Chapter Eighty-Five: The Blood-Drinking Cicada’s Molt

Old Liao said this with all the gravity of a man recounting something he had witnessed himself.

“Of course, take everything I tell you today as nothing more than a ghost story. None of it can be verified.”

It turned out that after Crooked Three and the grave-robbers had gone into the mountains, they had truly fallen under the spell of something uncanny that dwelt there.

Crooked Three kept silent about it for a long time. It was only one day, after getting drunk with those businessmen, that he finally opened his mouth. He was so drunk he could barely speak coherently, and his account came out in fragments. All that could be pieced together was that they had entered the mountains, gotten lost in the forest, and beneath an immense ancient tree taller than anything in sight, the air was filled everywhere with the rasping cry of cicadas. The sound seemed to pierce the eardrums and change a person’s mind.

Then countless green cicadas fell from that towering tree, thick as rain, covering everyone’s body. After that came the rising and falling wails of the grave-robbers, shrill and pitiful. No one knew whether it was because Crooked Three ran faster than the others or because he happened to have the jade cicada hidden in his arms, but in the end he alone got away.

When Crooked Three later brought a group of villagers back into the mountains to search for the others, they discovered that the grave-robbers had been drained of blood and left dead in a meadow, yet there was not a single large tree anywhere nearby.

The incident dealt Crooked Three a tremendous psychological blow. Setting aside how close he had been to those grave-robbers, his standing and ability within the antique world were certainly damaged beyond repair, which was why he later ended up quietly selling off the treasure.

Still, people in the trade at the time said that on the very night the young master surnamed Liu and his family were slaughtered, the neighbors really did hear the shrill rasping of cicadas. The sound was deafening; one neighbor even went outside to look around. But it was midsummer then, and no one imagined such a horrific thing could happen. Cicadas, bloodsucking, and all that—thus arose the story of a spirit-creature harming people.

“Only after the Liu family’s disaster did Crooked Three take the money and gradually withdraw from the antique trade. Later, when some boss offered him a fortune to come back and appraise things for them, he refused outright. From then on, no one in the old market ever saw that rough little swindler named Crooked Three again. And as time passed, the tragedy that wiped out the Liu family was slowly forgotten by the world.”

Old Liao lifted his cup, skimming the foam from the tea, and finished the story.

“So the jade cicada we ran into this time—could it be the same as the one in the old market back then? Is it also the work of some spirit-creature?”

“It had better not be. All things have a spirit, and stories of such creatures have taken many forms from ancient times to now. But as far as I know, they are certainly not groundless. I have never seen one myself, but I would never want to cross paths with such a thing.”

Old Liao’s expression was unusually grave. It would be best if the matter ended for good after Little Li buried the jade cicada. I certainly did not want to tangle with anything so strange either.

The weather grew colder day by day, the trees along the street standing bare and stripped. My tattoo business also began to grow quiet.

Though my income had fallen, I did not mind the peace. No ghostly incidents, no curses, no yin-yang tattoos. I was lying on the sofa watching television when a series of violent bangs shook the door outside.

Bang! Bang!

The force of the pounding startled me so badly that I could not help shivering.

“Who is it? Damn it, have some manners. Can’t you knock a little softer?” Old Liao came out of the bathroom, cursing under his breath while shooting me a look.

I shrugged to show him I had no idea who was at the door.

With a metallic clatter, Old Liao shoved the rolling shutter upward. A huge figure immediately toppled down at our feet and hit the floor with a dull thud.

“Tiger?”

Seeing the familiar shape on the ground, I cried out in alarm. We had not seen him for so many days, and he had had no contact with us. How had he suddenly appeared outside our shop?

“Something’s wrong. Look at his mouth and his color.” Old Liao crouched down, lifted Tiger’s head, turned him over, and laid his head across his own thigh in a makeshift pillow.

Following Old Liao’s lead, I looked down. Tiger’s face was ashen white, his lips cracked and bloodless. He looked like a vampire, cold and pale all over, every inch of him no different from a corpse.

Tiger forced his eyes open. Seeing us, he let out a long breath and slowly raised his arm.

On his arm, dense clusters of transparent shells had already begun to grow, blue-white in color and nauseating to look at.

Cicada molting husks from a green cicada.

“Cough... cough... Boss Zhang, Master Liao... this probably isn’t over yet. These past few days, I started dreaming of that great tree again. More cicadas flew out from the branches and clung to me. In the dream... in the dream, I was no longer just watching. I was the one lying on the ground, my blood being sucked out by the cicadas.”

“What about Little Li? Have you contacted him?” Old Liao asked urgently, his brows knotted tight.

