Chapter 23 of Yunding Tiangong: Wall Runner

"Turn off the flashlight?" I was stunned when I heard that. So many people were missing, and I still turned off the flashlight. What if more people were missing? This would be asking for trouble. I quickly looked at Monk Hua, thinking he was more mature, to see how he would react.

Monk Hua was also extremely nervous. When he saw me looking at him, he actually asked me, "Will you extinguish it?"

The fat man turned off the flashlight and said, "Listen to him, put it out and see!"

I turned off the flashlight immediately, and Monk Hua and the others also turned off theirs one after another. All of a sudden, we were plunged into absolute darkness. We quickly looked up at the roof. At first, it was still pitch black and we couldn't see anything. The fat man was about to curse when suddenly it lit up. We immediately saw countless small green dots of light densely gathered on the roof. At first glance, it looked like a sea of stars.

"It's the fifty star map."

I heard the voice of Monk Hua beside me, and I looked up again. Sure enough, the shape formed by the green spots above vaguely looked like a map of fifty stars, but it didn't quite look like it, because these green spots were actually moving.

"I'm rich now, with so many luminous pearls!" said the fat man in surprise.

"No, the Night Pearl is not that small." I broke out in a cold sweat: "It's moving, it's a bug!"

"Bugs? What kind of bugs?" The fat man suddenly became nervous, probably thinking of the corpse-eating bugs: "Fireflies?"

"No, fireflies are twinkling, I don't--" Before I finished speaking, I suddenly felt an itch in my neck, as if something had fallen into my collar, and I hurriedly touched it with my hand. I touched a mass of something, and I squeezed it to death.

At that time, I felt something was wrong based on the feel of it. It was an arthropod, and it seemed to have a lot of legs.

I squeezed the thing out of my neck with my fingers. I turned on the flashlight and suddenly felt scared, so I threw it on the ground.

It was an insect the length of a palm, and looked very much like a centipede, with very long antennae in front and back, and a slender body divided into nine segments, with a green dot on the back of each segment. But what was obviously different from a centipede was that this insect had very long legs, almost as long as its body, and there were so many of them, like many long hairs on both sides of its torso.

I know this insect is called "蚰蜻蜓". Some places call it "墙串子" or "暵蛹". This thing is very weird. When I was a child, I dared to touch anything, but I didn't dare to touch it. I always felt that this thing made people feel uncomfortable. It's a legend in our hometown. Once this thing crawls over your body, all the places it crawls over will rot. The most terrifying thing is that this thing will drill into people's ears. Now when I see it, my whole body will go numb.

The "wall crawler" is recorded in "Liao Zhai". It can grow up to three feet long and, like centipedes and spiders, it is a very evil creature.

When I saw this bug, my whole body tensed up and my head suddenly started to itch again. I touched it and found another one that had fallen from above.

I screamed immediately and quickly slapped it off, then put on the hood of my mountaineering suit and shone it on the ground. Damn, I don't know when, but there were already several of these insects crawling on the ground, and more were constantly falling from above.

The people below were inevitably hit. Monk Hua didn't react as quickly as I did. He jumped up and kept slapping the thing out of his neck, but it was useless. The thing found a gap and soon got into his clothes. And the bugs on the ground didn't know what was going on. They all surrounded us and climbed up from our shoes.

The fat man took out a washbasin and covered his head with it, and used his other hand to hit it continuously with an engineering shovel. I saw Ye Cheng holding his head, so I hurried to help him. I pulled his hands away and saw that several claws had crawled into his ears.

Some of these ' wall bugs' are as poisonous as centipedes, or even more poisonous than centipedes. I'd rather have scorpions crawling all over my body than have these crawling all over me. I asked him to turn his head sideways and lower it, and I slapped his head to get the bugs out.

We ran while shooting, but "wall sticks" fell everywhere like rain . Just when we were about to go crazy, suddenly there was a snap and a lamp in the distance lit up. I don't know who lit it.

I was wondering who would have the mind to light the lamp at this time, when suddenly the 'wall crawler' on the ground reacted and began to crawl towards the lamp slave.

Shunzi's voice came from a distance: "Bosses, light a fire! These bugs will lay eggs on warm things, don't let your body be the warmest thing around."

It turned out to be that kid Shunzi, I thought to myself, it seems he has woken up.

When Fatty and I heard this, we quickly climbed onto the lamp slave on the side. This thing was carved out of stone, and was shaped like a person carrying a basin with a wick in the basin. The lamp slave was more than a person tall. When I climbed up and took a look, I saw that the grease in the basin had frozen into soap, and it was crawling with bugs.

