Encountering a Snake C1

Chapter 1: The Attack

It happened far too suddenly.

With a *crack*, the small porcelain bowl painted with blue flowers struck the ground, rolled twice, and shattered into pieces. At the same instant, the brass bell, polished bright by time, fell from above. It gave two startled, clanging notes and came to rest askew among the fragments.

“Young Master… Young Master! Someone come quickly! The Young Master has been bitten by a snake!”

The shrill cry tore through the rare, sunlit afternoon of early spring. Then hurried footsteps filled the once-quiet mountain courtyard—clattering, stumbling, the sound of things knocked over in panic.

Shen Qingxuan stared ahead, straining to see the creature that had bitten him. His vision was already a blur, as if a thin white veil had been drawn over his eyes. No matter how he tried, he could not see clearly. The virulence of the venom shocked him. Yet another thought rose quietly: man proposes, Heaven disposes. He had imagined countless ways he might die. He had never imagined it would end with a snake’s fangs.

The thought brought a strange calm. He closed his eyes. Dimly he knew the servants had lifted him from the chair, calling frantically for a physician and for antidote pills.

After that, he knew nothing.

Young Master Shen of the Shen household had been bitten by a snake at the mountain villa.

The news seemed to ride out on the wings of the mountain birds. In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the peaceful mountain path filled with the thunder of hooves.

Carriages and silk-curtained sedan chairs arrived in haste and halted at the villa gate. Riders and noble passengers spilled out without waiting to be announced and burst into Shen Qingxuan’s room.

Behind the green gauze curtains lay a man with tightly closed eyes. An ominous black-purple stain marked his brow and was spreading across his entire face. Against that darkened complexion his pale lips looked unnaturally vivid. The refined beauty of his features had vanished. At a glance he looked three parts human and seven parts ghost.

“Xiao Xuan!” The elder whose temples were already touched with frost cried out, his voice thick with grief. “My son—” He had more to say, but only a choked sob came.

“Master.” The steward standing to one side with his hands in his sleeves quickly interrupted the master’s sorrow. “This is no time for grief. Saving the Young Master’s life comes first.”

“Yes, yes.” Parental love had overwhelmed him. Only the reminder brought him back. Shen-laoye rose, one hand covering his eyes, still choking as he asked the servants, “Have you given him the antidote?”

“Snakes and insects are common in these mountains, so we keep medicine on hand. The snake-specific pills were administered at once, but… the effect is not obvious.”

“What kind of snake was it? Did anyone see it clearly?” the steward demanded.

“It was too chaotic. This humble one only glimpsed it. It was coiled on the vine trellis in the courtyard, half-hidden by branches. I only caught a flash—thick as a bowl…” The man gestured as he spoke. The moment he finished, the steward’s palm struck his forehead.

“You glib little wretch! Talking nonsense!” He ignored the man’s protests and turned to explain to the master. “Master, this Lu lived in the mountains as a boy. I have never heard of a snake that thick. Unless it was a python—and pythons, though thick, do not bite people lightly, nor is their venom so fierce. This servant is exaggerating so he will be punished less.”

Shen-laoye was too agitated to care. He barked at the servant to get out.

“Where was he bitten?” the steward asked the maid trembling at the threshold—Shen Qingxuan’s personal attendant.

“On the wrist.” Her face was deathly white. “The sun was good today. The Young Master wanted to sit in the courtyard. I wheeled him out as usual. At that hour he always drinks a pot of flower tea. I had just finished brewing it and turned to fetch some snacks. I had only taken a few steps when I heard the bowl fall. When I looked back, he had already been bitten…” Her eyes brimmed; she was close to tears.

“Did you see the snake?”

“I did. That man did not lie. It truly was as thick as a bowl, coiled on the railing. When I saw it, it was drawing back. It was black—pitch black—except for some gold on its belly. I have served the Young Master in these mountains for years and seen dead snakes, but never one so large…”

“Truly that large?” the steward still half-doubted.

