Chapter 70 King of Snakes

It was a “pheasant neck”.⁽¹⁾

Why was such a snake here?!

I took a closer look—that flaming red cockscomb, snake body, and frightening upright stance… sure enough, it was a “pheasant neck”. I wasn’t mistaken.

I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. This kind of snake was very rare. In my hometown, it was called “Red Thunder King” (this is a rough transcription of the name). When I was a child, I saw one once in the mountains. According to the old folks, this snake was the king of snakes, and all snakes were afraid of it. It moved so fast across the ground that it almost seemed like it was flying, and it was so poisonous that even plants and weeds would part as it slithered past.⁽²⁾ Moreover, this kind of snake couldn’t be killed—if it was, then others of its kind would come after you in revenge.

Later, I read a notebook from the Qing Dynasty that said this kind of snake was a small dragon that lived in the mountains and rivers along dragon veins. It also said that this kind of snake was a snake spirit that claimed dragon veins for itself. In some places, there were legends about lightning killing monsters. According to them, whenever lightning struck a mountain, it was actually hitting these snakes. But this kind of snake had almost died out in recent years, so I was surprised to find one here.

Fatty and the others, having never seen this kind of snake before, all looked at it in amazement. Poker-Face was the only one whose expression changed like mine. But the fiery red color of the snake’s body and its fierce stance clearly indicated that it was highly dangerous, so no one dared make any rash moves.

We had just escaped from the python’s mouth only to encounter a viper. Feeling annoyed, I reminded myself that I really needed to be more careful in this place and watch where I was going.

There was still a chance of survival in a head-to-head fight with a python whatever the outcome, but in a fight with a viper, it was either a total victory or a total loss. No one was willing to take such a risk, and “pheasant necks” generally avoided people, so the fact that it was making such a threatening pose now meant that it was warning us. This crevice was probably its nest.

We absolutely couldn’t stay here any longer, so I motioned for the others not to make any threatening moves and to retreat slowly. A Ning pulled out a cold firework and handed it to me so that I could use it as a weapon if needed.

I put it in front of me so that I wouldn’t have to use my bare hands to protect myself if the “pheasant neck” suddenly launched an attack. Fortunately, everything went smoothly as we carefully withdrew from the crevice one by one. When it was my turn, I breathed a sigh of relief but turned to take one last look at the crevice—it was too dark to see the snake now. Thank God nothing happened, I thought to myself.

After we made it back to the water at the front of the crevice, Fatty used the miner’s lamp to see what the situation was on the other side of the waterfall. After sweeping it around a few times, he said, “The big snake is gone. It’s safe…”

We all breathed a sigh of relief and then went to check on Pan Zi, who was being held up by Fatty. He waved us off weakly and said that he was fine; he had only suffered some internal injuries from the fall, but wouldn’t die yet. We looked at each other and chuckled bitterly. Everyone’s clothes were torn and covered in mud, and A Ning’s chest was almost exposed. She pulled the tattered pieces together to cover it up as if nothing had happened, but it wasn’t like we had the energy to try and sneak a peek anyways.

Taking stock of our equipment, we found that we only had two bags left, Poker-Face’s ancient black-gold sword was lost, and Fatty had my knife—his had disappeared during all the chaos. Poker-Face and Pan Zi’s shoulders were covered in dense bloody holes from the pythons’ fangs, especially Poker-Face, who had probably exacerbated the wounds when he struggled to break free from the snake’s grip.

I never thought a python could put us in such a state.

I looked up at the sky and saw that the rain had finally stopped and the sky was beginning to lighten. The trees on the edge of the canyon were sparse, so I could see the approaching dawn. The waterfall was on one side and the forest on the other, and birds were chirping all around. It would have a been a beautiful scene to enjoy if not for the fierce battle just now.

Everyone looked at the scenery quietly for a while before Fatty broke the silence, “What do we do now?”

A Ning walked to the edge of the waterfall, caught some of the cascading water in her hands, and washed her face before saying, “Once it’s lighter out, let’s go back, pick up our equipment, and then find a place to rest. It’s too dangerous here. We need to leave this place quickly.”

“Shit, that’s easy for you to say,” Fatty grumbled. “We were running so frantically just now that we didn’t pay attention to where we were going. There’s no way of knowing where that tree is. How are we supposed to find it?”

“Then we’ll just have to look for it. If we don’t go back now, it’ll be even more impossible to find it when we really need our equipment.” A Ning wearily ran her hands over her face, rolled up her sleeves, and stuck her head into the waterfall. After washing hastily, she then shook her short hair out and motioned for us to set off. Now that the mud and sand were gone, her pretty features could be seen once more.

I sighed at the thought of going back to that place, but I knew that she was right—it had to be done now. With no time to catch our breath, it felt like we’d never get a chance to rest.

We picked up our bags, but A Ning was still a woman and liked to be clean—after waiting for us to move further away, she pulled her shirt open and washed her chest. At that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something red flicker in the cascading waterfall. At the same time, we vaguely heard that clucking sound from before.

I suddenly had a bad feeling and said to A Ning, “Be careful and stay away from the waterfall!”

“What’s wrong?” A Ning turned and looked me, a faint smile appearing on her face for some reason. It was so different from her usual smiles that I couldn’t help but stare in awe.

But at that moment, a fiery red snake suddenly emerged from the waterfall, coiled around A Ning’s neck, raised its head high, and let out a series of piercing, high-pitched clucking sounds. Seeing this, my first thought was, She’s done for! I dropped what I was holding and immediately rushed over, but I only managed to make it one step before the snake struck. A Ning tried to block it with her hands but the snake was too fast—it sank its fangs into her neck in one swift move. A Ning screamed, pulled the snake off, and threw it aside before clutching her neck and falling into the water.

When we ran over, the snake didn’t escape but instead leaped out of the water and flew towards us like an arrow. Fatty shouted and tried to cut it with his knife but ended up missing. Seeing the snake moving to attack again, Poker-Face came in from the side and caught its head with his hand. The snake immediately started coiling around his arm, trying to pull its head free, but Poker-Face grabbed its neck with his other hand and gave it a hard twist. There was a sharp crack as the snake’s head twisted 360 degrees, and then Poker-Face threw its body into the water. The snake writhed a few times before it finally stopped moving and slowly floated to the surface.

We quickly ran over to check on A Ning, but when I went to pick her up, I saw that her face had already gone rigid. Her throat was moving like she wanted to speak, and there were tears in her eyes, as if she couldn’t believe this was how it ended. My scalp suddenly felt numb and my whole body started to tremble as I took in the scene—I didn’t know what to do. Then, in just a few seconds, her eyes seemed to glaze over, her whole body went limp, and her head sagged to the side.

<Chapter 69><Table of Contents><Chapter 71>

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TN Notes:

(1) Although “pheasant neck” is a common folk name for tiger snakes in China, what Wu Xie is referring to here is a fictional snake.

(2) Just FYI, NPSS uses poisonous and venomous interchangeably throughout the book so I’m assuming these snakes are both (which is possible in real life). They could also just be venomous and he wasn’t paying attention to the difference. Anyways, snakes can be poisonous due to their diet. Examples include some garter snakes that retain toxins in their livers from ingesting rough-skinned newts and tiger keelbacks that can become poisonous if they eat toxic toads.

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Oof, it still hits just as hard. RIP A Ning 😭 You know, when I first started the series, I went in knowing she died but I thought it was later. When I got to this part, I was like “Wait, that’s it?! She dies now?! What the heck?!”