Chapter 9 House Centipedes

“Turn off the flashlights?” I was surprised when I heard this. We had already lost so many people. What if we turned off our flashlights and lost even more? Wasn’t this just asking for something bad to happen? I quickly looked at Monk Hua, who was older and more experienced, to see what he would do.

But Monk Hua was also very nervous, and when he saw me looking at him, he even asked me, “Should we turn them off?”

Fatty immediately turned off his flashlight and said, “Do as he says. Turn them off and take a look!”

I turned off my flashlight, with Monk Hua and Ye Cheng quickly turning theirs off as well. All of a sudden, our surroundings fell into absolute darkness. We quickly looked up at the ceiling, but couldn’t see anything but darkness at first. Fatty was about to start cursing, but then the ceiling suddenly lit up with countless small green dots of light. At first glance, it looked like a sea of stars stretching across the night sky.

“It’s a Fifty-Star Map,” Monk Hua said from somewhere beside me.

I looked up again and found that the shape of the green dots above really did look somewhat similar to a Fifty-Star Map. But upon closer inspection, they were too different—these green dots were actually moving.

“We’re rich! So many night pearls!” Fatty said in surprise.

“No, night pearls aren’t that small.” I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. “They’re moving. They’re insects!”

“Insects? What kind of insects?” Fatty suddenly became nervous, probably recalling the corpse-eaters we had faced in the past. “Are they fireflies?”

“No, fireflies flicker. I don’t—” But before I finished speaking, I suddenly felt something itchy on my neck, as if something had fallen into my shirt collar. I reached up to see what it was, felt something moving, and quickly grabbed it and crushed it to death.

Relying on my sense of touch, I could tell that it was an arthropod insect with a lot of legs.

Holding the thing between my fingers, I pulled it away from my neck and illuminated it with my flashlight, only to throw it on the ground in disgust.

It was a palm-length insect that looked very similar to a centipede. Its front and back antennae were very long, and its slender body was divided into nine segments, each of which had a green dot on the back. But it was obviously different from a regular centipede in that its legs were very long—almost as long as its body—and there were so many of them. It almost looked like a bunch of long hairs were growing on both sides of its body.

I knew that this strange insect was called a “house centipede”. In some places, it was called a “wall crawler” or a “scutiger”. When I was a child, I was willing to touch just about anything, but I didn’t dare touch this thing. This was the kind of creature that always made me feel uncomfortable as soon as I saw it. There was even a legend in our hometown that said as soon as this thing crawled over your body, all the places it touched would rot. But the most terrible thing was that it could crawl into people’s ears. Now that I was seeing one up close, I suddenly felt my whole body go numb.

It was recorded in “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio”⁽¹⁾ that house centipedes could grow up to a meter in length, and they had mystical attributes, just like spiders and regular centipedes.

When I saw this insect, my whole body tensed up and I suddenly felt my head start to itch again. I raised my hand to touch it and found that another one had fallen from the ceiling and landed on me.

I flung it off with a shout, pulled my hood up to protect my head, and then shined my flashlight on the ground. Fuck, I thought to myself. I didn’t know when it happened, but several of these insects were crawling on the ground, and more kept falling from above. It was impossible to avoid them all.

Monk Hua didn’t react as fast as I did and was jumping up and down as he kept swatting at the things on his neck, but it was useless—they saw the slightest gap and immediately crawled into his clothes. As for the bugs on the ground, they had quickly surrounded us and were trying to climb up our shoes.

Fatty took out a washbasin from his bag and put it over his head while using his folding shovel to beat away the ones on the ground. I glanced over at Ye Cheng and saw him grabbing his head, so I went over to help him. When I pulled his hands away, I saw that several of those insects had crawled into his ears.

Some house centipedes were as venomous as regular centipedes, and some were actually more venomous. I’d rather let scorpions crawl all over me than let this kind of thing crawl on me. I told him to tilt his head sideways, and then smacked the other side a few times until the insects fell out.

