Xuan 1
"Th-this... inside this? Are you truly certain?"
Shintu asked again, running his hand over the red peak.
I nodded at his question.
"Yes. Didn't the previous Shintu obtain both the eggs and the cocoon from this very place?"
"That's right, isn't it?"
"My guess is that the previous Shintu, for whatever reason, came across them when a termite nest had collapsed, and found both the Heavenly Silkworm cocoon and the eggs that had spilled out together. That's how I see it."
If a man who knew nothing about insects—the previous Shintu—somehow obtained both eggs and a cocoon from a single place, places that by nature ought to be separate, the only real possibility was chance.
The cocoon would have been deep in the heart of the termite tunnels. The eggs, ordinarily, would have been laid somewhere outside the nest, near the entrance.
So if you worked through the possibilities, there was really only one: for some reason one side of the nest had collapsed, the cocoon had washed out with the debris, and an adult Heavenly Silkworm had laid its eggs near the broken face of the mound.
In my previous life, the double-tailed blue butterfly laid its eggs at the entrance of Matsumura's spiny ant nests. For both conditions to be met, it would have taken exactly that kind of overlapping accident.
And then the previous Shintu, passing by, had simply been lucky enough to find them. That was my reasoning.
Shintu listened, then nodded as if it sounded plausible enough.
"Ahem... Indeed."
And right then, Hyang-i's frantic cry suddenly cut through the air.
-Chirrr! Chirr!
I was sure I had left her on my shoulder, but when I turned my head she was right in front of the termite tunnel, making a racket. She was sweeping a foot over her own head and rolling back and forth on the ground.
"Hyang-i, what is it? Are you hurt!?"
I had told her it was dangerous, and yet she had already climbed down and gotten into another standoff with the termites. Ignoring Dad and going near the ants again was going to earn her a smack on the back later, but first I hurried over and checked on her.
I was worried a soldier termite had bitten her badly.
"What is it? Where did it bite you? Hold still, Hyang-i."
"Hyang-i got bitten? So-ryong?"
I soothed her in a worried voice, and she put on a full performance of how much it hurt.
-Chirr. Chirrr...
But once I calmed her down and checked every inch of her body, no wound stood out at all.
"There's nowhere that looks hurt?"
-Churr. Churr...
"Are you sure you're actually injured?"
There was no place that looked wounded, yet she kept putting on airs. Afraid I had simply missed something, I looked her over again—and that was when I finally saw it. Her antennae were in a strange shape.
Thankfully they weren't cut or bent, but something was clearly wrong with them. Those antennae that never stopped moving, forever sampling scents—the very reason I had named her Hyang-i—were stuck fast together for some reason.
"What's wrong with your antennae, Hyang-i? Does it hurt here?"
-Chirrr.
I soothed her again and touched the antennae that had somehow glued themselves together. My fingers came away sticky.
Ah. This little thing got hit with glue fluid.
Hyang-i had clearly been fooling around and taken a shot of sticky fluid from the termites.
Some soldier termites spray a gluey liquid, or rupture their own bodies in a fight and spew viscous fluid from inside. The worker termites also mix that same stuff with earth to build their nests. Hyang-i had provoked them for no good reason, gotten coated in glue fluid, and ended up with her antennae stuck together.
I wiped her antennae free with my sleeve and cleaned them off, and only then did her theatrics finally settle.
"Hyang-i. That's why Dad said no earlier, right? It's dangerous, so from now on you listen to Dad, okay?"
-Chirr...
I spoke in a stern voice, and her antennae drooped like the ears of a big-eared puppy that had lost all its spirit. It hurt a little to see her so crushed, but another injury would be a real problem, so I scolded her firmly. Shintu shook his head from side to side and spoke.
"That little one truly has no sense at all. Anyway—how are we supposed to dig this open?"
Once the fuss over Hyang-i died down, Shintu turned to the problem of how to crack the termite tower. Hwa-eun and Sister Seol's worries piled on right after.
"But So-ryong, can we even dig this? It doesn't look like something you dig—it looks like we'd have to call stonemasons and break it."
"She's right, So-ryong. I don't know how the termites made this, but it's no different from rock. Can we dig through it?"
Sister Seol and Hwa-eun had a point; that part was genuinely worrying.
Even in my previous life, the mounds of tower-building termites were notorious for how hard they were—and these creatures were dozens or even a hundred times larger. You could fairly call them lesser spirit beasts, or the lowest grade of them, so their nest would be that much harder.
The glue fluid I had felt just now was no ordinary stuff, and if they mixed earth with it to build, the strength would be considerable. If Shintu, Sister Seol, and Hwa-eun could completely mistake it for rock, it was no stretch to say it was at least as hard as concrete.
But Shintu was a martial artist of the Five Emperors among the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. From what I had heard, those of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors possessed formidable martial attainment. On top of that, Shintu had a solid, robust build, not unlike a small bandit. The thought that he might simply smash this tower with a palm strike or a palm wind made me look at him with expectation as I asked.
"What we're looking for is probably in the center of this pillar, a little below ground level. And the inside should be softer than the outer shell, so if we just shatter the surface, breaking the interior should be much easier. Couldn't you manage it with something like a palm technique?"
"No reason I couldn't. Well then—shall I put some power into it for the first time in a while?"
"Oh! As expected!"
"Master's palm strike! I've never seen it before!"
"A chance to witness Elder Shintu's palm technique?"
At my question, Shintu rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward. His disciple Yeong-ryeon's claim that she had never seen his palm technique made me a little uneasy, but Shintu wore an unconcerned expression as he began to draw up his inner energy before the massive red termite tower.
