Willow Bug (Cultivation Record Of The Undead King)

Willow Bug (Liu Chun, Venom Lady) was member of a tomb raider team intent on assassinating the protagonists to take possession of a powerful cultivation artifact. Appeared in Chinese manhua Cultivation Record Of The Undead King (不死神王修仙录) issues 43-45 & 49-52.

Series Background[]

A young man named Chen Xuan is bonded with a divine scale (meteor shard), granting him ‘undead’ cultivation powers. He can release corpse qi gas, which has unpredictable effects on those that inhale it. He leads a team of cultivators, Black Spot (spiritually linked cat), Xia Yiyi (love interest), Su Honger (sword & venom master), and Xiaoman (young apprentice) to track down powerful scales to grow his power and prevent those with evil intent from acquiring them.

Story[]

Xuan’s cultivation team is traveling to the Tombs in Zhongshan Mountain to track down the fabled Taiyi Core divine scale. A group of evil tomb raiders stalk them, intending to steal the Taiyi Core. The bug-based Blood Shadow cultivation team consists of leader Cui Rengui (gu worm / mind control), Aba (bug strength), and Willow Bug (venomous gas/wasp control and spells).

The Blood Shadow team secretly take Xuan’s young apprentice Xiaoman hostage to use as leverage later. Cui Rengui then sends Willow Bug to spy on Xuan to gather intel. Willow Bug believes her spells can easily protect from this ‘inexperienced’ cultivator. She sneaks onto Xuan’s cottage roof to find Xuan is meditating to increase his corpse qi control with Black Spot present. The corpse qi seeps through the roof and overtakes Willow Bug, substantially blocking her cultivation access.

Willow Bug stumbles and falls through the roof. Xuan momentarily grabs her, but then lets her smash into the floor. Willow bug tries to play it off like she was repairing the roof, but they know her game and screw with her. Xuan secretly paralyzed Willow Bug when grabbing her, and now she can’t move. She threatens she is part of the deadly Blood Shadow team. They merely laugh, saying she’ll make a great hostage and she’s an idiot for revealing her team. Xuan is about to use his corpse qi to permanently remove her cultivation. Desperate, she commands her venomous wasp to bite her to overcome the paralysis/cultivation block, then releases lethal poisonous gas as she escapes.

Later, Xuan and his team are in the Tombs in Zhonghan Mountain, having discovered the location of Taiyi Core. The Blood Shadow team arrive in the tomb to kill them and take it for their own. Willow Bug pits her bug venom against Su Honger’s flower venom. Willow Bug surrounds herself in a cloud of venomous gas and releases her wasps bite Su Honger. Willow Bug gloats “You’ll be dead soon”, adding her teammate Aba will make sure Xia Yiyi joins her in death. Su Honger treats Xia Yiyi like a daughter, so strikes back with several attacks, ending by engulfing Willow Bug in flames to burn out the poison inside her body.

Willow Bug lay defeated on the ground. Her battle weakened and diminished teammate Aba approaches her and says that to survive he needs her power. He proceeds to absorb Willow Bug into himself, forming a deadlier bug creature to continue the fight against Xuan’s team. After Willow Bug’s demise, it’s revealed she was a merciless assassin captured by Cui Rengui and implanted with a gu worm (brain worm) to control her to do only his bidding.