The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 93

The larva extended its antennae.

High in the sky, Zhang E’s beautiful face—still visible beneath its covering of silver down—lit with joy.

She beat her enormous wings and flew toward it without hesitation, singing softly as she came.

The flutter of countless moth wings gathered into a dense rustling overhead. It sounded like a host of people whispering in everyone’s ears.

All those present felt dizzy and nauseated to varying degrees.

“Distract yourselves. Don’t listen.” Zhao Li shook her head and slapped her palms against her ears.

“General Li!”

A commotion broke out nearby. Zhao Li turned to look.

The dark-faced general commanding the soldiers had torn off his helmet and flung it to the ground. As though seized by madness, he shoved both index fingers into his ears.

His fingers were long and thick, hardened with calluses from years of martial training. Without the slightest restraint, he rammed them deep into his ear canals and dug inward.

He felt as if tens of thousands of tiny insects were crawling across his eardrums—crouching there, rubbing their slender legs together, then burrowing one by one into his brain.

The horrifying illusion stripped away his reason.

His blunt nails gouged mercilessly at the tender flesh inside his ears. Blood soon appeared.

The soldiers were already terrified by their surroundings. They stared blankly at his frenzied movements, none daring to approach.

His bloodied nails were nearly at his eardrums, driving inward with such force that he seemed intent on drilling through his own skull, when a crisp thud rang out.

Zhao Li had picked up his discarded helmet. She jumped and brought it down against the back of his head.

Shen Yan reached out and caught his heavy body.

“This general looks big and strong-willed. Why was he so poor at resisting the influence of an aberrant creature?”

Zhao Li helped Shen Yan lay the unconscious General Li down, still puzzled.

With no time to examine him, Shen Yan set the man aside.

“General Li once served on the southern frontier. He fell victim to a secret attack there and returned to the capital to recover from his injuries.”

The situation was too urgent for further explanation. Shen Yan took over command of the soldiers and began assigning the city crossbows their positions.

While this brief disturbance unfolded, Zhang E had already flown toward them.

Beneath the silver moonlight, her beautiful body seemed part human, part beast. The gray-white human skeletons hanging below her knocked together with the clatter of ashen bells.

Her enormous body passed between the narrow walls.

Standing on the watchtowers to either side, Lu Jianxing and Zheng Lian could almost see the soft silver down brushing past their faces.

Zhang E hovered before Yang Jian, who hung from the tall pole, and stretched out both arms to embrace him.

Yang Jian’s mouth opened as wide as it could. Several sesame-seed eyes on the head of the white grub resting on his tongue shifted, while its wriggling antennae seemed to answer her.

Just before Zhang E’s hands could touch Yang Jian—

“Fire!”

At the command, soldiers braced their feet against the siege crossbows and pulled the triggers.

Under Shen Yan’s direction, two of the crossbows had been aimed squarely at Zhang E’s wings. They had to ensure she could not escape through the air.

Once their aim was set, Shen Yan personally pulled the trigger.

More than a dozen bolts screamed through the air one after another.

Zhang E moved to dodge.

Then she saw Yang Jian’s grotesquely swollen belly.

She was not intelligent, but she understood that if she moved aside, her children would face the danger instead.

“Children,” she murmured.

In the end, she used her own body to block every bolt.

More than a dozen bolts as thick as the mouths of cups buried themselves in Zhang E’s body. Their heads sprang open into claws, gripping her flesh tightly.

With shouted exertions, the soldiers tied the hemp ropes at the bolts’ tails to the tethering stakes they had driven into the ground earlier.

Zhang E’s enormous body shuddered in midair. Blossoms of blue blood burst across her torso and limbs.

Shrieking and trembling, she began to fall.

Zhao Li saw her chance and shouted, “Sichuan chinaberry fruit!”

Her clear voice carried sharply through the night.

On the two watchtowers, Lu Jianxing, Zheng Lian, and the others had sweated through their clenched palms. At her command, they bellowed and hurled the water pouches and pig bladders they held.

Zhang E was an enormous target and easy to hit.

The containers burst against her body, splashing Sichuan chinaberry water everywhere.

Like concentrated acid, it instantly scorched the beautiful silver pelt wherever it touched, turning the down black and sending up smoke.

The smell also scattered the white moths filling the sky.

Black, corroded scars now covered Zhang E’s beautiful monstrous body.

And yet, even now, she kept her arms spread and resolutely shielded Yang Jian before her.

She labored to beat her one usable wing. Great tears rolled from her brilliant red compound eyes and disappeared into the silver down on her cheeks.

At last, her long claws sliced through the ropes binding Yang Jian.

She cradled him in her arms like a baby and gently stroked his belly, feeling the swollen movements beneath it.

Then she beat her wings and tried to flee.

But the bolts driven deep into her body were attached to hemp ropes, some already secured to the tethering stakes.

At Shen Yan’s command, the soldiers brought over three horses and fastened the ropes to their saddles.

The whips came down hard.

The horses bolted in pain.

Caught off guard, Zhang E was ripped from the air by the tremendous force and dragged to the ground. Yang Jian flew from her grasp.

The fall alone broke him in two. Little more than a hollow shell, his abdomen split open, and clumps of horrifying grubs tumbled out.

Wrapped in turbid mucus, they twitched weakly a few times before rapidly dying.

Zhang E lay sprawled on the ground. Claws sprang from her hands and feet and dug into the earth, while the bolts in her body tore deep furrows through her flesh.

A woman’s desolate wailing echoed through the sky.

Even Zhao Li, who had designed the trap, felt her heart tremble for a moment.

Only Shen Yan remained expressionless. He continued issuing orders, directing the soldiers to aim at Zhang E’s head.

The blackened corpses of insects lay everywhere, soaking in Sichuan chinaberry water.

Yang Jian stared fixedly at nothing and breathed his last.

The white grub that had remained in his mouth twitched. Slowly, it crawled out and tried to reach Zhang E.

Sichuan chinaberry water covered the ground. Its flesh hissed with every inch it traveled.

It barely managed to crawl a short distance before collapsing. Its head and tail curled together, and it became a lump of charcoal.

Zhang E witnessed everything.

She staggered to her feet and raised her head, her eyes filled with hatred carved to the bone.

With a violent wrench, she charged forward, dragging the heavy ropes behind her.

“Fire.”

Shen Yan gazed at the beautiful beast without the slightest ripple in his eyes.

Another bolt shot toward the center of Zhang E’s brow.

Driven by the city crossbow’s enormous force, blue blood and shards of bone erupted wildly from her head.

Zhang E’s gigantic transformed body staggered and finally crashed to the ground.

A pair of black boots approached her as she lay at the end of her strength.

Zhao Li’s expression was unreadable. She planted a foot on Zhang E’s skull, raised her long saber high, and drove it down with all her might, thoroughly destroying the monster’s heart.