I picked up the lighter and lit the wick. The flame was small at first, but as the oil inside melted, it gradually grew stronger. When the "wall skewers" in the oil basin saw the flame, they surrounded it without hesitation. Several "wall skewers" entangled themselves together, and the fire crackled.

I turned on the flashlight again and shone it towards the roof. The painted pattern on the beams had changed. It seemed that the pattern was made up of these insects. At this time, other places also lit up the lanterns. The light was very dim after shining through the darkness. I still couldn't see the people next to me, but I knew their location. It seems that the darkness here is not impossible to penetrate with light, but our light is not strong enough.

There were still sporadic bugs falling from our heads, but most of them fell towards the direction of the lamp slave. A few of us protected our heads and ran towards the light on the side. After a few steps, we saw Lang Feng and Shunzi. Lang Feng fell to the ground, twitching constantly. Shunzi touched the back of his head and patted the bugs off his body.

I ran up to him and asked him what happened. He said, "It's over. The bugs have gone into my brain. They're too deep. I can't dig them out."

The fat man uttered a cry, picked his ears involuntarily, and said to himself: "Luckily I have a lot of earwax."

I asked Shunzi, "Is there still hope of salvation?"

Shunzi shook his head and said, "I don't know. In our village, once you are bitten by the snow-haired creature, your life or death is at the mercy of fate."

I rolled my eyes at Lang Feng, and he was already unconscious. It was really bad, but it was actually a good thing. Because this guy was Chen Pi A Si's subordinate, and if he turned against Chen Pi A Si, which was a matter of time, he would be very difficult to deal with. Now that he had been tricked, we had a better chance of winning.

Pan Zi called out from a distance and asked us to gather around. I said to Shun Zi, "Forget about it for now. Let's gather together first. Is there anything wrong with your head?"

Shunzi nodded and wondered, "Why did I suddenly pass out? I remember - you guys were going to blow up the mountain! Where is this place?"

I was unable to react for a moment, and the fat man immediately said, "You are so confused. We just wanted to fire a salute. Unexpectedly, there was an avalanche, and rocks fell down and hit you on the head, knocking you unconscious. We were wrapped in snow and brought here. It seems like a temple. We don't know what happened."

Shunzi thought for a moment and said, "I don't remember anything, but how can you blow things up on a snowy mountain? It's too much... No, you have to pay me more when you go back. This deal is not worth it."

Fatty wanted to talk more, but I was afraid he would talk about something else, so I patted him and said, "Stop talking nonsense . Let's talk about this later. Hurry up and get over it."

As he said this, he and Fatty lifted Lang Feng together and wanted to carry him to Pan Zi. Lang Feng was too big, and we both used up almost all our strength to barely push him to sit up.

Lang Feng was twitching, his head couldn't stand straight anymore, and he was dragging there. I was thinking about how to lift him up. At this time, the fat man suddenly frowned.

I followed his gaze and found that there was an obvious mark of a beating on the back of Lang Feng's head. Although it was not very obvious, it could be seen if you looked closely.

My heart skipped a beat, which meant that Lang Feng was not poisoned, but was knocked unconscious. I glanced at Shunzi who was carrying Lang Feng's backpack, and just as I was about to ask him what was going on, the fat man shushed me and signaled me not to speak.

I looked at the fat man's eyes, not knowing what he meant, so I just looked back at him. Then I lifted up Langfeng, put him on my shoulders with difficulty, and supported him towards Panzi's direction.

After a period of darkness, we arrived in front of Pan Zi's lamp. Chen Pi Ah Si and Pan Zi were waiting there, but Men You Pingzi was nowhere to be seen. I asked Pan Zi, "Where is the young man?"

Pan Zi said, "Isn't he with you? I haven't seen him this whole time."

I looked around. Apart from the lamp we lit and the lamp Shunzi lit, there was no fourth lamp that was lit. In the distance, there were only two dim flames standing there, dim and lifeless.

Logically speaking, in that environment, after hearing Shunzi's cry, he would have lit the lamp slave next to him, otherwise he would have been surrounded and killed by these wall crawlers. If he didn't light it, could it be that he had been hit and lost consciousness like Lang Feng before hearing Shunzi's cry?

That's impossible. With a very sensitive physique like him, he should be afraid of all kinds of insects.

The fat man yelled at the darkness around him, and the sound echoed all the way, circling in the empty Ling Palace for a long time, but no one answered, as if Menyouping had never come in. When he listened quietly, there was no sound of breathing or footsteps.

I knew that with this guy's skills, nothing could stop him without any sound. If he disappeared without a sound, he must have had some special reason, or found something, and left the team on his own . Even if we knelt down and kowtowed to him now, he would not appear.

