Chapter Ninety-Three: The Battle Between Man and Serpent (3)

Updated: 2013-07-14

Although Qiao Zhi and several of his personal guards had been watching his every move, none of them could spare attention at such a moment; still, each kept a tacit eye on him.

Snakes, if one could call them easy to deal with, needed only a strike at the vital spot beneath the neck to be killed. But when they came in swarms, with several lunging at once, they were anything but easy to handle—especially on a rainy, moonless night like this one. Fortunately, in preparation for a possible attack by wild beasts, they had lit quite a number of bonfires.

Before them lay heaps of dead snakes, yet the living continued to surge forward without end. A chill settled into every heart. From the time they had begun slaughtering the wild beasts until now, a full hour had passed. Such relentless killing, without the slightest pause, was wearing even on Meng Chuchen and Yue Lingjun.

“Dan Feng, get back! Be careful!”

Qiao Zhi’s sudden warning made everyone steal a glance toward Dan Feng, who had drifted away from the group.

The sight made all of them suck in a breath. In the woods behind Dan Feng, two great lanterns had appeared—but at a time like this, no one would mistake them for real lanterns.

As those twin lights moved, rustling arose from the forest. Then, accompanied by a wave of foul stench, a giant snake as thick as a water bucket emerged before Dan Feng. Fortunately, though Dan Feng had been killing with bloodshot eyes, some reason remained in him. At Qiao Zhi’s warning, he had already begun, however unwillingly, to edge back toward the others.

The giant serpent locked eyes with the group for several breaths, then came gliding swiftly toward them. The first to bear the brunt were Qiao Zhi and the personal guards he had brought.

The moment Qiu Yifei saw that giant snake, half his heart turned cold. Terror hollowed him out until he could scarcely feel his own limbs. This snake… this snake… it was this very one… Was it not the same serpent that had nearly swallowed him years ago? It still recognized him! It had come to settle the score!

Everyone was long accustomed to his cowardice and weakness, and few paid him much heed. Only Yu Dian did. When he saw the serpent appear, a flicker of delight even crossed his eyes. Yet it vanished in an instant, replaced at once by alarm.

By then, Dan Feng and Dan Liang had already engaged the giant snake. Though enormous in size, its body was astonishingly nimble, and the two suffered greatly under its assault.

Seizing an opening, Qiao Zhi flicked his wrist, and the jade fan in his hand flew toward the serpent’s vital spot. But the creature was extraordinarily keen. The moment it heard the whistle of the fan cutting through the air, it shifted its head and avoided the fatal point. The jade fan still struck its body with a metallic clang. Yet despite the force of Qiao Zhi’s blow, it had not harmed so much as a scale.

Qiao Zhi stared in disbelief and looked again and again, only to find that where the fan had hit, it had left behind nothing more than a faint white mark. He could not help inwardly marveling at how tough the creature’s hide was.

Though the strike had failed, it thoroughly enraged the great serpent.

“Hiss—”

Its eyes burned red; its long crimson tongue flickered with terrifying menace. It lashed its body from side to side, flinging the obstructing Dan Feng and Dan Liang away, only for other snakes to surge in around them.

“My lord, be careful!”

The two men looked on in anguish as Qiao Zhi faced the giant serpent head-on, but they were tangled up by a cluster of pythons and could not break free.

“Qingfeng, Qingqiu, go help the prince!”

“Yingxuan, stay. Yingwei, come with me to deal with the giant snake!”

Yue Lingjun and Meng Chuchen gave their orders at the same moment, without the slightest hesitation. In a flash, several of them swept to Qiao Zhi’s side. By now Qiao Zhi was already hard-pressed; the weapon in his hand had been changed to a flexible sword. Seeing them arrive, he nodded in gratitude.

With their support, the pressure on Qiao Zhi eased considerably. But the giant serpent only grew more frenzied, swinging its bucket-thick body ceaselessly as it fought the group.

At Meng Chuchen’s signal, Yingwen stood below and attacked the serpent without pause using hidden weapons. The skill and precision with which he used them were astonishing. Each time he sent out two at once—one aimed at the serpent’s vital spot, the other at the pale mark Qiao Zhi’s jade fan had left. In avoiding the deadly strike, the serpent could no longer attend to the other.

A muffled sound rang out.

At last, one hidden weapon pierced the serpent’s flesh. In pain, its body shot upward. Meng Chuchen, Qiao Zhi, and the others seized the chance and, without hesitation, hurled their long swords at its vital point. The serpent whipped its head and twisted its body, avoiding several of the blades, but two still struck brutally home.

