Chapter 62 Plague: Rat Fetus
The real culprit is the cause of the first method of death.
Tang Yu walked to the window, reached out to catch the light shining through the window paper, and grasped it lightly, but only her fingertips were cold.
"The moonlight last night was similar to that tonight. The moonlight shone through the window paper, and it should have been enough to at least see the inside of the room. But for a moment, it suddenly became unusually dark, as if dark clouds had covered the moonlight, making people feel uneasy."
She turned to look at the puzzled crowd, her brow furrowing slightly.
"At first, I didn't think much of it. I just walked closer out of curiosity and found that the originally white window paper was actually grayish."
Upon hearing this, Xiao Fangliang also looked towards the window frame, recalling that before catching the insects, he had indeed felt the room suddenly darken. However, the light was poor on autumn nights, so he hadn't paid much attention to it.
"Why is it gray?" Wang Shanyue was still puzzled.
Xiao Fangliang withdrew his gaze and said calmly, "Have you ever thought about how those tiny blood midges managed to fly into the room when the doors and windows were tightly closed?"
“Is it… window paper?” Wang Shanyue guessed blankly, then shook his head in denial. “No, these window papers have been coated with tung oil, so even the wind can’t get in.”
Xiao Fangliang gave a faint smile: "It's not winter yet, and the windows aren't sealed or curtains hung. The wind may not be able to get through the oiled paper, but surely it can't even get through the cracks in the window?"
Wang Shanyue was taken aback, then suddenly realized, and slapped his thigh: "The insects crawled in through the cracks!"
“That’s right.” Tang Yu’s eyes darkened, but her voice remained incredibly calm. “These blood midges swarmed in, drawn by the presence of people. But there were too many of them to squeeze through the gaps all at once, so the rest attached themselves to the window frames, forming a movable black veil that blocked out the moonlight.”
The air froze instantly.
Everyone gasped, feeling a chill run down their spines.
Who would have thought that while you were sound asleep in the dead of night, thousands upon thousands of these tiny, disgusting, bloodthirsty insects were lurking outside your window?
The little boy was so frightened that he kept crying. His mother was also trembling with fear, but she still held him tightly in her arms, patted his back gently, and comforted him softly.
The patriarch's forehead was already covered in cold sweat, but he still tried to remain calm and asked, "Have all the insects in the manor been eliminated? Is the child saved?"
Tang Yu sighed and revealed the truth: "There should be no trouble for today. But these midges are not easy to get rid of."
Even if the midges in the manor are eradicated, these insects have already spread throughout the entire Xia Nan City, and their numbers may be so large that they are beyond their comprehension. So how can they be eradicated?
She slightly raised her hand and shook the white cloth bag in her hand. At this moment, the insects seemed to quiet down, no longer struggling, leaving only a very soft rubbing sound.
"They are nocturnal and difficult to spot with the naked eye. For the next few days, seal the doors and windows tightly, and during the day I will send someone to bring some sachets to place by the bedside. That should at least ensure peace for these few nights."
The family of three thanked them repeatedly, their expressions still showing fear, but they managed a forced smile and tried to persuade them to stay until dawn. However, Tang Yu was in a hurry to return home to check on the midges, so she bid farewell to her master.
The moonlight was cold and clear, falling on the three people on the bluestone street, as if they were coated with an unreal silvery luster. The road ahead was pitch black and difficult to discern, like a dark abyss where Jingjing and the others were quietly walking into a trap.
Like them, although they discovered a corner of the truth about the plague, they also had more doubts.
A biting wind swept over him, chilling him to the bone, and Xiao Fangliang couldn't help but shiver.
Wang Shanyue took off his outer robe and draped it over his shoulders, asking curiously, "Are these midges also considered Gu worms?"
“No.” Tang Yu shook his head and said with a wry smile, “From the very beginning, we were wrong to assume that the people of Southern Xinjiang were using Gu.”
"So, did they bring these blood midges from the southern border into Xia Nan?" Wang Shanyue asked again.
Xiao Fangliang tightened his collar and said in a calm tone: "The mouthparts of the blood midge are extremely fine, which is obviously the cause of the second type of mummified corpse. But the first type, whose internal organs were eaten, has nothing to do with it."
