Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

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Chapter 134: Fabre in the Four Heavenly Houses

When Hyang said she wanted to monopolize Dad, both Chao and Bin seemed momentarily shocked, like antennas twitching in surprise, but then they tried to brush it off as if it was no big deal.

Dad had casually mentioned that big things were beautiful, and he implied that Hyang couldn’t just ride him around.

Bin seemed to misunderstand that I thought all big things were beautiful, while Chao was just showing off her ability to fly.

It looked like they were running a happy thought circuit, not that they were wrong.

After all, it is true that bigger things tend to be better, and the ability to fly is undeniably good as well.

However, while teasing both of them by rubbing my cheek with the creature on my shoulder, Chao and Bin huffed indignantly, and the little rascal slipped right down into the gap of my clothing.

I thought our Hyang was just a little mischievous and drowsy, but there were levels to this rascality.

– Zzz…

– Zzz…

The second one fled during their scuffle, closing the door behind them.

“Come out! Come out, I say!”

Ignoring the calls from my sister and younger sister, the little rascal let out a satisfied winner’s cry from the comfort of my arms.

– Mmm…

It was natural for Chao and Bin to get angrier at that sound.

As a father, I couldn’t allow a monster battle in our house, so I calmed them down.

“I love all three of you equally. So, let’s not fight, okay? Anyone who fights… well, will O-gong think Dad hates her?”

So, I barely managed to soothe both of them, but that night, we all gradually felt why Hyang was so cocky.

No matter how much parents think they treat their children equally, there will inevitably be differences in how they unconsciously treat each one based on their unique nature.

Is there any finger that doesn’t hurt when bitten? Some fingers surely hurt more.

That’s what favoritism is.

Of course, I’m not saying I exhibit favoritism.

I will divide my love equally among the three of them.

But favoritism is something that can happen, even if neither the parents nor the children want it.

When I was young, my father would leave for work at dawn and always come home late in the evening.

Then, on the one day I could see him—his day off—he would strictly scold us, which felt a bit scary.

Since I rarely got to see him, it was hard to get close when all I saw was his strict side.

So, we couldn’t help but like our mother more, and the question of whose spot would be next to her in our cramped room became the biggest cause of our evening fights.

It was a competition to determine who would sit next to our mother since one side was for the father, who would arrive later.

After a few disputes, Solomon-like wisdom from our mother led to a rotation for who would get to sleep there, but I never expected such a competition would occur in my current life as well.

– Zzz…

– Zzz…

Chao and Bin’s growls of anger echoed.

In my space, it came down to who would sleep next to me.

Even if Hoa Eun was their mother, they had been with me since their birth, so they inherently favored me.

Normally, they would end up sleeping next to me unless there were special circumstances.

Because of this, the contest over who would get to sleep next to me arose, just like the battles between my past self and my younger sister.

“Hey, everyone, calm down!”

In the Central Plains, where we lived, foot cultures like the Western world had developed, so it was common to wear shoes even indoors.

Thus, unlike in the West, our culture involved sleeping on a wooden bed rather than laying blankets on the floor.

I was used to sleeping on a thin wooden platform from my time in Hainan Island, but here in the Tang Clan, the beds were quite luxurious.

How luxurious, you ask? The bed was surrounded by ornate wooden panels and draped with fine fabrics.

The only entrance was on one side, but the problem was that the bed was about six meters long.

With such a long bed, it became impossible for everyone to fit on it.

So the bigger ones had to position themselves at the entrance, just putting their heads in while resting their bodies against me.

Before Bin grew, Chao would crawl in through the entrance and sleep with her head on my body, but now that Bin had grown too, the entrance became a battleground for Chao and Bin’s competition.

“I’m going to sleep next to Dad!”

“You’ve been resting a lot when I wasn’t here!”

“I couldn’t sleep because I was too busy looking for you!”

Seeing the two of them push their heads towards the entrance, even though their rationality was still somewhat intact—they were cautious and didn’t want to break the bed.

Hyang peeked her head out of my embrace and made a comment towards her older sister and younger sister.

– Smirk!

It felt like she was mocking them.

Hyang could just curl up against me, after all.

Due to her larger body, an unintended favoritism was occurring.

As Hyang had said earlier, the winner of the daughterly affection contest was Hyang herself, fully excluded from the competition.

