Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang Novel - Chapter 397

Chapter 397
—Crash!
“What in the world—? Turning metal silver with poison was one thing, but producing locusts?”
“You cannot be serious!”
Both men leaped to their feet at once, their chairs crashing backward onto the floor.
Their reaction was so violent I instinctively recoiled.
“Well… it’s actually not very complicated…”
As I muttered the words, a new look crossed their faces—one I had never seen before.
It was more than simple shock or wonder this time. There was terror in it.
I swallowed hard without meaning to.
This was new. Even when I demonstrated silver-plating or captured spirit beasts, they had never stared at me like this.
It was the most powerful response I had ever provoked.
‘Hold on… Why? What’s the matter—oh!’
Then I understood.
Locusts. A swarm of locusts.
In this world, they weren’t merely insects—they were an ancient horror. One of the four great calamities of nature, ranked alongside pestilence, great floods, and earthquakes. Disasters beyond any human power to command.
Even in my previous life, locust swarms appearing anywhere in the world resulted in pure havoc.
Here in the Central Plains, locusts were sometimes named chaekmaeng. But when they arrived in their devastating, ravenous masses, they ceased to be mere bugs—they became Swarming locust. The very term was synonymous with catastrophe.
A yellow tide that consumed the heavens.
In a swarm, locusts transform into insatiable devourers. They breed without end, each one consuming its own weight in food daily as they march.
They strip fields bare, leaving only barren dust in their wake—and I had just offhandedly claimed I could conjure such an apocalyptic force.
No wonder they were horrified.
To the people of this age, this wasn’t a curious trick or a feat of knowledge—it was a direct threat to their very existence.
‘I… I really should not have said that.’
And I even had the gall to say it was “not very complicated”…
Turning things silver with poison might make me seem like a master alchemist, but conjuring a blight? That was something else entirely.
As anticipated, their voices grew sharp and urgent.
“So Geol-gwi, you will carry what you have just heard to your grave!”
“Y-yes, Elder! I would sooner sever my own tongue than utter a word. I swear it on my honor as a martial artist!”
“Then go. Immediately.”
“At once, Elder.”
Elder Geolhwang fixed the man he had brought with him with a glare so fierce that So Geol-gwi practically scrambled out the door.
Then my father-in-law turned toward the hallway and barked an order.
“You, outside—enter!”
“You summoned me, sir?”
“Did you overhear anything from this room?”
“It is an understood rule that we do not eavesdrop on the master’s study—”
“I asked if you heard anything.”
“My apologies, sir. I heard nothing…”
“I heard nothing either, sir.”
“Good. Then go and bring Tang Hwa-eun and Elder Gonryun at once—this is a matter of utmost urgency.”
“Yes, sir!”
He dispatched the guards immediately to fetch Tang Hwa-eun and Mandok Shingun.
A short time later, both arrived, their expressions strained with worry.
“You sent for us? The message said it was urgent.”
“What is happening that requires both myself and Hwa-eun? I was inspecting the new venom beasts when the summons came. Oh? Elder Geolhwang, you are here as well?”
Hwa-eun looked anxious, while Elder Gonryun—Mandok Shingun—seemed astonished to see that Geolhwang had even erected a sound-sealing barrier around the study.
This technique ensured no noise could escape, which meant the discussion within was of the highest secrecy.
“Please, take a seat, Elder Gonryun. This may require some time.”
“Understood.”
“Hwa-eun, you sit as well.”
“Yes, Father.”
Once they were both seated, Elder Geolhwang spoke:
“The reason I have called you here so abruptly… is that So-ryong claims to know the method for producing Swarming locust.”
“What!?”
“He can generate locusts!?”
Just as expected, Hwa-eun and her grandfather were equally stunned.
They gaped at me, their eyes wide.
Hwa-eun was the first to find her voice, thick with disbelief.
“Is… is that the truth?”
“Well… it’s not exactly hard—ah, wait, I mean…”
I almost repeated it—not exactly hard.
But the way their eyes widened further made me snap my mouth shut.
She pressed on, her voice laced with confusion and tension.
“Are you telling us that… with the correct components, you can generate Swarming locust?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Her phrasing confused me. I looked around at everyone in the room—Elder Gonryun, my father-in-law, Elder Geolhwang—and they were all nodding with grave understanding.
I tilted my head and asked in return:
“Components?”
“Yes, components. Such as… filth or decaying matter.”
‘Ah…’
Now I comprehended.
They all assumed I meant I could fabricate locusts from ingredients, just as I had with the silver-plating procedure.
As if I could toss elements into a vessel and have locusts spring forth.
‘Of course. The people of this time largely believe in spontaneous generation…’
The concept that life can arise from inanimate material.
In my old world, we’d dismiss it, but even as recently as the nineteenth century, spontaneous generation was a commonly held belief.
They thought fleas sprang from dust, maggots from spoiled flesh, and that insects like mites or gnats simply manifested from morning dew or mud.
After all, a sealed room might suddenly contain a mosquito, or ants might materialize from nothing—so this was their explanation.
They possessed no other model for understanding.
So now they believed I had harnessed this mysterious process and could spawn locusts on command.
Ants? Merely a queen flying into a home in spring and founding a nest.
Mosquitoes? They hitch a ride on clothing when people enter.
So even the Tang Clan, experts on venomous creatures like serpents, spiders, and scorpions, evidently held that pests like flies, centipedes, or locusts were born from corruption.
To correct this misunderstanding about locusts, I would need to start with the fundamentals.
I gathered my thoughts and began to explain.
“First, I must make this clear—Hwa-eun, no insect is born from moist or foul air by itself.”
“What? They do not simply emerge? But is it not true they are born from the foul, damp qi even without parents of their own kind?”