Pan Zi and Fatty called out a few more times, and when they were sure there was no response, they turned on their flashlights and prepared to go look for him. I stopped them and said, "Don't get separated at this time. Let's take care of the injured first, and then we can go together."

Everyone thought so and immediately gathered around Lang Feng. Chenpi A Si checked Lang Feng's injuries. With his old fox character, I saw that he almost immediately noticed the wound on the back of Lang Feng's head, but he did not show any surprise. Instead, he glanced at me, and I didn't know what he was thinking.

I suddenly felt something was wrong. Something was wrong. The people who carried Lang Feng back just now were Fatty and me. According to common logic, Chenpi A'si would not have suspected Shunzi, who was temporarily found in the mountain village. So he would most likely think that the one who injured Lang Feng was one of Fatty and me, or both of us.

It is hard to say what strategy he will adopt towards us in the future. This is really pulling the gun on himself.

Then again, Shunzi is a retired soldier, and he is a regular soldier on the front line of the border defense. It shouldn't be difficult for him to knock Lang Feng unconscious. He might be afraid of us. After all, our identities are unknown, and we are obviously not good people, so he pretends to be stupid to confuse us. I can't expose him. The environment here is so complicated, it's better to have one more friend than one more enemy.

I shouldn't have asked a soldier to be my guide, I thought to myself. I felt that the relationship was in a mess. I didn't know how to deal with it.

Shunzi on the side knocked Lang Feng down, then took out two toothpicks from his pocket, pried open his ears, picked out the "wall skewers" inside, and threw them to the ground, whereupon the fat man immediately stomped them to death.

Shunzi told us that this kind of insect is called "snow hair" and is a very rare Chinese medicine. Insects usually move below the snow line. We have never seen them above the snow line. We don't know why there are so many of them here. Lang Feng has planted insects in his mind and he probably won't be able to hold on for much longer.

Generally speaking, it is bullshit to say that the bugs enter the brain through the ears. I touched Lang Feng's jaw and found it was red and swollen. It must be that the "wall bug" bit him inside the ear and poisoned him. It was not as serious as Shunzi said. But where did these bugs come from? It's really hard to understand.

The fat man looked up and said, "It must be hidden in the tiles on the roof. It woke up after being fumigated by the insect-scented jade. This trick is really fucking cruel. But, does that old Wang know that we can burn the magnetic turtle?"

I thought to myself that that was for sure. Since the magnetic turtle was buried at the bottom of the tomb sealing stone, it must have been buried in the hope that tomb robbers would find it and then destroy it. Whether it was burned or smashed, it would probably cause the insect-scented jade to evaporate and wake up the centipedes hidden on the tiles of the palace. But if someone who respected the Ling Palace did not destroy it, then the magnetic turtle would be here and would protect the safety of the Yunding Palace forever.

Monk Hua brought some medicine and gave Lang Feng an injection, saying it would temporarily save his life. After the injection, we took off Lang Feng's coat, swatted the insects curled up inside the clothes, and cleaned them up. Pan Zi said to Chen Pi Ah Si: "Grandpa Si, this insect is very poisonous. We'd better leave here quickly. If someone else is stung, there won't be enough medicine."

Chenpi Ah Si looked around and frowned. Ye Cheng sighed and told Pan Zi about how we found ourselves trapped. Pan Zi was also extremely confused when he heard it: "Are you sure we didn't go the wrong way?"

Ye Cheng was about to speak when Shunzi hummed and said, "Strange." I looked back and saw that the light of the first lamp he had just lit had disappeared into the darkness in the distance.

The oil in the lamp slave had not been used for hundreds of years, and we were thankful that it could be lit now. I told him that there was nothing strange about it, but Shunzi still frowned, patted me again, and asked me to look again.

I was getting a little impatient, but at this moment, I saw the second flame of the lamp I lit began to shake, as if someone was walking by it, causing the wind to blow the flame.

There was absolutely no wind in the hall, and if nothing was passing by, a thing like this would never have happened.

I thought it was Monk Oil Bottle coming back and wanted to shout, but Fatty covered my mouth. I saw the light and shadow of the flame, vaguely illuminating the outline of a person, but it was definitely not Monk Oil Bottle because the shadow was too tall.

I had a feeling something was wrong, but the shadow was too blurry, and I couldn't even see the outline clearly. Chenpi A Si looked at it for a few seconds, and suddenly raised his hand and shot an iron marble, which flew straight over the edge of the flame of the lamp slave. The strong wind blew up the flame, and it suddenly lit up. Immediately, we saw a figure with a slightly unusually long neck standing next to the lamp slave.