We kept swatting them away while running, but those house centipedes kept raining down from the ceiling nonstop. Just as we were about to go crazy, there was a sudden popping sound, and then one of the slave statue’s lamps in the distance lit up.

I was wondering who would possibly light the lamp at this time, but then the house centipedes on the ground suddenly reacted and began crawling in the direction of the lamp.

Then I heard Shunzi’s voice say from a distance, “Guys, light a fire! These insects lay their eggs on warm things. Don’t let your body be the warmest thing around.”

It really is Shunzi’s voice, I thought to myself. It looks like he finally woke up.

Hearing this, Fatty and I quickly rushed to the nearest slave statue’s lamp. This thing was carved out of stone, as tall as a person, and shaped like a person carrying a basin on their back. The basin itself had a wick in it, but when I climbed up to light it, I saw that the thousand-year-old oil had frozen solid, and the basin was full of those insects.

I pulled out my lighter and lit the wick—the flame was very small at first, but it gradually became stronger as the thousand-year-old oil melted. As soon as the house centipedes in the oil basin saw the light, they immediately surrounded it. Several of them got too close to the flame and ended up getting burned.

I turned on my flashlight once again and pointed it at the ceiling, noticing that the previously colorful image on the beams above had changed—it seemed that the pattern we saw just now had actually been created by these insects. At this time, the other slave statues’ lamps were lit, although the light seeping through the surrounding darkness was very dim. I still couldn’t see the others, but I already knew where they were. It seemed that the darkness here wasn’t impenetrable like we thought, it was just that our flashlights weren’t strong enough to pierce through it.

The insects were still sporadically falling from above, but most of them were crawling in the direction of the lamps. We covered our heads and ran to the light on the other side, where we saw Lang Feng and Shunzi. Lang Feng was lying on the ground and twitching nonstop while Shunzi covered his own head and knocked the insects off of him.

When I ran up to him and asked him what was wrong, he said, “It’s over. The insects have already reached his brain. They’re in too deep to dig out.”

Fatty made a noise and started digging in his ears while muttering to himself, “It’s a good thing I have a lot of earwax.”

Ignoring him, I asked Shunzi, “Is there any way to save him?”

Shunzi shook his head and said, “I don’t know. In our village, once you get hit by these xuemaozi,⁽²⁾ then it’s up to heaven to decide whether you live or die.”

I pulled Lang Feng’s eyelid up and found that he was unconscious. The situation was really horrible, but I knew that it was actually a good thing in the end. He was one of Chen Pi Ah Si’s men, after all. When it came time for the old man to turn against us—and he would, sooner or later—it would be very difficult to deal with them all. But now that one of them had been taken out of commission, we had a better chance of winning.

At this time, Pan Zi’s voice could be heard in the distance, urging us all to gather around him. “Forget about it for now,” I said to Shunzi. “We can talk about it after we regroup. Is your head alright?”

Shunzi nodded and asked, “Why did I suddenly pass out like that? I remember…you guys were going to blow up the mountain! Wait, where are we?”

I didn’t know how to respond for a moment, but Fatty immediately said, “You misunderstood. We just wanted to fire off a salute, but then we ran into an unexpected avalanche. A rock fell on your head and knocked you out. We got swept away by the snow and ended up in this place that looks like a temple. We’re not really sure what’s going on either.”

Shunzi thought it over for a moment, “I don’t remember anything, but how can you guys blow up things on a snow-covered mountain? It’s too reckless… That’s it, you’ll have to pay me more when we get back. This deal isn’t fair to me.”

Fatty wanted to keep talking, but I was afraid he would let something slip, so I smacked him and said, “Stop talking nonsense. We can discuss it later. Let’s hurry up and leave.”

With that said, Fatty and I moved to lift Lang Feng up. We wanted to carry him over to where Pan Zi was, but Lang Feng was so big that we both used up almost all of our strength just trying to push him into a sitting position.

