After about five minutes, all three of us realized that it had really flown away, and didn’t seem to be coming back.
Poker-Face had classified it as a hell bug, and now it had just flown away. I didn’t know why I felt like the earth was going to be destroyed, but when I looked at Poker-Face, I slowly relaxed. We all stood up, and I really wanted to ask him directly: “Is this ok?”
It turns out that all you had to do was drive the bug away, so what were you so nervous about just now?
“Will it come back?” Pampered Guy asked.
“Whether it wants to come back or not, it may not remember the way.” Snake Ancestor said, “You just said this thing couldn’t be so smart.”
“So… it’s over? Won’t it fly around everywhere and hurt people?”
“Then what else can we do? Find all the bugs in a five hundred li (1) radius and see if it’s inside?” Pampered Guy sat down on the ground and rubbed his neck and arms: “It’s over, the task is complete.”
Don’t relax! I cried in my heart. In European and American films, the best supporting roles all died at this moment, just when the whole audience thought everything was over. This increased the absurdity and happiness of life. It later became a typical movie trope, which was why I felt nervous here.
The three of us rested as if nothing had happened. The difference between reality and movies was that reality would never conform to your ideas.
“Clean up and count the number.” Poker-Face said.
“I memorized how many I killed and how many I saw die with my own eyes, but I don’t know how many fell into the water before that. It should basically be close to the total number. Even if I missed a few, the chances of them being alive aren’t great. Except for those in the traps, all the bugs should be here.”
When I saw Pampered Guy taste the river water when we were on the raft before, I knew he had this skill. This kind of person knew everything like the back of his hand and had an amazing memory.
There were traps along the cliff path, as well as those around the divine iron in the hall, so Pampered Guy counted the bugs, killed them, and then threw them into the lake. Finally, there was only the huge female bug left, so we used bamboo poles to push her into the lake.
“How much longer?” Poker-Face asked.
“Four hours. It’s enough time.”
With the exception of the damaged areas, no bugs could be seen in the whole village after we finished cleaning up. As we were working, we scattered the insect fragrant jade dust everywhere, and then took the green lanterns and threw them into the pool of water. The nearly extinguished lanterns slowly sank to the bottom, turned into ghost fires in the water, and then slowly disappeared.
As the night wind blew, a huge reflection of the moon formed on the water’s surface, and the moonlight was dazzling. If we weren’t deep in the mountains, the moonlight here would have painted another magnificent scene.
The night breeze blew the jade ash away from the places where the bugs had crawled. The ash had a kind of fluorescence, which made the whole village appear as beautiful as a sand painting getting blown away by the wind. The three of us went to the water’s shore, followed Poker-Face’s lead and took off our clothes, and then started washing our whole bodies.
“There are so many bugs in the water, is it ok?” Snake Ancestor asked.
“Don’t worry.” Pampered Guy motioned him to stay away. “You and your snakes are really intimate. It’s a little disgusting to see you naked, so turn around. Wash the tea off your body quickly. As time goes by, it becomes more poisonous than those bugs.”
“So dangerous?”
“How else did you think you could live up to this point?”
“Then you should have told me in advance.”
After washing their bodies, the three men washed their clothes, went back to the place where they had tea before, and started drying their clothes again. Snake Ancestor asked what was going on.
Pampered Guy poured the tea water into the lake, threw the tea set down, and then found another tea set to make fresh tea that didn’t smell of blood. “That tea just now is a kind of poisonous corpse liquid, and the toxicity comes from some kind of red bug, which is very strong. But if you mix something with it, you can prevent the corpse poison from taking effect for a certain period of time, and at the same time restrain other bugs’ poison. If you apply it to your body, it can save you a few times as long as you’re not badly hurt. We’re clearing the way for what comes next.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think would have happened if the army had come in instead of us? How many people could survive?” Pampered Guy touched his stomach and seemed a little hungry: “We were so conscientious while escorting these people along the way, yet they’re still on guard against us.”
“You mean, you came in early to protect those in the underworld?” Snake Ancestor was surprised and asked, “Why?”
“We’ve always been like this.” Pampered Guy said. “It’s because all of you are too confident in yourselves. Many people simply don’t know how many things we’ve done for them. They already feel that they’ve traveled through a mountain of knives and a sea of fire (2). It seems scary how lucky they are. What they don’t know is that we’ve already cleaned up the road in front of them, just like what we did in this village.”
<Extra 2.27> <Table of Contents><Extra 2.29>
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TN Notes:
(1) Not sure if you remember, but it’s a traditional Chinese unit of distance. 500 li= 250,000 meters= ~155 miles.
(2) Basically means “extremely difficult and dangerous situation”
MereBear's Translation 