Entomologist in Sichuan Tang Clan Chapter 197

197
It was a very dark night with the sun setting and clouds gathering.

As I went out with Cho and Hyang-i, my sister Seol, who was following me, spoke with a worried expression.

“Be careful, scorpion. Scorpions are vicious, cruel, and cunning.”

Behind her, Hwa-eun also nodded her head with a worried expression on her face, along with her sister Seol.

“Huh? Cunning? Brutal?”

Hwa-eun fights back against Seol-nu, who suddenly starts dissing Scorpio for being quiet.

When Seol and Hwa-eun tilted their heads, wondering if they were the type of people who had such prejudices, the older sister explained it as if it were something obvious.

“No, there’s also the expression ‘snake and scorpion’, right? So you have to be careful.

Moreover, the Odogmun bastards raised them and even eat people.”

“Yes, Little Dragon.”

It could be said that I was overly worried since I was only going out on a reconnaissance mission, but putting that aside, what Sister Seol said made me think that this wasn’t a problem with Kunlun, but that I should start by taking care of my own household.

The Kunlun sect elders were scratching at my insides, saying things like, “It’s a small thing,” so I thought that it was urgent to change the perception of the Central Plains, but it’s not like someone in my family has such prejudices. My family is no exception.

‘Oh my… Sister Seol, you’re being fooled by such false rumors.’

I could understand why my sister said that.

Because the image of scorpions that has been passed down since ancient times is not very good.

As the expression Sagal suggests, the image of a scorpion is so vicious and evil that it is used to describe snakes and scorpions.

The reason this image was created is because of the scorpion’s habits. Since scorpions choose places like crevices in rocks near houses as their main habitat, their living environments often overlap with those of humans.

In ancient times, there was no way there was an antidote, and there were far more scorpions that made people sick or in pain for several days than scorpions that had venom strong enough to kill them. So, from the perspective of ancient people, who were living well, scorpions were extremely bad poisons that suddenly appeared and stung people for no reason, causing them pain.

Such scorpion habits have become fixed as the average image.

Is this an image of someone suddenly appearing in the middle of the night like a hawk and harassing people?

But this was really unfair from Scorpio’s point of view.

Scorpions, which belong to the arthropod subphylum, chelicerae class, and scorpion order (Scorpiones), are often mistaken for lobsters or crayfish because of their appearance, but they are completely different creatures and are actually related to spiders.

Unlike crustaceans such as lobsters and crayfish, scorpions are chelicerae.

The most common way to tell the two apart is by the position of the gripper arms.

Crustaceans have pincers attached to their bodies, but if you look closely, a scorpion’s pincers are attached to its head, not its body.

Because a scorpion’s pincers are not arms, but rather a type of appendage attached to its head.

But what sets them apart from spiders is their gentleness.

If you raise them, you will know that spiders and civets, both arthropods, are no joke when it comes to ferocity.

Of all the poisonous animals I keep, the ones with the most annoying personalities are spiders and civets.

Although I raised the spider fairy as my younger sister and the fox as my daughter, the spider that pounces on anything it sees and the fox that rushes and bites are the ones that do it.

‘Is that why the kids are a bit prickly? That’s part of their charm, though…’

But unlike the other two, scorpions are very gentle and docile, to the point that it is precious to even watch them hunting while raising them.

When a scorpion stings, it only uses it when it is really surprised and needs to defend itself, so among us enthusiasts, scorpions are called armored gentlemen.

Armored Gentleman.

He’s cool, like a gentleman in armor, and he’s also a gentle creature.

Because of their gentle nature and armored appearance, scorpions are also very popular as pets, and are much more approachable to people than spiders or civets, which are other arthropods that are repulsive to the general public.

But is that scorpion cunning? cruel?

This could be called an absurd image.

‘I feel so wronged.’

For now, I decided to explain this after I returned from today’s reconnaissance, so I left the house I was guided to in Kunlun and stood in an open space outside the straw shed.

