The Azure-Spotted Centipede
Ssshhh…
A light evening rain was falling over the entrance of a half-collapsed Taoist temple. Deep in the mountains, the abandoned complex lay half-smothered by tropical trees that had grown wild without restraint—and somehow, into this forsaken place, nearly thirty people had come pouring in.
The man who looked to be their leader offered a polite martial salute and asked,
"Young Hero, might we take shelter from the rain for a single night?"
The question was directed at me, standing there with a startled look on my face at the sudden arrival of so many strangers. I had wondered whether they might be bad news, but even though I was still a child, he gave me a proper bow and spoke with careful courtesy. Not villains, then. He seemed to take me for some young Taoist charged with watching over the ruined temple.
"I only settled into this abandoned temple a few years ago myself. Stay wherever you like. That hall over there is mine, though—I'd appreciate it if you used somewhere else."
"My thanks. Young as you are, you have fine manners. I'll do just that. You all heard him—move out. Keep clear of the Young Hero's hall. We'll take shelter elsewhere. Understood?"
"Yes, Family Head!"
The character for Tang was sewn across the men's chests, and they called him Family Head—so they were all one clan, then. I was curious about what they were doing here, but I only dipped my head briefly toward the middle-aged man and hurried back to the hall I used. The kids' dinner time had come around.
"Almost late. Hungry, aren't you?"
I stepped inside, lit the oil lamp, and got supper ready at once. I opened the lid of a big earthenware jar, swept aside the leaves inside, and scooped up a fistful of crickets. Their little bodies kicked and twitched against my palm. Still holding them, I opened the large jar beside it and peered in.
A massive body. Legs furred soft and thick. That faintly yellowish trunk still set my heart racing every time. I tossed a few adult crickets into the jar, and the creature snatched them up in a flash. True to its aggressive nature, it stuffed the crickets into its mouth with greedy haste.
"Eat up, Black. Without you lot, what would your big brother have done?"
The name of the creature in the jar was Black Earth Tiger—a tarantula native to China's Hainan, which is to say Hainan Island in the Central Plains, a species that could grow to twenty centimeters. Since I'd caught it, it had already molted twice; I'd raised it to nearly fifteen centimeters.
Once I was sure it was eating, it was time to feed the others. I watched it snatch up the remaining crickets one more time, then headed straight for the old medicine cabinet beside me.
When I opened the drawers, the ones that greeted me were Bawangling Cave Geckos—another Hainan Island native, lizards with bright yellow stripes along their bodies and white bands ringing their tails.
"In my past life I could never get any of you because imports were impossible. Out here you're everywhere. Your brother really does live just to look at you."
I pinched a cricket by the leg and dangled it gently in front of their eyes. They darted forward at once and snatched the cricket away.
"Ow—ow!"
I pried off the one that had gone for the cricket and bitten my finger instead, then finished feeding every gecko in every drawer of the medicine cabinet. That was when a voice called from outside.
"Young Hero. Are you within?"
The Family Head from earlier, I thought—that middle-aged man. I dusted off my hands and shut the drawers. When I stepped out of the hall, he was standing there with a smile.
"I'm grateful you let us out of the rain. Would you care to share an evening meal? We brought down a deer."
"A—a deer?"
"Indeed. We took two on the way, meaning to eat them for supper. Will you join us?"
A deer—something I had never once managed to catch myself. The temptation of real red meat had me nodding at once. In my previous life, the idea of eating snakes and lizards would never have crossed my mind, but here the only game I could take were snakes and lizards. A man needed protein to live, so I'd had no choice but to catch and eat them—my sole source of it. Faced with the words "venison from a four-legged beast," refusal was simply not an option.
Sorry, kids… Big brother had to survive too…
I offered a silent apology in the direction of the place where I'd buried the snake and lizard bones, then followed the man past half-collapsed halls with tiles missing from their roofs, all the way to the largest building in the temple complex.
There, in the middle of a structure riddled with holes, a fire was burning, and the savory smell of roasting venison poured into my nose like pure rapture.
Gulp.
Fat had begun to drip, and the scent of meat pulled the saliva into my mouth of its own accord. I stood staring for a long while, swallowing hard, until I felt someone's gaze. When I turned my head, the man who had brought me was smiling and pointing to the seat beside him.
Oh no.
Embarrassment flushed my face as I went and sat where he indicated. His voice came again, warm with laughter.
"The meat will need a little longer yet. In the meantime, I've a few things I'm curious about—may I ask?"
"Yes, Elder. Please go ahead."
He seemed to have questions. I owed him for the meat, so I nodded and answered. He began the usual round of personal inquiries. First meetings always started that way.
"So then—you live alone in these mountains of Hainan Island? How old are you?"
"Around fourteen or fifteen, I think."
"Fourteen or fifteen?"
His expression asked what kind of answer "fourteen or fifteen" was supposed to be—if it was fourteen, say fourteen; if fifteen, say fifteen. I scratched my head and replied,
"I lost my memories…"
"Ah. What a cruel fate."
He looked at me with pity, but the amnesia was a complete lie. I had never lost my memories. If anything, this felt like a past-life reincarnation—or a possession.
A past life? Before I died, I had been a streamer. On YouTube, AfreecaTV, and Twitch I had shone with a million subscribers, famous for introducing and raising reptiles, spiders, and venomous insects—poisonous creatures of every kind. My handle was Spicy Fabre. Specializing in venomous insects, poisonous beasts, and vipers had earned me that name.
There was a reason I had ended up in this world—and in a child's body, no less. It was the special broadcast celebrating one million subscribers. I had been filming a tour of the world's ten most venomous snakes when I was bitten by a black mamba and died.
