“What the hell is this?” Ba Yunye immediately put it together and asked Kong Gan in alarm.

“Land leeches. They live in the grass, in the trees.” Kong Gan sighed and nodded. This was likely also the reason he had been reluctant to come here in the middle of the night. He had probably known all along that there were land leeches here, which was why he had deliberately chosen to stand on a rock free from tree cover overhead earlier. Compared to him, the others who had been walking around searching were the ones left to suffer this bloody misfortune.

Almost immediately after, nearly everyone discovered that their feet, legs, and backs had all been infiltrated by leeches. No one knew when or through what crevice they had quietly bored their way in — all the while injecting an anesthetic fluid and greedily sucking blood. By the time anyone noticed, the leeches had drunk their fill and were quietly dropping away, their bodies swollen to five or six times their original size. Because they also released an anticoagulant while feeding, the wounds bled without stopping.

Ba Yunye slapped hard at her wrist and a leech that had already gorged itself fell to the ground. Furious, she brought her foot down on it — but the soft layer of fallen leaves shielded the bloodsucker’s body, and in an instant it vanished without a trace. Before she could react, another coolness crept across the back of her neck. She had no idea how many leeches had dropped from the leaves onto her, and when she reached to pull them off, she couldn’t sweep them away at all.

Perhaps sensing the warmth of human bodies and the scent of blood, within the next few dozen seconds, hundreds upon hundreds of leeches came raining down from the trees all at once, surging frantically out from beneath the fallen leaves and undergrowth.

Unlike the water leeches found in paddy fields, the land leeches here were each a deep, inky black — no bigger than a mung bean, stretching into a thin little strand, looking like nothing so much as a tiny black matchstick. They squeezed into any gap they could find with ferocious determination. It didn’t matter if you were wearing socks or gloves — the moment they made contact with skin, they clamped on with their suckers, and in the next instant broke through the skin and began drinking blood. They could swell to the size of a thumb in no time at all, then graciously yield the spot to a newcomer to continue enjoying the bloody feast.

For a swarm of leeches, the thick scent of blood only attracted more of their kind and whipped them into a frenzied feeding frenzy. Faced with this unstoppable wave of bloodsuckers penetrating every gap and crevice, nearly everyone was too preoccupied with their own body to help anyone else. You might know you shouldn’t pick leeches off with your fingers, and you might know to use fire or salt — but that knowledge meant nothing when faced with hundreds of leeches raining down from the sky and rapidly attaching themselves to your body.

The group swung their torches, driving some away, but it was nowhere near enough to stop the onslaught.

“What the hell — are these poisonous?!” Ba Yunye saw that the torches weren’t blocking many of the leeches’ attacks, and she rummaged through her backpack while demanding an answer.

Kong Gan had seen this kind of situation many times before — there were some land leeches clinging to his own legs as well. Unhurried, he reached into the bamboo carrier on his chest and produced a salt block the size of a fist. “They’re not poisonous, but who knows how many there are… It’s dark and you can’t see where they are and where they aren’t. At least these only drink blood. If you run into the venomous kind, well…”

He had no prior acquaintance with Long Ge and felt no sense of patriotic duty either — he was purely being paid to lead the way and naturally preferred an easy job. His words carried a trace of reproach toward them for insisting on traveling at night.

Ba Yunye had no time to dwell on Kong Gan’s meaning. She looked up and saw several dark specks dropping toward her face. She swung her arm up to block them, and then — a “thwump” sounded above her head. Something opened up overhead, and looking up, she saw Diao Zhuo holding an umbrella handle, shielding her from above. His ear and one side of his neck were both beaded with blood.

She jumped up and wiped at his wounds with her hand, the smears of blood starkly vivid against her palm.

“Looking for something?” This slight injury didn’t seem to concern this tough man in the least.

“Looking for—” Ba Yunye hadn’t finished half a sentence when Diao Zhuo felt a sudden “thump” against the umbrella, as if it had been struck by a basketball. He looked up — and it was quite a sight. The oncoming wave of leeches had clumped themselves into a ball and were dropping from the tree, smashing onto the umbrella and exploding outward on impact, scattering across everyone around them once again.

“I told you not to walk at night!” Kong Gan grew anxious and kept grumbling, “During the day we never get this many!”

“Now is not the time for that — if you have any medicine, get it out now!” Ba Yunye gritted her teeth at him.

Kong Gan gripped a salt block the size of a tennis ball, shook his head, and bent down to focus on the leeches on his own legs, with no apparent intention of helping anyone else.

At that moment, Ba Yunye finally managed to dig out a small bottle of medicated oil from her bag. Without ceremony, she unscrewed the cap and swung the bottle in a wide arc. The green liquid scattered like raindrops over branches and the ground, and the sharp, distinctive scent instantly spread through the air.

The land leeches that had been latched onto skin were triggered by the medicated oil and the salt, and began dropping off one by one. The rest were temporarily repelled by the strong acrid smell of the oil, and everyone began to open their umbrellas one by one to ward off the leeches dropping from the leaves above — but this wasn’t a long-term solution. Kong Gan warned them that the leeches were even more numerous in the river below, and that if anyone carelessly swallowed river water, leeches might bore their way inside and attach to the throat and airways — though it was unclear whether he was exaggerating.

“With this many leeches in the area, how did Long Ge get through?” Da Qin caught his breath and wiped blood from his forehead.

It was then that Ba Yunye had a sudden flash of realization about the familiar scent she had noticed at the very beginning.

“Insect-repellent powder.” She said, delighted and relieved. “Long Ge usually carries several essentials when he goes out — this is one of them. He said it’s effective against most insects. The repellent is something he formulated himself through trial and error, and the inn also sells it. People planning to hike through Motuo or the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon all buy it. The leeches in the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon are no better than these — some of them aren’t bloodsuckers, but they’re venomous.”

