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Capítulo 55

Listen to the old fairy ramble on, hey cough hey cough yo ah..." Over here, the old man had already started singing, and the drums and bells rang in unison.

"Call me Director..."

Don't panic, don't rush.

I was in a panic and exhausted.

An old ox pulling a cart needs to be steady.

"The old fairy is going to subdue that 'insect spirit'..." Old Ye sang and danced, while simultaneously asking Old Cuihua in a low voice, "How exactly does she subdue it?"

"Why don't you just put your mouth to his mouth and suck out the 'insect spirit' inside him?" Old Cuihua chuckled.

“Absolutely not,” Ye Lao refused decisively. Six years ago, Han Sheng made him inhale the poison of that fellow villager from the Yelü family, leaving his mouth sticky and unpleasant.

Knowing that Old Master Ye was stubborn, Old Cuihua said understandingly, "Alright then, I'll catch the bugs myself..."

So Jesus continued singing:

"Officer Qi, Director Wen..."

Hakka grandmother, don't panic.

Everyone, please step aside.

First, invite Hu Lai; second, invite Huang.

Three times I invited the python, four times I invited the elder.

Five times, the judge and six times, the King of Hell.

Old Immortal took the lead.

Today we're going to subdue that worm...

De'er ya hu hei, De'er ya hu hei..."

The electric light dimmed momentarily, and Old Cuihua suddenly possessed Officer Qi...

The Hakka woman was taken aback by these words, and was secretly amazed. This old man from Northeast China was really amazing. He actually recognized her as a "Hakka woman" in one sentence. She had lived in Taiwan, a corner of Southeast China for a long time. It seemed that the mainland was truly a place where hidden talents were lurking.

Just as I was pondering this, I suddenly heard Officer Qi farting repeatedly, and with two "plop plop" sounds, he soiled his pants pocket again...

The electric light flickered, and Old Cuihua returned to Old Ye's body, continuing to sing:

"'Insect spirit,' that's improper."

All you do is talk about Reagan all day long.

Ascaris, tapeworm, cysticercosis,

Hookworms, mites, schistosomes

Lice, nits, and fleas

And the grasshoppers under the green bean flies...

They all plunged into Officer Qi's runny shit, ouch, ouch, oh..."

The room fell silent for a moment… After a short while, someone timidly guessed, “'Old Immortal' said the bug might be in Officer Qi’s poop…”

“Yes, my dog Er Gou Ziyege’er (Nong’an dialect: yesterday) even pooped out a huge roundworm,” a woman suddenly realized.

Officer Qi's wife asked for a pair of chopsticks, unbuckled her husband's belt, stirred something in his crotch a couple of times, and then pulled out a large, milky-white worm about the length of a finger...

The worm had a greasy body, short limbs, a bald head, and two triangular eyes that glared fiercely at the crowd...

"What kind of insect is that?" The villagers were astonished; none of them had ever seen such a thing before.

Director Wen glanced at "Sister-in-law Li," and the Hakka old woman nodded, saying, "That's it, 'Worm-headed Barbarian,' burn it to death."

"Squeak..." The little "wriggling barbarian" let out a threatening hiss.

The Hakka woman took the chopsticks, picked up the "worm-headed worm," and went to the kitchen. She threw it into the roaring fire pit. The worm writhed in pain, let out two mournful "squeaks," and immediately turned to ashes.

Inside the room, Officer Qi finally came to his senses. He looked up and saw Director Wen, and quickly sat up, saying, "Director Wen, what brings you here?"

Director Wen sniffed and asked with concern, "Old Qi, how are you feeling right now?"

Officer Qi stretched his strong chest and abdominal muscles and arms, and replied, "Chief, I'm fine. Hmm, why does this room smell so bad?"

The villagers burst into laughter.

Shen Caihua pulled the Hakka nanny to the "Old Immortal" and introduced him, saying, "Master, this is Master Ye, a friend of Hansheng's father."

The Hakka woman nodded slightly, then asked in confusion, "How did you do that? That 'wriggling barbarian'?"

Ye Lao chuckled and said, "It has nothing to do with this old monk. It was Old Cuihua who did it."

"Old Cuihua?" The Hakka nanny was even more confused.

"Sister-in-law Li," Director Wen walked over, his gaze falling on Old Master Ye again, and said rather awkwardly, "'Old Immortal,' would you please have a simple meal with us before you leave?"

Ye Lao shook his head and arrogantly replied, "This immortal has long since ceased to partake in worldly affairs..."

Officer Qi prepared a table of food and drinks at his home to entertain Director Wen and his entourage.