Just as Tang Yu was about to speak, she suddenly heard a ringing in her ear.
The sound, mixed with the wind, was faint and mournful, as if it came from the darkness in the distance.
Xiao Fangliang tightened his collar slightly and said calmly, "The small size of the blood midge's mouthparts is clearly the reason for the formation of the second type of mummified corpse. But it has nothing to do with the first type of death caused by having its internal organs eaten."
He paused, then slowly added, "Based on the order in which the two types of corpses appeared, I think the midges must have appeared later."
Just as Tang Yu was about to speak, she suddenly heard a ringing in her ear.
The sound of the bell, mixed with the mournful wind, seemed both distant and eerie in the darkness.
Her expression hardened, and she quickly left the cloth bag to the two of them. With a light touch of her toes, she darted away in the direction of the sound.
The night wind howled, and the streets and alleys were deserted.
Just as she was about to get close to the sound, the ringing stopped abruptly.
But soon, the sound rang out again from the other side, clearly reaching Tang Yu's ears. She immediately turned around to chase after it, but the sound disappeared without a trace once more.
Repeat it twice, as if teasing a cat or dog, so that you can always hear it but never touch it.
Just as she was contemplating whether to continue her search and indulge their perverse pleasure of playing pranks on people in the shadows, the bell stopped ringing.
Night returned to its deathly stillness.
*
The three remained silent, quickened their pace, and returned to the Xia Nan Prince's Mansion.
Wang Shanyue entered the room and lit the oil lamp. As the flame flickered, he asked in a low voice, "Was that Yueying just now?"
“I’m not sure.” Tang Yu’s tone was calm, but his expression was somber. “But the people of Southern Xinjiang probably already know that we have arrived in Xia Nan. That voice might just be a warning.”
Xiao Fangliang's gaze fell on the cloth bag in her hand: "What do you plan to do with these midges?"
"Naturally, we'll use it for experiments to find a solution," Tang Yu replied.
She gripped the white cloth in one hand and squeezed it hard. When she released it, a few dark red stains had seeped through the pristine white fabric.
Wang Shanyue gasped, "They've sucked so much blood! These little things are really deadly."
Tang Yu's expression turned solemn. After a moment of silence, she suddenly turned to look at him and asked, "By the way, is there any progress on the matter I asked you to handle?"
“Of course.” Wang Shanyue sighed, his voice tinged with helplessness. “I really went to great lengths. If I hadn’t asked A Liang to persuade them, those people wouldn’t have bothered with me at all.”
Xiao Fangliang raised an eyebrow slightly: "Oh? What is it?"
Wang Shanyue took out an embroidered handkerchief from his bosom and carefully unfolded it. Inside the handkerchief was the gray down that Tang Yu had taken from the corpse.
"Tang Yu told me to take this fluff and ask around among embroiderers, fur merchants, and woodcutters, so that perhaps someone would recognize it."
He recalled, "The embroiderer only said it looked like animal fur, but the grass merchant and the woodcutter both said it should be rodent fur. It usually grows on the soft belly of a mouse or on a young mouse."
“A rat…” Xiao Fangliang repeated in a low voice, his brow furrowing.
He pondered for a moment, then suddenly looked up and met Tang Yu's gaze. Both of them understood each other perfectly, realizing the profound meaning behind it all.
Looking back and forth at the two men's knowing smiles, Wang Shanyue clenched his fists anxiously and hurriedly asked, "What have you guessed? Could it be that the wound really was gnawed by a rat?"
"I can't say for sure if it's a rat, but it must be a similar animal," Tang Yu said calmly, glancing up at the sky outside the window.
Although the dawn had not yet broken, the darkness seemed to have begun to fade, turning into a translucent blue-gray, foreshadowing the approaching daylight.
“You’re right,” she said slowly. “The wounds on those corpses, even the emptied internal organs, were all eaten by these gray-furred creatures. And they are the culprits behind this plague!”
Wang Shanyue stared wide-eyed, pointing at the cloth bag in Tang Yu's hand: "Weren't these blood midges the culprits? How did they turn into rats?"
