Ye Qin crawled cautiously out of the cave entrance. The temperature outside was higher, and a wave of heat rolled toward him.
He had grown accustomed to the cold, damp environment. Coming into contact with the warm ground still made him feel a little uncomfortable, but that was secondary. After all, snakes could regulate their own body temperature.
The greatest difficulty Ye Qin faced now was the danger lurking everywhere.
Snakes had many natural enemies: hedgehogs, eagles, monitor lizards, snake eagles, serpent eagles, weasels, roadrunners, and many others.
Not to mention that he was currently just a tiny black snake. These creatures could threaten his life with ease, so he had to be cautious and careful.
Ye Qin did not want the life he had barely reclaimed to become a dish on another creature's table once again.
Snakes were carnivores, and they had many kinds of food.
They ate everything from invertebrates, such as earthworms, spiders, and various insects and their larvae, to vertebrates such as fish, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, birds, and small mammals.
Ye Qin had at least once been human. Although he had become a snake now, some of his ideas still could not be changed. Whenever he imagined himself eating raw flesh and drinking blood, he felt a knot in his heart that he could not get past.
"Forget it. I'll look for some wild fruit to fill my stomach first."
Ye Qin had observed himself and figured that he was still in the young-snake stage. He did not even have fangs yet, so he should be a nonvenomous snake. As for what species he actually was, he had no idea.
With such a small body, hunting was practically a pipe dream. Any carnivorous animal that came along could kill him.
Snakes had poor eyesight. They mainly relied on their tongues to sense vibrations or on their built-in "heat sensors" to perceive the world around them. They also gathered "scent particles" in the air by rapidly flicking their tongues.
That was why, whenever humans saw snakes, they could always see them constantly flicking their tongues.
But perhaps because of his cultivation, Ye Qin's sense of smell and vision were both superior to those of ordinary snakes, and even his speed had increased considerably.
Ye Qin himself did not know this, because he had nothing around him to use as a reference. He simply assumed that all snakes were like this.
After all, in his previous life, he had never interacted with snakes, much less imagined that one day he would transmigrate into one.
The slender black snake moved through the grass. If one did not look carefully, they might mistake him for a section of dead tree branch. His bright-red tongue flickered back and forth in the air.
Everything appeared several times larger in Ye Qin's eyes. Fortunately, he adapted well and soon became accustomed to this perspective.
A sweet, fresh fragrance tinged with a hint of bitterness drifted into Ye Qin's nose.
"It's coming from the southeast. I should be able to find the food I need over there."
He followed the scent forward. This time, he did not encounter any natural enemies.
A towering tree came into view.
Of course, this was only how it appeared to Ye Qin in his snake form. In reality, the tree was just over half a person's height, and an adult could wrap their arms around it.
The tree was covered in bright red fruit. They had already ripened, and some had even fallen to the ground, their juice rotting into flesh so dark red it was almost black.
The scent Ye Qin had just smelled was coming from there.
He had no idea what kind of fruit tree this was, but it should not be poisonous, since quite a few birds were pecking at the fruit.
Ye Qin could not reach the fruit on the tree, but many had fallen to the ground. He eagerly bit into one, and its sour-sweet flavor exploded in his mouth.
Although it was somewhat rotten, that did not affect it.
After all, his species had changed. He could no longer be as particular as a human. Having something to eat was already quite good.
Ye Qin ate as though he were at an all-you-can-eat fruit buffet, feasting to his heart's content. After filling his stomach, he followed the same route back to the cave.
He began visualizing again, then dug his hole.
Wild fruit was not very filling. Although Ye Qin spent most of his time visualizing, which greatly reduced his energy consumption,
digging the hole still consumed an enormous amount of strength.
He concentrated his attention and gathered all his strength in his tail, using it as a tool to dig into the soil.
The clods of earth scattered around him were pushed aside with his body or head. The seemingly mechanical movements were actually a great test of strength and precision.
Ye Qin kept adjusting his method until he finally found the most comfortable and relatively least strenuous approach.
While digging, his scales occasionally scraped against harder clods of earth nearby, causing some to fall off accidentally.
Ye Qin liked to keep clean. Every time he finished digging with his tail, he rubbed his lower body against the leaves beside the cave. This also helped clear the sand and stones caught between his scales.
That day, while cleaning himself as usual, a flash of green suddenly caught his attention. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Looking at the tip of his tail, which was faintly glowing green, Ye Qin could not help falling into deep thought.
Perhaps because he had been using his tail so frequently, combined with the friction against the ground, all the charred, dead scales had fallen off. New scales had grown without him realizing it.
The green scales, as fresh as new sprouts, were tiny and delicate. Because they had not fully opened yet, they even looked somewhat fragile.
They formed a stark contrast with the pitch-black scales covering the rest of his body.
Ye Qin could not help widening his eyes. "So I'm not actually a little black snake?"
He had always thought he was black, but now it seemed that perhaps he was not.
When he had transmigrated into this body, the little snake had been struck by lightning and left in a terrible state. That was why he had mistakenly assumed its original color was the same.
In any case, Ye Qin was not in a hurry. He would wait until all the new scales had grown before deciding.
Although the charred scales were ugly and seriously affected his appearance, he was a snake now and did not care about looks, so there was no need to rush.
He would let everything take its natural course instead of forcing anything.
A familiar hunger rose from his abdomen, making Ye Qin sigh helplessly.
"I only finished foraging this morning, and I'm hungry again already. It seems that surviving on wild fruit alone really won't work."
Wild fruit was not a snake's primary food. It was fine for occasionally supplementing vitamins, but meat was still necessary as the main source of nutrition.
Just like now, hunger kept coming over him in waves, leaving Ye Qin no choice but to go out again and return to the fruit tree.
After eating it several times, he had begun to feel resistant to it.
No matter how delicious something was, eating it at every meal would eventually become tiresome.
"Just eating wild fruit won't work."
Ye Qin's head felt a little dizzy. It was a warning from his body. Snakes were carnivores, after all. If he did not hunt soon, he might become the first snake in history to faint from hunger.
"Looks like I'll have to find a way to hunt some small animals."
Ye Qin observed the surrounding conditions and terrain. There were still plenty of fallen fruits on the ground, and he had also noticed traces of some small herbivorous animals nearby.
In other words, if he waited in ambush, he still had a chance of hunting some small animals.
As for birds, Ye Qin gave up on them immediately.
Although there were many of them, birds were too timid and agile. The slightest disturbance would send them flying, making them far too difficult to catch. Ye Qin did not want to waste too much energy.
His targets were rodents such as field mice and wild rabbits. Those were the most suitable prey for him.
(End of chapter)