Chapter 70: Savory Death (1)
Translator: bjgoofy
Only after the Great Ritual had ended, I finally remembered the tasks that had piled up.
Tasks such as checking on the hive of the Golden-Furred King Bees, which had been left to the care of the Venomous Creature Squad, and confirming whether the Chinese hamsters in the Venomous Creatures Garden were growing well.
After returning and going around catching geese for the engagement ceremony, then being mentally consumed by the Great Ritual, I hadn’t even thought about these things until now.
While the Golden-Furred King Bees lived in a perfectly divided and self-sufficient way, needing nothing but a greeting, the Venomous Creatures Garden needed to be checked.
'Since there aren't any creatures there yet, I've been a bit negligent.'
That was why, after having an early breakfast, I was heading toward the Venomous Creatures Garden.
“Young Master Soryong!”
From one side came the voice of Squad Leader Gu Pae calling me.
Turning my head, I saw Gu Pae, holding a large sack, toss it down and rush over to me.
“Oh, Squad Leader Gu.”
“Did you complete the Great Ritual safely? I was worried because I heard there was an incident!”
Squad Leader Gu Pae’s face was filled with concern.
As expected of our Squad Leader Gu.
Feeling thankful for his concern, I responded.
“Thank you for worrying. There was a brief incident, but thanks to grandfather and father-in-law, I was able to complete it well.”
“That’s a relief! So, the Great Ritual was a success!? Congratulations, Young Master Soryong!”
After the greeting, the sack he had thrown down earlier caught my attention, so I asked what it was.
Was it really okay to just toss it down anywhere like that?
“By the way, what is that? Is it okay to just throw it down like that?”
“Oh, that? It’s food for the mice.”
He meant food for the Chinese hamsters.
It seemed he was also on his way to the Venomous Creatures Garden, so I quickly stepped ahead of Squad Leader Gu Pae.
“Are you heading to the Venomous Creatures Garden? I was just about to go there myself. Let’s go together.”
“Is that so? Don’t you need a few more days of rest? Usually, after undergoing the Great Ritual, you’re supposed to rest for several days. You don’t need to worry about the Venomous Creatures Garden. I’ve been carrying out the task assigned to me properly.”
A reliable and reassuring reply from Squad Leader Gu Pae.
But just because you had assigned a task to a subordinate didn’t mean you should leave it completely unattended.
“Still, I can’t just leave it like that. Besides, I’m only stopping by briefly.”
“Yes, that much is fine.”
As I walked with Squad Leader Gu Pae toward the Venomous Creatures Garden, I asked how things had been going.
Of course, I’d see it with my own eyes soon enough, but getting a report was necessary too, wasn’t it?
“How are the short-tailed mice?”
Short-tailed mice referred to the Chinese hamsters.
To my question, Squad Leader Gu Pae explained the current situation.
“About forty of them have given birth, and it seems like the ones born earlier are also pregnant.”
Chinese hamsters are animals known for their insane breeding rates, going into heat within 7 to 14 weeks of birth and giving birth again in just 2 to 3 weeks.
It looked like the first batch of offspring were already preparing to have babies of their own.
“With just one or two more rounds of breeding, we’ll be well-stocked.”
If forty gave birth and each had just six babies, that would be 240 in total.
In about two months, when those babies gave birth, we’d have a thousand in one go. As long as the number of creatures being raised didn’t increase drastically, the supply of pinkies would now be on a stable track.
So, just as I nodded, pleased at how well things were going, Squad Leader Gu Pae asked another question.
“So, are we going to go catch venomous creatures now!?”
His face was filled with excitement and anticipation.
It seemed he couldn’t wait to fill the Venomous Creatures Garden with a variety of venomous creatures.
“Well…”
Just as I was about to respond to his question and we were passing the entrance to the Training Grounds.
Something caught my eye up ahead.
I squinted and saw a small child crouched against the wall in the distance.
‘What is that? Who is it?’
There were children on Tang Family Mountain, but this was the area for direct-line descendants.
