Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

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Chapter 159: Couture at the Water’s Edge

After wrapping up the story, I paused for a moment as Bin Ah, Chao, and Yo-hwa returned from the water, rinsing off bedbug fluids.

Perhaps it was due to the water, but they began grooming their bodies right beside me.

– Crunch, crunch.

Typically, the grooming for centipedes starts with the antennae.

As expected, Chao and Bin Ah grasped their antennae with their upper jaws, eagerly licking them clean.

Yo-hwa also brought her front legs to her mouth, doing the same.

Though they were spirits, having just washed off at the water’s edge, the grooming behavior was much like that of ordinary centipedes or spiders.

You could even say it resembled a cat’s grooming style.

However, since they have no fur to shed, one could argue that centipedes are cleaner animals than cats.

“Oh my, how tidy they are.”

People often mistakenly view centipedes or spiders as dirty creatures, which is truly a troublesome misconception.

Both centipedes and spiders are remarkably clean animals, you see.

Centipedes living in damp places are prone to mold, so they always keep their bodies clean, and spiders routinely groom themselves to prevent their webs from getting sticky.

In particular, it’s standard for both centipedes and spiders to meticulously clean their antennae and fangs after a meal.

Our kids don’t usually eat, so they seldom get to see such sights, gazing at the creatures with blank stares.

It was a rare scene to witness: large centipedes and spiders adorably and quaintly licking every inch of their bodies.

“Oh, how precious! So sweet!”

I finally understood why parents like to record videos while raising their kids.

I lamented that we didn’t have any phones or cameras to capture this moment and resolutely etched the grooming scene into my mind.

This was definitely a scene I couldn’t let slip by without remembering.

Just as I was lost in admiration, Seol asked from the side.

“Long, didn’t you say we’d dig once Bin Ah got back?”

“Oh shoot!”

I had completely forgotten amidst the pet pampering. We needed to dig a moat around the village.

Bedbugs typically shy away from water, so a moat would be an effective way to keep them at bay.

Since they’re not spirits but merely oversized bedbugs, they still had the same habits from their smaller days.

I quickly turned to Bin Ah.

I was about to propose we start digging.

“Bin Ah? Uh…”

– Slurp?

Yet, the moment I called her name and turned my head, I noticed one of Bin Ah’s antennae shining brightly under the light.

They were in the middle of grooming, and here I was about to ask her to dig in the dirt again.

It was a bit unfair to have her get dirty again after such a neat wash.

‘Will it be alright? I feel a bit bad asking Bin Ah to do that.’

Bin Ah had just licked her right antenna clean and was now midway down her left one.

She paused her grooming and looked back at me as if asking why I had called her.

– Chirp?

‘Ah, well, it should be fine, right?’

Feeling somewhat anxious, I cautiously asked.

“Bin Ah, I know you just cleaned up, but I’m sorry to ask this… Could you help Daddy out? It’s nothing much, just need to dig a bit.”

Upon hearing this, Bin Ah’s antenna quietly slipped from her mouth, and she glanced down at herself as if checking her body.

Followed by a slight tremble of her body.

Now that I think about it, our Bin Ah was quite the tidy character.

‘She just had a bath and done some grooming; I wonder if she feels like Daddy’s making her clean again?’

*

It was only natural for Bin Ah to be peeved at being asked to dig after her bath and grooming session.

But since it was Daddy’s request, she agreed to dig anyway, albeit reluctantly.

“Well, then I guess I’ll have to dig with the uncles using the shovels… If we dig all day, we should be able to finish it…”

– Slurp, slurp!

Taking a hint from her mood, I simply suggested digging all day with the Water Bandits, and Bin Ah seemed to convey with a loud squeak that nobody told her she had to dig.

That’s just part of her charm.

– Thud, thud.

As Bin Ah burrowed into the ground, the earth heaved like a mole moving underground.

Soon, the mounds of soil split apart, forming a long trench.

