When the autumn wind rose, the three snakes grew fat.
As a seasoned foodie, when Lin Xian had worked in Guangzhou in his previous life, he had long drooled over the legendary chrysanthemum three-snake soup—sweet, refreshing, rich without being greasy.
But he had lacked both the courage and the time, so it had become one of his greatest regrets.
Yet in this life, kind fate seemed to have heard his call. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw someone across from him stewing snake soup.
The firewood was burning fiercely, and the water in the pot had already come to a boil.
On the grass opposite him, a blond, red-eyed young man with a cold expression and features as perfect as a marble sculpture idly diced ingredients with a ruby-studded curved blade.
Within the hazy steam, chunks of onion, celery leaves, and finely diced mushrooms tossed and rolled in the pot, releasing an enticing aroma together with the various spices used for the base.
It smelled so tempting...
Hiss! No, it was downright cruel!
When a splash of boiling water scalded Lin Xian, he hurriedly swallowed his drool and drew in breath with a series of hisses, trying to ease the pain in his airway from the pepper.
He looked down at the scalding soup pot below, then at his own long, slender body hanging from the rack. His wandering thoughts were yanked back into cruel reality, and he roared furiously inside.
Hey, hey, hey! Wasn't there something seriously wrong here?!
I wanted to eat snake soup, not be hung up and stewed into snake soup!
That was right. The ingredients were already in the pot, and all they lacked was him, the main ingredient.
Lin Xian curled up the tip of his tail, which had been scalded by the boiling water. Looking at the mysterious black patterns covering his body, his layers of icy scales, and his snake head with its tongue flicking out, his face was filled with misery and resentment.
Sure enough, reality was even more fantastical.
In his previous life, he had been an ordinary, unremarkable person in Huaxia on Blue Star.
Faced with the tides of society, Lin Xian had honestly worked 996 hours in pursuit of blessings, laid flat and let himself be butchered. He had been a well-behaved leek through and through.
But adults always had all kinds of pressure that needed an outlet.
Lu Xun once said: If you don't erupt in silence, you become twisted in silence.
Lin Xian was half the latter. His favorite way to relieve stress was to write online in his spare time and earn some living expenses.
After thoroughly whetting his readers' appetites, this guy with a wicked sense of humor would often suddenly drop a story, vanishing without a trace amid a chorus of curses.
After changing pen names and leaving countless readers in the lurch, he had grown used to eating while reading the furious comments below his stories—things like people mailing him blades or stewing pigeon soup.
Mm, he had an excellent appetite and could eat an extra bowl every day.
Yet life was unpredictable. This pigeon who had committed so much evil was ultimately judged by the light of justice.
After reading seven or eight unfinished novels that were neither here nor there, an old reader finally snapped and cursed while yanking at his internet cable.
But with only the skills of a beginner keyboard warrior, he couldn't out-argue that dead pigeon who was full of dirty tricks.
In a fit of rage, this hotheaded man of action used hacking skills to locate him, traveled a thousand miles to his door, and hacked the pigeon to death with a kitchen knife.
Only when the kitchen knife pierced his chest did Lin Xian learn a profound lesson in blood.
Being a pigeon never ended well!
Perhaps it was karma. When Lin Xian opened his eyes, he had not become pigeon soup, but he had become snake soup about to go into the pot.
Still, he had already paid off the sins of his past life with one life.
So even though he had reincarnated as a snake, Lin Xian was not lacking in the will to survive.
The long, slender figure on the rack twisted restlessly. After several struggles, an entire row of scales was even ripped loose.
But in the end, Lin Xian sadly discovered a cruel reality.
He couldn't break free from this rope carved with strange cuneiform symbols.
Lin Xian's agile tongue shifted within his mouth. As it brushed against two hard, sharp objects, a trace of self-consoling hypnosis appeared in his pitch-black vertical pupils.
It's fine. I've got venom!
If I catch him off guard, can't I just leap up and pull off an aerial slide tackle?!
Yet when that grim shadow fell over Lin Xian's head, the snake who had rehearsed his counterattack countless times in his mind instantly became like a spicy strip spotted by an African honey badger.
The instinctive tremor in his heart and the uncontrollable shivering of his muscles turned his entire body limp as mud. He even forgot to react when boiling water scalded his tail.