Lang Feng’s head hung down over his chest as he continued twitching. Just as I was thinking about how to lift him up and drag him over there, I suddenly saw Fatty frown.

I followed his gaze and saw that there was an obvious mark on the back of Lang Feng’s head, as if he had been beaten. Although it wasn’t obvious, I was still able to notice it once I looked carefully.

I felt my heart thump. This clearly showed that Lang Feng wasn’t suffering from the effects of the house centipedes’ venom, but had been knocked out. I glanced at Shunzi, who was carrying Lang Feng’s backpack. But just as I was about to ask him what happened, Fatty shushed me and motioned for me to remain silent.

I didn’t know what his intentions were, but I answered his meaningful look with a nod. Then we lifted Lang Feng up, laboriously slung him over our shoulders, and dragged him in Pan Zi’s direction.

After walking through a short section of darkness, we arrived at Pan Zi’s lamp and found that he and Chen Pi Ah Si were the only ones there. It seemed that Poker-Face was missing. “Where’s Little Brother?” I asked Pan Zi.

“Wasn’t he with you guys?” Pan Zi said. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

I looked around. Except for the lamp we had lit before and Shunzi’s lamp, no fourth lamp had been lit. There were only two dim lights standing there in the distance, looking faint and lifeless.

Logically speaking, in that kind of situation, if Poker-Face had heard Shunzi’s shout, he would have lit the lamp closest to him. Otherwise, he would have definitely been surrounded by these house centipedes. But if he didn’t light it, did that mean that before he could hear Shunzi’s shout, he had already lost consciousness like Lang Feng?

Impossible. With that mosquito-repellent constitution of his, all the insects should have fled from him out of fear.

Fatty shouted into the surrounding darkness. His voice echoed through the empty spirit palace for a long time, but no one answered. It was almost like Poker-Face had never been here at all. I told myself to calm down and listen, but I didn’t hear any sounds of breathing or footsteps.

I knew in my heart that with this guy’s skills, nothing should be able to beat him without making a sound. If he disappeared so quietly, then he must’ve had a special reason or discovered something and left the group on his own. Even if we kneeled down and kowtowed to him, he still wouldn’t show up.

Pan Zi and Fatty called a few more times, but when they still didn’t receive a response, they turned on their flashlights and prepared to go look for him. I quickly stopped them and said, “We need to stick together right now. Let’s take care of the wounded first, and then we can go and look for him together.”

Everyone thought it over, nodded in agreement, and then gathered around Lang Feng. Chen Pi Ah Si checked his injury—with his cunning personality, I knew that he would notice the wound on the back of Lang Feng’s head right away, but he didn’t look surprised at all. Instead, he gave me an inscrutable look.

I suddenly realized that this situation wasn’t good. Fatty and I were the ones who brought Lang Feng over just now. So, logically speaking, Chen Pi Ah Si wouldn’t suspect Shunzi, whom we met in the mountain village. Instead, he probably thought that the one who injured Lang Feng was either me or Fatty, or both.

It was hard to say what strategy he would use to deal with us in the future, but right now, it felt like we had pointed a gun at our own heads.

But then again, Shunzi was not only a veteran, but also a regular soldier who had served on the front lines as a border guard. It shouldn’t have been difficult for him to knock Lang Feng out. He was probably wary of us and pretending to be stupid in order to confuse us—after all, our identities were unknown and we were obviously not up to any good. But I couldn’t expose him right now. The situation here was so complicated that one more friend was obviously better than one more enemy.

We shouldn’t have hired an ex-soldier to be our guide, I thought to myself. At this time, I felt that the relationship between everyone had become strained, but I didn’t know how to deal with it.

Shunzi lay Lang Feng down on his side, pulled two toothpicks from his pocket, and used them to pick out the house centipedes inside Lang Feng’s ears. As soon as he threw them on the ground, Fatty immediately crushed them to death.

