Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 766: The Mad Scientist’s Research Results

“I have a rough idea.” Dong Rui was worthy of being a top-tier specialist; in this short time, he had already come up with an initial countermeasure. “First, get me a dozen or so aberrant cicadas. I need to keep experimenting.”

“Isn’t that a simple matter?”

He Lingchuan went to Elder Dao to make the request. For the next six or seven days, Rongshan disciples kept sending live specimens to Dong Rui.

Forget a dozen or so, they delivered several dozen.

It was just that these aberrant creatures already had very short lifespans. If they did not lay eggs, they would be dead within a night.

Qiu Hu ran back and forth the most diligently. His squad alone sent over seventeen or eighteen. After learning that He Lingchuan and the others were willing to help, the way Qiu Hu looked at He Lingchuan softened.

“Are you alright?” The wounds on his body had been stabbed there by He Lingchuan himself. Though they were all flesh wounds, an ordinary person would need at least ten days to half a month before they could get up and move around. Qiu Hu had only lain in bed for one night before getting up and running all over the place.

What happened to excessive blood loss? This doesn’t make any sense.

He Lingchuan guessed that the fellow’s astonishing recovery speed had something to do with his monster spirit.

He could fight, and he was durable. The more He Lingchuan looked at him, the better he seemed. He really wanted to take him in.

“I’m fine. I only lead the squad. I haven’t been engaging in combat myself.” Qiu Hu lowered his head and looked at the wound on his chest. “I was once seriously injured and chased through a swamp by enemies for three days and three nights. At one point, I even hid in mud for more than twenty hours straight. These little wounds are nothing.”

Swamps had many mosquitoes, insects, and poisonous fungi. Ordinary people could easily become infected and fall ill after entering one, let alone someone who was heavily injured. He Lingchuan asked him, “What happened afterward?”

Qiu Hu’s face remained expressionless. “I killed them.”

He said nothing of the hardship, danger, or pain involved.

The Soul-Stealing Mirror whistled. “His wounds have basically scabbed over. Only two spots have split open. You’ve got a good eye. This fellow’s sturdier than an ox and very hard to wear down!”

This damned mirror is becoming more and more improper. He Lingchuan ignored it.

Since He Lingchuan had nothing else to do, he simply went out hunting with them.

He discovered that Qiu Hu truly was not good at socializing, but he had his own ideas when doing things. Take the cicada extermination, for example. Although he was more anxious than anyone else, he never advanced recklessly. His squad had the smallest combat losses and had captured the most live cicadas.

He also told He Lingchuan that this cicada disaster first appeared in Rongshan’s northeastern region and had since spread westward all along. During this period, the Rongshan Sect had held it back with all its might. So far, the northeast, east, and south were the worst-hit areas. For the time being, the cicada disaster had not yet spread to the west.

So the current battle was really a race against time. Rongshan very much hoped to settle everything in a few decisive campaigns and completely uproot the source of the cicada disaster from its territory.

This was a good opportunity for him to observe Rongshan’s disciples, and a way for Qiu Hu to observe him.

After all, if Qiu Hu were to join He Lingchuan’s command, to put it nicely, he would be serving him; to put it plainly, he would be risking his life for him.

This decision would shape the course of his life, so he had to take it seriously.

With He Lingchuan joining in, the squad’s cicada-hunting efficiency increased greatly.

He had a natural affinity with people, and his cultivation was formidable. After a few days, the Rongshan disciples had basically become familiar with him.

Of course, He Lingchuan’s focus was on Qiu Hu, and he invited him in person.

This was respect toward Qiu Hu.

But no matter how warm and pleasant He Lingchuan was, Qiu Hu remained unmoved and answered him with: “With debts of gratitude and vengeance still unpaid, what face would I have to pursue my own future?”

He Lingchuan smiled and said, “If you say that, then it means you’re definitely coming with me.”