As I watched the scene unfold with Chao from above, Bin Ah leaped out from the other side, signaling to Lee Tae, who had been waiting at the starting point.

“Lee Tae! Now!”

“Understood, Wei So-ryong!”

In response to my command, Lee Tae began dismantling the embankment toward the river with the Water Bandits.

With only a little bit of the embankment left to break down, water gushed in as soon as it fell.

– Splash, splash!

And then, with the water rushing in, it flowed wildly into where Bin Ah had just passed.

The water flowed swiftly, sweeping the earth along as it surged toward the other side.

Following the channel Bin Ah had dug, the water rushed in.

It reached the end of the trench roughly, bursting through the thin mound of earth and pouring back into the river.

Gradually, the trench widened as the flow stabilized.

The settlement, which had stood beneath the reed fields at the foot of the mountain, was now completely surrounded by water.

Turning my head to check on the village’s water line, I caught sight of Hua Eun approaching this way with several Water Bandits and Yo-hwa, which seemed to confirm that the trench was finished.

Soon, Hua Eun’s voice reached my ears.

“Wei So-ryong, we’re ready!”

“Let’s go down! Chao, let’s head down.”

– Whoosh!

As promised, Hua Eun had brought Yo-hwa and a few others down after the trench work.

As we moved downwards slowly, Hua Eun took the lead, walking toward the previous defensive line that had resisted the bedbugs.

“Is this about right?”

“Yeah, it’s better to stick close to that house just in case.”

Almost at our destination, Hua Eun pointed to a dilapidated house near where we had blocked the bedbugs.

Once inside, Hua Eun closed her eyes and sniffed around.

“Thank goodness, it seems they’re here.”

What Hua Eun was doing was tracking by scent, using the Tang Clan’s keen sense of smell to locate any bedbugs hiding nearby.

After a moment of searching with her eyes closed, she pointed to a bamboo wall inside the house.

“They’re right there! Between the walls!”

As the Water Bandits cautiously approached at Hua Eun’s indication, heads popped out from the gaps in the bamboo wall.

During the day, they hide in dark crevices like this, only sticking their heads out when they sense a person’s presence to gauge the temperature, so they reacted as the Water Bandits drew near.

“Oh, that’s the Tang Clan’s nose at work!”

Thinking back, if Hua Eun hadn’t been checking for poison on the corpses, we might have found the bedbugs even faster.

I promptly asked Yo-hwa.

“Yo-hwa, catch them all!”

– Hiss!

In response to my command, Yo-hwa used her web to ensnare the critters popping their heads out, dragging them one by one into a large bag made from her threads.

Sample bedbug capture complete.

Our objective for capturing these bedbugs was to test Hua Yang’s poison.

Given that it’s a venomous poison, I figured it should affect the bedbugs quite nicely.

“For now, let’s take these back to the boat.”

“Got it. Wei So-ryong.”

In total, we captured eight bedbugs.

Carrying the wriggling critters in Yo-hwa’s thread bag, we made our way to the boat.

As soon as we arrived at the boat, I took one out and secured it to a wooden board using the Tang Clan’s Flying Needle, much like a specimen.

Though it struggled, it was firmly fixed in place, unable to move.

Right away, Hua Yang brought some water over, dripping it onto the bedbug’s abdomen.

– Drip.

Since the bedbug’s respiratory organs are located in its abdomen, I thought it would be easier for it to inhale the poison from that side.

However, the bedbug showed no reaction to the poison.

“Hmm… What’s this?”

It was a poison potent enough to make me spit fire, yet it didn’t seem to affect the creature at all.

“Could it be that this only works on humans?”

The first suspicion that crossed my mind was that this poison was only effective on mammals.

Because there are poisons that can kill humans but have no effect on insects, this seemed quite plausible.

After all, the saying that animals or insects can eat certain fruits without issue when stranded is honestly a bit misleading.