Slide tackle my ass!
A slide tackle might work on a tiger, but the freak opposite him could keep tigers and lions as house cats!
My professional skills don't match the job!
A hot spring nearby, cuneiform writing from Mesopotamia, familiar physical features, at least ten pounds of extravagant gold ornaments on his body, and that proud, sinister sneer at the corner of his lips...
With all those signs, plus the fragmented memories belonging to this body's original owner, no matter how stupid Lin Xian was, he knew exactly how terrifying this man was!
That was right. The one who intended to stew him was the ruler of Uruk, the Heroic King of Ancient Babylonian mythology—Gilgamesh!
The earliest known heroic epic in the world was Gilgamesh, originating from the civilization of Mesopotamia.
It was an ode to the hero Gilgamesh, who ruled the city-state of Uruk in the Sumerian dynasty of ancient Mesopotamia.
The handsome, cold, blond young man before him was the living legend from that story.
According to the epic, the ancient gods combined a human royal bloodline with a goddess to create a "wedge" that would restrain humanity, fearing that mankind would grow too powerful through excessive reproduction.
As a demigod, he possessed the lofty divinity of being "two-thirds god and one-third human," as well as the perspectives of both gods and humans.
In his youth, Gilgamesh had been an ideal ruler, revered by all. He possessed kingly qualities superior to anyone on earth: tolerance, thoughtfulness, fairness, and virtue.
All travelers on the road praised him and were captivated by him.
Time passed, and years later, Gilgamesh grew from a boy into a young man.
At that time, Gilgamesh decided to create a raging storm to admonish humanity, rather than merely be a king who governed humans.
To establish a standard by which to judge humanity, he seized and accumulated wealth as he pleased.
But worried that Gilgamesh had failed to carry out his duty of suppressing mankind, the gods had created Enkidu during Gilgamesh's childhood—the warrior known as the Chains of Heaven, meant to oppose Gilgamesh.
After reaching adulthood, the two met and fought in order to display the gods' wrath and bring Gilgamesh back to the gods' side. The battle ended without a victor.
After the battle, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, each having met an equal for the first time, became friends.
To protect Uruk and spare its people from hunger, the two joined forces to defeat Humbaba, the divine beast of the Fir Forest. They set Uruk upon the right path and granted it prosperity.
With Enkidu's aid, Gilgamesh created a flourishing civilization and thus became an excellent Tyrant.
Later, because the two had angered the gods, Sky God Anu sent the strongest divine beast, the Bull of Heaven, down into the human world.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu worked together to repel the Bull of Heaven, sparing the earth from the devastation of floods.
However, the combined rebellion of the Chains of Heaven and the Wedge of Heaven enraged the gods.
For certain reasons, they could not punish Gilgamesh, so they cursed Enkidu, who could not defy the gods, to weaken and die as a warning.
Having lost his dearest friend, Gilgamesh fell into immense grief and an inescapable shadow.
After witnessing Enkidu's death with his own eyes, Gilgamesh realized that he too would one day die like that. In the end, he set out for the underworld in search of immortality.
He crossed countless mountains and rivers, endured every kind of hardship, and finally encountered an old man named Nabistin in the underworld, where he obtained an immortal herb.
As a human son of flesh and blood, he decided to bring the power of eternal youth and immortality back to the city-state.
On his journey back to Uruk, Gilgamesh bathed his body in a clear spring, freeing both his mind and flesh from all restraints.
Yet during his rest, a snake secretly devoured the Immortal Herb and gained the ability to shed its skin and be reborn.
So, yes.
Lin Xian had also become one of the protagonists of the Epic of Gilgamesh...
Except he was the snake that had stolen and eaten the Immortal Herb.
"You have some nerve, daring to swallow something that belongs to me, mongrel!"
Heroic King Gilgamesh folded his arms over his chest and looked down coldly from above. In his blood-red gemstone eyes flickered a grim, teasing light.
"Tch. If I stew you now, the effect should still be there."
An uncontrollable shudder ran through Lin Xian's body. Looking at the boiling water in the pot, he felt his scalp go numb.
It seemed that very soon, he would turn from a snake into snake soup.
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