This Young Master He is rather confident. Qiu Hu also said solemnly, “If you can eradicate Rongshan’s cicada disaster, I will follow you. From then on, I will go through boiling water and tread through fire for you without hesitation. A man’s word is his bond!”

* * *

Two more days passed. Dong Rui called both He Lingchuan and Elder Dao over. “I have results!”

Rongshan had specially opened up a cave abode for him to use as an experimentation area. The moment He Lingchuan stepped inside, it was as though he had returned to the laboratory in Demon Nest. Everywhere were severed limbs and broken parts; everywhere were strange, bizarrely deformed cicadas...

It was simply a large-scale slaughterhouse for cicadas.

The Rongshan disciples who followed them in were seeing this kind of scene for the first time. Their faces changed, and all felt discomfort. Only Qiu Hu was unusually excited, looking left and right, touching this and tugging that.

“Look at this, look at this!” Dong Rui led them to a corner, where something was covered by cloth.

Unboxing needed a sense of ceremony.

“Elder Dao, please.”

Elder Dao did not decline. He pulled off the gray cloth in one motion, revealing an oval crystal box beneath it, with a living thing sealed inside.

“...The box you asked me for, the one used to store medicinal herbs, was for locking this thing up?”

Only one seventy-year cicada was sealed in the crystal box. Its whole body shone with an oily gloss, and it was twice as large as the ones they had seen before. Its body was around two meters long, making it taller than most grown men.

But its appearance was also very strange. It had no wings, its forelimbs were withered, and its abdomen took up two-thirds of its overall body length, swollen round and bulging as if it would burst with a single poke.

With that physique, it could truly be called potbellied!

Everyone could not help drawing in a cold breath. Elder Dao’s brow furrowed. “What... what is this supposed to be?”

Dong Rui had long grown used to the strange looks others cast at him, and still wore a face full of pride. “This is a female seventy-year cicada I newly bred!”

“A female... cicada?” Does this strange man think there are too few varieties of seventy-year cicada? He actually worked so hard to add another kind by hand?

“Bee colonies have queens, and ant colonies have queens. Cicadas are not originally social creatures, so they have no cicada queens. But thanks to my tireless efforts over these past few days...” Dong Rui gestured toward the crystal box. “Now they do!”

Everyone was as dumbstruck as wooden chickens. He Lingchuan could not stand it anymore and coughed lightly. “Hurry up and explain clearly. How do we use this thing?”

“Oh, it’s early spring now, so the cicadas’ growth is still relatively slow. Once late spring and midsummer arrive, that will be when the real trouble begins.” Dong Rui’s expression turned serious. “You’ve been hunting seventy-year cicadas for more than two months, but you can’t eliminate them all because you’re chasing after them to catch them. There will always be fish that escape the net.”

Qiu Hu nodded. “Correct!”

“Then you have to change methods and make them come to you on their own.”

Qiu Hu pointed at the female cicada in the crystal box. “And we can use this to do that?”

“When these insects seek mates and copulate, they release a certain scent. Humans can’t smell that scent.” But Zhu Daniang can.

To He Lingchuan, this was not difficult to understand. Isn’t he just referring to pheromones?

“I made this cicada queen and greatly strengthened its scent. Once it is exposed in the wilderness, it should be able to attract all male insects within a radius of fifteen kilometers.” Dong Rui smiled. “All of you just need to prepare yourselves and wait for them to throw themselves into the net.”

A Rongshan disciple asked, “It only attracts males? Then what about the females?”

“When the males arrive, once there are enough of them, the females will follow too.” Why did cicada swarms gather in great numbers? Because they all crowded toward places where the pheromones were strongest, mating collectively. “This cicada queen can live for around three days. Once it dies, I’ll prepare a few more.”

Qiu Hu could not hold back. “Let’s do it now.”

No one objected.

As it happened, today was clear and bright, and the wind was strong.

For the first large-scale test, Elder Dao personally led more than two hundred disciples and chose an open woodland in the east.