Lightning split the sky and the rain poured.
I followed its aura in pursuit, tearing aside branches, splashing through mud, the torrential rain blinding me.
Ahead, the giant python howled and great trees toppled.
I dodged a banyan crashing toward me, wiped the rain from my eyes, and watched from afar the Nine-Headed Serpent thrashing and crying out in pain and sorrow amid the storm.
Nine feathered arrows were sunk in its body, blood pouring freely.
Who did this?
Was it Bai Yutang?
I ran to it and threw my arms around it.
Its giant tail caught my abdomen and slammed me hard against a tree.
“Don’t be afraid!!!”
“It’s me —”
Mad with something, it thrashed and howled, tearing through the forest.
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and chased relentlessly.
Just as I was about to catch it again, I gathered my qi and leaped onto one of its heads — I remembered: this one was the milky baby snake.
I held it tight, stroked its head, and said gently:
“Don’t be afraid. It’s me.”
“It’s me~~~”
“What others think doesn’t matter. I like you, at least.”
“I like you super, super, super much!”
The baby snake made an “mm” sound, the ferocity in its pupils freezing over and misting with water.
It blinked blankly, then burst into loud wails.
The other eight heads looked over. Seeing that it was me, the pain, grief, grievance, anger, and ferocity in their eyes… slowly dissolved into nothing.
Some shed tears; some fell silent.
“What happened?”
“Who hurt you?”
The baby snake pursed its mouth, a trace of tears in its voice:
“I didn’t see clearly. A white shadow flashed by.”
I stroked its head and soothed:
“Hold on. I’ll pull the arrows out for you.”
It carried me into a cave to shelter from the rain.
I summoned a fire lantern and lit the pitch-black, damp cavern.
In the firelight I tore a strip from my skirt hem and bandaged the wounds of the little green snake, shrunk back to palm-size.
Huangfu Xu’s words had put me in mind of something:
“The books say the Nine-Headed Serpent has nine heads but only one soul.”
“Why have you split into nine souls?”
“Who is your true self?”
The nine heads mumbled and said nothing.
The regal snake said:
“I don’t remember.”
The other seven heads looked at each other and all said, “We don’t remember.”
Only the withdrawn, cold boy snake was silent.
“What about you?” I asked the boy snake. “How much do you remember?”
A long silence.
The boy snake’s indifferent, cold voice sounded:
“I vaguely remember a little.”
“Forty years ago, I was asleep, but an extraordinarily wonderful fragrance woke me…”
“Half-dazed, I wandered through the dense forest and found the source of the smell.”
“— A white-clad young man roasting a wild rabbit. It smelled incredible!”
“Humans are so skilled at cooking. I’d been wanting to try it for ages.”
“Backlit, the man in white gently invited me to taste…”
“I couldn’t wait.”
“But who could have known —”
“He was an extraordinarily powerful sorcerer. He had laid a formation all around; the roast rabbit was not only bait, he had drugged the meat too.”
“Half-conscious, I saw him staring at me with fanatic eyes…”
The man in white activated the formation, and ten thousand arrows flew at once.
The Nine-Headed Serpent was pinned in the array, struck by several arrows, and had its inner core cut out.
A serpent demon that had lost its core should have died for certain.
But it was a powerful ninth-rank great demon… in its agony it split off eight souls and condensed eight new inner cores.
No wonder the Nine-Headed Serpent kept cursing “despicable humans”…
Despicable indeed!
The boy snake stared at the arrow in my hand, its vertical pupils glinting:
“…The arrows that struck me that day were exactly like this one.”
Who was the man in white?
Having taken the serpent demon’s core, he had probably grown even more powerful.
The fletching was finest crane feather.
The arrowhead was engraved with one character: BAI — white.
“Hey — would you like some roast rabbit?”
I stroked the boy snake’s head and said with a smile:
“My cooking is pretty good~”
The boy snake turned its head away uncomfortably and slowly squeezed out: “Mm.”
The other eight heads scrambled forward:
“Pet me, pet me!”
“You petted him, so you have to pet me too!”
The baby snake said milkily:
“Pet everyone, pet everyone!”
“One pat for them — I want two.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: …Spoiled things!