Fabre in Sacheondangga Episode 135
Silver 2
A silvery, shining cocoon, completely different from the pure white cocoon.
The size is oval, approximately 25 centimeters.
Externally, it was clearly the same size as Cheonjam’s cocoon, but the feel of the thread was completely different.
Because it felt like it was reflecting the light coming from the night sky, and it was sparkling.
No, it wasn’t a feeling, it was actually reflecting light in a flashy way.
‘What, what is it? Is it a different species?’
Although the size of the kochi was almost the same, the first thought that came to mind when I saw the completely different colors of the kochi was that they might be different species.
The reason I thought this way, even though there are already termites in a symbiotic relationship, is because, in addition to the termites that appear to be in a symbiotic relationship, there are usually a lot of guests in termite nests.
Common termites alone are food for over 80 species of birds and animals, and there are dozens of species of insects that receive direct or indirect help from termites in their anthills.
There are quite a few insects that steal termite eggs, mushrooms, and wood waste, or use the solid ant nests as hiding places.
Although there are many natural enemies, a termite nest is a place overflowing with diners, like a rich family home.
However, unlike the sugar beetle that only accepts helpful guests, termites are actually quite gullible insects.
So, I quickly reached out and gently pressed the cocoon, hoping that it might be another rare moth with similar habits to the Cheonjam.
I wanted to check if there were any larvae inside, because I had to be careful if there were any larvae inside.
However, even though I carefully pressed the gochi, it did not budge at all.
The silver quilt felt very solid, as if it were rolled up like wire.
I wondered if it was Cheonjam too, so I pressed the chin of the Cheonjam next to me, but that one also didn’t budge.
After thinking about it, I felt that it had to be this strong to protect itself from termites and soldier ants, so I decided to hold the cocoon in my hand and check it out.
“Please hatch before… Please.”
But the moment you hold the stick in your hand, you can’t feel its weight on your fingertips.
When I turned the stick upside down, I saw that there was a round hole at the end of the stick.
Traces of hatched adults escaping.
“What the hell.”
I had a glimmer of hope that it might be a cocoon that had not yet finished shedding its skin, but what I held in my hand was an empty cocoon.
It was an empty cocoon that had already shed its shell and been abandoned by its owner.
When I thought, ‘It was good, but it ended,’ Shintu’s voice was heard from the entrance of the cave that Bin-i had dug.
Perhaps he was curious as to whether I had found the sleeping place because of the commotion inside.
“So, did you find Cheonjamsa?”
When I turned my head, I could vaguely see Shintu far away at the entrance to the cave.
The hole that Bin-i had made was not that big, so Shin-tu, who was large, could not fit his body in, but at Shin-tu’s question, Cheon-jam was taken out for the time being.
So I stuffed the gochis into the bag I had brought and shouted toward the entrance.
“Yes, I found about thirty.”
“What!? Thirty!?”
Shintu shouted in surprise at hearing that he had found thirty of them.
Since the gochi was so big that it seemed like we would have to go back and forth twice, let’s take half of it outside first. Shintu, who saw the gochi of Cheomsam, shouted in surprise with his disciple Yeongryeon.
“Oh! I, really, there are this many Cheonjam’s gochi! Sir, I said that the ancestors only saved about ten!”
“Master, this is the very same Cheonjam that makes Cheonjamsa!?”
While the two were checking the celestial robe inside their pockets, he went back into the cave, took out the celestial robe and the silver cocoon, and asked Shintu.
“Have you ever seen this?”
I decided to ask the silver kochi if Shinto knew anything about it.
“What, what is this!?”
“Oh, you know that!?”
Shinto glared at my question.
Shintu shook his head and answered.
“No, this is my first time seeing this too. Is this also a heavenly sleep?”
‘No, this guy!?’
The answer I got was, as expected, that I didn’t know, but then Bin’s crying could be heard again from behind me.
-Tsrrrr!
And then, with a loud noise, dust began to rise from the hole.
-Quadduck!
-Whoosh.
“Binah! Are you okay!?”
I ran towards the entrance of the cave where dust was rising up, thinking that the cave might have collapsed, and shouted inside. Along with Bin-i’s crying, I felt a message telling me not to worry.
After a while, Bin-yi took off a large, flat rock about the size of two human torsos joined together and brought it over to me.
-Tsrrrr!
A smooth, oval-shaped, flat, red rock.
It was clear that they had found the queen ant’s nest.
“Oh! I found it!”
-Tsurut!
Bin, who says there is something inside.
I looked at the side of the rock that Bin had put down and found the entrance.
Because termites can have different numbers of entrances depending on the species, let’s check the edge of the oval rock and see one hole on one side.
Surprised ants were sticking their heads out of the hole and disappearing repeatedly.
“Bin, bite here. In this direction.”
The way to open the queen ant’s cell is to split it horizontally.
