Chapter 235: Snake Swamp Ghost City (Part 2) The Second Rain (Part 3)

Seeing this scene, I suddenly realized the reason this oasis had formed: this was the lowest point in the Qaidam Basin, where all groundwater and rainwater would converge. It could be said that this was the center of the entire Qaidam groundwater system—the dry riverbeds of the basin might not have truly run dry, but instead had gone underground to flow here. So no matter how the climate had changed over the last several thousand years, or how the periphery of the basin had turned from forest to desert, this place still maintained the lush, woodsy appearance it had five thousand years ago.

"Concealing wind and gathering water without movement"—isn't what they call a feng shui treasure site a place that remains unchanged for millennia? The site of the Queen Mother of the West's palace was indeed the treasure eye of the Kunlun Mountain range's dragon vein. Such a wonder could only appear in a place like this.

Just as I was sighing in awe, Fatty started squirming restlessly, his big butt shifting back and forth. The space on this tree branch wasn't big to begin with, and when he moved, everyone else felt uncomfortable. Panzi cursed: "What the hell are you doing, boy? Itching for a beating or what?"

Fatty frowned and said, "Don't know what's going on, but my ass suddenly itches like crazy." Then he shifted his butt again and rubbed it against the tree.

I thought to myself that he was always the one causing trouble. I was just about to say something to him when suddenly my own butt and back started itching too, a maddening itch, as if something was crawling on me. I quickly bent my leg to scratch with my hand, but as soon as I scratched I felt something wrong and jumped up: "Bugs!"

Everyone stood up. I scratched my butt and looked at the tree trunk we had been leaning against. The sight made my face turn pale. The tree trunk was covered in a dense swarm of colorful bugs, each about half the size of a pinky nail. They seemed to be crawling out from cracks in the bark. Our legs and butts were also covered with them, and we couldn't even brush them off.

"Holy crap!" Fatty yelled. Several of us started stomping our feet. But stomping didn't help—these bugs weren't afraid of people at all. They treated us like trees and crawled onto us without hesitation. Fortunately, our pant legs were tight, so they couldn't get inside. But Fatty's butt and mine had already suffered. We had to run into the rain to let the rainwater rinse our rear ends. As the cold rain soaked into our pants, the maddening itch subsided a bit, but after the itching stopped, the skin where I had itched started to hurt. I cursed inwardly, worried that the bugs might be poisonous. By then, everyone else had also escaped into the rain. Rainwater pounded against us, and we couldn't talk.

We climbed onto another branch, heading higher up the tree. There was a spot there where a few thick branches overlapped, offering some shelter from the rain, but not enough for all five of us. In the end, A Ning and I were pushed in by the others, while the rest covered their heads with a waterproof tarp, barely managing to keep the rain off.

Panzi said, "Damn it, what the hell were those bugs just now?"

A Ning shook the water off her hair, patted her dimming miner's lamp until it finally came back on, then shone it on her pants leg. She picked a dead bug stuck to her leg with her pinky nail and brought it in front of the lamp.

It was a small bug that looked a bit like a spider, or maybe a small scorpion without a tail. A Ning's hand was trembling, so I couldn't see it clearly. My butt started hurting again, so I asked once more: "What is that? Is it poisonous?" Then I saw A Ning's brow furrow. My heart skipped a beat. Before I could even say "Oh no," A Ning pulled out Panzi's knife from his belt and said to me, "Turn around, and take off your pants—now!"