Whether walking or sleeping, she could stay so closely stuck to me that it was a one-woman show.

– Zzz…

– Zzz…

With that realization, Chao and Bin’s rationality crumbled.

‘Alright then, if I’m not going to win, I’ll sleep next to Dad!’

Something like that, I suppose?

As their rationality shattered, so did my bed.

With six- to seven-meter long creatures engaging in a physical brawl, my wooden bed couldn’t survive.

– Crash!

– Bang!

The bed collapsed and simultaneously wrecked my table and chairs as well.

You could say that everything in the room got smashed to bits.

“What’s going on!?”

“Long? What is happening here?”

“What on earth is this, So-ryong?”

I was stuck under the wreckage when Hoa Eun and Older Sister Seol rushed in, shocked by the noise from my room late at night.

With me pinned down, it was no wonder they were startled to see Chao and Bin tearing down the bed.

In the end, I had to ask the vigilant guards outside to help clear all the furniture away and fill one part of the room with dry hay.

This wasn’t going to be settled just by scolding; this would continue every night, so I decided to lay out some straw and sleep with all three of them.

I mean, I had plenty of experience sleeping on the floor in my previous life.

For the sake of peace, I had no choice.

The dry hay I prepared for my hamster was spread out comfortably on the ruined bed area, and with one blanket laid down, the two of them quickly found their spots on either side of me.

The calm returned.

Just as I closed my eyes to sleep and carefully asked them,

“Hey, can we maybe skip the arm pillow? I think my arms are going to cramp up by morning.”

– Zzz…

– Zzz…

It felt like they were saying to just put up with it for today.

*

After the commotion ended, the next morning, Shin Tu came looking for me.

“Ah, you’re awake? I was quite worried, thinking you were gravely injured.”

“Are you okay? Junior Hero?”

“I apologize for worrying the two of you.”

“But why does the room look like a barn? There are no chairs left.”

“Pl, please sit on the floor. It’s because of the kids…”

“You’re the son-in-law of the prestigious Four Heavenly Houses, yet you have nothing but straw on the floor of your room.”

Shin Tu was astonished by the state of my room.

I seated them on the floor and asked what happened after I collapsed.

I had heard a rough outline of the story from Hoa Eun and Older Sister Seol yesterday, but I wanted to know what had happened with the stonecutters Shin Tu was supposed to handle.

“By the way, how are the preparations for going to find the Heavenly Silkworm going?”

At my question, Shin Tu shook his head and replied.

“I asked my brother Geolhwang to look into stonecutters, but then it dawned on me that this might not be the best approach.”

“Eh? Why not?”

He had previously told me to just trust him, and now he was saying something completely different.

I wondered why he was addressing this issue differently, but Hoa Eun, who was beside me, nodded and answered.

“Oh, you’re worried about letting others know?”

“Exactly. After all, this is about how I plan to get my divine item; the fewer people who know, the better.”

“Ah…”

He had initially planned to consult stonecutters who could break down the tower, but he was expressing the need to limit the knowledge of the secret.

Shin Tu spoke in a hushed tone.

“Since you’ll be growing the Heavenly Silkworm anyway, I thought it might be better to seek help from the Tang Clan. I wonder if that old Poison Bug will lend us something.”

Surely, it made sense since we would take care of the rearing, so it was practical to use our side’s manpower.

It was a good thought, but there was a problem.

They had to go and mine with sharp tools, but due to issues with the Five Poisons Sect and Blood Cult, we couldn’t spare many warriors from the clan.

It was just then…

Attempting to answer that we couldn’t spare many people and that it might take time, I suddenly heard…

“Hey, you guys, put that down! Or else you’ll be in trouble!”

The startled shout from Older Sister Seol floated in from outside.

I quickly stood up and turned to Shin Tu.

“I’m sorry, but I probably need to step out for a moment. Excuse me, Shin Tu.”

For now, I had briefly left the children in Older Sister Seol’s care so that they wouldn’t fight until hierarchy was established.

It seemed something was happening outside.

I dashed out.

At first, I thought there had been a fight, but in the backyard, my daughters were adorably playing with a big game of marbles.

Like, the marbles were the size of their bodies.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

With my question startled Chao and Bin.

– Thud!

The landscaping stone that Chao had picked up fell to the ground.

– Crash!

