Swallowing Clouds and Exhaling Mist

At first, White Snake thought the matter of saving the man was over, but a few days later, she saw that herb-gathering man again.

She raised her head high, fixing her cold snake eyes on the babbling herb gatherer opposite her. He first took out several boiled eggs and set them on the ground, then pressed his palms together and bowed three times.

He said a great deal—thanking her for saving his life and saying that if anything happened to him, his wife and children at home would not survive. White Snake really wanted to say that if he died, another man would raise his wife and beat his children, but she could not speak. Finally, he said that since he gathered herbs in these mountains, he hoped she would bless him.

White Snake was speechless. She herself moved through the mountains with the utmost caution, never knowing who might bless her. Where would she find the time to bless him?

Without eating the eggs, she turned and left.

She was a snake, and he was human. Whether there was gratitude between them or not, she could not casually trust humans. What if he had poisoned the eggs? In human eyes, snakes were food. Snake Gallbladder could be used as medicine, snake meat could be made into snake soup, and snake skin could be made into ornaments. A body five meters long was enough to draw human covetousness. She absolutely could not place herself in danger for the sake of cheap trust.

Seeing that White Snake had not touched the eggs and had turned to leave, the herb gatherer assumed snakes did not eat cooked food. He could only pick up the eggs, shoulder his herb basket, and head farther into the mountains to gather herbs.

He was still quite clever. Knowing White Snake would not bite him, he gathered herbs nearby. This whole area was White Snake's hunting ground, and no other venomous snakes appeared here.

After all the calculations were done, the herb gatherer had indeed received her blessing—only in a different way.

From then on, the herb-gathering man became a frequent visitor to this stretch of mountains...

White Snake coiled around an ancient tree on the cliff, curiously watching this bold human collect herbs. He even deliberately scattered herb seeds to cultivate seedlings. Whenever they happened to meet, he would sit down as though they were old friends and chatter endlessly, saying he had gathered many herbs lately and could feed his whole family, that he definitely had to thank her, and so on.

His chatter truly annoyed the snake. Who the hell cared about such things? In an era with no entertainment, gossip was just the same handful of matters repeated over and over.

This man had forgotten whose territory this was, White Snake thought.

Half a year slipped by in a blur.

The fruits that had once been green on the trees were now fully ripe. The Hundred Thousand Mountains did not see snow. Though the vegetation remained green in winter, the temperature still dropped. As the weather cooled, snakes became sluggish and hunted less. During this period, White Snake had already stored up a great deal of fat in preparation for sleeping lazily.

There was something as important as eating: cultivation.

Recently, White Snake had developed a new habit. Whenever dawn was barely breaking and clouds and mist filled the valley, she would climb to the top of the cliff and practice Breath Control before the sea of clouds.

At dawn, purple qi rose from the east, and the spiritual energy between heaven and earth was abundant—the best time for refining qi. Legend said that animals could cultivate by absorbing spiritual energy and the essence of the sun and moon. White Snake knew none of the details. She merely relied on instinct, coiling atop a huge boulder, raising her head high, and opening her mouth to breathe in and out at the mist. This was an ability she had gained after eating spiritual herbs and growing longer. Swallowing clouds was too far beyond her, but breathing in and out the mist in the valley was easy enough.

As the rising sun first emerged, the mountain mist carried the purest spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Once snakes understood cultivation, the first thing they likely learned was Swallowing Clouds and Exhaling Mist. It was said that snakes carried Dragon Bloodline within them, though it was exceedingly thin. People often saw giant snakes coiled atop huge boulders and cliffs on a Mountain Peak, breathing in and out at the morning mist. Legends claimed that when snakes became spirits, they could summon heavy rain, but that was actually a misunderstanding caused by seeing snakes absorb mist. Commanding wind and rain was an ability only flood dragons possessed. Snakes, at most, could only swallow mist.

