"Rest assured. With me around, your safety is guaranteed! What's more, only if I live will you have any hope of standing against Lu Yao."
He Lingchuan pricked up his ears at once. "Oh? How so?"
"When the Crocodile God snatched me away, my troops routed, and Lu Yao seized the chance to gather them in." With his life in the hands of the youth before him, Wu Shaoyi summoned his energy to persuade him. "Only if I am alive will they refuse to serve Lu Yao.
"There is also Pei Xinyong. I can persuade him to join forces against Lu Yao."
Hearing this, He Lingchuan hesitated no longer. "Fine. What do I need to do?"
Next, following Wu Shaoyi's instructions, he took out a turtle pearl and washed it clean.
Despite the giant turtle's astonishing size, the turtle pearl was only about as large as a hen's egg, and a small one at that. Once the blood and grime were washed from its surface, it glowed with a silvery-white light touched with pale blue, translucent and lustrous.
Wasn't this far superior to any luminous pearl?
Moreover, the turtle pearls had other marvelous uses. For instance, when he tried holding one in his mouth earlier, he had been able to breathe freely underwater.
Looking at it, He Lingchuan sighed, muttering inwardly what a waste it was. Then he found a wooden mallet and crushed it into powder with several loud thumps.
There was a particular trick to crushing the pearl into powder: no iron implements could be used.
Next, he went to find rootless water.
Rootless water was simply rainwater that had never touched the ground. That was easy enough. It had just rained recently, and the rainwater vats under the eaves of almost any house were half-full.
Taking a yellow paper talisman Wu Shaoyi handed him, he burned it to ash and stirred it into a little less than half a cup of rootless water.
Then he poured in the powdered turtle pearl and stirred until it was completely dissolved.
Strangely, the talisman water was red. He Lingchuan wasn't sure whether that was due to cinnabar.
With this step completed, he had to go out into the wild to catch a grasshopper.
Wu Shaoyi had specifically instructed that it must be female, and its belly could not be too large.
This was even less of a challenge for He Lingchuan. He had lived in the countryside as a child and tormented eight hundred grasshoppers if not a thousand. What was more, Xianling Village had just harvested wheat, so these little pests were hopping about most merrily in the fields right now.
Time was tight, so the sable also slipped out to help.
Agile, sharp-eyed, and low to the ground, it caught grasshoppers far faster than He Lingchuan.
Before long, they caught a plump, sturdy slant-headed grasshopper. Flipping it over, they saw a swollen belly.
It was autumn; the eggs in the females' bellies were mature, and they were all preparing to find a place to lay them.
Too large a belly did not meet the requirements. He tossed it aside and searched again.
After going through seventeen or eighteen like this, He Lingchuan finally got one that met the specifications.
It was healthy and vigorous, with only a slightly swollen abdomen.
He Lingchuan dropped the bright green insect into the cup and fastened the lid tight. Two men and one sable—six eyes—stared unblinkingly at it.
Falling into the talisman water, the slant-headed grasshopper struggled instinctively a few times, but after gulping down a mouthful of the water, it froze, going utterly still.
At the same time, the water level in the cup began to drop.
Evidently, it was gulping down water.
Strangely, the volume of water in the cup was at least two or three times that of the grasshopper, yet in the end, it drank the cup dry.
Seeing this, Wu Shaoyi breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, good. It's most likely working."
He Lingchuan glanced at him. "And if it hadn't?"
"There was only one talisman, obtained from the Holy Master." Hong Xiangqian was dead, and Wu Shaoyi could not replicate this secret art.
Hearing this, He Lingchuan grew even more interested in Hong Xiangqian. The rebel army called him Holy Master, and from top to bottom they were thoroughly devoted to him. Even the murderous Lu Yao was no exception, and even the Crocodile God from the northern demon kingdom had been willing to serve him.
This man was also versed in magical arts and talismanic methods, which immediately brought Grand National Preceptor Sun Fuping to He Lingchuan's mind.
He was truly no simple figure.
The slant-headed grasshopper had not burst from overfilling. After finishing the water, it entered a dormant state, only occasionally lifting its forelegs to wash its face and antennae. But its color had changed, gradually shifting from grass-green to blood-red, with irregular black spots sprouting all over its body.
Meanwhile, its abdomen swelled larger and larger, looking like a balloon being blown up, its skin stretched thinner and thinner. The abdomen also became increasingly transparent, so much so that the two could see the tiny eggs inside growing larger and plumper at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In fact, it was the eggs that were stretching the mother's belly.
Just when it was absurdly round and He Lingchuan suspected it might burst at any second, the grasshopper's abdomen finally stopped expanding.
Ordinarily, a grasshopper would lay its egg pod into the soil, and only after some time would the pod hatch into nymphs.
Yet this mother insect showed no intention of laying eggs; those bizarre eggs actually hatched into nymphs right inside its abdomen!
The nymphs of grasshoppers were called hoppers. Aside from lacking wings and being smaller in size, they looked little different from the adult.
The moment they crawled out of the eggshells, they pounced impatiently on their siblings, tearing and biting with mouthparts fully formed from birth. Wolves starved for three days were not half as ravenous.
He Lingchuan felt a chill run down his spine.
Grasshoppers had always fed on plant leaves and tender shoots, being strict herbivores. Yet after the mother drank the talisman water, the nymphs in its belly suddenly changed their nature, not only eating meat, but practicing cannibalism.
Soon, the number of nymphs in the mother grasshopper's belly rapidly dwindled.
Once the weak had all been devoured, it was the turn of the strong to prey upon one another.
He Lingchuan murmured, "Isn't this just raising gu?"
Through brutal competition, all the nutrients gathered by every young individual would ultimately belong to only one.
In human society, there was a loftier term for such behavior: a zero-sum game.
The death match between the nymphs was exceptionally swift. While he was lost in thought, their mutual slaughter reached its conclusion, and the final two hoppers decided the victor.
After consuming the loser, the largest hopper became the final victor.
It had grown larger still, and its skin was also mottled in red and black, almost identical to the mother's.
Throughout this period, the mother insect remained still, not rolling about in agony from the violent fury within its belly. He Lingchuan could even discern a hint of maternal tenderness from its hideous, bizarre face.
Having digested its kin, the young hopper also ceased moving.
"The mother's essence has all transferred into it. If we leave it alone, in two shichen it will grow wings and burst out of the belly." Having waited so long, Wu Shaoyi's condition had worsened; a dark haze cloaked the space between his brows, and his gaze had grown somewhat unfocused.
"Now, dig it out!" Wu Shaoyi turned his head toward the sable. "All right, go bring the men back. As many as possible."
The sable leaped down from the kang, its slender figure vanishing beyond the doorway.
He Lingchuan tipped the slant-headed grasshopper out, detached its abdomen, and following Wu Shaoyi's instructions, mashed up the mother insect, preparing to stuff it into the captive's mouth.
The bandit had already awakened. Seeing this, he screamed, "I'm innocent! Don't harm me!"
"You're innocent?" He Lingchuan chuckled. "Then where did the blood on your trouser legs come from? Could it be you're a woman dressed as a man?"
The bandit froze. "Th-that... I only helped carry corpses..."
He Lingchuan couldn't be bothered to hear him argue. He drove an elbow into the man's diaphragm, knocking him forward, his mouth gaping and unable to make a sound for a good long while.
Chapter 134