“Turn off the flashlight?” I was stunned when I heard that. With so many people already missing, what would happen if we lost more? Wasn’t this just asking for trouble? I quickly looked at Master Hua, hoping he would be more composed and see how he reacted.

Master Hua was just as nervous. When he saw me looking at him, he even asked, “Should we turn it off?”

The胖子 (fat guy) turned off his flashlight and said, “Let’s listen to him and turn it off to see what happens!”

I immediately turned off my flashlight, and one by one, Master Hua and the others followed suit. Suddenly, the surroundings were plunged into absolute darkness. We quickly looked up at the ceiling. At first, it was still pitch black, and we couldn’t see anything. Just as the胖子 was about to curse, the area above suddenly lit up. We immediately saw countless small green lights densely clustered on the ceiling, and at first glance, it looked like a sea of stars.

“It’s the fifty-star map.”

I heard Master Hua’s voice beside me. I looked up again, and sure enough, the shapes formed by the green lights were vaguely reminiscent of a fifty-star map, but it didn’t look quite right because these green lights were actually moving.

“We’re going to strike it rich with so many night pearls!” the胖子 exclaimed in surprise.

“No, night pearls aren’t that small,” I said, breaking out in a cold sweat. “They’re moving; they’re bugs!”

“Bugs? What kind of bugs?” The胖子 immediately got tense, probably recalling the corpse toad. “Fireflies?”

“No, fireflies flash; I didn’t—” Before I could finish my sentence, I suddenly felt an itch at my neck, as if something had fallen into my collar. I quickly reached up to touch it. I felt something and squished it.

Based on the feeling, I knew it was bad. It was an arthropod, and it seemed to have a lot of legs.

I pinched the thing out from my neck with my fingers. When I turned on the flashlight to look, I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine and hurriedly threw the thing on the ground.

It was an insect about the size of my palm, very much resembling a centipede. It had long antennae at both ends, a slender body divided into nine segments, and each segment had a green dot on its back. However, it was clearly different from a centipede because this bug had extremely long legs, almost as long as its body, and there were many of them, resembling long hairs on both sides of its body.

I knew this insect was called a ‘millipede’ (in some places, it’s called ‘wall bug’ or ‘oyster octopus’). This thing is very sinister. When I was a kid, I dared to touch anything, but I was always afraid to touch it. I just felt that this thing was uncomfortable to look at, according to the legends from my hometown. As soon as it crawls over your body, the places it crawls will rot. The scariest part is that it can burrow into a person’s ear, and seeing it now made me feel a chill all over.

The ‘wall bug’ is even mentioned in “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,” and it can grow up to three feet long, and like centipedes and spiders, it has a heavy demonic nature.

Seeing this bug made my whole body tense up, and suddenly my head started itching again. I touched it, and there was another one that had fallen from above.

I instantly screamed, hurriedly swatting it away, then pulled up the hood of my climbing jacket. When I shone the flashlight on the ground, I was shocked—several of these bugs were already crawling on the ground, and even more were continuously falling from above.

The people below inevitably fell victim to the situation. The monk Hua reacted slower than I did; he had already jumped up, continuously trying to pat the things out from around his neck, but it was of no use. Those creatures found every gap to squeeze through and quickly burrowed into his clothes. Moreover, the bugs on the ground seemed to have lost their minds, all crawling towards us, climbing up from our shoes.

The fat guy put a basin on his head and kept hitting with a spade in the other hand. I saw Ye Cheng hugging his head and hurried over to help him. When I pulled his hands away, I saw several bugs had already crawled into his ears.

Some “wall bugs” are as poisonous as centipedes, even more so. I would rather have scorpions crawling all over me than these things. I told him to turn his head to the side and lower it so I could pat his head and knock the bugs out.

We ran while patting, but it was like rain with “wall bugs” falling everywhere. Just when I was about to go crazy, suddenly, a light in the distance flickered on; I didn’t know who had lit it.

I was puzzled as to who would still have the presence of mind to light a lamp at that moment when the “wall bugs” on the ground suddenly reacted, starting to crawl towards the light.

In the distance, I heard Shun Zi’s voice: “Hey, everyone, 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 guy Shun Zi; I thought to myself, looks like he’s awake now.

Upon hearing this, the fat guy and I quickly climbed onto the nearby lamp. This thing was carved from stone, shaped like a person carrying a basin, with the wick inside the basin. The lamp was more than a person’s height. When I climbed up, I saw that the ancient oil in the basin had turned to soap, and it was crawling with bugs.