Ye Lao whispered a few words to Shen Caihua, then bid farewell to his host, mounted the little donkey tied in the yard, and rode away.

"He doesn't care about money or profit; that's the true 'Old Immortal' of Huanglong Prefecture," the villagers praised as they watched Old Ye's departing figure.

On the kang table, there were two bottles of liquor, several kinds of local farm dishes, stir-fried chicken, pork stew with sauerkraut and vermicelli, scallions dipped in soybean paste, and a large goose that had been slaughtered and was simmering in the kitchen, its aroma filling the air.

Officer Qi washed his bottom and changed his pants in the inner room, then sat cross-legged on the kang (a heated brick bed) to entertain Director Wen and the Hakka grandmother as the host. Chen Cai asked Officer Qi's wife for some hazelnuts and pine nuts, and Dudu happily kept cracking them open.

The Hakka woman ate her meal in silence, seemingly lost in thought.

Chapter 80 of the main text

Officer Qi recounted what happened at the time...

In the trace evidence examination room, he first opened the glass bottle stopper and poured the "worm-like creature" onto the workbench. Then, he carefully examined the wriggling worm with a high-powered magnifying glass. He would later prepare a slice for observation under a microscope. In the second half of last year, he had received special training in trace evidence examination techniques at the provincial criminal investigation department.

Under the magnifying glass, the "worm-headed monster" stared at him with its triangular eyes, its gaze fixed fiercely on him... Most insects have compound eyes, but this kind of eye, with upper and lower eyelids and pupils like those of primates, is probably unique within the class Insecta of the phylum Arthropoda. What kind of creature is this? Officer Qi stared blankly at the peculiar insect, thinking that he couldn't just slice it up and kill it. It would be best to send it to the provincial department and ask them to find some entomologists in the country to study it. Perhaps it was a new species that had never been discovered before.

As he sipped his hot tea, he pondered for a moment, then picked up the police hotline and contacted the provincial department. He reported the discovery of the "worm-headed mantis" inside the corpse and described its physical characteristics in detail. During the call, he picked up his teacup several times to drink, but the problem arose on the last time. He felt something slippery slip down his throat, and his gaze fell back onto the worktable—the "worm-headed mantis" was gone…

Oh no! He realized that the foreign object he had swallowed might be that strange worm! That thing could actually crawl into a steaming teacup, its purpose being to let him drink it—it was unbelievable! This worm was intelligent…

I have no memory of what happened after that.

"Oh, I see," Director Wen nodded after hearing this and said, "You were taken to the county hospital by your comrades in the team and underwent various examinations and tests, all of which came back normal. Later, your wife, Comrade Suqin, took you back to your hometown of Wanjinta and invited an 'old shaman' to perform a ritual. In the end, for some reason, we can only explain it as your digestive system being quite good, and you actually expelled that worm."

"Sigh...yes, it's a pity that this strange insect was burned to ashes. The provincial criminal investigation department was very interested and asked us to send someone over immediately, and specifically instructed that it must be alive," Officer Qi said with great regret.

Director Wen glanced angrily at the Hakka woman and scolded, "Sister-in-law Li, you were too hasty in throwing the worm into the stove. The physical evidence has been lost, and our county bureau has lost face in front of the provincial department. The key point is that this strange worm could be a crucial clue in many unsolved murder cases in our county over the years..."

The Hakka woman sneered, "Want a 'wriggling man'? We have even bigger ones..."

"Where?" Director Wen and Officer Qi immediately tensed up upon hearing this.

"Where?" Director Wen and Officer Qi immediately tensed up upon hearing this.

The Hakka woman asked calmly, "How many similar murder cases have there been in your county?"

Officer Qi thought for a moment and replied, "In the thirty-five years since Nong'an County was liberated in 1947, a total of seventy similar murder cases have occurred, averaging two per year, all involving young and middle-aged men."

"What if we start counting from the September 18 Incident?" the Hakka old woman asked.

“We’ve reviewed the archives from the Japanese occupation period and the Kuomintang rule period. There were 32 such cases during those 16 years, which is roughly two per year. It seems like there’s some kind of pattern,” Officer Qi said, counting on his fingers.

"These cases are all unsolved, with no leads whatsoever. This makes our county bureau look bad in the national public security system." Director Wen said, his mood extremely heavy, as he downed a large glass of sorghum liquor and spoke in a drunken slur.

"These hundred-plus cases are actually quite easy to solve," the Hakka woman said casually.

"What did you say?" Director Wen and Officer Qi asked in astonishment.