Kong Gan picked several shriveled leeches off himself with his fingernail and asked gloomily: “So that means the person you’re looking for made it across the river safely…”

Ba Yunye didn’t bother responding to him. She dug out a palm-sized packet from the very bottom of her bag. “Let me give everyone some good news: I just so happen to have some with me. And now for some bad news: this packet has been sitting in my bag for two or three years. I can’t say for certain whether it’s expired, but then again, I’ve never had the chance to use it.”

Diao Zhuo also found a small bottle of anti-pervert spray in her backpack. He pulled it out. “You still need this?”

“To save lives.”

“To save your life?”

“To save perverts’ lives.” Ba Yunye snatched it back and shoved it into her bag. “If I dealt with them myself, they’d be finished. Getting sprayed with this at least leaves them alive.”

Everyone, ignoring their wounds, burst out laughing.

“Don’t laugh — I’m serious…” Ba Yunye said with dissatisfaction. “Once, late at night while driving, I ran into a group of thugs who had dragged a tree across the road to rob people. The ringleader, seeing I was a woman, was particularly shameless and immediately went to grab me. If River Horse hadn’t held me back, he would have been dead. Don’t believe me, ask Riv—”

She said it out of habit, then immediately spat twice. “Damn it, that bastard River Horse! Anyway… afterward I got the spray. We still have to run a business — let’s keep the body count down.”

Kong Gan, whether he took it in or not, was busy using the salt block to rub the leeches off everyone’s bodies. Ba Yunye scattered insect-repellent powder all around and had everyone apply the medicated oil to their necks, ankles, and wrists. For a time, the air around them was thick with the eye-stinging, acrid fumes.

“Hey, you lot — it’s the middle of the night, you can drop the hats and face masks. Who knows if any leeches have burrowed into your face coverings.” She pointed at Liu Ming and the others.

“Thank you, we’ll check…” Liu Ming said politely as ever, then turned away so the group of them could form a small circle and check each other.

“Like a bunch of shy little brides,” Ba Yunye said offhandedly. She accidentally brushed an insect-repellent powder against a wound on her wrist while scattering it, and a sharp sting shot through her. She bore the pain and called out a warning to those nearby: “Ow! Don’t let the powder get on any open wounds — it stings terribly!”

“I’ll take over.” Diao Zhuo took the packet from her and held it up to the light. “There’s probably some lime in the formula — be careful it doesn’t splash into your eyes either.”

Da Qin, seeing the leeches’ attack was temporarily under control, raised his flashlight and shone it around. Everyone’s heads, faces, and necks were covered in wounds still bleeding freely — they all looked soaked in blood, which was quite a sight. Though the salt had driven the leeches away, the wounds that came into contact with the salt were temporarily numbed by the anesthetic the leeches had released, but once that wore off it would be plenty bad, and there was also the risk of infection. He wiped his face again — it looked as though someone had smeared red paint across it. “We need to stop the bleeding first, then apply some medicine.”

Kong Gan waved a hand. “There’s no stopping it for at least a day and a half.”

“Lucky these are small leeches…” Xiang’an pressed down on several small puncture wounds on the back of his hand for a moment. “The only question is whether the cotton we brought will be enough.”

“I brought this.” Ba Yunye casually patted a brightly packaged bag inside her backpack. “It’ll keep you all going — not just a day or two, it can support you for seven to ten days, no problem.”

That line piqued everyone’s curiosity. Except for Liu Ming’s group, everyone crowded in for a look —

Sophia — Daily Sanitary Pads, Bare-Feel Series.

Everyone looked thoroughly mortified, and promptly turned their gazes elsewhere.

Seeing that Diao Zhuo was holding the umbrella and couldn’t easily tend to his own wounds, Ba Yunye offered helpfully: “Want me to help you…”

“No need, thank you.” Diao Zhuo said quickly, with the unmistakably guarded expression of a no-nonsense man confronted with feminine hygiene products — particularly when she looked like she was about to pull one out and press it to his face. Besides, this particular product wasn’t suited for stopping blood — in fact, it would have the opposite effect.

“Master Ba isn’t feeling well — she should have said something earlier and stayed behind,” Xiang’an said, sounding a little sympathetic.

She waved her hand airily. “I brought them to use as insoles.”

“What?” Everyone was stunned once again.

Ba Yunye momentarily forgot the leech crisis was still unresolved and launched into an enthusiastic pitch: “Trekking through mountains and rivers, your shoes are bound to get wet. With these, you can at least keep the soles of your feet dry. Otherwise, one trip into the mountains and you’ll come out with athlete’s foot for sure. Don’t underestimate the ability of these things to absorb moisture continuously while keeping the surface dry — none of you will ever have the chance to experience that for yourselves. Truly a travel essential!”

The men exchanged glances, each privately thinking: We’d rather not have that experience.

“Considering that every one of you wears at least a size forty shoe…” Ba Yunye reached into her backpack and rummaged around. “I also brought extra-long nighttime pads.”

The others offered half-hearted protests and turned away one by one.

Ba Yunye could only turn back to Diao Zhuo, brandishing a small white packet. “How about it… how about Squad Leader Diao take the lead?”

He wasn’t as averse as the others. Instead, he lowered his voice and said close to her ear: “I can make it so that you won’t need these for at least ten months.”

Ba Yunye covered her ears, apparently having just heard something more alarming than the green-fuzz corpse. No one knew what method Diao Zhuo had used to shut Ba Yunye up, but they all silently gave him a thumbs up.