Chapter 159: Absorption (7) (With Illustration)
Translator: bjgoofy
After I'd finished my story and was waiting a while, Bin, Cho, and Yohwa came back from the water's edge, having washed the bed bug fluids off themselves.
And perhaps because they were still damp, they each began grooming themselves beside me.
-Crunch crunch.
-Slurp slurp.
A centipede's grooming usually starts with the antennae.
Sure enough, Cho and Bin gripped their antennae with their mandibles, brought them to their mouths, and started licking them meticulously.
Yohwa, too, brought one of her front legs up to her mouth.
Being spiritual creatures, they'd gone and washed at the water's edge, but for ordinary centipedes and spiders, cleaning themselves means licking with the mouth, just like that.
It's rather like what cats do, really.
But since they don't shed any fur, centipedes can be called even cleaner animals than cats.
'Goodness, what tidy little things.'
People often mistake centipedes and spiders for filthy creatures, but that's a truly unfortunate misconception.
Because both centipedes and spiders are incredibly clean animals.
Centipedes, which live in damp places, are vulnerable to mold, so they keep themselves clean at all times, and spiders, too, groom themselves constantly to keep their bodies from getting sticky with web silk.
In particular, both centipedes and spiders, once they've finished a meal, will as a matter of course meticulously lick their antennae and fangs clean.
Since our kids don't eat, this wasn't a sight I got to see very often, so I watched them in a daze.
Because the sight of giant centipedes and a spider licking every nook and cranny of themselves so cutely and adorably was a truly precious scene.
'Oh, so precious, so precious. So sweet, so sweet.'
I felt like I finally understood why parents film videos while raising their kids.
Lamenting deeply that I had no phone or any recording device, I etched the sight of them grooming into my mind.
This was a scene I absolutely couldn't miss, one I had to sear into my memory.
I'd been watching them groom in a daze for quite a while when it happened.
Then came a question from Seol noona, at my side.
"Ryong, didn't you say you'd dig once Bin got back?"
"Oh, right!"
I'd forgotten for a moment, caught up in watching the kids groom, but now that she mentioned it, I needed to dig a moat around the village.
Because bed bugs generally avoid water itself, I figured digging a moat around the village would effectively keep them out.
Since they weren't spiritual creatures but had merely grown large in size, they'd still retain the habits they'd had as small bed bugs.
I quickly turned my head and looked at Bin.
Meaning to tell her to start digging right away.
"Bin? Uh...."
-Tssrit?
But the moment I turned back to call her, what caught my eye was one of Bin's antennae, glossy and gleaming in the light.
She was in the middle of grooming, and now I had to ask her to go dig again, so the words just stuck in my throat.
After she'd washed herself so spotless, I had to tell her to go back into the dirt.
'Will this be okay? I feel kind of bad for Bin, though?'
Bin had finished licking her right antenna and was about halfway down her left.
Without pausing her mouth, Bin asked again, as if to say, "Why did you call me?"
-Tss?
'Ah, well, it'll be fine, right?'
I was a little worried, but figuring it would be all right, I asked in a careful voice.
"Bin, I feel bad asking this right after you've washed up.... but could you do Daddy a favor? It's nothing big, I just need a little digging done."
At that, the antenna Bin had been holding slipped out of her mouth, and she glanced down at herself as if to check over her own body.
Then Bin's body began to quiver and tremble.
Come to think of it, our Bin was a fastidious girl by temperament, too.
'Was it like Dad making her do chores right after she'd bathed and put on her makeup?'
***
Asking a girl who'd not only bathed but nearly finished grooming to go dig in the dirt, well, it was only natural Bin got annoyed.
But since it was Daddy's request, even while sulking, Bin agreed to dig.
"W-well, then I guess I'll just have to dig with the men and their shovels.... If we dig all day, it'll get done eventually...."
-Tsurururu!
When I, reading her mood, said I'd just spend the whole day digging with the river bandits, Bin shot back a feeling that practically shrieked, "Who said I wouldn't dig?!"
Well, that was part of Bin's charm.
-Crack crack.
As Bin burrowed into the ground and cut across beneath it, mounds of earth bulged up the way they do when a mole tunnels through.
Soon the heaped-up earth split down the middle, becoming a long, trench-like ditch.
