Chapter 139

He He Lingchuan immediately pricked up his ears: "Oh, how so?"

"My troops were routed because I was snatched by the Crocodile God, and Lu Yao took the opportunity to recruit them." His life depended on the youth before him, so Wu Wu Shaoyi gathered his spirits to lobby, "Only if I'm alive will they not be used by Lu Yao."

"And Pei Pei Xinyu; I can persuade him to deal with Lu Yao together."

Hearing this, He He Lingchuan didn't hesitate anymore: "Good, what should I do?"

Next, he followed Wu Wu Shaoyi's instructions and took out a turtle pearl to wash clean.

Don't look at the giant turtle's astonishing size; the turtle pearl was only the size of a chicken egg, and a small one at that. After the blood and filth on the surface were washed away, it radiated a silvery-white light with a hint of pale blue, crystal clear and moist.

This wasn't more high-end than some night-luminescent pearl?

Furthermore, the turtle pearl had other wonderful uses; for example, he had tried holding one in his mouth earlier and could breathe freely underwater.

He He Lingchuan sighed at it, muttered a few words of regret, and then found a wooden mallet, smashing it into powder with a few *guang-guang-guang* sounds.

There was a trick to smashing pearls for powder; iron tools couldn't be used.

Then he went to find rootless water.

Rootless water was rainwater that hadn't touched the ground. This was easy to handle; it had just rained recently, and any rainwater vat under the eaves of any house was half full.

He took a yellow paper talisman handed over by Wu Wu Shaoyi, burned it to ash, and soaked it in a small half-cup of rootless water.

Afterward, he poured the turtle pearl powder in and stirred until it was completely dissolved.

Eerily, the talisman water was red at this time. He He Lingchuan didn't know if it was the effect of the cinnabar.

To do this step, he had to catch a grasshopper in the wild.

Wu Wu Shaoyi specifically instructed that it had to be female, and its belly couldn't be too big.

This was even easier for He He Lingchuan; he had lived in the countryside as a child and had wreaked havoc on no fewer than eight hundred grasshoppers. Besides, County Magistrate Village had just harvested wheat, and the most lively little pests jumping in the fields right now were these.

Time was tight, and the purple sable also went out to help.

It was agile, had sharper eyes, and was lower to the ground, so it caught grasshoppers much faster than He He Lingchuan.

Before long, they caught a fat and strong one, flipped it over to look, and it was heavily pregnant.

It was autumn, and the eggs in the female insects' bellies were mature, all preparing to find a place to lay eggs.

A belly that was too big didn't meet the requirements; throw it away and find another.

After finding seventeen or eighteen like this, He He Lingchuan finally got one that met the criteria.

Healthy and energetic, and its lower abdomen was only slightly bulging.

He He Lingchuan threw the green insect into the water cup and covered it tightly. The two people and one sable, six eyes, stared at it without blinking.

The grasshopper fell into the talisman water, struggled instinctively, but after gulping down a mouthful of talisman water, it froze and actually stopped moving.

At the same time, the water level in the cup began to drop.

Clearly, it was gulping down the water.

Eerily, the volume of water in the cup was at least two or three times that of the grasshopper, yet it was drunk dry in the end.

Seeing this, Wu Wu Shaoyi breathed a sigh of relief: "Good, good, it's mostly done."

He He Lingchuan glanced at him: "Otherwise?"

"There's only one talisman paper, obtained from the Holy Master." Hong Hong Xiangqian was dead, and he couldn't replicate this secret technique either.

Hearing this, He He Lingchuan became even more interested in this Hong Hong Xiangqian. The rebel army called him the Holy Master, and everyone from top to bottom was convinced by him, even the murderous Lu Yao was no exception, and even the Crocodile God from the Northern Demon Kingdom was willing to be used by him.

This person was also proficient in supernatural techniques and talismans, which immediately reminded He He Lingchuan of the Great National Master Sun Sun Fuping.

Truly not simple.

The grasshopper didn't burst from being stuffed, and after drinking the water, it entered a state of stillness, only occasionally lifting its front limbs to wash its face and feelers. But its color changed, gradually turning from grass green to blood red, and its whole body grew irregular black spots.

At the same time, its abdomen became more and more bloated, looking like a balloon being blown up, and its skin was stretched thinner and thinner. The abdomen also became more and more transparent, and the two could even see the tiny insect eggs inside growing larger and fuller at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In fact, it was they who stretched the mother insect's belly.

Just when it was exaggeratedly round, and He He Lingchuan suspected it would burst in the next second, the mother insect's abdomen finally stopped growing.

By rights, grasshoppers would lay their egg pods in the soil, and only after a period of time would the egg pods hatch into larvae.

But this mother insect had no intention of producing; those strange eggs actually hatched directly into larvae inside its abdomen! The larvae of grasshoppers are called nymphs; except for having no wings and being smaller, they didn't look much different from the mother.

As soon as they crawled out of the eggshells, they couldn't wait to pounce on their brothers and sisters, tearing and biting with mouthparts that were complete from birth; even wolves that had been hungry for three days weren't as greedy as them.

He He Lingchuan felt a chill down his back.

Grasshoppers usually feed on plant leaves and tender stems and are strict vegetarians, but after the mother insect drank the talisman water, the larvae in its belly suddenly changed their nature, not only eating meat but also cannibalizing their own kind.

Soon, the number of larvae in the mother grasshopper's belly decreased rapidly.

After the weak ones were eaten, it was the turn of the strong to devour each other.

He He Lingchuan muttered: "Isn't this just raising *gu*?"

Through cruel competition, the nutrients obtained by all the small individuals finally belonged to only one.

In human society, this behavior has a more high-sounding term called zero-sum game.

The death match between the larvae was very rapid, and it was completed while he was distracted, with the last two nymphs finally deciding the winner.

After eating the loser, the largest nymph became the final winner.

Its size grew again, and its skin was also red and black, almost identical to the mother insect.

During this period, the mother insect remained still, not rolling on the ground in pain due to the intensity inside its abdomen. He He Lingchuan even saw a hint of maternal love in its ferocious and strange face.

After the nymph digested its own kind, it didn't move anymore either.

"The essence of the mother body has all been transferred to it. If we don't bother it, it will grow wings in two hours and burst out of the abdomen." After waiting so long, Wu Wu Shaoyi's state was even worse, his forehead between the eyebrows was already a mass of black energy, and his gaze was a bit unfocused.

"Now, dig it out!" Wu Wu Shaoyi turned his head to the purple sable, "It's okay, go and find everyone back, the more the better."

The purple sable jumped off the *kang*, and its slender figure disappeared outside the house door.

He He Lingchuan poured out the grasshopper, removed its abdomen, and according to Wu Wu Shaoyi's instructions, mashed the mother insect and forced it into the captive's mouth.

The mountain bandit had already woken up and yelled: "I'm innocent, don't harm me!"

"You're innocent?" He He Lingchuan smiled, "Then how did the bloodstains on your pant legs get there? Don't tell me you're a woman dressed as a man?"

The mountain bandit was stunned: "This, this, I was just helping move corpses..."

He He Lingchuan didn't want to listen to his argument and hit him in the diaphragm with an elbow, knocking him forward and leaving him unable to speak for a long time.

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(End of chapter)