Entomologist in Sichuan Tang Clan Chapter 265

265
-Ts, Tsuki!?

A guy who flips over and moves his feet without thinking, then freezes at the sound of my voice.

The frozen creature’s tentacles slowly turned towards me.

It seemed as if its antennae were pointed towards me, as its head was turned away from me and it could not see me.

I looked around, wondering why this guy was suddenly upside down here. Cho, Hyang, Bin, and Hongdan were sleeping right next to me.

I saw the sight of the guys tangled together and sleeping soundly.

The scent of Cho, who had his chin raised above Bin-i’s body, and Cho’s body hanging precariously on top of it.

And the red incense stick stuck sideways in the gap between the incense stick and the candle.

The children were entangled like Yut sticks on New Year’s Day, and they looked really friendly.

Is this the image of harmonious sisters that I had hoped for?

‘What happened? Why did we become so close?’

A smile naturally appeared on my face at the sight of those guys.

That would be the case. Originally, there was a war of nerves between the sisters, so Hongdan and Hyang always slept together, but Bin and Cho were a bit cold to each other, so they slept apart.

Even when sleeping in the Tang family’s quarters, if one guy takes my right side, the other guy takes my left side.

But sleeping entangled like this meant that that kind of war of nerves had disappeared.

‘Guys···.’

At the sight of the cute guys, I unconsciously lifted my chin onto Bin’s body and gently stroked Cho’s head.

Then, even while sleeping, the antennae of the grass spread out from side to side like a puppy’s ears.

‘Whose daughter are you that she sleeps so beautifully?’

It was the moment when my caressing hand moved to the back of Cho’s head.

I quickly petted him and tried to pet the others, but something stuck to Cho’s head and got caught in my fingertips, rolled down Bin’s body, and fell to the floor.

-Tok. Tok tok.

Because the floor was wooden, I could hear the sound clearly even though it was small, so I picked up the thing that had fallen on the floor and tried to examine it.

-Rustle.

But it’s a guy that crumbles under your fingertips as soon as you hold it.

When I looked closely at the crumbled powder that remained, I realized that it was dried, twisted clay.

Because it scattered and turned to dust.

Other people might not have known, but I had been to the swamps to collect mud, so I knew where the mud came from.

-Sniff sniff.

‘Isn’t this mud dug up from the bottom of a swamp or a river?’

Mud that lingers with a slight fishy and sewer-like smell.

Because it seemed like mud dug up from the bottom of a swamp.

‘Now that I think about it, these guys···.’

And the moment I realized it was mud, I also realized why the kids kept sleeping during the day.

I thought it was because they were originally nocturnal and their wild nature came back to life when they were out in the wild, but it turned out that these guys were definitely going out every night without me knowing.

Even the swamps that I had designated as forbidden.

No matter how wild they were, it was strange that only four of them were like this while the others were okay.

And I could vaguely understand why our friendship had improved.

Since the four of them were all together and going out without their father knowing, things were bound to get better.

Because we would have shared the same secret.

Of course, children aren’t people, but there’s nothing better for people to become close than sharing secrets.

‘So is that a gift for the night? Or a bribe to forgive me for sneaking around?’

I turned my gaze from the sleeping figures of the guys to the bombardier beetles that were still frozen and only examining me with their antennae.

Then the tentacles of the guy flinch.

The sight of the guy made me chuckle again.

I don’t know what the gift was, but it seemed like it was a gift my children had picked up for me.

But the first gift the daughters brought for their father was a bomb worm, showing that the daughters knew their father very well.

A bombardier beetle? Wouldn’t this spicy Fabre’s gift be the icing on the cake?

I thought I shouldn’t scold them for sneaking out to get the guys’ presents.

I told him to be careful and that it was dangerous, but he still went out for days without telling me, so I should have been scolded. But how could I have scolded him when our friendship had improved and he had received these gifts from his daughters?

He said, approaching the frozen guy.

“You shouldn’t throw poison at me? I’ll turn it around. I’m not a bad person.”