The disciples of O-Ryong-Sambong and Kun-Lun are already spread out around Cheonghae Lake.

Because I had to go out quickly too.

Moreover, since it was now the time for Scorpio to be active, there was not enough time to explain these things.

“Okay, then shall we go?”

He was just about to fly into the sky after being caught in a swarm of butterflies in an empty lot.

Suddenly, a shrill cry is heard in the darkness.

-Tsk tsk. 『Tsk···.』

It was empty.

The reason why Binnie cries so loudly.

It was a shame that only Cho and Hyang were taken on the reconnaissance mission today.

I can find it easily if it’s bright at night, but since there are only three of us, I’m saying this.

Bin, who was clearly crying and sulking in the corner of the room, was already outside.

He said with an apologetic expression to Bin, who was strongly appealing to Torajim.

“I’m sorry, Bin. But I’ll be back soon, so wait a bit with Mom. I like the view from the sky. There are no mountains here, so there’s nothing to see from high up.”

All reconnaissance is overwhelmingly better done from high above.

Because you can see far away.

That’s why he took the flying grass and the small incense, but even though he understood it in his head, Bin-yi didn’t seem to like the fact that he was the only one left out.

I tried to explain roughly and climb up to the sky, but I felt resistance in my ankles.

When I lowered my head, Bin-i was looking somewhere else and biting the hem of my pants.

‘Is there no other way?’

Bin’s cute behavior of getting upset when her dad takes his sisters to work.

But Dad had to go to work, and in the end, Binnie had no choice but to use her biggest weakness, Dad’s hug attack.

My antennae trembled, not knowing what to do as I suddenly hugged the guy.

I clung to him and whispered quietly.

[Bina, I’ll be right back. Okay?]

Permission to do so was granted only after a brief pause.

“Tsrrrrrr···.” 『Ah, I got it···.』

After barely getting permission from Tsundere Bin.

I floated up into the sky, rolled around, and checked the constellations.

And then he pointed to one side to get the direction.

“The grass is over there.”

The direction he pointed to, calculated using the method he learned from Ji-ryong, was the expected location of the guy raised by O-dok-moon.

I had already selected the guy’s expected haunting area during the day, so I wanted to check that area first.

-Tsurut.

The second that slowly starts moving in the direction I’m pointing.

In the sky, the body of the grass began to move, undulating like waves.

It’s not like we were just playing around after talking during the day.

I checked the places where the nomads gathered around this village and lost their sheep, and classified them by time zone to predict where they would appear.

The place where the creature flew through the dark sky without a moon was where its traces that had been gradually leading to Cheonghae Lake were cut off.

It was a wide field under a dark sky.

“You have to check the initial scent carefully.”

After roughly identifying the location by a few small lakes, I asked the children to take a good look around.

Because the scorpion’s luminescence is invisible to me, but it will be visible to the candles and incense.

-Tsurut.

-Tsrrrrrr!

Then the two answered confidently.

At my request, the incense and the candles shook their antennae excitedly and checked the surroundings.

Because the civet’s antennae can’t even distinguish light.

The reason scorpions glow at night is because their shells contain a fluorescent chemical called beta-carboline.

This beta-carboline glows a very bright blue-green when exposed to certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light, which is why scorpions glow at night.

There are many different opinions as to why scorpions emit luminous light.

For mating, to attract females, or for hunting.

However, recent research has concluded that this is a kind of full-body lantern developed by scorpions because their night vision is poor.

For a nocturnal animal, scorpions have rather dark eyes, so it was concluded that they light up the area around their bodies.

The latest research results show that scorpions that are exposed to a lot of ultraviolet light move more actively, while those that are not exposed to a lot of ultraviolet light move less actively.

‘Hey, it’s dark today. Let’s turn the lights on a bit.’

It was when the guy was looking around diligently, looking for a light somewhere, a candle, and incense.

