Chapter 0002: Relentless Pursuit
I listened to the clattering sounds upstairs, went up the stairs a little nervously, and knocked on the door.
The person who opened the door was the tenant's son, named Chen Quan. As soon as I opened the door, I could smell the strong smell of medicinal liquor on him.
I felt bad instantly. Chen Quan looked at me with drunken eyes: "It's Long Ling, is there something wrong?"
His eyes looked strange, so I tried to look inside: "Are you drinking snake wine?"
"Would you like to come in and have a couple of drinks? Your dad is selling things cheaply today, so come and have a drink with me." Chen Quan chuckled and looked down along my neck.
I had just taken a shower, and I felt , so I quickly wrapped myself in a bath towel and said, "My dad just told me that the snake used to soak the wine is dead, and asked me to buy it back, please, double the price."
I don’t know if it was an illusion, but as I stood at his door, the sound of the snake’s tail hitting the glass became louder.
"The snake is not dead, it's still alive." Chen Quan laughed, opened the door, and reached out to pull me: "Come and have a drink."
As soon as the door opened, I saw a large glass bottle on the coffee table in the living room. It was the same kind my dad used to make snake wine. Inside was a large snake as thick as the rim of a white wine glass, with its eyes open, swimming gently in the wine.
Chen Quan's father, Chen Shun, seemed very happy. He kept poking the glass with chopsticks, knocking the snake to make it swim non-stop.
But no matter how it swam, the snake's head was facing me, and the light from the living room was reflected on the glass. The snake's eyes seemed to flash a dark green and resentful light, and it stared at me.
I took a step back in fear and swallowed hard: "I'll pay four times the price, buy it back."
"No sale. Look, they're still alive, they're still alive." As Chen Quan spoke, his tongue seemed to grow bigger and kept sticking out. It seemed as if there was a crack in the front of his wide tongue.
He stuck out his tongue and slowly moved his head forward. His shoulders did not move, but his neck was moving forward horizontally. The pupils in his drunken eyes seemed to be shrinking constantly.
The smile on his face became more and more weird, as if he had bad intentions.
I turned my head to take a look at the snake soaked in the wine. It seemed to be annoyed by Chen Shun poking it through the glass. It swam in the wine, swinging its tail and even baring its teeth and spitting out its tongue.
We were so far away and there was glass between us that there shouldn't have been any sound, but I heard a hissing voice calling out, "Long Ling, Long Ling."
I was so scared that I took two steps back, and without caring about the bottle of snake wine, I hurried downstairs.
"They are all alive, they are all alive, Long Ling, hehe..." Chen Quan was laughing weirdly at me behind me.
After I went downstairs, I didn't dare to stay at home, so I quickly packed my clothes for tomorrow, took my schoolbag, and called my dad to tell him that I didn't know how to solve a few questions and I wanted to stay at Zhang Hanzhu's house for one night.
"Go ahead, go ahead. Dad will pick you up tomorrow morning and take you and Hanzhu to school together." My dad was drinking and bragging with his friends over there.
He also said loudly: "Listen! My daughter is sensible. I never have to worry about her studies. Although I only have one daughter, she is much more considerate than your son."
After hanging up the phone, I went downstairs directly and took a motorcycle to Zhang Hanzhu's house.
While waiting for the bus, I vaguely felt that someone was watching me from upstairs. When I turned around, I saw Chen Quan standing on the third-floor balcony with his bare chest.
He was leaning on the balcony railing, with his upper body tilted down, as if he was about to fall down.
The motorcycle taxi driver followed my gaze and immediately shouted upwards, "Hey, bro, don't fall off."
Chen Quan immediately shrank back, his reaction was very quick.
After the motorcycle driver sent me away, Chen Quan was still standing on the balcony looking at me. The dim street light reflected on his eyes, which seemed to flash a faint green light.
On the motorcycle, I called Zhang Hanzhu, who had a good relationship with me and was waiting for me at her doorstep.
Zhang Hanzhu's father is a Taoist priest at home. He built a small Taoist temple in the town. He usually makes money by performing Taoist ceremonies for others and taking part in rituals on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month. People in the town call him Taoist Zhang.
Her home was upstairs in the Taoist temple. Just as I was about to enter the temple, there seemed to be some rustling sound in the green belt next to it, and the ornamental plants fell to the sides.
"It's a wild cat." Zhang Hanzhu took a look and pulled me in.
As soon as I stepped into the Taoist temple, Taoist Zhang was doing evening prayers or something. When he saw me, he immediately shouted in a deep voice: "Long Ling!"