“Hiss—”

In agony, the great snake let out a miserable cry. Almost at once, dense masses of snakes poured forth from behind it. Seeing their goal achieved, Meng Chuchen exchanged a glance with Qiao Zhi and swiftly retreated several paces.

Qingfeng, Yingwen, and the others did not delay either. Together with Dan Feng, Dan Liang, and the rest, who had finally shaken off the swarm, they drew in and guarded them from behind.

Strangely, the serpents all stopped beside the giant snake and did not attack. They merely confronted the group in silence. The wounded serpent raised its head high and opened its great jaws. At once Qiao Zhi and the others felt a powerful suction pulling at them, and they hurried to brace their stances.

Qiu Yifei, his face ghastly pale, stared into the serpent’s eyes. For some reason, he knew with absolute certainty that it had come for him. His limbs gave way, and with the force of the serpent’s pull he flew toward its gaping mouth.

In panic, he reached out to grab Yu Dian’s robe. But Yu Dian simply slashed away that piece of cloth with the sword in his hand. Qiu Yifei stared in disbelief at the torn scrap he held, then, as he was dragged backward through the air, looked toward Yu Dian. Through the blur he seemed to glimpse a face full of gloating satisfaction, as if saying he deserved his fate. Then darkness swallowed everything.

The giant serpent snapped its jaws shut. It gave them no time at all to react before turning its head and gliding back toward the woods. On its body was a clearly visible bulge. Once the giant snake disappeared, the dense swarms of serpents gradually withdrew as well.

Only when not a single living snake remained nearby did the others finally dare breathe again. A few, utterly spent, ignored the carcasses of beasts and snakes beneath them and collapsed where they were.

“Brother Qiu…”

“Second Brother…”

Two cries of grief and anguish rang out at the same time.

In the pounding rain, Dan Feng dug a corpse from among a heap of dead snakes. The body was blackish purple all over. It was none other than Dan Yu, Qiao Zhi’s personal guard who had earlier died from a venomous snakebite.

Qiao Zhi, his guards, and the others all gathered around. This was the first death among them since descending the cliff, and none felt easy in their hearts.

Qiao Zhi stepped forward and patted the inconsolable Dan Feng on the back. “Let go. The corpse is poisoned. Restrain your grief.”

At that moment Dan Feng looked like a lonely, helpless child. Raising tear-blurred eyes to Qiao Zhi, he said in pain, “My lord, I cannot bear to leave my elder brother buried here. Please grant me a little time to cremate him, so I may carry his ashes home.”

Qiao Zhi nodded. The other guards, with quiet understanding, began searching for dry branches. Qingfeng, Qingluan, and the others, moved in sympathy, reddened around the eyes as well. If one of their own brothers had died, they knew they would be no better off than Dan Feng and the rest.

Even Qingfeng’s long-held hostility toward Dan Feng faded away with the wind. Bending down, he patted Dan Feng on the shoulder. “Let’s move your brother beneath the tree first.”

Dan Feng nodded gratefully. With the help of Qingfeng, Qingluan, and the others, he carried Dan Yu’s body to the bonfire under the tree. Qingluan drew several antidote pills from his robe and had them swallow them.

During all this, not one person went to comfort Yu Dian as he howled to himself. No one there was blind. Even if they had not all seen him slice away the robe with his own hand, they had certainly seen the torn corner of cloth in Qiu Yifei’s hand and the disbelief in his eyes as the giant serpent swallowed him.

Everyone despised such a man, though what Yu Dian had done had also been to save his own life.

After wailing for a while, Yu Dian knew perfectly well that he had become an object of contempt. But the purpose for which he had come had already been fulfilled, so he did not much care what the others thought. After making a token show of mourning, he too moved beneath the tree and sat alone beside a fire, drying his clothes.

Many hands made the fire blaze high. Amid the glow of the flames and Dan Feng’s bitter weeping, Dan Yu’s body was reduced to a heap of ash. Dan Feng carefully gathered the ashes into a brocade pouch and tucked it close to his chest with the utmost reverence.

Looking at his grieving subordinate, Qiao Zhi said, “Dan Feng, go back first. Take Dan Yu’s ashes home.”

“My lord’s kindness will remain forever in my heart, but forgive me—I cannot obey. If I were to return now, my second brother would never rest in peace.”

Qiao Zhi saw the unshakable resolve in Dan Feng’s eyes and said no more.

The rest watched in silence, drying their soaked clothes by the fire.

Meanwhile, within the belly of the serpent, Qiu Yifei cast aside the scrap of cloth clenched in his hand. Gone was his usual timid weakness. Calmly, he began to think of how to save himself. Suddenly he felt the world spin. When the dizziness passed, he discovered that the giant serpent had stopped moving.