Chapter 95

“Evil and sinister?” I narrowed my eyes. “Am I going to die?”

Ha Zong didn’t dare nod and just gave me an aggrieved look. I sneered in my heart, not believing it at all. “Then why don’t you start crying for me?” I quietly asked him.

Ha Zong froze for a moment and then tried to make a crying face, “Little Master Three～ I can’t bear to lose you—”

I slapped him on the head. “Why don’t you save me if you can’t bear to lose me?”

Ha Zong immediately nodded. “Little Master Three, you can’t be saved from this thing. It’s part of a pair. You know that pi tong is a very mysterious thing. You must’ve seen it before, but it probably wasn’t that big. An ordinary pi tong is only as big as the Oscar trophy.” Ha Zong gestured, “Or the size of karaoke microphone. They’re all made of human skin and are mainly used to raise insects.”

“What kind of bugs?” I asked him.

“Little Master Three, have you heard of green water beetles?” Ha Zong asked.

I recalled that Chen Zangqi had written about this kind of bug in “Supplements to Materia Medica” during the Tang Dynasty (1). Once the green water beetle gave birth, the mother and child would still gather together in one place even after they were separated. People would coat their money in these beetles’ blood because it was said that the money coated in the mother’s blood would fly back to the money coated in the child’s blood (or vice versa) after it was used up. That was how the saying “green water beetles will bring your money back” came about (2).

“Why would you raise this kind of bug?” I asked him. This bug seemed to be a legendary insect that may have gone extinct as early as the Ming Dynasty. If spreading a bug’s blood on money enabled the money to fly back by itself, then it would definitely be strange if the bug didn’t become extinct.

“The only reason you would raise these green water beetles was to find people,” Ha Zong said. “When exploring some wild areas in ancient times, there was a saying that white paper dolls were coated in the blood of these green beetles. If the person got lost, then the paper doll would show them the way back.”

Oh, I looked at the leather figurine woman. “Why does it have to be raised in human skin?”

“The child bugs are raised in men’s skin, while the mother bugs are raised in women’s skin. The two are a pair. The blood of green water beetles that were raised in leather figurines is much stronger than the blood of wild green water beetles. They can even be separated by several kilometers.” Ha Zong looked at me and continued, “Is this female figurine always following you, Little Master Three?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Have you been feeling unwell recently?” He asked.

I thought about it. Except for being in a bad mood, I didn’t feel sick or anything. Then, I suddenly understood what he meant, “Fuck me, what are you trying to say? Do you mean… it’s in my body?”

“There’s a bug in your body. It and the bug raised in this leather figurine woman are mother and child,” Ha Zong said. “This is a message. It’s really clever sorcery.”

“What information? When was the bug put in my body?” Although I was often bitten by bugs, I made sure to take care of everything.

“That’s something you have to recall. It’s possible you got it from somewhere. Don’t you often go to a bunch of different places? But it’s also possible that you already had this bug in your body when you were a child. As soon as you came within the vicinity of this leather figurine woman, the mother bug sensed the child bug in your body and was attracted to you. This kind of thing is generally a message of some sort, because the mother and child bugs keep growing and multiplying endlessly. If there’s a female bug in this leather figurine woman, there may not be only one child bug. In other words, there might be child bugs in other places. Using this method, an expert might be helping you find the location of another child bug.

“So, this leather figurine woman is a compass.”

“You could say that. But Little Master Three, if you have green water beetles in your body, then your blood will be different from others. Mother bugs can make people live longer, while child bugs can accelerate aging,” he said seriously. “Do you really not feel unwell?”

<Chapter 94><Table of Contents><Chapter 96>

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TN Notes

(1) Chen Zangqi was an herbalist during the 8^th century. “Materia medica” is just latin for medical book. It’s a book on Chinese (herbal) medicine. I only found stuff here on baidu so you can use google translate in chrome if you want to check it out. There’s a “Compendium of Materia Medica” written during the much later Ming dynasty that has an English wiki page here if you want to look at it instead.

(2) FYI, the character for water beetle (蚨) also means money.

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Σ(°ロ°) Was the bug in the Qilin blood thingy Wu Xie ate in Vol 1?!