-Flutter.
Whether he was circulating a great force, the moment he pulled his energy up, his robes began to whip and flap. In the next instant his hand shot into the pillar at a speed the eye could not follow.
-Tang!
The impact rang out. The sound was lighter than I had expected, but it was still the palm strike of Shintu, the Thief Emperor. I clenched my fists and waited for the termite tower to collapse—but the red pillar did not even crack.
At first I thought it might be something like the Penetrating Force, where the surface looks fine but the inside is already ruined. So I waited for the next moment. Time passed, and the termite tower still did not so much as tremble.
What?
Hwa-eun, Sister Seol, and I all stared at him in blank disbelief. Shintu cleared his throat for no particular reason and said,
"Y-you brat, I'm outstanding at lightness skills, body techniques, and pressure-point striking. Palm techniques are a bit... Ahem! Well—it is rather hard."
Then why did you put on that whole show?
Shintu really was an absurd old man.
"We've found it, at least, so I'll look for a method—whether I ask someone skilled in palm techniques for help, or do as you said earlier and bring stonemasons."
Hwa-eun, Sister Seol, and even Shintu's disciple took turns pounding it with palm techniques, but the white termite tower did not budge. In the end we concluded that opening it would require another approach.
The walls were simply too hard; we needed a different method. As Sister Seol had said, either we found a number of stonemasons and brought them, or we asked a master whose palm techniques were outstanding. I considered bringing warriors from the Tang family, but with the Five Poisons Sect and the Blood Cult in play that seemed difficult, so Shintu took on the task of finding a way.
"Understood. Then when Elder Shintu is ready, we'll come again."
"Right. At any rate, it looks like we'll have to camp out here tonight."
At Shintu's words I looked toward the ridgeline of the basin. The sun was already sinking. It hung on the edge of the ridge and poured out a red sunset.
"It does seem that way."
"Those things won't attack us at night or anything, will they?"
It was a question about whether the termites might raid us after dark, but there was no need to worry.
Termites almost never leave their own nest. And even if they did come out, the place they would emerge would be at the far end of the basin. They had stripped the surrounding trees and grass for food until this basin formed; they would not come out onto this side, where not a single blade of grass remained.
"Yes, I don't think you need to worry. Termites never leave their own nest. Even if they did, it would be toward that ridge."
"Good. Then I'll go hunting. A wild boar or two should do, yes?"
He nodded at my explanation and said he would bring back a boar at least. I tilted my head and asked,
"With this much food right here, is there any need to hunt? Unless you're going up there to gather some branches?"
"Hm? There's food? Where, exactly? Is there still food left that we packed from the Tang family?"
I smiled at Shintu's question and answered.
"Termites are quite delicious, you know."
"Hm!? Y-you're going to eat termites?"
"We're eating those!?"
Shintu and his disciple Yeong-ryeon looked thoroughly startled, but Hwa-eun, who had already tried Gosoae mealworms, and Sister Seol, whose hometown was Yunnan, spoke as if it were nothing.
"So those can be eaten as well?"
"Well, in Yunnan they eat bamboo insects, and grasshoppers, and cicadas too."
"I wonder if those would be savory as well?"
She even looked a little expectant.
I haven't tried them myself, but I've always wanted to.
Honestly, people said the queen was the best, and I had wanted to try that—but for now we couldn't dig open the nest. In Uganda they caught termites and fried them, stir-fried them, or roasted them. I figured this was a chance to gain a little spicy Fabre experience.
They did not look keen on the idea, but Shintu and his disciple Yeong-ryeon gathered branches. In place of Hyang-i, Cho and Yo-hwa caught the termites.
Cho and Yo-hwa were large enough that the soldier termites were not much of a threat, and whenever either of them tapped a termite with a foreleg, the insects were skewered one by one onto their limbs into neat termite kebabs.
Even so, we did not catch the soldiers. Their outer shells were more developed than expected—quite hard—and they were no good for eating.
-Sizzle sizzle.
We threaded the termites we had caught onto sticks and roasted them gently over charcoal. When the juices that dripped from the roasting termites hit the campfire, a rich, savory aroma rose.
"Th-that smells good."
"I-it does, doesn't it."
Once the termites were skewered and roasted, the legs and antennae burned away and they took on a shape a little like rice-cake skewers—and the smell was outstanding.
"Please try one, Elder."
I held out the most perfectly browned skewer to Shintu first. He flinched.
With an awkward smile, Shintu said,
"Y-you eat first. I'll take my time. You're the youngest, so you must have worked the hardest."
"Can I really do that? There's murim etiquette to consider."
"Ahem—i-it's fine, I said."
I offered the skewer toward him once more, but he flinched and waved his hands. It seemed I would have to set an example, so I decided to try the large, fragrant termite skewer myself first.
"Then I'll gratefully accept."
-Crunch.
I bit into one of the termites on the skewer, and a savory flood of juice burst through my mouth. People called them a delicacy, and the taste was genuinely good.
I finished the whole termite, then smiled at the others and said,
"This is excellent. Everyone, please ea—"
And in that moment my mind suddenly went blank, and Hwa-eun's and Sister Seol's startled voices began to echo in my ears.
"So-So-ryong... So-ryong..."
"So-ryong!? Stay with—"
Poison... There definitely wasn't any. What is this?
I had checked for poison before we caught and roasted them, and there had been none, so it was strange. And somehow the sensation I felt now was one I was sure I had experienced once before.
My consciousness drifted away as if through a haze, and everything before my eyes went black.