Snake Species

How did your genes mutate?

After getting nowhere with Lan Qianqian, Jiang Yue turned to the woman sitting beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders. "What do you think, Mi Ning?"

Mi Ning flinched. It took her several seconds to recover, and she gave a strained laugh. "It does seem a little unfair to the veterans..."

She was going along with Jiang Yue.

They had only met for the first time yesterday, and anyone with eyes could see how much Mi Ning despised Jiang Yue. She had even kept her distance when they lined up. That disgust came from her bones; there was no faking it.

Yet in a single night, Mi Ning's attitude had done a complete reversal. She had even traded the hit song she'd picked last night with Jiang Yue. Now she sat beside her and let Jiang Yue put an arm around her shoulders. Where had yesterday's arrogance gone?

She had kept her head down all day, her face pale, as though she was afraid of something.

"Are you hot?" Luo Zhi noticed how unwell she looked. "Why are you sweating so much?"

The air-conditioning was on. It couldn't be that hot.

Mi Ning stammered when addressed. "N-no..."

Luo Zhi frowned but didn't press her. "Company professionals wrote the scripts. They used market research and data on keyword traffic to create buzz. Just follow the scripts."

Besides, the company controlled everything from the production team to the final vote count and result. It wasn't as if they had any say.

Ever since Jiang Yue had learned who Xing Yue was, she had given up trying to get close to her. Whenever they stood too near each other, an awkward tension rose between them.

They still had to keep up appearances. Apart from being a little distant, there was nothing an outsider would notice.

That evening, Jiang Yue browsed teaser videos for the show online. As she scrolled, she came across a promotional video Xing Yue's Studio had filmed for her.

Xing Yue played the piano and sang. The clip was short, but it already had more than fifty thousand comments. It was her first time showing her face online, part of the show's official announcement.

The top comments were full of screaming fans: [Aaaaah, her voice matches her face perfectly. Such a gentle, wistful, beautiful woman.]

[Is she really thirty-seven? I thought she was twenty-five or twenty-six at most. She's so gorgeous. I've been her fan for years. I can die happy now, sob.]

[Look at me, look at me! I know why you never showed your face. You were afraid your music fans would become fans of your looks, right? I'm not like that, I swear. Please notice me, thank you.]

Jiang Yue scrolled through the comments and scoffed. She switched between two accounts to leave replies: [Doesn't she obviously look forty? Delusional fans will hype anyone up. Nobody cares about your middle-aged fave.]

[Maybe she secretly married a man and has a kid old enough to run errands. And you're still begging her to give lesbians a chance. You lesbians are scary. (vomit emoji)]

She switched accounts and posted several more snide comments, but the video had probably gone viral. New comments kept pouring in. She couldn't even get a fan to notice her, let alone start a fight.

Still unwilling to give up, Jiang Yue had an idea and changed tack: [Like her piano playing? Of course you do. Her ex-girlfriend taught her. Spent seven years teaching her, too.]

The tactic worked. As soon as her romantic history came up, plenty of fans focused on it, and the comment was quickly pushed to the top.

[Whoa. Is she actually a lesbian?]

[Who's the ex-girlfriend? Is this real? Why did they break up after so many years together?]

[...]

Seeing so many replies pile up in a minute only encouraged Jiang Yue. She posted something deliberately suggestive: [She dated her ex-girlfriend for seven years and broke up with her when she joined the show. I can't say why, but you know how it is. Not just anyone gets to share a stage with the big shots, understand? And the show doesn't require contestants to be single. So why did she dump her girlfriend as soon as she signed up? What's going on there? (smiling emoji)]

She hadn't said it outright, but the implication was clear: Xing Yue had found herself a wealthy backer and dumped her girlfriend of seven years to please her and get a chance to enter the industry.

The explosive claim had the replies on the verge of erupting.

Jiang Yue was about to add fuel to the fire when He Zhiwen appeared on her computer screen. She snapped the laptop shut, calm and composed, as if nothing had happened.

He Zhiwen didn't notice. She was carrying a bundle of herbs. With a gentle look, she came over to tell Jiang Yue, "Yueyue, Xing Yue seemed a little feverish last night. Maybe she isn't used to the new environment. A bath with these herbs should help. Could you take them to her in a bit?"

It wouldn't be appropriate for He Zhiwen to deliver them herself, but there was nothing odd about Jiang Yue showing concern for a colleague.

Besides, she wanted Jiang Yue to earn some goodwill. It never hurt to get along with people when they were away from home.

"If you don't want to, that's fine too." He Zhiwen didn't push her.

She set the herbs on the table and found a small basket. Then she gathered the leaves and roots into handfuls and tied them into bundles, working slowly and gently.

Jiang Yue didn't answer. She idly flipped through the script she'd brought back and complained, "I bet Xing Yue will win the whole thing. There's no suspense at all."

He Zhiwen smiled and tried to comfort her. "Xing Yue is with Miss Bu, after all. This show was created to promote her. You happened to get on board, so just do your best. You're only getting started."

