PD -Chapter 100 Another Death

“Ah!!”

The scream was so piercing that it nearly made the plate in my hands slip and fall. I immediately turned around and saw a beautiful woman in a dress clutching her chest, pointing in terror at the chair she had just been sitting on.

“There… there’s a spider! A huge spider!” Her face was pale as paper, her words stuttering. She was clearly terrified.

I placed the plate on a nearby table and walked over to take a closer look. Sure enough, on the back of the chair was a spider about the size of a child’s palm.

Its body was covered in dense black hair, and on its eight legs were orange-red bristle-like spikes. Its massive front segment looked almost imposing. No wonder it had scared the woman so badly.

I picked up a napkin from the side, about to catch the spider and help her out, when a middle-aged man quickly rushed over.

He first comforted the woman, then frowned and called over a boy around fifteen or sixteen years old.

“If you don’t take care of your damn bugs properly, I swear I’ll burn them all!” the man shouted at the boy.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

The boy lowered his head, apologizing to both the woman and his father. Then he took out a transparent box, placed the large spider inside, and quietly slipped away from the crowd, hiding behind a grapevine trellis not far away.

From a distance, I could see the boy still looked unconvinced, muttering under his breath, clearly very angry about being scolded in front of others for the sake of the woman.

I became interested in him and slowly walked behind the grapevine trellis. He was playing with the large spider in its box.

“Mexican red-knee tarantula. Beautiful markings, and quite docile. A good beginner pet spider,” I said.

The boy looked up at me, a hint of surprise in his eyes. “You like insects too?”

I froze for a moment, then smiled. “I used to keep one, so I know a little about pet spiders.”

“Your container is very well sealed. It didn’t just crawl out on its own, did it?” I said. I had already seen through it—the boy had clearly placed it behind the chair on purpose, intending to scare the woman.

My words hit the mark. The boy lowered his head and said nothing.

“My name is Qiu Han. What’s yours?” I changed the topic with a smile.

“Fan Bin.” His voice was soft, and he didn’t seem hostile toward me, just somewhat shy.

“Do you really like insects that much?” I asked again.

Fan Bin hesitated. His eyes dimmed slightly as he looked down at the spider in the box, as if he was about to say something—but the middle-aged man from earlier suddenly strode over.

“Fan Bin! I shouldn’t have brought you here today!” he roared.

Then he turned to me, his tone softening slightly. “Sorry about that. My son just likes raising these strange things. I hope he didn’t scare you.”

I smiled and shook my head. “It’s fine. I understand pet spiders are harmless.”

“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Fan Zhengyang,” the man said, handing me a business card. “I’m in real estate marketing planning and post-sales management.”

I politely accepted the card and nodded. “I’m a friend of Li Zi. He… asked me to come take a look at some issues at the construction site.”

I wasn’t sure what Li Zi’s exact relationship with this man was, so I didn’t go into detail. We exchanged a few polite words, and then he called his son away. It looked like another scolding was inevitable.

I returned to the table and saw Liu Xiaopeng chatting with some people, seemingly trying to gather information.

Soon, Liu Xiaopeng came back with a glass of red wine.

“Li Zi was right. This county really has a lot of insects—and they’re unusually aggressive,” he said, lowering his voice.

“It’s not just what we’ve seen. There was also the case Li Zi mentioned where someone died from a bee sting… It’s said that this construction site Li Zi’s uncle took over was originally abandoned because, during construction, there was a snake infestation. Workers believed they had dug into a snake nest, and the whole county was in chaos for a while. Many people bitten by venomous snakes died back then.”

“Why didn’t Li Zi tell us about this?” I frowned.

“Probably because he didn’t know either,” Liu Xiaopeng said after taking a sip of wine. “Only locals might know, and even they probably wouldn’t talk about it.”

I thought about it. That did seem plausible. The site had been abandoned for years, involving many interests…

Especially local stakeholders. Now that someone had taken over the project, no one would want to bring up those unlucky events again. If the investor got scared off, everyone would lose out.

“I finally managed to get this from the hotel security,” Liu Xiaopeng said quietly.

“Snake bites, bee-sting deaths—those are understandable, even if rare. But beetles eating human brains clean? That’s the first time I’ve heard of something like that. Don’t you think this county is strange? Why are snakes, insects, rats, and all kinds of pests so rampant here? It’s not the Amazon rainforest.”

“The gathering of insects is related to geography and even feng shui,” I said after thinking for a moment. “In certain areas, due to special geological conditions, there’s heavy yin energy… so insects and wild animals are influenced by it and become more aggressive than usual.”

“You’re saying these incidents might be caused by someone or something supernatural?” Liu Xiaopeng asked.

Before I could answer, he suddenly frowned again, as if remembering something.

“Wait… that real estate manager’s son—he keeps spiders. Could it be him?”

I shook my head. “He’s just a child. The spider was just a prank. To influence an entire ecosystem and control insects to harm people—that level of power would require something far beyond a kid’s capability.”

“Then… could it be a rival of Li Zi’s uncle?” he continued speculating.

The banquet ended soon after, and we returned to the hotel. Neither of us went straight to sleep—we continued searching online for local information.

Just as we were getting drowsy, a scream suddenly broke the silence outside in the hallway.

I jolted awake, sighing inwardly.

Another insect-related incident?

I got up and opened the door. The corridor outside was already in chaos, with people shouting:

“Someone’s dead! Someone’s dead!”