“No.” Xiao Fangliang shook his head.
He picked up a teacup from the table and twirled it lightly in his palm.
"If I want to brew a pot of tea, I can never brew it without adding tea leaves."
He put down his teacup and looked helplessly at Wangshan Yue. "I just said that the order in which the bodies are killed is the key. The first method of death must occur first before the second method of death can occur. This shows that the blood midge is merely the cause of the subsequent result."
Tang Yu nodded, his expression cold and solemn: "The real culprit is the cause of the first method of death."
“Whether it was the very first victims or the first wave of infected people in other areas, without exception, all of them had their internal organs gnawed out, leaving a fist-sized hole in their bodies.” After describing this, Xiao Fangliang calmly asked, “Don’t you think it’s like something gnawed out the flesh and blood from inside the body and then burst out?”
Wang Shanyue felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't help but gasp: "You mean... they have rats inside them?"
Tang Yu did not answer, but said in a low voice, "I have been thinking, the border of Xia Nan is heavily guarded, and the people are wary of the people from the southern border. How could they let people get infected with this 'epidemic' silently? And how could they continuously send the 'source' into Xia after the outbreak of the Gu epidemic?"
She recalled her previous questions, her voice extremely cold.
"And why were the grandfather and grandson in Ghost Cry Village able to live until their bodies were buried? And why did the little boy who had never been to Southern Xinjiang also inexplicably contract the plague? Why must there be a sequence between the two ways of dying?"
All these thoughts flashed through her mind, connecting to form a thread that ultimately weaves a web of truth.
"Based on the blood midges captured today and the rat velvet you mentioned, I have a bold guess."
Looking at the mountain, he asked anxiously, "What is it?"
"Perhaps, from the very beginning, they didn't need to let a large number of Xia Nan people bring the 'epidemic' into the city."
Tang Yu's voice was soft, yet every word was clear.
"They select a group of people to be used as host bodies. They let them unintentionally eat baby rats in the southern border region and then bring them back to Xia Nan. This is extremely difficult to detect, and the food that people eat every day will become nutrients for the growth of the baby rats. However, as the rats grow, the food in their stomachs will gradually become insufficient."
Tang Yu exhaled a breath of stale air, steadied herself, and continued, "They were starving and began to gnaw on their internal organs. Until one day, they gnawed out the flesh and blood and burst out of their bodies."
She sighed, "Rats are common, and they are good at moving around at night and squeezing into crevices, so ordinary people wouldn't care even if they saw them. But that's exactly what they wanted."
"What is the purpose?" Wang Shanyue asked.
“Reproduce blood midges,” Xiao Fangliang said coldly.
"Blood midges?" Wang Shanyue's eyes widened, not understanding how they had just been discussing rats and now they were talking about blood midges.
Xiao Fangliang didn't explain immediately, but instead brought it up: "In the first few years after the Great Xia established friendly trade relations with the Western Regions, they sent us an interesting thing called 'matryoshka dolls.' Do you remember?"
Wang Shanyue blinked and thought for a moment, then suddenly realized: "I remember! When I was little, my teacher specifically mentioned that the dolls were nested inside each other, and the innermost one was so small that it was only the size of a fingernail..."
Halfway through his sentence, his pupils suddenly contracted, and he stammered, "You, you mean... the people of Southern Xinjiang are like 'matryoshka dolls'? There are rats inside human bodies, and blood midges inside the rats?"
The two looked at him and slowly nodded.
Tang Yu's lips curled into an almost imperceptible cold smile.
"Therefore, the rats must first grow up, devour the person, and escape from the body. Then, after a few more days, the blood midges will continue to hatch and reproduce. When they grow to the point where they can drain a person dry in a few days, the second method of death will occur."
What the people of Southern Xinjiang wanted was for the blood midges to multiply spontaneously. This plan didn't even require them to come to Southern Xinjiang in person, to transport new 'virus sources,' or to use weapons; all they needed to do was wait patiently.
When Xia Nan is covered in blood midges, he will be able to kill everyone in the city without lifting a finger.
It can be described as...extremely vicious.
[Author's Note]
Russian nesting dolls :)
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