-Tsuki.

A guy who answers my questions quietly.

I quickly approached him and turned him over. His stomach puffed out as if he was taking a deep breath.

If he was going to poison me, he would have moved his butt towards me.

It seemed to mean something like a sigh.

And when the guy flipped over, a funny sight came into view.

There were a few threads of magic attached to the guy’s shell.

Let’s take a closer look. The thread was tied around both of the guy’s legs and the shell was tied together.

‘It’s even related to magic.’

Yeah, come to think of it, beetles have wings and can flip over by flapping their wings, but I wondered why they couldn’t, and it seemed to be because the demon had attached the shell containing the wings with thread, as if stitching up a wound.

First of all, I apologized to the guy.

Even though he wasn’t injured, he probably wasn’t treated well by the kids when he was caught.

“My name is Soryong. I feel bad for my kids who have been bullying me.”

The guy who flinches at my apology.

As the guy looked at me with a wary look, I looked at him from all angles.

‘It’s definitely a type of bombardier beetle.’

English name: Bombardier Beetle.

Scientific name: Carabidae.

At first glance, the guy looked like some kind of bombardier beetle, just as I had thought.

It was rounder than the typical bombardier beetle, but it had a pattern similar to the Asian bombardier beetles I know, and the smell that lingered on its body made me certain that it was a bombardier beetle.

The reason I knew it was a bombardier beetle the moment I opened my eyes from my sleep was because of its smell.

The main component of the liquid emitted by the bombardier beetle is 1,4-benzoquinone.

This is because they emit irritating odors such as chlorine, bleach, and formaldehyde.

I’ve tried this dozens of times, so there’s no way I could be wrong.

‘Oh, so this is the watermelon the pirates were talking about?’

And from the guy’s appearance, you could tell that the watermelon the pirates were talking about was him.

Because it was round like a watermelon.

Because at night, with its black stripes on an orange background, it would look like a watermelon.

It was also understandable why the pirates had such a hard time chasing him away.

Because 1,4-benzoquinone is a severe irritant to the eyes and respiratory tract of vertebrates.

Moreover, the liquid emitted by the bombardier beetle reaches temperatures close to 100 degrees Celsius, so it is natural that you will get burned if you come into contact with it.

The fact that he died after his body turned red meant that he probably died from burns and an infected wound.

‘Is it any good by the way?’

After tearing apart the guy’s body, I’m really pleased with the results.

That’s understandable, since this guy is a natural fighter.

First of all, most beetles, to which the guy belongs, are natural fighters.

They are quite aggressive and, moreover, mostly carnivorous insects.

Is that all?

Among these beetles, the bombardier beetles are the scarier ones, as they can spray benzoquinone up to 60 times the length of their own body, and of course they can do it 20 times in a row.

Moreover, it was a rare male.

I was a bit worried because there were only delicate girls, but here comes the bomb dust bug, a male who is also a natural fighter.

That’s when I thought it was fu*king awesome.

The guy suddenly turned towards me and showed me his back, which was stuck to the magic thread.

-Tskit?

I asked the guy back, as he seemed to be asking if I could let him go.

“Let me go? Run away?”

-Tsuki!

A guy who nods his head and wiggles his antennae as if he’s happy to hear my question.

The guy had only pointed his antennae toward me when he was flipped over earlier, so he didn’t see me affectionately stroking his head, and so he seemed completely unaware of our relationship.

And, except for Yeondoo, there had never been a case of someone being suddenly arrested like this, so I didn’t think about it, but since he was suddenly arrested, it seemed like he naturally wanted to run away.

‘What should I do? How do I become friends?’

I was a little worried about how to make him live with us.

-Tsukii!

A guy who pushes my back towards him and urges me to let go.

But before I could answer, I heard the sound of bells coming from the entrance.

-Tiring. Tiring.

-Ts, Tsuki!

Then, he looked around in confusion and quickly turned over.

As if he didn’t want to be caught by the fairy, the guy returned to the way he was before I turned him over.