Shunzi told us that this kind of insect, which they called “xuemao”⁽³⁾, was a very rare ingredient used in traditional Chinese medicine. They usually lived below the snow line, and had never been seen above the snow line, so he didn’t know why there were so many here. He also said that they had already crawled into Lang Feng’s brain, so he likely wouldn’t last long.

Generally speaking, saying that these insects entered the brain through the ear was complete nonsense. I touched Lang Feng’s jaw and found that it was red and swollen—the house centipedes must have bitten the inside of his ear and injected their venom into him. It wasn’t as serious as Shunzi said. But the main question I had right now was where these insects had come from.

Fatty looked up at the ceiling and said, “They must have been hidden in the roof tiles and woke up when the smoke from the burnt insect fragrant jade was released. What a fucking ruthless trick. But how did Old Wang know that we’d burn the tortoise magnet?”

Of course he knew, I thought to myself. Since the magnetic tortoise was buried beneath the tomb’s sealing stone, he must have hoped that grave robbers would find it and destroy it. Whether it was burned or smashed, the insect fragrant jade would become volatile and wake up the house centipedes hidden on the spirit palace’s tiled roof. But if someone respected the spirit palace and didn’t destroy it, then the magnetic tortoise would continue to protect the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds forever.

Monk Hua had brought some medicine with him, so he quickly gave Lang Feng an injection, saying that it could save his life for the time being. After the injection, we took off Lang Feng’s coat, swatted off the insects that were nesting inside, and cleaned him up a bit. Pan Zi turned to Chen Pi Ah Si and said, “Grandpa Si, this bug is highly venomous. We’d better get out of here quickly before someone gets stung again. Otherwise, there won’t be enough medicine.”

Chen Pi Ah Si looked around and frowned. Ye Cheng sighed and told Pan Zi how we had found ourselves trapped just now. When Pan Zi heard this, he was also extremely confused, “Are you sure we didn’t just take a wrong turn somewhere?”

Ye Cheng was about to respond when Shunzi suddenly gave a thoughtful hum and said, “That’s odd.” I looked back and found that the light from the first lamp he had lit before had suddenly disappeared.

The oil in the lamp had been useless for hundreds of years, so it was a miracle that it could even be lit now. I told him that there was nothing strange about it, but Shunzi frowned and told me to look again.

I was feeling a little annoyed, but at this time, I happened to see the flame of the lamp I had lit before start to flicker, as if someone had walked by or a breeze had hit it.

There was absolutely no wind in the main hall, so that meant that someone had to be passing by.

I thought it was Poker-Face coming back and started to call out to him, but Fatty quickly covered my mouth. In the dim light cast by the flame, I saw the vague outline of a person emerge from the darkness—it definitely wasn’t Poker-Face; that shadow was way too tall.

I instinctively felt that something was wrong, but the shadow was too vague and indistinct to see clearly. Chen Pi Ah Si looked at it for a while before suddenly raising his hand and shooting an iron pellet out. The iron pellet flew past the lamp’s flame at such a high speed that the strong wind caused the flame to flare even brighter for a moment. During those few seconds, we all saw a figure with a strangely long neck standing beside the lamp.

<Chapter 8><Table of Contents><Chapter 10>

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TN Notes:

(1) “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” is a Chinese romance fantasy novel collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling, comprising close to five hundred supernatural tales. More info here.

(2) Pretty sure it’s a made-up DMBJ-only term. Characters are 雪毛子 and they can be translated as “snow hair thing” or “hairy snow thing” I guess.

(3) Essentially same as #2, just without the last character. So it can be translated as “snow hair”.

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I was over here going “RIP Lang Feng. You didn’t last long” (*￣▽￣)b but it seems he’ll live to see more centipedes. Can’t believe I forgot so much stuff that happened in this book. I even forgot how sketchy Shunzi is.