A fried insect shop provide a variety of insects, such as scorpion, pupa and grasshopper. Fried insect is one of the special street foods in Beijing and many people enjoy it, especially scorpion and pupa. Scorpion is very crunchy and tastes like dried fish. Photo: China.org.cn

A woman in East China opened a surprise gift from a friend to find a net bag of scorpions, one of which stung her.

"The pain went from my fingertip to my heart in a second and I immediately burst into tears," she said in a Knews video. 

The woman from Shandong Province went to hospital and received an ointment that she applied to her fingers. The pain did not subside until that evening, she said. 

Most healthy adults do not need medical treatment after being stung as the majority of scorpions are not a serious threat to humans. 

The victim asked and received 700 yuan ($100) compensation from the logistics company, Knews reported on Saturday. They did not fully name the woman.

Later the woman realized that the scorpions must have come from a certain friend who believed in the traditional Chinese healing powers of the sometimes-deadly arachnid, recognizable for its pair of grasping pincers and narrow, segmented tail often curved over the back, ending with a venomous stinger.  

In traditional Chinese medicinal treatments, the eight-legged predators are ground into drinks or fried as snacks. 

The top scorpion store on Taobao e-commerce platform had more than 700 transactions in 30 days. 

Some scorpion vendors conceal contents to delivery companies and the crunchy species will not set off liquid or explosives alarms. 

Global Times