Hwa-eun asked, and the elders all nodded in unison.
It was slightly different from what I had anticipated, but not shocking.
The Tang Clan, who worked with venomous creatures their entire lives, knew that insects could lay eggs—but they still believed some bugs could generate spontaneously from nothing in the natural world.
“No, they are born only when a mother and a father of the same species exist.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. It only seems as if insects suddenly appear in filthy places because their mothers deposited eggs there when no one was observing.”
“So… it is not a matter of qi accumulating in unclean areas?”
“No, Grandfather.”
“But we in the Tang Clan have sealed unclean items inside jars and witnessed maggots or other things appear regardless…”
So the Tang Clan had performed those kinds of experiments, had they?
What exactly were they sealing in those jars? Soiled cloths, scraps of food, whatever was at hand?
It reminded me of those old experiments by alchemists in pre-modern Europe.
The ones where they professed that mice were born spontaneously in jars of grain soaked with milk and oil.
In those times, people simply didn’t grasp the concepts of contamination or external interference. So I clarified:
“There were likely eggs already present within the materials. If you had boiled everything before sealing the jar, nothing would have appeared.”
Mandok Shingun stroked his chin thoughtfully, then gave a slow nod.
If this were not the Tang Clan, someone would probably have declared me insane.
But I suppose my standing here was sufficient—and the Tang Clan had enough of a empirical mindset—that they were willing to listen.
“That is certainly something I wish to verify for myself. So then… you are saying you do not create locusts, but rather cultivate them? Like one does with crickets?”
I was just feeling relieved that someone had finally asked a sensible question—when Elder Geolhwang interjected:
**“So that means you do not create locusts—you only increase their numbers, correct? If there are no locusts to start with, you cannot produce more. It does not sound particularly threatening then. Rather useless, in fact.**
**After all, people only ever become aware of locusts once they manifest in swarms.**
**One never sees just a lone locust or two flying about.”**
Everyone nodded in agreement.
As a man who traded in information, Elder Geolhwang was clearly knowledgeable—even not being of the Tang Clan.
And he was correct: Locusts do not appear individually. They arrive in immense swarms and vanish the same way.
‘Explanation alone will not be enough.’
To answer him properly, I would have to demonstrate.
I smiled and asked:
“It will be simpler to show you. Shall I produce a few? Just a small number—I give you my word, it is perfectly safe.”
Everyone flinched simultaneously, trading apprehensive looks.
Their curiosity was warring with a deep, instinctual dread awakened by the very notion of creating locusts.
***
“So Hwa-eun witnessed a locust swarm in her youth?”
“Yes. It was terrifying.”
“We were fortunate to have stores of food… but many in Sichuan perished from starvation.”
We were on our path to find Yo-hwa, the elders following close behind.
No wonder their reactions were so severe—they had actually experienced a locust plague.
If such a event was seared into your memory from childhood, fear was a natural response.
Soon, we arrived at Yo-hwa’s silken dwelling above the well.
“Yo-hwa!”
At my call, Yo-hwa swiftly descended headfirst on a strand of spider silk.
But because she was still wearing Hwa-eun’s form, her skirt billowed up to her thighs—making Hwa-eun gasp in alarm.
“Yo-hwa! We discussed this!”
—Ksssk.
For Hwa-eun, it must have been like seeing her own reflection misbehave.
Fortunately, after some firm lessons on propriety, Yo-hwa had learned to be more careful.
She promptly twisted her body in mid-air to right herself.
While the elders tactfully averted their gaze and Hwa-eun clutched her chest in dismay, Yo-hwa tilted her head and clung to my arm, curious why I had called for her.
—Ksssk?
“I require your assistance. Can you weave a square cage for me from your silk?”
—Kssskssk.
She began swaying her hips, preparing to spin right there.
I stopped her quickly.
“No, not here. Over there.”
I guided her to the backyard garden near the pond, where the plant growth was dense, and requested she construct something resembling a mosquito net enclosure.
“Right here. A structure of about this size.”
“Ksssk!”
I outlined the shape roughly in the soil with a stick, and Yo-hwa instantly began weaving the framework.
Threads streamed from her hips, stretching between trees to form lines and surfaces that rapidly wove into a mesh wall.
Just then—
“So-ryong-nim, you requested our presence?”
“Yes, Commander Gu Pae. I need your aid.”
“Command us!”
I had summoned the Venom Blood Squad.
I dove into the nearby underbrush and searched around for a moment—until I found my target.
“There you are, you little pest.”
It was quick, but not quick enough to evade a martial artist of my skill.
I seized the insect and showed it to Commander Gu Pae.
“Could you assist me in catching more of these?”
“Ah, this is a Green locust, is it not?”
So that was their name for it here. What I had caught was a green locust—a grasshopper.
I nodded, and the Venom Blood Squad fanned out through the grass, gathering more of the hopping insects.
Soon, the enclosure Yo-hwa had built was populated with the green-bodied locusts.
***
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, I returned to the garden to inspect the enclosure Yo-hwa had fashioned.
Hwa-eun and the elders followed me. Elder Geolhwang had even stayed the night here specifically to witness this.
“So-ryong… are you certain about this?”
“Yes.”
“It is nearly impossible to believe.”
“Truly.”
As we walked, they still wore skeptical expressions, despite all my prior explanations.
In the garden, the enclosure stood just where Yo-hwa had built it the previous day.
Its walls were dense and opaque—preventing us from seeing what was inside.
“Shall we have a look then?”
Smiling, I opened a small access flap I’d incorporated beforehand and reached inside.
I retrieved a single insect—and held it up for them to see.
“What do you think now?”
Pinched between my fingers was not the vibrant green grasshopper from yesterday—but a yellow locust.
The very kind humanity feared above all others.
Swarming locust.