“No... no. I don’t know how he is. I think... it must be that jade cicada... so I came looking for you with everything I had. Please, save me. I don’t want the last bloodline of the grave-robbing line to end with me like this... Chief, Tiger has failed you!”

Tiger’s voice trembled faintly, and his words gradually dissolved into sobs. His eyes began to glaze over, as if he might faint at any moment.

“Take him to the hospital first!”

Old Liao shouted, and I quickly pulled out my phone to call an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived astonishingly fast. Tiger was far too heavy, and only with the help of the medical staff and the two of us could he be lifted aboard.

At the hospital, the young nurse handling the transfer frowned, her fine brows drawing together. “What’s wrong with you two? He’d already lost this much blood, and you only brought him now? One step later and he would have been done for!”

Old Liao and I stared at the red light glowing above the emergency room, our faces heavy with worry as we fell into thought.

“Tiger is a good man.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I think we ought to get involved in this.”

“How?”

“......”

Another awkward silence fell.

Then suddenly the doors of the emergency room swung open, and a doctor in a white coat stepped out.

“Doctor, doctor, how is my friend?”

“He’s not out of danger yet. The blood loss is severe. Has he had any major accident lately, or any internal injury? His body’s blood supply at the cellular level is completely insufficient. This is already the second case this week, and it is nothing like ordinary anemia. Sigh... I’m afraid we’ll need a consultation with specialists...”

The doctor shook his head and muttered a stream of technical terms and medical jargon to himself.

Neither Old Liao nor I heard much of what came after, and we understood even less. But one sentence struck us as especially harsh.

“Second case? So besides Tiger, there’s another person with the same condition?”

Old Liao and I looked at each other, startled into silence, then cried out at once:

“Little Li!”

......

“How is he?”

I stood outside the glass, looking at Little Li lying motionless on the hospital bed, and asked the question.

“This illness is very strange. There are no visible wounds on the body, yet the patient remains in a constant state of anemia. All we can do is give regular blood transfusions. And the patient’s arms often develop strange keratin-like growths, so for the moment we can rule out epidermal hyperplasia. Together with the patient you brought in this afternoon, it may even be some newly discovered infectious virus.”

An infectious virus? Infectious my ass. Only Old Liao and I knew what was really going on. The urgent task now was to find out exactly what had happened to the jade cicada.

“Can we go in and see him?”

The doctor hesitated, then sighed and nodded. “His condition is being recorded around the clock right now so we can collect experimental data. We’re also pulling in specialists from the province as quickly as possible for a consultation and to formulate a treatment plan. I believe your friend will gradually improve. Just keep the visit brief, and make sure to take protective measures to avoid any risk of transmission.”

I nodded gratefully at the doctor. Since the side effects caused by the jade cicada had temporarily been classified as an infectious disease, the two of us underwent repeated disinfection and put on protective gear before pushing open the door to Little Li’s room.

“Hey, Little Li, wake up.”

I went to the bedside and gently shook him.

A glucose drip was still running into Little Li’s arm, but it was easy to see that his arm had grown frighteningly thin. He looked utterly haggard, like a man starved down to skin and bone. With great effort he opened his eyes and saw us in our protective suits. After a moment of recognition, he suddenly widened his eyes and let out a muffled cry of “uh, ah,” the sound weak and sickly because he had no strength left.

I took out my phone, opened the notes app, and typed a line: Do not speak. I will ask, you answer, and write it on the phone. Did you bury the jade cicada in the crematorium exactly as Old Liao told you?

Little Li took the phone with trembling hands and slowly typed a reply: Yes. I buried it at the base of the wall in the southeast corner of the crematorium.

Strange. Then how had this bizarre thing happened again?

Old Liao thought for a moment and typed another line: When you buried it, did anyone see you?

After reading it, Little Li narrowed his eyes as if thinking hard. Then suddenly his eyes flew wide open and his emotions surged as he wrote: The new security guard who replaced Old Liu saw me burying something by the wall!

I put away the phone. Old Liao patted my shoulder, and I immediately understood what he meant.

That new guard had definitely been up to no good.

I comforted Little Li, told him to rest well and recover his strength, and said that this matter would be handled by Old Liao and me. Then I turned and headed out of the room.

Behind us came Little Li’s feeble cries. We looked back and saw him lying weakly on the bed, mouth open, tears streaming hotly from his eyes. From the shape of his lips, we could barely make out three words:

Save me.

Once outside the hospital, Old Liao lit a cigarette and asked me, “What now?”

I looked at a shed cicada shell lying on the maple tree outside and said, “We pay that crematorium a visit.”