The stone Bin was carrying shattered into a million pieces.

Seriously, Bin was a White Ant, known to break rocks just like they said.

“What’s this!?”

Shin Tu’s astonished voice reached my ears, and a thought of one of the Tang clan members who could help popped into my mind.

Someone who, unlike humans, would know nothing of this secret.

*

“Wait, this little rascal can break it?”

Three days later, back at the White Ant nest, which I had dubbed the Buddhist Stupa Termite’s home.

Shin Tu asked with a tense expression if Bin could truly break the tower.

“Didn’t you see, Elder? She can break even harder rocks!”

“That’s true, but…”

He seemed worried he might just be wasting his time.

But I had tested this several times while Shin Tu was away, so I wasn’t worried.

Bin had traded away the fangs from her Blue-Spotted Centipede days for sharper teeth and the ability to break the earth.

She probably remained in the Twenty-Four Poisons Branch for the same reason as the Flying Heavenly Snake, Yeon-du—she simply lacked powerful poison.

“Bin, over there! Make a big hole there!”

– Zzz!

When I asked Bin to make a large hole where the Queen Ant’s chamber might be located, she dashed over immediately.

As Bin sank her teeth into the side of the peak, the solid, concrete-like exterior of the White Ant’s nest crumbled like foam.

– Crash. Crash.

At that moment, when the outer shell of the White Ant nest started falling away to let light in, tremors suddenly echoed from somewhere.

– Rumble rumble rumble…

The inside of the White Ant nest began to shake wildly.

“What’s happening!?”

“What is this sound, So-ryong?”

White Ants communicate through vibrations, so if the entire house was shaking, it clearly meant they were summoning all Soldier Ants.

“It sounds like the Soldier Ants are gathering. Bin! Get the poison ready!”

– Zzz!

With that, I instructed Bin to prepare her toxin, and she inhaled deeply, inflating her little body.

She transformed from a flat centipede into a plump sausage.

Despite losing her poison fangs, Bin hadn’t completely lost her ability.

She could still emit toxins from the openings in her body just like Chao’s mist-poison.

While it wouldn’t cause actual poisoning, it would sting their eyes and make breathing difficult, with a density heavier than air, lying low.

– Fwoosh!

As thousands upon thousands of Soldier Ants peeked out from the cut-open section of the White Ant nest, black smoke spewed from Bin’s side.

The swarm of Soldier Ants scurried in panic, hiding in all directions.

When faced with a formidable enemy they believed they could not defeat, the White Ants would retreat and barricade their tunnels to wait it out.

And so, as the Soldier Ants turned tail and fled, I asked Bin to carefully find out where the Queen Ant’s chamber was located.

“Bin, if you find something sturdier while digging, let me know.”

– Zzz!

The Queen Ant’s chamber was oval and incredibly hard—if we found it and blocked the entrance, we could capture the Queen Ant along with her king and maid ants in one fell swoop.

– Crash.

As I asked Bin to dig deeper, she started burrowing into the nest.

After a short while of digging…

– Zzz! Zzz!

“Did you find something?”

When I followed her in response to Bin’s calling out that she had discovered something, I found the interior bright enough that I wouldn’t even need the glowstone Shin Tu had lent me.

Mushrooms glowing in luminescent colors were spread out everywhere.

‘Oh! So these guys raise fungi and live off of them instead of just gnawing trees?’

With the unexpected appearance of mushrooms, I realized that this confirmed the fact that the White Ants relied on these fungi as their food source.

Most people mistakenly believe that all White Ants consume wood, but in reality, not all of them do.

Some do indeed make raised beds out of wood to cultivate these mushrooms for food.

As I moved ahead, planning to collect these mushrooms along with the White Ants, I laid eyes on a pile of pure white cocoons ahead of me.

Not exactly many, but about thirty cocoons were huddled together in one corner of the White Ant’s mushroom-cultivating chamber.

“I found them!”

While my primary goal was to locate the Queen Ant’s chamber, I had also stumbled across a secondary objective—the cocoons.

Quickly approaching, I examined a cocoon the size of a peanut pumpkin.

– Thud.

Then, at that moment…

The pile of cocoons collapsed, and from the center, one shiny silver cocoon distinct from the white ones caught my eye.

“Huh!? W-What is this?”

I stumbled upon an unexpected treasure.