Jiang Yue was still so young. She could build a following and prepare for her next opportunity. There was no need to put so much weight on winning or losing.

But He Zhiwen's reassurance struck a nerve. Jiang Yue raised a brow, her smile not quite a smile. "Honey, are you saying I should be grateful I get to appear on screen and gain a few fans thanks to her, and stop complaining about her?"

She said it with a smile, her tone intimate, as if she were joking, but she couldn't hide the edge in her words.

He Zhiwen heard it. Her expression tightened. "That's not what I meant."

Seeing that Jiang Yue was unhappy, she changed the subject. "Do you want to see the babies? Mom took a few photos today..."

Jiang Yue had no interest in the babies He Zhiwen was talking about, much less in looking at snake eggs that hadn't developed yet.

She walked over, picked up the bundled herbs, and tossed them straight into the trash. "Why are you being so nice to Xing Yue? If you get too close and she finds out you're a Spirit Snake, what then? She'll skin you in a heartbeat."

He Zhiwen didn't even have time to retrieve the herbs. She stood and protested, "She wouldn't. Xing Yue isn't like that. She told me Spirit Snakes are our own kind. She could never drink their blood or eat their scales."

Jiang Yue pulled her into an embrace and dipped her head to kiss her lightly on the cheek. "Baby, you're far too easy to fool. Xing Yue only said that because she hasn't encountered one yet. Anyone can say the right thing. If she actually met a Spirit Snake, her eyes might light up and she'd cut you to pieces without a second thought. Silly woman. You believe everything she says."

She tightened her arms around the woman's soft waist and put on a worried voice. "So don't tell anyone your secret, all right? You trust people so easily, I'm afraid to let you out of my sight."

What a joke. One more person knowing meant one more person competing with her for the Spirit Snake.

With He Zhiwen's foolish head, all she thought about was romance and babies. Those snake eggs looked the same every day. What was there to see?

"A Yue, she..." The woman's voice cut off, and she said no more.

She took Jiang Yue's words as concern for her safety and felt a little sweetness in her heart. She pulled out her phone and showed Jiang Yue the photos she had saved that day. Her eyes shone, soft with affection. "Look, isn't this end a little pointier? When the babies are ready to hatch, we'll cut it open from this side..."

Snake eggs were soft. When the baby snakes were about to hatch, someone needed to help cut them open. Otherwise, if they stayed inside too long and couldn't break through the shells, they risked brain damage.

He Zhiwen had laid all four eggs. Without an incubator, she would have to hatch them herself.

Jiang Yue was trapped in family time. She was only in her early twenties, practically a kid herself, and felt nothing like a mother.

"Honey, I'll take the herbs to Xing Yue," she said, seizing an excuse to leave. She picked up the basket and headed out. "A fever's worse than a little cold. It feels awful. You've already bundled the herbs, so I shouldn't let your effort go to waste."

With the perfect excuse, she finally escaped the bedroom.

Thinking of those four snake eggs, and how likely they were to inherit He Zhiwen's genes for same-sex attraction, gave Jiang Yue goosebumps. They had better yield what she wanted. Otherwise, she wouldn't go soft on them.

Xing Yue was undergoing surgery in her room. Afraid the smell of blood would draw people over, she had deliberately filled the room with several pots of roses.

It was the second time, and Tan Xiang'e was clearly much more practiced. She examined the readings on the equipment. "How did your genes mutate? What snake species are your parents?"

The pattern and coloring of the snake-tail pheromones shown on the screen were extremely rare. She couldn't find them in the Genetic Compendium, which meant only one thing: Xing Yue's snake-species genes had mutated. Her traits weren't inherited.

There was an eighty percent chance that a hatchling would take after one parent's genes. The remaining twenty percent covered a mix of both parents' genes or traits inherited from an earlier generation.

Xing Yue's case matched neither parent alone nor a blend of the two. It was rare even among rarities.

Xing Yue thought of the father she barely knew, and her gaze dimmed. "My father's a Green Tree Python. My mother's a Bamboo Viper."

"Oh, a Green Tree Python. Old nobility, then." Tan Xiang'e sounded surprised as she teased her.

As a rare snake species, Green Tree Pythons had been aristocrats among snakes two centuries ago, complete with titles. To preserve their bloodline, they had married only other Green Tree Pythons.

Times had changed, and bloodline classes no longer existed. But Green Tree Pythons were breathtakingly beautiful and remained sought-after partners.

Xing Yue's snake-tail pheromones weren't in the Genetic Compendium. That meant her Green Tree Python genes had mutated. She was still that species, but her coloring wasn't inherited. It could be albinism, a pink mutation, or a blue mutation.

There wasn't much to see yet, and Tan Xiang'e couldn't make out the color. Just knowing Xing Yue was a Green Tree Python was enough to excite her. "Well, well. Miss Bu is one lucky woman. She must be beside herself when you two mate."