Pebbles and Writing
This was a world devoid of all life.
At first glance, Zhang Heng thought he had returned to the moon, because there was nothing here but a pockmarked surface. The island was permeated with an air of deathly silence and desolation.
Both the soil and the rocks were dark red, as if someone had mischievously painted them with fuel. When Zhang Heng tried cutting off a piece of rock with Hidden Sheath, he discovered that red, viscous liquid actually flowed from beneath the cut, like blood running through veins.
There were especially many such red rocks across the island, in all sorts of shapes and sizes, scattered everywhere. Around them lay red pebbles, although these pebbles were generally larger and plumper than ordinary ones. In fact, they looked more like... eggs.
Zhang Heng picked one up and knocked it against a red rock. The rock lost a corner, but the egg-shaped pebble remained completely unharmed.
So Zhang Heng used Hidden Sheath again. This time, he had to exert some effort before he managed to pry open the red pebble and reveal what was inside.
It was a newly formed snake embryo, and it was actually alive. At least, when Zhang Heng first cut open the pebble, it had indeed still been alive, wriggling its body a few times. But it clearly had not developed enough to hatch. Released prematurely, it could no longer absorb nutrients from the egg fluid. It struggled across the ground, seemingly trying to crawl back into the severed red pebble, but Zhang Heng stepped on its tail the next moment.
Zhang Heng wanted to see what the little snake inside the red pebble could do, but its struggles gradually slowed. In less than a minute, it lay motionless on the ground.
Afterward, Zhang