Although the queen ant’s cell is strong, it is vulnerable in the horizontal direction.
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That’s why the queen ant’s flat, oval-shaped cell falls exactly in half when split lengthwise.
When I asked Bin-i to point towards the entrance and give me some gold, I heard a cracking sound in the rock along with a ‘click’ sound.
“Okay, let’s open it up.”
Termite concrete, made by termites mixing saliva and dirt, is not very heavy, so the ceiling of the divided maternity ward was opened with the help of a sledgehammer.
The sight of termites swarming on both sides of the open floor and lid.
And the queen of the giant termites lying flat on the floor.
Of course, the size of the ants themselves was much larger than that of the army ants last time, but the queen ant was much larger than the worker ants in proportion to them.
This is because the queen termite is usually dozens of times larger than the worker ants, and her lower body resembles a giant larva rather than an ant.
Termite queens can live for over 50 years, depending on the species, and they spend their entire lives confined to this burrow, laying eggs.
This is because the ovaries, which are useful for laying eggs, have developed abnormally.
Although the ovaries themselves are only two, they have over 2,000 ovarian tubes, giving them this larval appearance.
On one side, I noticed a male ant, which was different from the other ants.
The body is white, but it looks more like a cockroach than a termite.
Well, it made sense since termites are closer to cockroaches than to ants.
“Heeeeeeek! What, what is this?”
The terrified look on Shinto’s disciple, Yeongnyeon.
Sister Seol also frowned and asked if the queen ant was a bit disgusting.
“This, this is a bit gross. What is this, Little Dragon? Is it the empress like last time? Is that it?”
“Yes, this is the Empress and Emperor in White.”
After showing everyone the queen ant of the termites, he quickly closed the lid again and asked Yohwa to repackage it.
“Hey, Yohwa, tie this up tightly with your thread. I have to take it to Dangga. Bin, now all you have to do is find the larva inside.”
-Kishi!
-Tsrrrr!
While the witch repackages the termite queen’s nest.
I decided to take Bin-i and Shin-tu’s disciple Yeong-ryeon with me and look for the Cheon-jam larva that I had hatched last time.
The Cheonjam that was hatched last time to check the symbiotic relationship.
Since there were none in the queen ant’s lair, it must have been somewhere in the mushroom cultivation room, which was the food warehouse.
The reason you absolutely must find the guy is because once you find him, you can be sure what he’s eating.
I was thinking that the guy would eat the termites’ nutritional supplement or termite larvae, but if he were to eat mushrooms, I’d have to change my plans.
“Eek! Me, me too?”
“Then, shall we take Elder Shintu with us?”
“No, that’s not it···.”
“Even if you say you’re leaving, you’re too big to go in, so you, Young Lady, have to go in. I told you it’s okay. Bin-i chased away all the white-clad men, so you’ll be safe for the time being.”
“But the other young ladies···.”
“It’s impossible for everyone to go in wearing clothes like that.”
Yeongryeon’s face becomes sad when he points at Hwa-eun and Seol with his finger.
The woman named Yeongnyeon was wearing a tight-fitting sleepwear that was comfortable for stealing, while Seol wore a short skirt favored by the women of the Yunnan minority, and Hwaeun wore a traditional, flowing dress from the Central Plains, so they could not crawl into the cave by bending down.
After searching through the mushroom cultivation room of the termites for a while with the woman named Yeongryeon who had become so sad.
As we rummaged inside, picking mushrooms to feed the termites until they could re-grow the mushrooms, we found a swarm of termite larvae on a mushroom growing on the wall.
“Excuse me, over there!”
“Oh! I see!”
Let’s see the voice of Yeongryeon who discovered Cheonjam first.
As she looked at the ceiling she was pointing at, Cheonjam, who had become a second-instar larva,
The creature, already the size of a palm, was strangely eating termite larvae that it had found somewhere, right next to a mushroom that clearly showed signs of having been eaten.
“Oh, does this guy eat mushrooms too?”
A mushroom that looks almost certain to have been eaten by the guy.
Yeongryeon tilted her head at my words.
“Are you eating bugs now?”
“I’ll probably eat the mushrooms after I finish that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the teeth marks on that mushroom look like those of that guy.”
Soon the guy was quickly eating all the larvae and, just as I said, he started eating the mushrooms too.
“Oh! Really!”
The woman named Yeongryeon seemed surprised that things were going as I said, but the thought that came to mind when I saw her picking mushrooms made me think that it would be difficult to take her home right away.
It was because I felt like the guy was eating mushrooms as his staple food and making up for the lack of protein with ant larvae.
‘Then I won’t be able to take her now?’
The two-tailed swallowtail butterfly initially eats food given to it by ants in exchange for nutrients, but later, when it lacks protein, it even eats ant larvae, so it makes sense that it eats larvae.
The guy was a second-year student, and seeing him eating mushrooms and larvae at the same time made me think that it would be difficult to take him to the kindergarten right now.