The girl’s knees gave way. She knelt and swore through tears, “A matter this grave—how would this slave dare lie? If there is a single false word, may I die a wretched death!”

While the steward weighed the testimony, Shen-laoye, forcing down his pain, drew out his son’s wrist. The fang marks had already been cut in a cross. He felt a flicker of relief—some quick-witted servant had slashed the wound and sucked out poisoned blood. But the venom had struck with terrifying speed. In so short a time it had robbed a grown man of his senses. The poison had likely already reached the organs. It would be hard to clear.

He gripped that thin, pale wrist, his heart desolate. They said the eldest son was the pillar of the house. He himself had been thirty before a son was born, only for Shen Qingxuan to fall into an ice cave at eight. After the rescue came a high fever; he lost his voice and his lower limbs were ruined by the cold. From then on he could only lie on a couch. Shen-laoye had thought that if they simply nursed him well, asking neither fame nor fortune, the family’s vast wealth would be enough to keep the eldest son in peace for a lifetime. He had not expected that at twenty-seven a snake would bite him.

“Accursed beast!” he muttered, wishing he could seize the snake and eat its flesh raw.

“Do not be hasty, Master.” The old steward who had served the Shen family all his life soothed him again. “The Young Master has always been frail and has lived long at the mountain villa, so we keep many rare medicines. There may still be a way.”

“What way?”

“Does Master remember two years ago at Mid-Autumn, when traders from the southern barbarian lands who deal with the Shen family presented two pills they claimed could neutralize any strange poison under heaven?”

“I remember. I accepted them. …Will they truly work?”

“This old servant cannot say. Only that the southern wetlands teem with venomous creatures. Perhaps the pills really have some miraculous effect.”

“Then why have they not been brought?” Shen-laoye rose at once.

“Yes.”

The medicine was fetched quickly, dissolved in warm water, and poured down. Shen Qingxuan’s jaws were locked, his cheek muscles rigid. He looked as if his breath were already a thread.

The whole room was heavy with dread. The air itself felt thick.

Night fell. Servants lit the oil lamps. Shadows swayed.

The door of Shen Qingxuan’s room opened and closed; people came and went.

Yet not one of them noticed the figure standing quietly in the swaying lamplight’s shadow.

Black hair hung loose to the waist. The man himself wore a black robe, hands clasped behind his back. Ancient patterns were embroidered in gold thread at the lapels. His expression was cold and severe. He stood with lips pressed together; no one could say how long he had been there.

No one noticed him. People brushed past without a glance. Had anyone looked, they would never have ignored a man who looked like a living god of death.

Yet truly, no one knew he was there.

Night deepened. Shen-laoye was exhausted in body and spirit. He wished to stay at his son’s side, but age cruelly constrained a father’s love. It was late February; though spring had begun, the nights were still cold. He coughed softly and felt a faint ache in his head. At the steward’s urging, reluctant though he was, he went to the side room where charcoal burned warm and lay down on the soft couch.

Only the steward and three servants remained to keep watch in Shen Qingxuan’s room.

Two more hours passed. The breath that had been so faint grew even and strong. The man who had stood motionless in the shadows lifted his eyes slightly. Surprise flickered there. He did not believe any earthly medicine could neutralize *his* venom.

He looked more closely at the thin, frail man on the bed and understood. This was only the last flare before the light went out.

Those antidotes could at most buy a few extra moments. Neutralizing the poison? Pure delusion.

Shen Qingxuan tried to move his eyelids. They felt as if they weighed a thousand catties; he could not open them.

The maid at his side noticed. She cried out in startled joy, “Young Master! Young Master!”

The reckless delight in her voice woke the sleeping courtyard and the mountain beyond.

Shen-laoye, cloak thrown over his shoulders, shoes not even properly on, stumbled toward the room, calling all the way, “Xuan-er, Xuan-er… Xuan-er, are you awake? Father has been nearly out of his mind…”

Perhaps a parent’s voice lent him strength. The trembling lids struggled and, at last, opened. His gaze was unfocused; only after a long moment did it gather. A little light returned to his eyes.

