that the wild scorpions here were basically untouched. He was overjoyed and did not have time to return to the village, so the organization staff came over immediately.

Dongzi said excitedly, "You were the scorpion king in the village back then, and I want to ask you how to improve the efficiency of catching scorpions!"

Old Meng understood. He raised his voice by an octave and said, "Dongzi, quickly tell your people to stop and stop grabbing."

Dongzi was taken aback and asked, "We were caught all the way from Helan Mountain, and no one ever stopped us. When we got to the door, we were not allowed to be caught. Why? Who set the rules?"

Old Meng said, "This is a rule set by the village many years ago. You were young at that time and didn't know..."

Dongzi glanced at the bottle on Old Meng's waist and was not happy, so he immediately interrupted: "Oh, look, what's in the bottle on your waist, don't you also steal it? Are you afraid that we will steal business from you? You are an elder, so it is said that you should not refute you, but if you want to cut off my wealth, I will not agree. Back then, you caught Scorpion and became the Scorpion King, and you won both fame and wealth. It's fine if you don't guide the younger generation. Can't we work hard to make money now?"

Dongzi was aggressive, and Lao Meng was so choked that he couldn't speak, so he turned his head and left angrily.

When Old Meng returned home, he put the can on the table and angrily said, "Dongzi of our village has come back and led a group of people to catch scorpions in the Gacha grassland.

The daughter-in-law rolled her eyes at Old Meng and said, "You don't know that wild scorpions are already five or six hundred yuan per kilogram and have become a hot commodity."

Old Meng patted his head, sat up and said, "Yes, rob, I want to rob them of scorpions!"

The next morning, Old Meng turned to a few families and mobilized his old subordinates who had caught Scorpion. After saying this, more than a dozen people immediately echoed and dug out bottles and jars, ready to go to war.

In the evening, Old Meng led people into the Gacha grassland, and not far from Dongzi's group, they lit more than a dozen oil lamps and surrounded them in a big circle. Old Meng gave an order, and everyone turned the oil lamps in their hands. After a while, only the sound of "rustling" was heard, and nearby scorpions ran into the circle formed by the oil lamps. Old Meng gave another order, the oil lamps went out and the flashlights were on. Everyone took a pair of long-handled chopsticks and picked them up "whoosh." The method was fast and accurate, and all the big and small scorpions were put into the jar at their waists. As soon as the scorpions entered the jar, they all dormant under the sawdust and stopped moving.

Dongzi looked at Lao Meng's oil lamp a little, and the scorpion ran madly from under his feet to Lao Meng, like a child seeing his mother, and even the scorpions that were shrouded in ultraviolet rays in a daze jumped up and ran away like hyped. The group of people were stunned.

Dongzi gave up, ran over and grabbed Old Meng's clothes and said, "Now you can either quit this grassland or join my team. Give me a word, hurry up!"

Old Meng gripped his neck and said, "After being outside for a few years, you didn't learn anything else, but you learned to be ruthless? Let me tell you, every grass and tree in the grassland, including these scorpions, is related to the lives of a common people. I won't agree to anyone who moves!"

Dongzi pushed Old Meng down and greeted him: "Brothers, copy the guys, teach me a lesson!"

Just as the two sides were about to make a move, suddenly more than a dozen joint law enforcement vehicles drove into the grassland. With a "stop," they jumped out of the car. More than 20 police officers and grassland guards came to take a closer look and took the two groups to the village for review.

Soon came to a conclusion, Lao Meng and the villagers went home with their belongings, Dongzi was detained and fined, his subordinates were disbanded after criticism and education, vehicles were confiscated, and scorpion tools were destroyed on the spot.

Dongzi protested loudly: "It's also catching scorpions, why didn't Lao Meng have anything wrong in the past? It's not fair!"

A grassland guard stepped forward and said, "You want to know why? Let me tell you."

Forty years ago, when reform and opening up were just starting, the villagers were not satisfied with the profits brought by raising cattle and sheep. They all wanted to earn some extra money, so they set their eyes on the wild scorpions on the grassland. Scorpions were quite popular as medicinal materials, and they could earn a few dollars by catching hundreds of scorpions for a few nights, which was quite impressive. So men, women and children went into battle together and carried out a carpet-style manhunt on the grassland. After two or three years, the wild scorpions were wiped out. No one expected that locusts and mosquitoes and flies would occur in the grassland year after year, and in the end, not even much grass roots were left. Cows and sheep starved to death in batches, and the people lost a lot. Later, experts found that wild scorpions on the grassland were an important part of the food chain, and a single scorpion could eat 10,000 locusts a year. Without scorpions, the fragile grassland ecology was immediately severely damaged, and the final victims were local residents. At this time, everyone came to realize that wild scorpions cannot be overcaught, and they will suffer a big loss if they are greedy for small bargains. Later, scorpions from other places were introduced to the grassland, and it took several years for the ecology here to recover slowly.

Old Meng was young at that time, and he was most eager to catch scorpions, and finally he had the title of Scorpion King, but the grassland ecology was suddenly disordered, and his cattle and sheep suffered heavy losses. Old Meng's father was in a hurry and died in anger. This made Old Meng very guilty, and he stopped catching scorpions from now on.

This time, Old Meng found that Dongzi was leading people to catch the scorpion, but he couldn't stop it in time. He was in a hurry to get angry, and when he was talking to his daughter-in-law, he suddenly thought of the idea of using the old method to "grab the scorpion". Old Meng organized people to enter the pasture and lit the sesame oil lamp, which was mixed with secret spices and had a unique smell. They set up an oil lamp array, so that those scorpions who didn't want to leave the nest to forage couldn't help but run out. Old Meng attracted the scorpions to the oil lamp array and grabbed them, so Dongzi couldn't catch the scorpions. He was going to wait for Dongzi to leave the pasture and then put the scorpions back in the pasture. In the sawdust, scorpions would not fight with each other, and would not be damaged if left for ten and a half days. Catching scorpions like Dongzi,

Dongzi fell silent after hearing this. After a long time, he said, "I am willing to accept the punishment."