I took out my lighter and lit the wick. The flame started small, but as the ancient oil melted, it gradually grew stronger. When the “wall bugs” saw the flame, they rushed towards it without hesitation, several of them got entangled and crackled as they were burned.

I turned on my flashlight again and shone it towards the ceiling. The painted beams above had changed; it seemed the previous patterns were formed by these bugs. At that moment, other lamps also lit up in different places. The light filtered through the darkness, appearing very dim. I still couldn’t see the people nearby, but I had already figured out their positions. It seemed that the darkness here wasn’t impenetrable by light; it was just that our light wasn’t strong enough.

There were still sporadic bugs falling from above, but most had gone towards the direction of the lamp. We protected our heads as we ran towards the light, and after a few steps, we saw Lang Feng and Shun Zi. Lang Feng was lying on the ground, convulsing, while Shun Zi was feeling the back of his head and patting the bugs off his body.

I rushed over and asked him what happened. He said, “It’s over, the bugs have crawled into my brain; they went in too deep, and I can’t get them out.”

The fat guy gasped and instinctively scratched his ears, muttering to himself, “Fortunately, I have a lot of earwax.”

I asked Shun Zi, “Is there any hope?”

Shun Zi shook his head and said, “I don’t know. In our village, once you get hit by these snow-haired bugs, whether you live or die is left to fate.”

I glanced at Lang Feng’s eyes, which had lost all sensation. It was really quite alarming, but in a way, it was a good thing. This guy was one of Chen Pi A Si’s subordinates, and when the time came for us to fall out with Chen Pi A Si—which was only a matter of time—he would definitely be very difficult to deal with. Now that he had been incapacitated, we had a better chance of winning.

Panzi called from a distance, urging us to gather around. I said to Shunzi, “Let’s not worry about it for now; let’s regroup first. Your head is okay, right?”

Shunzi nodded, puzzled, and said, “How did I suddenly pass out? I remember— you guys were going to blow up the mountain! Where is this place?”

I was momentarily at a loss for words. The Fatty immediately chimed in, “You really are confused. We just wanted to set off some fireworks. We didn’t expect an avalanche; some rocks fell and hit you on the head, knocking you out. We wrapped you up in the snow and ended up here, which seems to be a temple. We’re not quite sure how it happened.”

Shunzi pondered for a moment and said, “I have no memory of any of this, but how could you guys blow things up on a snowy mountain? This is really chaotic… No, you guys need to pay me more for this; this deal isn’t worth it.”

The Fatty wanted to say more, but I was worried he would ramble on endlessly, so I patted him and said, “Stop talking nonsense. We’ll discuss this later; let’s hurry over.”

With that, the Fatty and I lifted Lang Feng, trying to carry him over to Panzi. Lang Feng was too large, and we both used almost all our strength just to get him to sit up.

Lang Feng was twitching, his head drooping to the side. I was thinking about how to get him upright when the Fatty suddenly frowned.

I followed his gaze and noticed a distinct mark on the back of Lang Feng’s head. Although it wasn’t very obvious, it could be seen upon closer inspection.

My heart sank. This indicated that Lang Feng hadn’t been poisoned; he had been knocked out. I glanced at Shunzi, who was carrying Lang Feng’s backpack, and was about to ask him what was going on when the Fatty shushed me, signaling me not to speak.

I looked at the Fatty, unsure of his intentions, and could only return a glance. Then we lifted Lang Feng, straining to get him over our shoulders, and made our way toward Panzi.

After a stretch of darkness, we arrived at Panzi’s lantern. Both Chen Pi A Si and Panzi were waiting there, but there was no sign of the Silent Oil Bottle. I asked Panzi, “Where’s that little brother?”

Panzi replied, “Wasn’t he with you? I haven’t seen him at all.”

I looked around. Besides the lanterns we had lit and the one that Shunzi had lit, there were no other lights. In the distance, only two faint, dim flames flickered lifelessly.

Logically speaking, in that kind of environment, upon hearing Shunzi’s call, he would have lit the nearby lantern. Otherwise, he would have been surrounded and killed by those wall-climbing creatures. If he hadn’t lit it, could it be that he had already been incapacitated like Lang Feng before hearing Shunzi’s call?

That seemed impossible. With his constitution, he should have been afraid of any bugs he encountered.

The fat man shouted into the darkness surrounding him, and his voice echoed for a long time in the empty spirit palace, but there was no response, as if the muffle bottle had never entered at all. When everything fell silent, there were no sounds of breathing or footsteps.

I understood in my heart that with this guy’s skills, there shouldn’t be anything that could subdue him silently. If he had disappeared without a sound, it must be for some special reason or because he had discovered something and left the group on his own. Even if we knelt down and begged him now, he wouldn’t show up.

