Daomu Biji: Restart

Everyone came to stand in a circle and watch as she pulled out three or four small white snakes from my throat and packed them all into a glass bottle. They looked like worms.

She handed the bottle to me like she was showing off an internal organ she’d cut out. "Come and see your good friends."

I felt a burning pain in my throat. The snakes really did look primitive. I had seen a lot of strange things along the way, but these things really did look like they had come from the Stone Age. To be honest, I could still bluff my way through the Yin Shang Dynasty, but the Stone Age was basically beyond the scope of my knowledge.⁽¹⁾

That field was where anthropology and archaeology coexisted. It was basically closer to science and had weak cultural attributes.

"Don’t worry. Even if you still have more in your body, it’ll take quite a while for this thing to fool your immune system and get into your spine."

“Why?” I asked.

"This thing lacks the muscle mass to produce enough strength to move quickly in your body,” she said. “It has to move little by little. Plus, people aren’t stupid. If something grows quickly in your body, you’ll immediately feel pain. That’s why the adult snake’s parasitizing method is different from this small snake’s method. The adult snake uses more of a hunting method to parasitize its prey, so the host is basically half dead. But the small snake can coexist with the host for a long time. Even after the host dies, the little snake can mature in the corpse."

When I looked at her, she added, "Even if it's not taken care of right away, it's won’t be a big problem. You can even get it checked out in the next year or two as long as you aren’t grossed out by the thought of it."

“I am grossed out,” I said to her.

"I'm sorry, this is all I can do.”

Wen Binghui suddenly spoke up from the side, "Won’t the snake go up into his brain? The throat is very close to the brain after all."

Xiao Ling Guan pulled out a thin cigarette and looked at me, "Based on Boss Wu's explanation, there’s no record of that happening. It's theoretically possible from a biological standpoint, but it still depends on how the final case turns out. If Boss Wu has never seen such a thing, then I’ll assume that there’s no possibility of it happening."

"So basically what you’re saying is that your judgment is based on my explanation and you’re not responsible for any incidents that happen outside of the scope of my explanation," I said.

She nodded. "The human brain is very delicate. If something goes in, you’ll more than likely die. Although this snake is like a worm, it’s not small compared to real parasites. It’ll bore into your brain, and even if it doesn’t hurt, you’ll probably die."

I looked up and saw Xiuxiu looking at me; I didn't know when she had joined the crowd. For some reason, I felt both close and distant to her at this time.

After that, the wound was stitched up and the onlookers dispersed. Fatty just now woke up and was already looking at the 3D model of the cave. Wen Binghui, who could finally take some time to rest, said to me, “Boss Wu, I’m going to get some sleep. If there’s an emergency, I’ll have to ask you to deal with it. I’ll probably sleep for a long time."

I nodded and sat down beside Fatty; the two of us were the only ones awake in the whole camp.

The sky was completely dark now, but there was still a big difference between the black here and the black down below. The Milky Way was extremely bright, so I put on my coat and tilted my head back to look up at the sky, which was a purple and red color.

"Did you notice anything?" I asked Fatty.

He sighed heavily, "No, but this cliff looks disgusting."

"Should we stay up here for a few days?" I asked a little guiltily. In fact, my mind was telling me to go down immediately, but if I really had the courage to enter that cave again, I needed to mentally prepare myself to the fullest extent.

We came out, but Xiao Hua and Poker-Face were still down there. Their extreme night was still ongoing.

Fatty looked at the bonfire, "When we wake up tomorrow morning, we’ll come up with a plan and then go check out the temple. In the afternoon, we’ll send Tang Tang off. In the evening, we’ll go back down."

"That’s basically what I was thinking," I said to him. "Wait, what temple? Why would we go to a temple? To burn incense?"

"There’s an ancient temple near here. They said that the statues and murals inside are related to this cave, so they want us to take a look," Fatty said.

****

TN Notes:

(1) The Yin Shang Dynasty is the final name of the Shang dynasty after their move to Yinxu (so probably around 1200 BC). FYI, the Shang Dynasty was the second dynasty of China and was founded in 1600 BC. More info here.