It’s the appearance of someone flipping over and shaking their feet.

Is it because of the fear of arachnid predators?

Or is it because the thread tied to his back is a demon?

-Kishi?

After a while, a shadow appeared at the entrance and the demon entered the building. When the demon confirmed that I was awake, he looked at me with his antennae raised.

There was a feeling of unbelief, a tingling sensation of unbelief.

At that moment, the demon grabbed the overturned thing on the floor, quickly came towards me, and handed it to me as if it were a gift.

“Hey, Yo-hwa, did you sleep well?”

-Kishishi.

“Are you giving this child as a gift? Did you bring it with you?”

-Kissit.

It is a magic wand that is given to sleeping children as if it were a gift of a dust bug.

And at the end, looking at what he was pointing at, it seemed like he was saying that they all joined forces to catch it.

At the fairy’s words, the eyes grew as big as the lamps of the bomb dust bugs.

“Anyway, thank you, Yohwa.”

After handing the guy over, he made eye contact with him and smiled awkwardly as he spoke.

“Let’s get along well from now on, my friend.”

-Ts, Tsuki···.

The guy’s antennae drooped limply.

***

The bombardier beetles that the children caught are called bangbichung (放屁蟲), which means a bug that farts in Chinese characters.

It was an unrecorded species that did not belong to the Ten Poisons or the Twenty-Four Poisons, nor was it recorded in the Cheonha Dokbirok.

Hwa-eun also did not know the identity of the guy, and had said that she had never seen him in the Cheonma Dokmul Bi-rok.

“The heavens and the earth are dark and turbulent, the sun, moon and stars are trembling, and the clouds, rain, snow and thunder are falling.”

“Gold, silver, water, fire, red, blue, white, black, flowers, trees, grass, and fruit. You mean you don’t belong to any of them?”

“Yes, So-ryong. This is the first time I’ve heard of the Bang-bi-chung spirit. Because of So-ryong, I’ve been rereading Cheon-ha-dok-mul-bi-rok recently and have memorized all the contents, but I haven’t seen it there either.”

After thinking about Hwa-eun’s words carefully, I realized that Cheonha Dokmul Bi-rok is a book that only records the poisons of the Central Plains.

Here, Taiwan is not exactly Central Plains, so perhaps the record was missing.

But I wasn’t upset that the guy wasn’t a twenty-four-year-old or a teenage poisonous person.

No, on the contrary, I was extremely happy.

That would be the case, because who would name an unrecorded species if one were discovered?

That’s exactly how the discoverer builds it.

The guy is a hot-shelled beetle.

He named it the beetle that farts hotly and also gave it the name Yeolbi.

“Hey, Yeolbi, how are you?”

A place to name names.

I asked with a smile, but there was no answer.

When the boy didn’t answer my question, the scary sound of older sisters crying came to mind instead.

-Tsrrrr.

-Kissit!

-Tsurut?

Then, the antennae of the owl stood upright and a reluctant cry was heard as it answered.

-Ts, Tsuki···.

But soon I had to let out a voice that I was excited by the glares from my older sisters.

-Tsukiit! Tsuki. Tsuki.

***

-Padadadadak.

In the quiet night sky, the sound of the birds flapping their wings spread out in all directions.

If it had flown that far, it would have landed once under normal circumstances, but Yeolbi did not stop flapping its wings.

This was because he had been held captive for the past ten days and barely managed to escape when he had the chance.

If you delay flapping your wings even a little, sister, no, those things will come chasing you again and harassing you.

The place where the hot air balloon flies, flapping its wings hard, is that high mountain peak.

It was to my brother under that mountain peak.

My brother is the king of all spirits on this large island.

It was to ask for revenge for this humiliation.

-Padadak.

In front of the cave we arrived at after flapping our wings so hard.

Yeolbi shouted into the cave.

-Tsuki! Tsukiit! 『Brother! Help me!』

Then, two eyes inside the dark cave opened and sparkled, and my brother’s loud cry could be heard from inside.

-Skaaaa.

It was a solid cry.