Panzi and the fat man called out a few more times, confirming there was no response, and then they turned on their flashlights to search. I stopped them and said, “We mustn’t get separated at this time. Let’s first take care of the injured, then go together.”

Everyone thought this made sense and immediately gathered around Lang Feng. Chen Pi Ah Si checked Lang Feng’s injuries. With his cunning nature, I saw that he almost immediately noticed the wound on the back of Lang Feng’s head, but he didn’t show any surprise. Instead, he glanced at me, seemingly lost in thought.

I suddenly felt something was off. Wait a minute, the ones who carried Lang Feng back were the fat man and me. By normal logic, Chen Pi Ah Si shouldn’t suspect that Shunzi, who was temporarily brought in from the village, would be involved. Therefore, he likely thought that either the fat man or I, or both, were responsible for injuring Lang Feng.

What strategy would he take towards us after this? That was hard to say. This was really like pulling the gun towards oneself.

That said, Shunzi was a veteran, after all, a regular soldier on the front lines of border defense. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to knock out someone like Lang Feng. He might be wary of us since our identities were unclear, and we were clearly not good people. So, he could be pretending to be clueless to confuse us. I couldn’t expose him; the environment here was so complicated that having one more friend was better than having one more enemy.

I shouldn’t have chosen a soldier as a guide, I thought to myself, feeling that the situation was tangled. I didn’t know how to handle it.

Meanwhile, Shunzi laid Lang Feng down, took out two toothpicks from his pocket, pried open his ears, and removed the “wall bug” inside, dropping it on the ground, where the fat man immediately stomped on it.

Shunzi told us that this kind of bug was called “snow hair” and was a very rare traditional Chinese medicine. These bugs usually moved below the snow line and had never been seen above it; he didn’t know why there were so many here. Lang Feng had bugs in his brain and probably wouldn’t last much longer.

Generally speaking, bugs entering the brain through the ears was nonsense. I touched Lang Feng’s jaw and found it swollen and red, clearly indicating that the “wall bug” had bitten him inside his ear and he was poisoned, but it wasn’t as serious as Shunzi had said. The real mystery was where these bugs had come from.

The fat man looked up at the ceiling and said, “They must be hiding in the roof tiles. Once that bug incense was burned, they woke up. This trick is really ruthless. But did that old Wang know we would burn the turtle?”

I thought to myself that it was certain. Since the magnetic turtle was buried at the very bottom of the sealing stone, it must have been hoped that grave robbers would discover it and then destroy it, whether by burning or smashing. This would likely lead to the evaporation of the insect fragrance jade, awakening the centipede hidden on the roof tiles of the palace. However, if someone who respects the spirit palace does not destroy it, then the magnetic turtle can forever protect the safety of the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace.

Master Hua brought some medicine and injected a dose into Lang Feng, saying it could temporarily save his life. After the injection, we took off Lang Feng’s outer clothing and brushed off the insects curled up inside, cleaning him up. Panzi said to Chen Pi Ah Si, “Ah Si, the poison of these insects is quite severe. We’d better leave here quickly; if someone gets stung again, we won’t have enough medicine.”

Chen Pi Ah Si looked around, frowned, and Ye Cheng sighed, recounting to Panzi what had just happened to us when we realized we were trapped. Upon hearing this, Panzi was extremely puzzled: “Are you sure we didn’t take a wrong turn?”

Ye Cheng was about to speak when Shunzi hummed in agreement and said, “Strange.” I turned around to look, and it turned out that the flame of the first lamp servant he had lit earlier had disappeared into the darkness in the distance.

The lamp oil inside the lamp servant hadn’t been used for hundreds of years, and it was already a blessing that it could still be lit. I told him there was nothing strange about it, but Shunzi still frowned and tapped me again, urging me to look again.

I was a bit impatient at this point, but then I saw the second flame of the lamp servant I had lit flicker, as if someone had walked by, stirring the wind and causing the flame to sway.

There was definitely no wind inside the hall; such a thing wouldn’t happen unless something passed by.

I thought it might be the dull oil bottle returning and wanted to call out, but the fat man covered my mouth. I saw the flickering light of the flame vaguely outline a person’s silhouette, which was definitely not the dull oil bottle, as this shadow was too tall.

I felt something was off, but the shadow was too blurry, and I couldn’t make out even a clear outline. Chen Pi Ah Si glanced a few times, suddenly raised his hand, and shot out an iron bullet that whizzed past the flame of the lamp servant. The strong wind stirred the flame, making it flicker brightly for a moment, and we immediately saw a strangely elongated figure standing beside the lamp servant.