The Dazzling Snake God

"I heard from Ning Zhe and the others that you were already dead." Zhang Yangxu's eyes still held a hint of wariness: "That girl Ye Miaozhu was crying so heartbreakingly, is she your girlfriend?"

Gu Yunqing shook his head: "My older sister. We're a blended family. Her biological father once had some assets, but he lost them all at a casino in Yizhou. After that, he abandoned her and her mother to go abroad and dodge his debts, and there's been no news of him since."

"Then, my stepmother brought both sisters into a blended family with my dad. Oh, I haven't mentioned this to you guys before, but Ye Miaozhu has a younger sister too, just a little girl still in middle school."

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Gu Yunqing gave Zhang Yangxu a brief introduction to his family situation. Perhaps because of their unfortunate family background, or perhaps because Gu Yunqing's own personality was gentle—a real "central air conditioner" type—the sisters were both very fond of this brother who had suddenly entered their lives. After several years of getting along, their bond grew even stronger. The older sister, Ye Miaozhu, had even specifically applied to the same medical university as him, and as graduation approached, the two of them had come to the medical station in Ancient Tablet Town together for their internship.

And then they arrived at He Family Village, damn it.

However, Gu Yunqing wasn't talking about these family matters out of a desire to share; he wanted to use this method to gain Zhang Yangxu's trust and make him lower his guard further.

After all, a ghost, it's hard to say if one would actively go about fabricating stories.

Sure enough, after hearing about the complex relationships in Gu Yunqing's family, the wariness in Zhang Yangxu's eyes gradually relaxed. He was no longer as tense as before; instead, he teased him with a look that every man understood: "You've got a good life, kid."

"I have a different girlfriend at university," Gu Yunqing said helplessly: "Director Zhang, please mind your boundaries. Our relationship isn't good enough for us to joke about things like this."

"Fine." Zhang Yangxu shut his mouth decisively and changed the subject.

Zhang Yangxu fired several questions at Gu Yunqing in quick succession:

"Everyone, including Ye Miaozhu, said you were dead, but you're still alive. What's going on?"

"Why are you soaking wet?"

"You said the Snake God is about to go mad and there isn't much time left. What's that about?"

Gu Yunqing closed the door and gestured for Zhang Yangxu to walk into the interior of the He Manor: "Let's talk as we walk."

"Where to?"

"To find my sister."

The two of them walked one after the other through the flower beds in the He family courtyard. At the front gate, the faint sound of noisy human voices drifted over. Several hurried footsteps rushed from the gate toward the side courtyard, where the kitchen was located; it seemed the He Manor's cooks and servants were preparing to start breakfast.

The He Manor faced south, with an overall "Hui" character layout. The three-story main building sat right in the center, with a stone foundation and bamboo-wood floors, topped with azure glazed tiles—it could be considered quite luxurious in a place like this.

Directly south of the main building was the manor gate, and directly north was a lush garden that doubled as a vegetable patch. The kitchen, warehouse, woodshed, and servants' quarters were arranged by category on the east and west sides of the main building, filling the entire "Hui" structure to the brim.

Unlike the old-fashioned Siheyuan of the Capital Circle in Yongzhou, the structure of the He Manor had more of the southern characteristics of Qinzhou, a sort of special variant of the Hakka Tulou, only it paid more attention to grandeur and downplayed the original Tulou's function of defending against bandits.

Even to Zhang Yangxu, a veteran in the real estate and construction fields, this was an excellent, timeless architectural design. This sense of culture would likely be very popular among pretentious, wealthy landlords.

Gu Yunqing pushed aside the lush flowers as he walked, using one hand to unlock his screen and show a photo to Zhang Yangxu.

In the photo was a slender, fair, and attractive hand, lightly gripping a phone with its screen lit up. Zhang Yangxu recognized it at a glance as Ning Zhe's hand—the kid was as pretty as a girl—and on the screen in Ning Zhe's hand, a photo was also displayed.

It was a photo of an almanac, showing the auspicious and inauspicious signs for the day:

[Auspicious:]

[Taboo: Travel, Burial, Funeral, Sacrifice]

"When you were flipping through the almanac to check the auspicious and inauspicious signs for the day, did you ever wonder about this question?" Gu Yunqing asked, cold water droplets dripping from the hem of his clothes: "Why is there only 'Taboo' on the almanac, and no 'Auspicious'?"

"I thought about it, but I had no clue," Zhang Yangxu replied.

"Because the Snake God is sick," Gu Yunqing said, zooming in on the photo in his hand.

In the photo, the almanac was pinned to the Snake God's tongue with a nail. When Ning Zhe took the photo, he had also captured half of the Snake God's head. Looking closely at the background, one could still see the Snake God's lifelike, soaring posture, as well as a pair of lifeless, rigid eyes.

The Snake God statue looked solemn on the outside, but it couldn't withstand close inspection. The ancestral hall in He Family Village had long been in disrepair; even the roof leaked, and the door beams and pillars were damp and moldy in the humid environment. The Snake God, carved from a camphor tree root, was no exception.

The carving technique of this root sculpture could be called exquisite, and the level of craftsmanship was quite high. The scales on the Snake God's body were layered in sequence, arranged precisely and neatly, giving an unspoken sense of layered beauty.

However, beneath the bright and beautiful exterior, black mold spots were piled up at the base of the scales, and milky-white fungal hyphae poked out from the gaps between the snake scales, emitting the rotten smell of decaying wood—this was the impression Zhang Yangxu had of the Snake God statue when he and Xie Sining had entered the ancestral hall to check the almanac earlier.

And in this photo of Gu Yunqing's, one could vaguely see that the Snake God's head was also covered in rotting fungal hyphae. The left eye socket was completely filled with black mold, and fungal spots had also crawled onto the rim of the right eye.

"The Snake God's left eye is already blind," Gu Yunqing said at a rapid pace:

"The Snake God's left eye sees the auspicious, and the right eye sees the inauspicious. But ever since it caught the madness 18 years ago, its body collapsed, and one eye went blind. From then on, the almanac could only provide taboos and couldn't tell you what was auspicious to do today, because the Snake God itself couldn't see it either. It had nothing to say."

"So that's how it is..." Zhang Yangxu felt a chill in his heart, but he was still somewhat suspicious. He didn't lower his guard and maintained a certain distance from Gu Yunqing, who was leading the way.

Zhang Yangxu asked: "If that's the truth of the matter, how did you know about it? Also, I witnessed a ghost disguised as you in the ancestral hall, flipping through tomorrow's almanac. Why are you still alive? How did you survive?"

On the question of whether Gu Yunqing was dead or alive, Ning Zhe might have lied, but Zhang Yangxu believed that the fact that "flipping through tomorrow's almanac is a death taboo" should be correct and accurate.

"That's a long story," Gu Yunqing sighed as if helpless, leading Zhang Yangxu through the He Manor's garden.

The two of them avoided the cooks and servants preparing food and arrived in front of a row of small buildings on the west side of the He Manor's main building. Gu Yunqing gestured to Zhang Yangxu and then took the lead, slipping into a storeroom with an unlocked door.

[My sister sent me a message, she's hiding inside.]

Zhang Yangxu looked down at the text message Gu Yunqing had sent. After waiting for a long time, he walked up on tiptoe and carefully pushed open the door to the storeroom.

The next moment, Zhang Yangxu's body toppled over.

He was dead.