Volume 7 Chapter 31, The Second Rain (Part 2)

Below the canyon, countless streams formed by the rushing rainwater began to converge. Soon, they would merge into a river and rush towards the swamp downstream.

Seeing this scene, I suddenly realized the reason why this oasis was formed: this is the lowest point in the Qaidam Basin, where all the groundwater and rainwater converge. It can be said that this is the center of the entire Qaidam groundwater system. The dry riverbeds of Qaidam may not really be dry, but have turned underground and flowed here. So no matter how the climate has changed over the past few thousand years, and how the surrounding area of the basin has changed from forest to desert, it has remained as lush as it was five thousand years ago.

“The Tibetan wind gathers water without moving,” isn’t a place with such a good feng shui supposed to remain unchanged for thousands of years? This is where the Queen Mother of the West Palace is located, and it should be the treasure eye of the Kunlun Mountain range, the ancestral dragon vein. Such a wonderful sight can only appear in such a place.

While I was feeling moved, the fat guy was restless and his big butt was squirming around. The space in this tree is not big, and everyone is uncomfortable when he moves. Pan Zi scolded, “What are you doing, kid? Are you itchy or what?”

The fat guy frowned and said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but my butt suddenly itches like hell.” He then moved his butt again and rubbed it on the tree.

I thought to myself that he had the most problems, and I just wanted to say something to him, but suddenly my butt and back itched too. It was unbearably itchy, as if something was crawling. I quickly bent my legs and tried to scratch it with my hand. But when I did, I felt something wrong. I jumped up and said, “A bug!”

Everyone stood up. I looked up at the tree trunk we were leaning against and saw bugs all over it. They were all about the size of a half-thumbnail nail, and it looked like they had crawled out of the gaps in the tree trunk. They were all over our legs and butt, and we couldn’t get rid of them.

“Shit!” The fat guy shouted, and everyone stomped their feet. But stomping didn’t help. The bugs didn’t seem to be afraid of us at all, and they climbed onto us without hesitation, as if we were trees. Fortunately, our pants were tight, so they couldn’t get in. But my butt and the fat guy’s butt were already suffering. We had to run into the rain and let the rain wash our butts. The cold rain seeped into my pants, and I felt the itch subside a little. But after the itch was gone, the original itchy part of my butt hurt again. I cursed in my heart, thinking that it couldn’t be poisonous. At this time, the others also escaped, and the rain suddenly rushed at us, and we couldn’t speak.

We climbed up another branch and headed for the top of the tree, where there was a small, sheltered area with fewer branches, but it wasn’t big enough for all five of us. In the end, Ning and I were pushed in, and the others covered their heads with tarps to keep the rain off.

Pan Zi said, “Damn, what the hell was that bug?”

Aning shook off the water from her hair and patted the dimly lit miner’s lamp, finally lighting it up. Then she looked at her trouser legs and used the nail of her little finger to pick the dead bug stuck on her leg to the front of the miner’s lamp.

It was a small bug that looked like a spider and a little like a scorpion without a tail. Aning’s hand was shaking, so I couldn’t see it clearly. My butt hurt again, so I asked again: What is it? Is it poisonous? But I saw that Aning’s brows were furrowed. I was shocked, and before I could say anything, Aning took out the knife in the waist of the pants and said to me, “Turn around and take off your pants quickly!”