I was going to leave him in the early colony to raise, but I was afraid that he would eat all the mushrooms that would be food for the early colony and the larvae that would be needed to grow the early colony.
If mushrooms are scarce, the Tang family, which is serious about poison, will also grow poisonous mushrooms, so it was clear that if they took the mushroom batch used by the termites, they would be able to successfully grow mushrooms without difficulty.
I had heard that in my previous life, they were called termite mushrooms and were sold as food in China, so I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult.
However, the larvae are currently only in the maternity ward where they are collected and taken away.
Well, they’ll lay more, but if you take the queen ant’s cell to the party house and take care of that small number of dead trees, you should be able to raise them big, but if you have to take care of termite larvae for them from the second instar, the termite colony may not be able to settle down and may dry up and die.
Originally, the two-tailed butterfly also ate caterpillars from the fourth instar before molting, but it was too early for them to start eating meat.
You need to feed the mushrooms and termites to properly raise the snails, but if the snails were to eat the mushrooms and termite larvae at that rate, the initial colony might not be able to settle down and might die.
It’s a shame, but I decided to leave him alone for now because I need to let the termites settle in before I can grow a snail.
“Can’t we help it?”
“Let’s leave this behind.”
“Yes? Why?”
When he heard that he was leaving Cheonjam behind, the woman named Yeongryeon opened her eyes wide.
“It seems to feed on mushrooms and ant larvae, but I don’t think it will be able to handle the food we bring it before the ants grow the mushrooms and increase their numbers.”
“ah···.”
‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea to return one to nature. But the remaining two eggs would have to be male and female…’
I was a little worried, but as I left the guy there and crawled out of the cave, the anthill quickly began to recover as ants poured out of the section where the gas had disappeared.
***
The termites were brought to Dangga and buried in a place with many dead trees on Dangga Mountain.
People tend to think of termites as pests, but in reality, they are beneficial insects.
This is because the dead trees that cannot be processed are ground up and turned into octopus.
Even though I didn’t know about red soil, it was obvious that if I dug it up and grew crops, the crops would grow well because it had a lot of fertilizer.
Anyway, as soon as we transplanted the termites into the ground, a termite mound rose up in just one day.
I asked Dangga to help me grow mushrooms, as I was worried that they might not have enough food to grow, and I asked him to take good care of the mushrooms I dug up in the poison tank as food for the mushrooms.
Shintu was satisfied with just the silk he had obtained for the time being, so he made thread by weaving it with the silk craftsmen who had settled in Tangga.
He said that since one needs inner strength to weave thread, both a divine spirit and a craftsman are needed.
And in the meantime, I set to work unlocking the secrets of the silver quilt.
-Whew.
“It’s all poured out, Little Dragon.”
“Thank you. Okay, then, let’s do it.”
In a large tub filled with lukewarm water brought by the warriors, I placed one cocoon of the silver silkworm and one cocoon of the heavenly silkworm.
This is not done to pull out the thread, but to observe the appearance of the guys’ master.
A chamber that a moth makes to protect itself before molting.
This is because the shell of the pupa, the owner of the cocoon, remains inside.
So, if we restore the pupa shell to its original state, we can roughly see what kind of bug it is and how it differs from the common worm.
The reason for putting the cocoon in lukewarm water was to soak the molted shell that had shriveled and stretched out during molting and remove it from the cocoon.
Two silver and white cocoons floating half-submerged in lukewarm water.
Let’s wait a moment and the shell falls off.
I carefully lifted it out, removed the moisture, and began restoring it.
Using two pins, slowly straighten the body back to its original state, and use glue to restore any parts that may have fallen off.
After stuffing the inside with cotton and firmly gluing the burst back from which the moth emerged, two large pupae emerged.
One is translucent white.
One is silver.
“Wow! That’s amazing, Little Dragon! I’ve never seen such talent before!”
The warriors admire my splendid restored appearance.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and pretended it was nothing.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
People who raised poisonous insects or bugs in their previous lives would make stuffed animals out of them when they died to commemorate their size or something like that. It looks like the skills they learned once haven’t rusted.
I carefully examined the two completed stuffed animals.
Just to see what the difference is.
So, comparing the two guys, here’s my conclusion.
‘No, they’re just different colors, so why are they the same?’
Strangely enough, the silver and white silk were different in color, but their appearances were the same.
From the pores to the body parts, eyes, mouth, stomach, and all structures were identical.
While the two guys were looking dumbfounded at the fact that they were the same species but different colors, Hwa-eun, who had been in charge of the paperwork, ran over and told them the surprising fact.
“So, So-ryong. You told me to look it up in the Cheonha Dokmul Bi-rok, right? Here it is.”
The front part of the book that Hwa-eun ran to and opened.
In the first few pages, one of the ten poisonous insects, the silver silkworm.
The name of the poison caught my eye.