I'd been watching it all from the sky atop Cho, and just as Bin came bursting out the far side, I gave the signal to Lee Tae, who was waiting at the starting point.
"Lee Tae! Now!"
"Understood, Master Soryong!"
At my command, Lee Tae and the river bandits tore down the embankment on the side nearest the river.
The last of the embankment crumbled, water surged in, and it came pouring madly into the path Bin had carved.
-Gush gush gush.
And the water, riding its own momentum, swept away the surrounding earth and raced all the way to the other end.
The water tore along the channel Bin had dug.
It reached the end of the channel in a rush, burst through the thin heap of earth there, and spilled back into the river.
At that, the channel slowly widened until the current began to settle.
Lee Tae's Water Stronghold, the village built on the reed flats of the sediment land below the mountain, had now become a complete island.
Once I'd confirmed the water was flowing all around the village, I turned my head, and there was Hwa-eun, coming this way from where the evacuated people had gathered, bringing along a few river bandits and Yohwa.
She must have seen that the channel work was finished.
Soon Hwa-eun's voice rang out.
"Soryong, we're ready!"
"Coming down! Cho, let's go down."
-Tsurr!
Just as we'd agreed before starting the channel work, Hwa-eun had brought Yohwa and a few people along.
As Cho and I slowly descended, Hwa-eun took the lead, walking toward roughly the defensive line where we'd held off the bed bugs the day before, and asked,
"About there should be fine, right?"
"Yes. Any farther out and you never know, so that house would be best."
The spot Hwa-eun pointed to, as we nearly reached our destination, was an old house standing near where we'd blocked the bed bugs.
Stepping inside, Hwa-eun closed her eyes, lifted her nose to catch the scent, and said, glancing around,
"Good. I think they're here."
What Hwa-eun was doing now was scent-tracking, using the Tang Family's keen sense of smell to find where the hidden bed bugs were.
After a moment of searching every corner of the house with her eyes closed, Hwa-eun pointed to a bamboo wall deeper inside and said,
"There. They're in the wall, between the walls!"
At Hwa-eun's words, the river bandits crept closer, and bed bugs poked their heads out from a gap in the woven bamboo wall.
These were creatures that huddled hidden in dark crevices like this during the day, poking their heads out only once a person came near and they sensed the warmth, so they'd reacted to the approaching river bandits.
'Oh, the Tang Family nose really is something, huh?'
Come to think of it, if Hwa-eun hadn't stayed behind to check the corpses for poison, we might have found the bed bugs even sooner.
I immediately asked Yohwa.
"Yohwa, catch them all for me!"
-Hisss!
At my command, Yohwa struck the head-poking creatures with her webbing, dragged them out one by one, and stuffed them all into a large pouch made from her own silk.
Sample bed bugs: capture complete.
The reason we were rounding up the bed bugs was to test Hwayang's poison on them.
Since it was a poison that set the body ablaze, I figured it might work well on the bed bugs.
"Let's take these to the boat for now."
"All right, Soryong."
The ones we'd caught came to eight in all.
Carrying the creatures squirming inside the pouch of Yohwa's silk, we headed for the boat.
And the moment we reached the boat, I took one of them out and pinned it to a wooden board with the Tang Family's Flying Needles, as though mounting an insect specimen.
It thrashed its legs, but pinned by the Flying Needles, it couldn't move.
Right away I scooped up some of the water Hwayang was swimming in and dripped a little onto the creature's underside.
-Trickle.
Because a bed bug's respiratory organs sit in the abdomen, I figured the underside would be better for drawing in the poison.
But the bed bug showed no reaction to the poison whatsoever.
"Hmm.... what's this?"
It was a poison potent enough to make me spit fire, and yet there was no reaction at all.
"Don't tell me this only works on people?"
The first suspicion that came to mind was that it might be a poison that only worked on mammals.
Because a poison that could kill a human if eaten might have no effect at all on insects.
Honestly, the notion that, when stranded, it's safe to eat any fruit that beasts or insects eat, isn't true at all.
Since there are even insects that feed on poisonous mushrooms, it was a fairly reasonable suspicion, I'd say.
But Hwa-eun offered a different opinion.
