Chapter 47: Reunion

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I pulled down my trousers and exposed one side of my thigh.

Sister Hong and I were both terrified.

Neither of us had expected it.

There was actually a wound about the size of a fingernail on the outside of my thigh, close to my pocket!

The flesh had turned inside out, dark purple-red, and had even begun to fester.

The strangest part was that I had not felt any pain at all.

When I pressed it lightly with my hand, there was no sensation whatsoever.

As soon as I pressed the wound on my thigh, some fluid seeped out.

At the same time, although Sister Hong clearly had not spoken, I heard a voice.

“Yunfeng, where are you? I’m over here.” Those were the words I had heard on the night the fog appeared.

From Sister Hong’s expression, it was obvious that I alone could hear the voice. She could not.

“Wait! Yunfeng, don’t move!” Sister Hong shouted. Her eyes were filled with horror as she stared fixedly at my wound.

Then I saw it. On the inner side of my thigh, the flesh was visibly heaving. Something alive was writhing beneath it!

“Don’t move! Bear with it!” Sister Hong immediately drew her dagger.

Seeing my thigh in that state frightened me badly.

I bit down on my clothes and watched in terror.

The dagger was extremely sharp. Gritting her teeth, Sister Hong fixed her eyes on the faintly writhing patch of flesh and plunged the blade in.

Blood poured out the moment the dagger cut through the flesh. I clenched my teeth around the cloth, expecting unbearable pain. Yet I felt nothing at all—only a wave of soreness and numbness.

Once the flesh had been opened, everything inside was clearly visible.

It was a yellow-brown insect—the same legless cicada bug I had stuffed into my pocket out of curiosity.

Sister Hong carefully used the tip of the dagger to dig it out.

The cicada bug died as soon as it emerged.

The instant it died, I began to feel pain. The wound on the outside of my thigh throbbed with a piercing agony.

Sister Hong cut a strip from her own clothes and bound my thigh to staunch the bleeding.

She wiped the sweat from her brow, let out a breath, and said, “All right. You should be fine now.”

Strangely enough, once the insect had been removed, I stopped imitating her speech, and the hallucinated voice disappeared as well. Everything returned to normal.

Sister Hong frowned at the dead insect on the ground.

“What an evil thing. I didn’t remember it before, but I’ve suddenly thought of something—a small insect from legend called the Echo Bug.”

For more than ten minutes, Sister Hong told me everything she knew.

After hearing her out, I found it unbelievable too.

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Ancient books contain many records of this kind of insect. In the beginning, because people understood so little about it, the illness was classified as one of the strangest and most difficult diseases. The Compendium of Materia Medica recorded one such case.

“Read the names of the medicines. When Thunder Pill is spoken, the insect falls silent.”

As for how Li Shizhen treated it, later generations interpreted the account this way: Li Shizhen showed the afflicted person a list of medicinal herbs and had him read the names aloud. At first, nothing unusual happened. But when he reached the name Thunder Pill, the patient began trembling from head to toe, sweat breaking out on his forehead, as though he were terrified. Li Shizhen then used Thunder Pill as medicine, decocted it, and had the man drink it. Sure enough, the strange illness had improved by the following day. That is one version of the legend passed down through the ages.

This insect had been discovered in the secret garden realm. I carefully went over everything that had happened.

Chen Jiansheng had been trapped here for some time. Before we arrived, he had entered the place several times.

Could it be that the reason he had imitated other people’s speech was that, just like me, he had this strange insect burrow into his flesh?

Perhaps because so much time had passed, Chen Jiansheng’s condition was more serious than mine. That was why, before an attack, his eyes would grow vacant and his mind would become hazy.

I, on the other hand, had discovered it early. So even when it flared up, I still retained my own consciousness.

At first, Chen Jiansheng had not encountered anyone, so the thing had remained dormant.

The more I thought about it, the more everything seemed to make sense.

What had happened was certainly no good. Although we had dealt with it in time, it would undoubtedly affect our plan to descend into the water.

It had made everything even more difficult.

Everywhere we turned, this place exuded something uncanny.

Mountain demons, vine-gold moss, unknown flowers and trees, Echo Bugs, sacrificial pits, an altar, a stone carving of eight steeds—and finally, the small pool before us.

Sister Hong believed we could delay no longer. Once the wound on my leg had stopped bleeding, she rose and said, “Get ready. We’re going into the water and swimming out.”

We stood hand in hand at the edge of the pool. She took a deep breath, then turned to remind me, “This is the final step, Yunfeng. You have to hold yourself together. Don’t be afraid. You remember what I told you before, right? We’re both going to get out alive.”

I gritted my teeth and nodded. “I know, Sister Hong. I’ll give it everything I’ve got!”

“Breathe in. Take a deep breath.”

I drew in great gulps of air and inhaled deeply.

“I’ll count from one to three. We start on three. Keep in sync. It isn’t far. Hold your breath all the way, and hold on to me tightly.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Jump!”

Without hesitation, as she reached three, we jumped into the water almost simultaneously.

The water was not as cold as the underground river, but visibility beneath the surface was poor. I puffed out my cheeks and held my breath, kicking wildly while clinging tightly to Sister Hong and letting her lead me.

Several tiny fish swam past me. We had been underwater for less than a minute when I vaguely saw many stone steps below us, one section after another.

We swam in the direction the steps led.

There were no aquatic plants below, so we did not have to worry about our feet becoming entangled. Even so, something unexpected happened.

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Because I was kicking my legs beneath the water, the bandage around the wound on my thigh came loose...

A considerable amount of blood began streaming from the wound into the surrounding water.

Drawn by the smell of blood, a black fish about a foot long appeared from somewhere. It was not very large, but it seemed to have teeth.

Sister Hong glanced back and saw it.

Horror filled her eyes. She dragged me forward with all her strength, swimming desperately.

Such violent movement consumed the oxygen in our lungs at an alarming rate.

Before long, I felt I had reached my limit. My lungs were burning with the strain.

Blood continued to seep out.

Then I saw more black fish with teeth gathering around us.

They clustered together, following the scent of blood, and finally fixed their target on Sister Hong and me.

The school grew larger and larger, then began chasing us.

We swam along the underwater steps. At the critical moment, scattered red lights appeared on the surface ahead. They looked like torches.

“Glug.”

I had reached my limit. Unable to hold my breath any longer, I swallowed a large mouthful of water.

Pain shot through me. One of the black fish had bitten into my thigh.

Then another two...

As we drew closer and closer to the surface, Sister Hong was attacked as well. She seemed to have gone mad, dragging me upward and bursting through the water.

“Help... help!”

The moment my head broke the surface, I gulped in air and cried for help. Man-eating fish were biting me.

Torches illuminated the bank.

Boss Sun and Third Brother Sun stood there holding torches, staring blankly at Sister Hong and me.

“Little Hong!”

“Yunfeng!”

The elder and third brothers dropped their torches. Without even removing their clothes, they splashed into the water and hauled me ashore.

Several black fish were still clamped onto my legs. Sister Hong was in much the same condition, with several fish biting her arm. It looked excruciating.

Third Brother slapped his thigh excitedly.

“Wonderful!”

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