A strange wind noise coming from below.

-Whoa.

The sound of the grass rustling in the wind continued for a long time, as if the wind was blowing hard below.

“Is the wind blowing?”

It was not long after that long conversation had passed.

An urgent voice ringing in my head.

‘Tsrrrr!’

Bin’s urgent voice filled my head.

A very urgent voice that says there is something where you are.

“To the village of Choya!”

-Tsrrrr!

It seemed like Bin had been bored waiting for the guy, so he secretly followed us, but at my request, the sled quickly shot towards the village at top speed.

The first step forward with the neck stretched out.

We were moving urgently towards Chowa Village.

-Whoa.

Again the sound of the wind passing by from below.

The sound of the wind that had been blowing beneath us earlier changed direction and continued for a long time in the opposite direction.

‘what!?’

I had a strange feeling, but right now, Bin is more urgent than that.

As we hurried to move a little further, we noticed several torches lit at the starting point of Cheonghae Lake.

I can feel Bin’s energy from that side.

“Go down to the field and see if Bin is there.”

-Tsurut!

As I went down, I saw the elders of Kunlun, Taeheo, and Gyuseong looking perplexed as they saw Bin-yi, who was feeling frustrated.

-Tsrrrr! 『What was here!』

Bin, who couldn’t understand even when he explained it himself, shook his tentacles wildly while explaining.

Bin-i was giving a passionate speech while biting the collar of his close friend, Gyu-seong-hyung, and leaving a mark on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Bin-ah. We’re not dragons, so we can’t understand what you’re saying…”

-Tsururut! 『No, what was here!? This isn’t a difficult question, is it?』

“Wait a bit and when Soryong comes···.”

If we keep doing this, our Bin will collapse from high blood pressure.

I quickly got down on the ground and called Bin-i.

“Binah!”

-Tsururut! “Dad!”

“Dragon! You’re here! You should be able to understand what this kid is saying···.”

My brother was also feeling frustrated, but the one who was feeling the most frustrated was Bin.

I quickly asked Bin, who seemed to have choked on a sweet potato, what was wrong.

“Bin-ah, why are you here? I told you to stay with mommy? And what’s going on?”

Bin flinched at the question of why he was here.

He did not answer the question of why he was there, but explained what he saw.

-Tsurut. Tsururrur. Tsuru.

It means that something fast passed by and bit the sheep and disappeared.

“You said you bit the sheep and quickly disappeared? Tell me more.”

-Tsrrrr!

When I asked for more details, Bin’s explanation continued,

I couldn’t sleep so I went out for a short walk(?) and felt something vibrating on the ground, and then something quickly approached, bit a sheep from the flock, and quickly disappeared.

Not only do civets have a high ability to detect light in the dark, they also have an excellent ability to detect vibrations, and civets, which have the characteristic of digging underground, are likely to be particularly sensitive to vibrations.

I asked Bin, feeling a little strange.

If it was a scorpion, I would have definitely checked the body of the glowing guy, but Bin-i was only talking about vibrations.

“His body must have been bright, but you couldn’t see it properly?”

-Tsurut!

Bin-i said that he couldn’t see it properly because it wasn’t bright at all, but he could see it vaguely.

My head tilted.

From what I heard through Bin, I don’t think this was a scorpion.

‘Wait a minute, a fast animal in the desert?’

“Can I borrow your pen and ink?”

“Okay.”

After asking the elder of the shop, we entered the portable dwelling of a nearby nomad.

And I borrowed a brush and ink and drew a creature that was in my mind.

Front, side, and back.

When I showed it to Bin-yi and asked him about it, Bin-yi quickly shook his antennae and answered.

-Tsururut! 『This is it!』

‘No, those crazy guys from Odokmun raised this?’

The paper I showed to Binnie showed the spider that was the fastest spider and also had the most annoying personality.

A camel spider was drawn.