There shouldn’t be any children wandering in here, so I approached with curiosity and asked,
“Who’s there?”
Then, the child suddenly stood up and ran toward me.
The child quickly rushed over and clung to my leg.
“Soryong Orabeoni!”
“Yingying!?”
The child crouched by the wall was Yingying.
Yingying, the daughter of the Peng Family Head in Hebei.
When I looked at the squad leader with an expression asking why Yingying was here, he explained.
“She will be staying at the Tang Sect for the time being for treatment. We are the only ones capable of handling poisons, aren’t we? That’s why the Peng Family Head made a request.”
“Then the Peng Family Head too?”
“He had to return to manage the family affairs, so he has already gone back. He left a few guards behind.”
“Then, you’re saying Yingying is left here alone?”
At his words, I thought about it and realized it was true. Only the Tang Sect could extract venom from wasps and control the dosage minutely to administer it as an injection.
Even if one knew the method, only the Tang Family could carry out the treatment.
That’s why I had thought Yingying would return around the time I did, but it seemed she had ended up settling in.
“I missed you, Orabeoni! I heard you’ve been back for a few days, so why didn’t you come see Yingying! That’s why I was waiting today.”
Her pronunciation slurred, probably from losing a front tooth recently, Yingying lisped her words.
Looking toward the squad leader with a questioning gaze about what Yingying meant, he explained that since she would be staying long-term, she had tried not to be a burden to the Tang Sect and had mostly stayed inside the Inner Courtyard she had been assigned to last time.
That was why, although the elders of the family had attended, she hadn’t been present at my engagement ceremony.
Being sick, separated from her family, and living alone in the Inner Courtyard with guards who looked like cattle thieves.
I held the pitiful Yingying in my arms and replied with an apologetic expression.
I also slightly shifted the topic to calm her down, as she was on the verge of a tantrum.
“I’m sorry, Yingying. Orabeoni thought you had already gone back. By the way, what were you doing earlier crouched down like that?”
As she had clearly been doing something with great focus while squatting, I asked what it was, and Yingying smiled as she answered.
“I was catching clickies!”
“Clickies?”
Yingying said she had been catching clickies.
At my question, she carefully pulled out her silk pouch tied at her waist and retrieved something from inside, placing it in the palm of my hand.
-Clack!
Then came a sharp snapping sound from my palm.
And something sprang up from my hand.
“Oh! This is!?”
What Yingying had placed on my palm was a click beetle.
A bug known in the West as the “Click Beetle” which jumps up with a snapping sound when flipped on its back.
It’s a pest that makes holes in potatoes or sweet potatoes and destroys the roots of root vegetables, but to children, it’s a familiar and cute insect.
And seeing it, I thought perhaps Yingying was going through the same kind of experience I once had.
These click beetles become active in the spring, and in my previous life, they were my first insects.
Sometimes found near the house, and sometimes flying indoors at night, I used to catch them, lock them inside a matchbox, and take them out when bored to watch them click and jump.
One might say they were the gateway insect that brought this Maewoon Fabre this far.
“They’re called ‘Kae-du-chung’ (Head-knocking bug) here, huh?”
It seemed that was the local name for them.
“So, this is what you were catching?”
“Yes! Clickies.”
Smiling at Yingying, I asked, and she nodded.
In my previous life, I used to call them “clicky bugs” too, so it seemed Yingying and I shared the same kind of sentiment at this age.
And that shared connection made me think.
I used to wonder why everyone from the Peng Family ended up with thief-like bodies, but it turns out they specialize in large saber arts, swinging massive swords.
Because of that, there’s a lot of stamina and muscle training, and in the end, their bodies become like gym rats.
What’s more, they say they train day and night nonstop, how can a person live like that?
You need to have some leisure and hobbies, too.
That’s why I thought, why not secretly give Yingying some insect and venomous creature prodigy training as a hobby, without the Peng Family Head knowing?
‘Yingying, I’ll officially recruit you into our insect and venomous creature club!’