Shen Qingxuan parted his lips but could make no sound.

Everyone knew what he said: Father.

“Ai, Father is here…” Tears streamed down the old man’s face. He forgot every scrap of elder dignity, seized his son’s hand with trembling fingers, and murmured, “Qingxuan, are you better? If you are better, Father can rest easy…”

With the last of his strength Shen Qingxuan pulled his stiff face into a smile. In his heart he already knew he would not escape this time. His whole body was sinking into numbness. He could not move. A sweet, metallic taste filled his mouth and nose with every breath. Darkness and brief intervals of clarity alternated before his eyes.

This, then, was what it felt like to die.

It was not so frightening. For a cripple like him, death was less terrible than living.

He only could not bear to leave his parents and his young brother.

Family had been the one pillar that had kept him searching for whatever small joys life still held. The thought of his parents’ grief after he was gone tore at him.

He had imagined his own death not out of despair. Years of life in a wheelchair, unable to care for himself, had become habit. Burying the childhood dream of riding with a whip in hand had not been so hard.

It was that his body grew worse year by year.

Once he could still sit in the sun and be wheeled among the mountain paths.

These last two years even that had become impossible. A little wind and he would fall ill, each time more severely than the last, until he could not leave the bed for a month or two at a stretch.

This winter he had not gone outdoors at all; even the windows were rarely opened.

At last he recovered enough to sit in the sun—and startled a snake that had just ended its hibernation and come out to warm itself as well.

The thought almost made him smile. This sunbathing, it seemed, had been comfortable for neither of them.

He knew clearly: the snake had been coiled on the railing, basking. He sat in his chair. Man and snake need not have troubled each other.

They could have finished their sun and gone their separate ways.

But a fragment of leaf, still carrying a bit of earth, had somehow fallen into the clear tea. He was fastidious by nature. Without thinking he flung the hot tea out.

He had not seen the snake. By the time he realized something was wrong, the steaming water had already poured over those glossy black scales.

The hand he could not pull back in time was bitten when the startled snake whipped around.

The greater fault was still his own. Water that hot would make even a rabbit strike back, let alone a snake.

It had been a magnificent snake. He had only a single glance before the pain tore his gaze away. He remembered it gleaming black all over; when it reared, the gold of its throat and belly shone dazzling in the afternoon light. He had wanted to look more closely, but already he could not see. He wondered whether the tea had scalded it.

Creatures without feet were said to be covered in tiny scales. A cup of hot tea should not have hurt it much.

Another wave of blackness crashed over him. Even his father’s voice receded. He still wanted to hear what his father was saying, but only a roaring filled his ears. Broken, disordered sentences reached him through the roar and never arrived at his mind. He knew his father was speaking. No matter how he spent his last strength, he could not make out the words.

He knew the end had come. He could not tell whether sorrow or relief was greater. He had always known he was a dying man. Even so, the scene arrived without warning.

The attachments of the heart made him want one last look at the world that had accompanied him for more than twenty years. Though he had no strength even to breathe, he forced his eyes wide, gathered the scattering light in them by sheer stubbornness, and looked at his family. He gazed for a long time.

His father, well cared for yet now showing every year of his age; the old steward who had spent his life running the Shen household; the maid already collapsed in tears; and all the familiar faces who had tended him so faithfully these years… His gaze moved slowly, stiffly, across each face. Then he lifted the corners of his mouth in a faint smile. A farewell.

The smile was extremely slight. On a face that was already three parts human and seven parts ghost it looked almost grotesque.

Yet it carried a deep, desperate clinging to life—and at the same time an acceptance of death.

Perhaps the smile was too piercing. The cold man who had watched the entire scene from the shadows lifted his eyelids. In eyes as black and still as abyss water, a ripple suddenly broke.