There were many claims about snakes being able to draw objects toward them from afar. Legend said snakes could suck frogs into automatically jumping into their mouths. Whether that was true required further analysis.

There had once been a real incident.

In a remote mountain village, a villager saw a young man from the same village floating up and down more than three meters above a low cliff, as though he were playing on a trampoline. The young man found it great fun and even called for the villager to come try it. The villager was terrified, because atop that low cliff was a giant snake with its mouth open, inhaling toward the young man. Yet it lacked the strength; every time it sucked him halfway up with all its might, its strength ran out, and the young man fell back down again, over and over...

White Snake raised her head, inhaling and exhaling. Mist within half a meter would be drawn into her belly, after which she expelled turbid air. Bit by bit, through diligence and steady effort, she strengthened the spiritual energy within her body.

Azure mountains and a sea of clouds concealed immortal mysteries; White Snake raised her head and swallowed spiritual energy.

At the cliff top, a giant white snake held her body high, facing the rising white mist as she breathed it in and absorbed it.

A long while passed.

When the mist dispersed and the sun was about to emerge, she stopped absorbing it, twisted her body, and descended the mountain.

Once the sun came out, prolonged direct exposure would raise her body temperature. The greatest trouble was that being exposed on the mountaintop could easily draw the attention of those hawks and falcons. There was no helping it—her white body was simply too conspicuous. She was actually less safe than those gaudily patterned snakes.

At the foot of the mountain, she saw the herb gatherer who had just entered the mountains, his whole body soaked with dew.

This man's daily babbling could annoy a snake to death. Through the herb gatherer's nonsense, White Snake had learned that this place was the Hundred Thousand Mountains. Once he grew familiar with her, he not only spoke of his own household but did not spare the affairs of all four neighboring households either. White Snake had begun considering whether she should poison him to keep her ears in peace.

Sure enough, the moment they met, she heard him chattering again. She could only leave without even looking back.

Over the past half year, White Snake had never eaten any food from the herb gatherer.

As always, the chatterbox bowed toward White Snake's retreating back, then carried his herb hoe to tend his own herb garden. After half a year, the herbs in the garden were flourishing. The seedlings he had collected back then had all grown, and two of them were worth ten taels of silver each.

"When the weather turns cooler, I can dig them up and sell them for money. I can buy cloth to make new clothes for the children, and buy a sheep for milk, and then..."

The herb gatherer, his mind full of ways to improve his family's living conditions, squatted in the herb garden and muttered to himself. His stubbled face was filled with a happy smile.

With a safe place to gather herbs and a private little herb garden deep in the mountains, he could never have imagined that his actions had already drawn someone's attention...

There were other mountain folk who made their living gathering herbs. When everyone was struggling, their hearts remained balanced. But when someone suddenly gathered a great deal of herbs and earned more silver, it easily made others jealous. Especially when he had ventured deep into the dangerous Hundred Thousand Mountains for half a year straight and still come away with gains, the jealous people suspected he had found a treasure spot in the mountains with endless herbs to gather. At last, someone could not resist the temptation and called on relatives and friends to begin plotting.

In the Ancient Era, killing for wealth was nothing rare.

One day.

The herb gatherer bid farewell to his wife and children, carried his herb basket into the mountains, and failed to notice the three furtive figures following behind him...

That morning, White Snake practiced breathing in and out the mist as usual, then skillfully descended the mountain after sunrise.

When she was still three hundred meters from the herb garden, her heat-sensing organs suddenly detected three additional human-shaped sources of heat within it. The image formed by infrared vision could not lie. White Snake was furious. She had kindly allowed him to gather herbs in her territory, yet he had brought so many people in. Did he really think the Hundred Thousand Mountains were the hill behind his village?!

The viciousness belonging to a snake flared up. She sped down the mountain, intending to drive those humans away. If necessary, she could let them taste her venomous fangs. Hopefully, they had brought antidotal herbs.

The enraged White Snake charged down the mountain with murderous force!