Chapter 22: The Ghost Ant Invasion

In a confined environment, it is difficult to discern the direction of a sound. Cheng Xiangru held his breath and listened intently, yet the sound seemed to come from directly above. However, above him was a thick layer of soil; it was impossible for anyone to be there.

Leng Ying opened her travel bag and pulled out a half-meter-long metal rod. The rod shimmered with a bright, metallic luster, and its purpose was unclear.

Cheng Xiangru was baffled. "What are you doing?"

Leng Ying shushed him, signaling him to remain silent. She flicked her wrist, and through some unknown technique, the rod suddenly extended to over two meters in length. She then crouched down, rummaged through her bag, and pulled out a fabric bundle. Inside was a red-tasseled spearhead. The edges of the spearhead were sharpened and glinted with a cold, sharp light.

She slotted the spearhead onto the end of the rod. With a click, it locked into place. Holding the spear, she navigated through the dense cluster of pottery jars and approached a dirt wall, pressing her ear against it to listen. Seeing a girl holding a red-tasseled spear should have been an impressive sight, but seeing Leng Ying in her red burial shroud, which was puffed out by the down jacket underneath, made the scene feel strange and incongruous.

This underground space was about fifty square meters, perfectly square, with dirt walls on all four sides. Cheng Xiangru could tell that Leng Ying was searching for the source of the faint sounds. He dared not disturb her, remaining motionless and breathing softly.

Suddenly, he noticed the two patterned snakes moving. Their movements were small but bizarre, making his scalp tingle. Normally, snakes move with their bellies to the ground, heads slightly raised, in an S-shaped motion. These two, however, remained coiled together, twisting and turning in place. Their movements were minimal, but they became increasingly entangled. Their bodies were covered in lumps, like balloons about to burst.

Realizing something was wrong, Cheng Xiangru shouted, "The snakes are moving!"

Leng Ying turned back, peering through the jars with her flashlight. She quickly spotted the struggling snakes. Her eyes widened as if she realized something, and abandoning her search for the sound, she ran toward him. "Get back! Stay away from them!"

As she spoke, the bodies of the two snakes split open, and a dense swarm of large ants crawled out, scattering in all directions. Cheng Xiangru had never seen such large ants; they were over two centimeters long, with dark black heads and dark red bodies. Their antennae, torsos, and many legs were thin like bamboo joints, looking exactly like skeletal spirits crawling from the depths of the earth.

Even stranger, Cheng Xiangru could not believe his eyes—the ants were leaping, and quite high at that. If one didn't look closely, one might mistake them for fleas.

"Ghost Ants?"

Cheng Xiangru suddenly recalled a mention of these ants in the *Scroll of Mechanisms*: "In the Miao border, the poisons are fierce and cruel, with the Ghost Ant being the most prominent. With black heads and red bodies, they excel at leaping and biting; where they pass, only withered bones remain."

That couldn't be right! The *Scroll of Mechanisms* clearly stated that these Ghost Ants were raised by the Goddess in the Miao region as蠱 (gu) poison. How could they have traveled thousands of kilometers to appear in a Jurchen suspicious tomb in the Northeast?

There was no time to ponder this. Watching the Ghost Ants leaping toward him, Cheng Xiangru retreated. But in such a cramped space filled with pottery jars, he had nowhere to go, let alone avoid the tiny, numerous insects.

Wait! He remembered that the *Scroll* mentioned two ways to deal with Ghost Ants.

The first was to use their natural predators to wipe them out through the food chain. Ghost Ants could devour snakes, pythons, tigers, and leopards, using their toxic mandibles to paralyze prey before swarming them. However, they had predators—most notably a long-beaked monster and a type of yellow-headed fly. These flies would lay eggs on the ants, and the larvae would devour them. But even if he knew this, there was no time to find such predators.

The second method was to use the blood of a five-colored rooster to repel them. Chickens were natural predators to most insects, a suppression written into their genes. Even if the Ghost Ants had never encountered a rooster, the mere scent of its blood would make them flee.

Cheng Xiangru was frustrated. He had no way to find chicken blood in this remote, underground tomb.

As he backed against the wall with nowhere left to go, watching the swarm of Ghost Ants approach, he felt his heart leap into his throat. Suddenly, Leng Ying ran back with her red-tasseled spear, holding it horizontally in front of him.

Cheng Xiangru stared in disbelief. Did she really intend to use a spear against that greedy, ferocious swarm?

"Watch and learn!" Leng Ying scoffed. She stepped forward, and with a sharp whistle through the air, she thrust the spear—not toward the ants, but toward her own travel bag. The spearhead hooked into the gap between the shoulder strap and the bag, winding around it. With a strong pull, she dragged the bag to her feet. She dropped the rod, ignored the mess, and quickly unzipped the bag, pulling out a can of... insect repellent?

"Hiss... hiss..."

Leng Ying sprayed the repellent toward the approaching ants. The mist, carrying a fresh, floral scent, engulfed the swarm. Before long, the once arrogant and ferocious Ghost Ants were curled up, dead all over the floor.

Cheng Xiangru was stunned. He never expected her to use such a simple, brutal, and effective method. He was even more surprised that she carried insect repellent with her.

Leng Ying’s eyes curved into crescents as she smugly shook the can at him. "Highly efficient! Don't be afraid; this dosage only kills insects and is harmless to humans."

Cheng Xiangru suddenly realized why tomb robbers had been active for thousands of years and yet failed to clear every tomb, often dying in traps. Technology is the primary productive force! This applied even in the tomb-robbing circle, which revered traditional craftsmanship. The unknown predecessor who transcribed the *Scroll of Mechanisms* would never have imagined that later generations would deal with Ghost Ants this way.

Leng Ying handed the repellent to Cheng Xiangru, reassembled her spear, shouldered her bag, and headed back to the wall. "If you see any that aren't dead, finish them off, or beat the corpses to vent your frustration. Whatever you do, don't disturb me. I should be close to finding it."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't let the dirt fool you. One of these sides is actually a brick wall. And on the other side of that wall, it’s either another suspicious tomb or the Qing Dynasty's Dragon Vein!"