Encountering a Snake C2

Chapter 2: The Turn

After that last look at the world, Shen Qingxuan’s mind loosened. Darkness rushed in at once, as if a black cloth had been drawn over his eyes and not a sliver of light remained. At the same moment the heat he had been holding down in his chest burst free. His mouth filled with warmth. The stench of blood was sharp.

He knew it was his own blood, yet the smell struck him as foul. So this was how filthy his body had become. He did not see that what he had coughed up was not ordinary blood, but a mass of black shot through with red. The stench came from the bone-eating venom mixed with the heavy scent of blood, enough to make anyone gag.

The acrid smell filled the small side room. Even Shen-laoye, keeping watch at his side, felt his stomach turn.

The steward quickly opened the door and windows. He urged the servants to clean the room and wipe the Young Master down, then stepped outside and silently summoned an old villa servant to make the heavy arrangements for what came after.

Shen Qingxuan had fainted, though a faint breath still lingered. Anyone with a little experience understood: this threshold, their Young Master would not cross.

While a last breath remained and the body was still warm, they would bring clean clothes, dress him, tidy him, and send him on the road neat and clean.

After a day and a night of clamor, the mountain villa fell, in the misty hours before dawn, into another kind of quiet.

White banners, hemp cloth, paper money, the coffin. All the funeral things were carried in through the back gate in the gray first light, with careful, muted sounds.

Shen Qingxuan drifted between boundless dark and brief, sharp wakefulness.

He could not move, yet he heard the whispers and footsteps outside with perfect clarity.

He did not know what awaited him. In those short stretches of clarity he thought perhaps the legendary ox-headed and horse-faced messengers would come with the soul-leading rope and take him on the road. But the clarity never lasted. A few thoughts turned in his mind, and the dark took him again.

In that muddled way, he could not tell whether a long time passed or only an instant. Then he dimly sensed that the world beyond the bed curtains had gone suddenly still.

Like a pool of eternal night. Not a single human voice.

Even the wind had vanished.

Unease stirred in him, but he had no strength to open his eyes and look.

He lay there, straining with anxious effort to gather his mind and listen.

Still no sound. No breath.

Though he could not open his eyes, his mind was clear. His father would never leave him lying here alone. There would be servants in the room to watch him. Yet he heard nothing and felt not a trace of human presence.

It was as if the whole wide world had left only him, lying here, clinging to a last thread of life.

While he was still caught between doubt and alarm, another mouthful of blood spilled from the corner of his lips, slid along his cheek, and ran behind his ear. At first it was warm, thread after thin thread. Then, exposed to the cold air, it cooled, like a small snake winding up the side of his neck. No one wiped it away. No maid cried out. The whole world seemed to have lost its voice.

The feeling of having nowhere to rest made a person restless. Shen Qingxuan was no exception. He held even his faint breath and seemed, vaguely, to be waiting for something.

As if in a dream, he heard light footsteps. There and not there, half illusion, half real, so that he could not tell whether he was dreaming or awake. He even wondered whether the ox-headed and horse-faced ones he had waited for had finally appeared, ready to take out the soul-leading rope and lead him onto the Yellow Springs road.

He did not know that he had been able to drag this last breath so far only because the man in the corner had used a technique.

In that haze, Shen Qingxuan clearly felt something cool settle on his forehead. The thing was both soft and hard, broad, icy, covering the whole of his brow.

The shape felt extremely familiar, yet for a moment he could not recall what it was.

While he was wracking his mind, a voice reached his ear.

“The fate is extremely vigorous. Lifelong wealth and honor.”

In his confusion Shen Qingxuan thought idly that the man had a deep, fine voice. Then it struck him: the cool thing on his forehead was a palm.

How could a hand be that cold? He had nearly failed to recognize it. Before he could think the question through, another followed: whose fate was he talking about?

“Yours,” the voice answered at once, as if it had read the thought.

Shen Qingxuan’s mind stalled. Then he thought, scattered again, that the man was talking nonsense. If his fate were vigorous, how would he have come to this?

“The fate is too rich. It draws petty people, that is all.” The tone was light, almost careless.

The words touched something in him. He stopped arguing and fell quiet.

The man paused as well. His gaze passed over Shen Qingxuan’s face once more before he went on.

“Shen Qingxuan. Today I will leave you one life. Will that do?”

Though he hung by a thread, a clear place remained in Shen Qingxuan’s mind. He had already felt how strange this man’s appearance was, and it did not feel like a dream. He had guessed at a dozen possibilities, none of them this. He was startled again. Instinctively he thought: in his present state there was no turning back unless an immortal showed himself and saved him.

Could this man be an immortal?

The guess was not strange. It only felt faintly ridiculous.

“I am a yaoguai.” The man’s deep voice—the one Shen Qingxuan found pleasant—sounded again. This time Shen Qingxuan heard clearly that the man was not speaking beside his ear. The voice rang directly inside his mind.

A yaoguai? What kind?

Having already set life and death aside, Shen Qingxuan was startled, but not terrified. He asked by instinct.

“The snake that bit you today—that was me.” The man’s tone was utterly flat, as if the words were the most natural thing in the world. To be a snake, to cultivate into a demon, to bite a man—he admitted it without the least concern, cold and indifferent.

His frankness left Shen Qingxuan at a loss. He did not know how to answer. If he could have moved even a little, his brows would already have drawn tight.

A moment later he remembered the earlier words and understood: this snake truly could leave him a life.

Then he could not help thinking: so it was a snake demon. No wonder the hand was that cold.