It wasn’t like I was teaching martial arts, just sharing a hobby, so there was nothing wrong with it.
Smiling, I asked Yingying.
“Yingying, do you like bugs?”
“Yes! I like them! I like the King Bee too! And I like the clickies!”
“Then would you like to learn about bugs with Orabeoni? Bugs are really special and fun.”
“Okay!”
Yingying smiled and hugged me tightly.
Smiling back, I decided to begin our first lesson by checking Yingying’s captured bugs.
She had a slightly musty smell, which made me think she might be repeating the same mistakes I made as a kid.
‘Yingying, you’re in for a rough day today.’
I could already picture what would happen by evening. But every bug enthusiast has to go through this sort of baptism.
I pointed to Yingying’s pouch and asked,
“Yingying, could you show Orabeoni that pouch?”
“Yes, Orabeoni. You should see the clickies. Yingying caught this many.”
Yingying pulled the silk pouch tied around her waist and handed it to me.
I headed to the Venomous Creatures Garden with her in tow.
So far, there hadn’t been any creatures besides the tiger keelback, so it wasn’t exactly a restricted area. And it was the perfect place to explain the mistake she had made.
It wasn’t like Yingying was old enough to be an spy.
Inside the Venomous Creatures Garden.
I placed a sheet of white paper on a large wooden tray and poured out the contents of Yingying’s pouch.
-Shrrr.
Dozens of click beetles tumbled out.
Flipped over, they started springing up wildly.
-Clack! Click!
First, I separated the beetles Yingying referred to as “clickies”, the ones commonly known as bronze click beetles, to one side.
Then I moved about a third of the remaining bugs to the other side.
The reason I separated them was because, while they looked quite similar, they were completely different insects.
“Yingying, watch carefully. These ones here are the ones you call clickies or head-knocking bugs.
But these others over here are something else.”
“They’re different?”
Yingying wore a confused expression as she quickly gathered the bugs trying to crawl away.
I chuckled internally and said to her,
“Yingying, try smelling your hand.”
“My hand?”
t my words, Yingying brought her hands to her nose.
Then, catching the smell, she recoiled in shock and cried out.
“Ewwww! So stinky!”
Yingying reacted that way because her hand really did stink.
Even washing won’t easily get rid of that smell, so I figured she was in for a tough evening.
She’d probably be dragged to bathe for a good while by the attendants.
Squad Leader Gu Pae picked up one of the bugs Yingying had caught, examined it closely, and smiled as he spoke.
“This is a Yellow Powder Bug? It looks similar to the head-knocking bug, so it seems Miss Peng caught both types. Haha.”
‘Powder bug? That name’s kinda... off, isn’t it?’
It seemed that here, they referred to the Mealworm Beetle as Yellow Powder Bug.
In my past life, on the internet, trolls who did nothing but post malicious comments were compared to dung beetles and mockingly called bun-chung (shit bugs), which made the name sound overly harsh to me.
Though the adult beetle gives off a bit of a stench, in its larva or pupa form, it’s highly nutritious.
Right, this was the second-most commonly used feed after pinkies for insects and lizards, mealworms.
Calming down the panicked Yingying, I placed the two beetles side by side and explained.
“The head-knocking bug has a hard spot on its belly that makes the clicking sound. But this yellow powder bug doesn’t, so next time, don’t get them mixed up.
They look similar at first glance, so it’s easy to mistake them.”
"I understand, Orabeoni."
Yingying looked at both of her hands with a tearful expression.
Still, she couldn’t give up on the click beetles. She carefully picked them out and put only the clickies back into her silk pouch.
What remained were the yellow powder bugs, mealworms.
Smiling, I turned to Squad Leader Gu Pae and said,
“Now, the second creature we’ll raise in our Venomous Creatures Garden is this yellow powder bug.”
The second staple feed we needed for mass breeding.
Mealworms, following pinkies.
This was our Venomous Creatures Garden’s second breeding target.
Pinkies, mealworms, and crickets, these were the three essential feeds for raising insects, venomous creatures, and lizards.
*****
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