I must have made the list of streamers who died doing something stupid… No, but—why did that black mamba never show itself when I was out looking for it, only to jump out from behind the fridge in my lodging?!
When I'd been trying to introduce it on camera, not a scale of it to be seen. Then I'd gone back to a shabby hotel in Africa to rest, and a black mamba had come flying out from behind the refrigerator. The moment it bit me, I knew I was finished. Black mamba venom was infamous—capable of killing a person in under twenty minutes. And that was how I'd ended up like this.
"I see. And you've lived here alone ever since?"
"Yes. I have no particular skills. I catch snakes around here and sell the skins to get by."
"A child like you catching snakes—how dangerous…"
He looked at me with pitying eyes. I looked pitiful enough to myself; to a stranger I must have looked worse.
We had been talking a little longer when two large chunks of meat were thrust in front of me. My eyes went round with surprise, and the man who had brought them smiled.
"Family Head, I brought the parts that are done first. The Young Hero looked terribly hungry earlier."
Embarrassment colored my face again, but embarrassment did not put meat on the table. I bowed my head quickly and took it.
"It's been so long since I've had meat from a four-legged animal. Thank you."
The moment I had it in my hands, I tore into the meat like a starving animal.
Crunch.
How long had it been? Snake meat wasn't bad, but meat was still meat when it came from something with four legs. Juices dripped; savory fat ran into my mouth, and pure happiness arrived on the spot. Yes—this was happiness. Fat I would have called greasy in my past life was so rich and delicious I could hardly stand it.
I stripped the bones clean, happily sucking them dry, and then an elderly man with years on his face came over with a big cut of deer rib and handed it across.
"The young one eats well. Have this as well."
"Thank you, Elder."
"Heh heh. Puts me in mind of the granddaughter I left at home."
I was back to sucking grease from both hands and tearing at the meat when the voice of the man who had brought me here—the Family Head—rose again.
"Young Hero, listen while you eat. We've come looking for something. Have you seen anything strange in the area?"
I licked the oil off the back of my hand and echoed the question.
"Slurp—something strange, sir?"
"Hm… How to put it…"
He hesitated over my question. At that, the old man who had carved me the big rib smiled gently and said,
"Family Head, we have received the kindness of shelter from the rain. Surely you may tell the Young Hero? He might come to harm otherwise. He lives here alone, and I doubt he has anyone to speak to in any case."
"You're right, Father."
So the old man was his father. At the elder's words, the Family Head lowered his voice and asked again.
"We've come looking for a centipede with blue spots on its body. Have you seen one, Young Hero? We've been searching the area for days without finding it."
"A centipede… with blue spots?"
"Yes. A centipede with blue spots—we call it the Azure-Spotted Centipede. It's enormous. You may well have seen it…"
At the word centipede, my ears pricked up before I even thought about whether I had seen one. Centipedes were beautiful creatures. All those legs, that sleek body—among venomous arthropods, nothing was as unique or as lovely as a centipede. And centipedes weren't even insects; they were arthropods that showed maternal care. A peculiar animal by any measure. And one that was huge, with blue spots besides? A new species!
If it was a new species, Spicy Fabre could not simply walk past. I decided to dig for a little information.
"How big, if it's large?"
"Well? A fully grown one… I should think it could swallow someone your size without much trouble."
"Hah—!"
A centipede big enough to eat a person? I thought I'd just gone a few hundred years into the past, but maybe not. Another world entirely? I have to find this thing.
A giant new species of centipede. Joy made my whole body tremble at the two men's words. The old man saw it and patted my shoulder.
"Ah—the young one is frightened. Don't worry. We're here to catch the beast."
Here to catch it? People with a hobby like mine even in this era?
He seemed to have mistaken my trembling for fear, but they felt enough like people who shared my interests that I asked at once. If we had the same hobby, we could build a community—share breeding tips, trade collecting spots.
Nothing lonelier than a hobby you do alone…
Half the fun of a hobby was bragging about it, and I hadn't been able to do that at all.
"If you've come to catch it—are you planning to keep it and raise it?"
Both men laughed as if my answer were the funniest thing they had heard.
"Haha—raising an Azure-Spotted Centipede? That's a fine joke."
"The Young Hero is amusing."
"How would one raise such a thing? We mean to use it as medicine."
My feelings cooled on the spot. So these were that sort of ignorant middle-aged men. Even in my past life, baseless rumors that centipedes were good for the lower back had put countless centipedes through hell—and these two sounded exactly like those people. Using a centipede for medicine. I knew perfectly well there was no scientific basis for that. Another centipede was going to die for nothing.
I had a rough idea where a centipede would be, of course.
Ah. I thought they were comrades who shared my hobby. Turns out they were just clueless old men.
Disappointment rose, but I decided I ought to educate the uninformed and asked a question. I didn't want a rare new species dying for no reason.
"A centipede wouldn't make much of a medicine, would it?"
At that, both men's faces darkened a little. The old man answered in a heavy, sorrowful voice.
"Perhaps not. But my granddaughter lies stricken with a terrible illness. Only the inner elixir of that centipede can save her—so we are searching for it."
His granddaughter—the middle-aged man's daughter. I looked at the Family Head in surprise, and he forced a smile onto a dark face.
Aigo. The child's life hangs by a thread, so they'll try anything they can get into her.
A centipede was certainly not medicine—but what parent with a child living day to day wouldn't feel the same? Wanting to find anything, anything at all, and feed it to them was a parent's heart. Hadn't I once spent five hundred thousand won at a veterinary clinic trying to save a dying ten-thousand-won lizard?
I felt sorry for the new species… but they had treated me to meat. I owed them a little help.
"I haven't seen the centipede myself—but I have a fair idea where it would be."
After all, when it came to centipedes, they were right in the palm of Spicy Fabre's hand.