"Could it be that there isn't enough? After all, it's basically been diluted in water."
She was suggesting that, since it had been thinned out in water, perhaps the poison was simply too weak.
Honestly, if that were the case, then no matter how well the poison worked, it wouldn't mean much for us.
Because the poison we could draw from Hwayang alone was limited, and if we needed it undiluted, that would make it hard to use.
"Who knows? Let's check, for now."
But since it was worth checking, I took out one more bed bug and pinned it side by side with the one already fixed in place.
This time, instead of the water Hwayang swam in, I rubbed a wooden stick against Hwayang's body and then rubbed that onto the bed bug.
But even after a long wait, the creature showed no reaction.
It was a bit disappointing, but I figured we'd probably have to head back to the family and examine this more closely with the family elders.
After all, I had clearly been poisoned, yet against the bed bugs, something just didn't seem to take.
"It seems the two of us aren't going to figure out much more here."
"Right. We'll have to go back and ask Grandfather."
It was a little disappointing, but even without the poison we'd be safe until the boat was repaired, so for now I decided to focus on the night ahead.
So I left the one smeared with the undiluted poison pinned to the board as it was, and the one that had taken the water Hwayang swam in I put back into the pouch of Yohwa's silk and tossed onto the deck.
And since there was still a chance the bed bugs might cross the water, I was trying to get some sleep in the cabin to prepare for the night, when it happened.
I hadn't slept a wink the day before either, so I was sleeping soundly in the cabin, hugging Bin tight like a bolster pillow after all her hard work that day, in that very moment.
An acrid smell grazed the tip of my nose.
-Tsurururu!
-Hisss!
When I opened my eyes at the kids' frantic commotion, blue flames were rising from the dining table in the cabin.
-Fwoosh.
"Wh-what the?!"
When I checked what on earth was burning in the surging blue flames, what I saw was the bed bug, still pinned to the wooden board, spewing blue fire from its mouth and abdomen.
And yet, strangely, the only thing burning was the bed bug.
Unlike the time I'd coughed up blood, the flames weren't burning the wood or anything else around them.
"Th-this is..."
Hwa-eun, who'd been sleeping in the next room, heard the commotion and came running, then went wide-eyed in shock at the sight of the burning bed bug.
And just then, the startled voices of the crew came from the deck.
"F-fire!"
"Fire!"
When I grabbed the wooden board with the blue-burning bed bug on it and headed outside, there was likewise something on fire up on the deck.
I rushed over, threw the wooden board into the water, and used a wooden pole the crew was holding to fling the burning pouch of Yohwa's silk overboard.
Yohwa's silk burned away in midair, and the eight bed bugs scattered onto the water, spewing flames.
The creatures kept spewing fire for a good while even on the water before finally sinking beneath the surface.
Watching the bed bugs sink, it occurred to me that the poison seemed to take some time to spread.
Hwa-eun, watching the sinking bed bugs alongside me, said,
"It seems the poison takes more than three shichen to spread. At this rate, even if it does affect them, it's too awkward to be of any use."
About three shichen, roughly six hours, had passed since I'd applied the poison to them earlier.
Most likely, just as Hwa-eun said, the poison needed some time after exposure before the symptoms manifested.
But there was something in Hwa-eun's words that was wrong.
This poison wasn't too awkward to use, it was, in fact, probably just perfect as an insecticide.
"No. It's a poison that fits this situation perfectly."
"Fits perfectly?"
The bed bug brats swarmed out at night and, once the sun rose, clustered together and slipped into dark places, so if even one poisoned bug were mixed in among them, they'd surely be poisoned in a chain reaction and burst into flames, just like the ones inside Yohwa's pouch.
A poison made purely for extermination.
There wasn't much time left until sunset.
When I asked Hwayang, through Bin, to give off a little more poison, Bin relayed back exactly one word.
'Food.'
Presumably it meant that more food was needed to produce more poison.
Dry reeds and bamboo were piled up in the village clearing, and when a great blaze leapt up, all of it began to be sucked into Hwayang's mouth.
And once the flames had died down completely, Hwayang, who had now grown front legs, was clinging to the rim of the water bucket and looking up at me.
<img src="https://i.ibb.co/1GwBHbCG/ch-159.jpg" alt="" />
*****
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