Some insects consume toxic mushrooms as food, so it truly was a rational suspicion to consider.

But Hua Eun offered a different opinion.

“Is it possible that it’s a quantity issue? After all, it’s essentially diluted in water.”

Perhaps because it had been diluted in water, she suggested it might not be potent enough.

Honestly, if that were true, then whatever poison was effective meant little to us.

Hua Yang’s poison extraction was limited, and if we needed a concentrate, it would be hard to use.

“Not sure. Let’s prove it out.”

Yet, it was necessary to check, so I took out another bedbug and closely secured it next to the already pinned one.

This time, instead of using Hua Yang’s swimming water, I rubbed a stick against her body and then rubbed it on the bedbug.

However, even after waiting a considerable time, there was still no reaction from the creature.

Though it was somewhat disappointing, I felt it might be necessary to return to the clan and examine it with the elders.

I was certainly feeling the effects of poisoning, yet the bedbugs seemed entirely unaffected.

“I guess it’s going to be hard for us to learn more from here.”

“Yeah, we should ask Grandfather once we go back.”

A bit disappointed, but without the poison, we’d be safe until our hunger caught up with us, so we decided to focus on the night.

Thus, I left the specimen with the poison pinned as it was, while the one that had been splashed with Hua Yang’s swimming water was returned to Yo-hwa’s bag and tossed onto the deck.

And since the bedbugs might cross the water, I was just about to retire to my cabin when all of a sudden—

After last night’s lack of sleep, I was snuggling Bin Ah tightly like a pillow, drifting into a deep slumber when a pungent smell tickled my nostrils.

– Whoosh!

– Hiss!

Startled awake by the commotion of the kids, I suddenly noticed green flames rising from the dining table in the cabin.

– Fwoosh!

“What the—!?”

As I scanned the scene to find out what was burning, I discovered a bedbug pinned to the wooden board, spewing blue flames from its mouth and underside.

Yet, interestingly, it was only the bedbug burning.

Unlike when I had spewed blood, the flames weren’t igniting the wood or anything around it.

“This, what is this?”

Hua Eun, who had been asleep in the next room, rushed in at the commotion, her eyes widened in shock at the sight of the burning bedbug.

At that moment, voices of startled sailors echoed from the deck.

“F-fire!”

“Fire!”

As I carried the wooden board with the bedbug ablaze towards the exit, something else was also burning on deck.

I quickly dashed over, throwing the board into the water, while the sailors hurled a wooden stick, now on fire, created by Yo-hwa out into the open.

Eight bedbugs, their flames dancing in the air, floundered before eventually sinking below the water’s surface.

Watching the sinking bedbugs, it struck me that it seemed the poison required some time to kick in.

Hua Eun stared at the bedbugs along with me as they sank and commented.

“It seems the poison takes at least six hours to take effect. If that’s the case, even if they get poisoned, it might be hard to utilize them.”

The time lapsed since we had coated them with poison was about six hours.

Perhaps, as Hua Eun suggested, the poison needed a bit of time to show symptoms.

However, one of Hua Eun’s statements proved wrong.

This poison wasn’t just hard to use; it seemed like the perfect pesticide.

“No, it’s a perfect poison for our current situation.”

“Perfect, you say?”

When night falls, the baby bedbugs come out, clustering together, slinking into dark places. If one of them were to become poisoned, it would certainly lead to a chain reaction of poisoning just like those in Yo-hwa’s bag.

A complete insecticide.

With the night fast approaching, I decided to request Hua Yang to produce a bit more poison via Bin Ah, who conveyed one word back to me.

“Food.”

Perhaps for her to generate more poison, she’ll need more to eat.

In the village square, dried reeds and bamboo were piled up, and as the huge flames roared, they began to be absorbed into Hua Yang’s mouth.

Once the flames calmed down, a Hua Yang with forelimbs sprouted gazed up at me, gripping the edge of the water vessel.