The Hakka woman smiled demurely and said, "Since the September 18 Incident, Huanglong Prefecture, that is, Nong'an County, has seen a total of 102 similar murder cases, averaging two per year, with 102 deaths. Moreover, all the victims were young and middle-aged men, and all of their bodies had collapsed chest cavities and bulging eyeballs. There is no serial killer in the world who could continuously commit crimes in the same area and with the same method for 51 years without leaving any clues."

“That’s right, that murderer is simply not human,” Director Wen said.

“You’re right, this wasn’t done by humans,” the Hakka woman nodded.

"Not human?" Director Wen grinned, shaking his head and swaying his body, saying with no small amount of sarcasm, "Is it a ghost?"

"It was that inhuman 'Worm-Headed Barbarian' who did it," the Hakka old woman said solemnly.

Officer Qi and Director Wen were stunned for a moment, their eyes fixed on the old woman, waiting for her to continue.

"In 1931, before the September 18 Incident, a young man returned to his hometown, Yaowopu Village, from inside the Great Wall. From that time on, every year, two young men would mysteriously die in villages within a radius of dozens of miles. The deaths would occur at midnight, and the manner of death would be extremely gruesome. Even the families were unwilling to make a fuss about it, preferring to bury them early according to local custom. However, no one knew that inside each of the deceased lived a 'wriggling worm,' which devoured the internal organs of the deceased in the dark grave, eroding their strong muscles and tendons, and absorbing the man's vital essence, slowly developing and growing..." The Hakka grandmother recounted the story in detail, as if she had witnessed it herself.

Officer Qi and Chief Wen exchanged bewildered glances, then asked in surprise, "You mean it's in the graves of the dead?"

“Not bad,” the Hakka woman said.

Director Wen laughed heartily and pointed at the old woman, saying, "Sister-in-law Li, you really know how to make up stories..."

"We'll know once we dig it out and see," the Hakka woman replied calmly.

Director Wen shook his head and said sarcastically, "Sister-in-law Li, it's undeniable that maggots and rot underground after a person dies, but after a few years, all that's left is a skeleton. If those 'worm-headed barbarians' you mentioned really existed, after decades of having nothing to eat or drink, wouldn't they have starved to death long ago?"

The Hakka woman said calmly, "I warned Officer Qi before that these 'worm-headed worms' could harm people, and that he should be very careful. What was the result? Now I'm saying that there are large adult 'worm-headed worms' growing in the graves of the dead. You still don't believe me, so be it. I'm setting off to return to the interior tomorrow."

"Director Wen," Officer Qi put down his wine glass and said to him, "I saw with my own eyes how Sister Li forced this little 'slug' out of Wang Laonian's corpse, and she did warn me to be careful. Director, those long-standing cases are a thorn in the side of our people's police; we still can't give the public an explanation. Why don't we dig up a grave tomorrow? As Chairman Mao said, 'If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must taste it yourself,' and see if it's really as Sister Li says. In short, without action, there will never be any results."

“Old Qi, the person has already been laid to rest. Who would be willing to reopen the coffin just to find a tiny insect? If word gets out, our reputation will be completely ruined,” Director Wen shook his head and refused.

Officer Qi thought for a moment, then said, “Director Wen, the younger brother of Section Chief Hu from our Political Security Section died suddenly a few years ago in his hometown. I was the one who went to the scene. The symptoms on the body were exactly the same as those of Wang Laonian. It was also one of these headless cases, and the location was in the village south of Yaowopu. In the past few years, Section Chief Hu has often asked me about the progress of the case, but I have never been able to answer him. Why don’t you talk to him and have him lead us to exhume the body and perform an autopsy privately? We can try anything, even if it’s a long shot. Maybe we can find something.”

Director Wen looked at Officer Qi, considered for a long time, and finally nodded, saying, "Alright, it's always easier to do the work if he's an officer from our own bureau."

Officer Qi turned to face the Hakka woman and asked, somewhat puzzled, "Sister-in-law Li, there's something I don't understand. How do you know about 'Worm-headed Barbarians,' such an ancient creature? Are you a paleontologist?"

The Hakka woman smiled slightly and said, "More or less. Actually, I study ancient Chinese medicine."

"Oh, is that so... Also, I'd like to ask, is your outfit from some ethnic minority group in the south?" Officer Qi asked hesitantly.

“The Atayal people, an indigenous group,” the Hakka woman replied.

"You...you're from Taiwan?" Officer Qi was taken aback.

The Hakka woman nodded and said, "Nanzhuang, Miaoli County, Taiwan."

"How did you get to the mainland?" Director Wen asked warily, and the atmosphere at the dinner table immediately became tense.

“Smuggling.” The Hakka woman smiled gently.