Chapter 139: Chapter 140: Shoulder Pole Hook
"Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, you’re safe. Besides, keeping me alive is your only hope of resisting Lui Yao."
Hee Lingchuan’s ears perked up. "Oh? And how is that?"
"I was snatched by the Crocodile God, causing my Subordinates to rout. Lui Yao seized the opportunity to absorb my men." With his life in the hands of the young man before him, Wu Shaoyi mustered his strength. "Only if I live will they refuse to serve Lui Yao."
"There’s also Pei Xinyong. I can convince him to help us deal with Lui Yao."
Hee Lingchuan hesitated no longer. "Alright. What do you need me to do?"
He then followed Wu Shaoyi’s instructions, taking out a Turtle Pearl and washing it clean.
Despite the giant turtle’s astonishing size, the Turtle Pearl was only as large as a small chicken egg. Once the bloodstains were washed off, it radiated a soft, crystalline glow—silvery-white with a hint of pale blue.
’Isn’t this far more elegant than some Luminous Pearl?’
The Turtle Pearl had other marvelous uses as well. For instance, he had tried holding one in his mouth earlier and found he could breathe freely underwater.
Hee Lingchuan gazed at it and sighed. ’What a waste,’ he thought, before finding a wooden mallet and, with a few sharp CRUNCHES, grinding it into a fine powder.
There were rules to crushing the pearl for powder: no iron tools allowed.
Next, he went to find Rootless Water.
Rootless Water was simply rainwater that hadn’t touched the ground. That part was easy. It had rained recently, so the rain barrels under the eaves of any house were half-full.
He took the Yellow Paper Talisman Wu Shaoyi handed him, burned it to ash, and steeped the ash in half a cup of Rootless Water.
Then, he poured in the Turtle Pearl powder, stirring until it had completely dissolved.
The strange thing was, the talismanic water turned red. Hee Lingchuan wasn’t sure if this was due to Vermilion.
For the next step, he had to go out and catch a grasshopper.
Wu Shaoyi had given specific instructions: it had to be female, and its abdomen couldn’t be too large.
This was hardly a challenge for Hee Lingchuan. Having grown up in the countryside, he’d tormented at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, grasshoppers in his youth. Besides, Xianling Village had just harvested its wheat, so the fields were now teeming with these little pests, hopping about gleefully.
Time was short, so the Sable went out to help.
It was more agile, had sharper eyes, and was lower to the ground, allowing it to catch grasshoppers much faster than Hee Lingchuan.
Before long, they caught a fat, sturdy grasshopper. They flipped it over and saw it was pot-bellied.
It was autumn, and the female’s eggs were mature. She was getting ready to find a place to lay them.
Too big. Didn’t meet the requirements. They tossed it and started over.
After catching and discarding seventeen or eighteen more, Hee Lingchuan finally found one that fit the bill.
It was healthy and energetic, with only a slightly swollen abdomen.
Hee Lingchuan dropped the shimmering green insect into the cup and sealed it with a lid. Two humans and one Sable—six eyes in total—stared, unblinking.
The grasshopper fell into the talismanic water and struggled instinctively for a moment. But after swallowing a mouthful, it froze, becoming completely still.
At the same time, the water level in the cup began to drop.
Clearly, it was gulping down the water.
The bizarre part was that the volume of water was at least two or three times the size of the grasshopper, yet the insect drank every last drop.
Wu Shaoyi let out a breath of relief. "Good, good. It seems to have worked."
Hee Lingchuan glanced at him. "And if it hadn’t?"
"There was only one sheet of Talisman Paper, a gift from the Saint Master." With Hong Xiangqian dead, Wu Shaoyi couldn’t replicate this Secret Skill himself.
This piqued Hee Lingchuan’s interest in Hong Xiangqian. The rebels called him the Saint Master, and everyone, from the highest to the lowest ranks, was utterly devoted to him. Even a mass murderer like Lui Yao was no exception. Even the Crocodile God from the Northern Demon Kingdom had been willing to serve him.
The man was also a master of Magic and Talismanic Charms, which immediately brought Grand State Master Sunx Fuping to Hee Lingchuan’s mind.
’Truly an extraordinary figure.’
The grasshopper hadn’t burst. After drinking, it entered a motionless state, only occasionally lifting its forelimbs to preen its face and antennae. But its color was changing, shifting from grassy green to blood-red, with irregular black spots appearing all over its body.
Meanwhile, its abdomen swelled, looking like an inflating balloon as its exoskeleton stretched thinner and thinner. The abdomen also grew more transparent, allowing them to see the tiny eggs inside growing larger and plumper at a visible rate.
In fact, it was the eggs that were distending the mother’s abdomen.
Just as it became so grotesquely round that Hee Lingchuan expected it to burst at any second, the grasshopper’s abdomen finally stopped expanding.
Normally, a grasshopper lays its Egg Sac in the soil, which then hatches into nymphs after some time has passed.
But this female showed no signs of laying its eggs. Instead, the bizarre eggs hatched directly inside her abdomen!
Grasshopper young are called nymphs. Aside from being smaller and wingless, they look no different from the adult.
The moment they crawled from their eggs, they eagerly pounced on their siblings, tearing and biting with mouthparts fully formed at birth. A wolf starved for three days couldn’t match their ravenous hunger.
A chill ran down Hee Lingchuan’s spine as he watched.
Grasshoppers are strict herbivores, feeding on leaves and tender stems. But after the mother drank the talismanic water, the nymphs inside her had undergone a fundamental change. They were not only carnivorous, but cannibalistic.
Soon, the number of nymphs within the mother’s abdomen dwindled rapidly.
Once the weak were devoured, the strong began to prey on each other.
Hee Lingchuan muttered, "Isn’t this just the process of creating a Gu?"
Through brutal competition, all the nutrients absorbed by the many young were funneled into a single victor.
’In human society, there’s a more sophisticated term for this kind of behavior: a zero-sum game.’
The deathmatch between the nymphs was swift. While he was lost in thought, the cannibalism ran its course until only two remained, and they too battled to the death.
After devouring the loser, the largest nymph became the sole survivor.
It grew larger still, its exoskeleton now red and black, almost identical to its mother’s.
Throughout this process, the mother remained motionless, not writhing in agony from the violent struggle within. Hee Lingchuan could almost see a hint of maternal affection on its grotesque face.
Once the nymph had digested its siblings, it too became still.
"The mother’s essence has been transferred to it. If we were to leave it, it would grow wings and burst from the abdomen within two double-hours." Having waited for so long, Wu Shaoyi’s condition had worsened. The space between his eyebrows was shadowed with a dark energy, and his gaze had lost its focus.
"Now, cut it out!" Wu Shaoyi turned to the Sable. "It’s time. Go and bring back our men. The more, the better."
The Sable leaped off the platform bed, its slender form vanishing out the door.
Hee Lingchuan tipped the grasshopper out. He cut off the abdomen and, following Wu Shaoyi’s instructions, mashed the rest of the mother’s body, preparing to stuff it into the captive’s mouth.
The mountain bandit had awoken and, seeing the scene, cried out, "I’m innocent! Don’t hurt me!"
"Innocent?" Hee Lingchuan chuckled. "Then how do you explain the bloodstain on your pant leg? Don’t tell me you’re a woman in disguise?"
The mountain bandit froze. "Th-that... I was just helping move the bodies..."
Hee Lingchuan couldn’t be bothered to listen to his excuses. He drove an elbow into the man’s diaphragm, causing him to lurch forward, mouth agape, unable to speak.
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