I was frightened by him, but he simply picked up a liter of rice on the incense table and poured it at me.
The cold rice beads splashed directly on my face. It was so cold and painful that I felt like I was shivering.
"Dad!" Zhang Hanzhu shouted.
But after a start, I felt a lot more relaxed. It seemed like I was wearing several heavy clothes all the way here, but now I took them off as I went up and down.
"Long Ling." Taoist Zhang came over holding a brazier and looked behind me. "Did something happen to your family? Why are there so many snakes following you?"
I looked back in the direction of his eyes, and saw rice scattered all over the ground, but in the middle of the rice, there were several winding thin lines moving from my heels to the outside, as if something on my body was swimming back quickly along the rice.
"Your family..." Taoist Zhang seemed to shake his head and burned paper in the brazier: "You cross the brazier first."
When I stepped over the brazier, the burning paper in the brazier rolled up suddenly, and something seemed to hiss on my body.
Some papers were on fire and rolled towards me, burning something and making a hissing sound.
After I stepped over it, the paper slowly turned into ashes.
Taoist Zhang narrowed his eyes and looked at me: "Okay, it's okay, you can sleep with Hanzhu tonight."
"Thank you, Taoist Zhang." I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that everything was fine.
Zhang Hanzhu also noticed something and said to Taoist Zhang, "Dad, is Long Ling okay?"
"I won't sleep tonight. I'll be downstairs. You guys can go upstairs and sleep. We have classes tomorrow. Let's see after tonight." Taoist Zhang frowned deeply and looked at me, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
I didn't dare to think too much at this moment, and went upstairs with Zhang Hanzhu. Her house was filled with either peach wood swords or some items to ward off evil spirits, which made me feel a lot more at ease.
Zhang Hanzhu is the only one who knows about the black snake in my dream, and that’s because her father is a Taoist priest, so she believes it.
I told her what happened last night, and she comforted me: "The black snake is still protecting you. Your father sold all the snake wine, but that one bottle is at home and soaked in wine. And my father is here, so what are you afraid of?"
After finishing our homework with Hanzhu, we squeezed into her bed and slept.
After lying in bed for a while, Hanzhu fell into a deep sleep.
But my mind was full of strange things, as if the snake soaked in wine was baring its fangs and was about to pounce on me.
I finally made it to the early morning and fell into a drowsy sleep. The black snake immediately crawled over to me.
This time it transformed directly into a human form, and looked at me weakly: "Long Ling, he is very angry now. You must return to your home as soon as possible, find the black snake jade pendant, and then dig out the snake coffin where your ancestors kept snakes, find the snake's corpse, and expose it to the sun for seven days."
The black snake seemed to have been looking at something, and said to me: "He is chasing us."
Then it turned into a black snake, and quickly coiled around me, protecting me in its body: "Go to sleep first, I'm here for you. You must go back and find the black snake jade pendant tomorrow!"
I don’t know if it was because I had watched it growing up or if I just couldn’t bear it anymore, but I actually fell into a deep sleep.
But in the dream, there seemed to be a low roaring sound in my ears, and it seemed to be mixed with some strange hissing cry.
I was woken up by the alarm clock early in the morning. Zhang Hanzhu was about to help me find toiletries when Taoist Zhang knocked on the door: "Long Ling."
Just one night later, Taoist Zhang seemed to be completely exhausted. He held a peach wood sword in his hand, propped up the door and looked at me: "I can't control this snake. Go back and ask your father if you have offended a powerful snake. I tried my best last night. You must find a way to get rid of the snake as soon as possible."
After Taoist Zhang finished speaking, he fell to the ground.
Zhang Hanzhu supported him and discovered that he had many snake bites on his body and there were marks on his hands from being tightly wrapped with something.
"Go to the hospital quickly." Without thinking too much, I quickly called the emergency number.
Zhang Hanzhu and Zhang Daoist Zhang went downstairs and saw many dead snakes lying in disorder outside the Taoist temple.
Zhang Hanzhu looked at me with gloomy eyes and said to me, "Long Ling, my father has really tried his best in this matter. You should go back and think of a solution ."
It was still early, so the ambulance arrived quickly and the medical staff were shocked to see the dead snakes all over the ground.
Hanzhu and I sent Taoist Zhang to the ambulance and were about to call my father.
He called me, his voice was very deep: "Long Ling, Dad can't send you off. Something strange happened at home. Chen Quan's wife upstairs died suddenly. You and Hanzhu should go to school and stay at her house for a few days."
