Night fell early when it rained. The drizzle was chilly, and Black Snake stayed beside the stream, swallowing food without pause.
Wherever food was plentiful, it lingered.
Take the little mountain gully before it, for instance. The gully was broad and densely forested, and its only downhill path was hemmed in by cliffs on either side. All the wood frogs in the gully had to pass through here to reach the stream, providing an effortless, endless supply of food.
Other snakes were small and needed a long time to swallow a single wood frog.
Black Snake, by contrast, ate as though it were picking up bouncing beans.
It would have liked a change of flavor if possible, some slightly larger land animals, but it had already ravaged nearly all the living creatures nearby.
Animals, too, sought good fortune and avoided calamity, and Black Snake was that calamity.
It could travel farther away, but it had grown accustomed to the great rock and could not bear to move, worried that the rain essence elsewhere would not taste as good.
Candlelight appeared in the little courtyard atop the solitary rock on the side peak. That speck of warm light was like a lone star lost among the mountains, quietly adorning the rainy night.
After dinner, the page deftly cleared away the cups, plates, bowls, and chopsticks. Feeling the mountain wind turn chilly, he went over and pushed the window a little farther shut.
After a brief, casual conversation, Chi Ke told the page to take a lantern and lead the young visitor to his lodgings.
The two had just rounded the corner of the wall.
The young man abruptly stopped, rooted to the spot as though struck by lightning.
In a room beside him stood an enormous alchemy furnace, along with a rich medicinal scent that even the rain could not wash away!
He spun around and ran back.
The page froze for a moment, then hurried after him with the lantern.
Chi Ke was about to close his door and rest when the young visitor returned, rushing into the room like a gust of wind and dropping to his knees before him without a word of explanation.
"Eh? What is this about? Get up, quickly!"
The young man clutched Chi Ke's sleeves tightly in both hands.
He raised his head, his eyes brimming with tears, struggling to maintain a scholar's decorum in his speech.
"Senior... immortal master... please grant me medicine to save my mother! If you would bestow this kindness upon me, I would spend the rest of my life doing everything in my power to repay you for saving her!"
Chi Ke glanced at the page and immediately understood the look in his eyes. Though he felt helpless, he deeply admired the young man's sincere devotion to his mother.
The hunter poked his head in to see what was happening, then went back to repairing his tools, taking the yellow dog away with him.
It took Chi Ke a great deal of effort to calm the young man, followed by a long, earnest explanation. It was not that he refused to save someone from death; he truly lacked such a divine ability. Outsiders did not know the truth and passed distorted rumors from mouth to mouth. He was no enlightened immortal at all.
The alchemy furnace had only recently been cast, and he was still studying medical texts. He could not refine pills, only medicinal ointments that even a dog would not eat.
Once the misunderstanding became clear, the light in the young man's eyes instantly dimmed.
Unable to bear the sight, Chi Ke asked curiously.
"Young friend, why not seek help in the famed mountains and rivers?"
The young man shook his head with a bitter smile.
"To be honest with you, Senior, I have visited those grand, solemn holy places many times. When you say you cannot save her, you truly cannot. They never say they cannot save her. They only scold me again and again for lacking sincerity, saying I must give up more of my wealth to prove it."
Chi Ke's throat moved, but in the end, he swallowed the words on his lips.
Whenever power and wealth were involved, bloodshed that could not bear the light of day was bound to lurk behind them. He had to watch his words and actions, lest a careless remark earn him an enemy.
He could only offer a few words of comfort.
"Go home. Stop running yourself ragged. Spend more time with your family and talk with them. That is better than anything you could pray for."
The young man did not persist in his pleas.
He straightened his clothes and headwear, then clasped his hands and bowed deeply.
"Thank you for your guidance, Senior. I will keep it close to my heart."
With that, he silently followed the page into the sparse night rain. The lantern ahead cast a halo of warm light, guiding him toward the guest room.
Chi Ke sighed softly and closed his door. How wonderful it would be if he really could refine immortal pills.
He blew out the lamp. With neither stars nor moon, the room was especially dark, and he felt his way through it with practiced ease before slowly lying down.
At the bottom of the valley, Black Snake, whose habits differed from those of other snakes, was still busy finding food.
By midnight, it felt reasonably full and slithered to a dry spot beneath the cliff, coiling its body into a circle to rest.
The rain essence at the foot of the mountain was mixed with the scent of rotting leaves and soil, making it unsuitable for breathing in.
It planned to rest briefly before heading halfway up the mountain to breathe in the rain essence. This spot was dry and comfortable, making it drowsy, but autumn rain was scarce to begin with. It could not possibly miss that clear, refreshing delight.
A rustling came from the pile of dead leaves beside it, and Black Snake shifted a little to one side.
It had noticed the creature when it arrived: a little thing curled into a ball, covered in spines. Its body temperature was only slightly higher than its surroundings, and it did not look like something worth swallowing.
After a brief rest, Black Snake stretched its body and slipped into the rain, abandoning the dry comfort beneath the cliff to wind its way toward the great rock halfway up the mountain.
The forest was wet and slippery. Dead leaves and mud occasionally clung to its body, only to be washed clean again by the fine threads of rain.
Unexpectedly, by the time it climbed onto the great rock, the rain had stopped.
The clouds dispersed, the wind ceased, and the bright moon hung high.
The washed-blue mountains stood clear and silent, wisps of milky-white mist winding around their slopes.
Black Snake's mind remained utterly unruffled. If there was no rain essence to breathe in, mist would do.
Suddenly, it sensed something.
It turned its head toward the little courtyard on the rock not far away. Beneath the moonlight, there seemed to be a hazy shape inside. Immediately switching to heat-sensing mode, it saw a distinct human-shaped apparition standing still, overlapping the physical world yet remaining sharply separate from it.
Black Snake had absolutely no idea how the apparition had arrived. It had simply appeared.
It vaguely recalled the fox lunging at an apparition before. Should it go over and strike this one a few times too? Would that be worth wasting its strength?
It looked at the white mist, then at the courtyard again, and decided to investigate.
It slithered swiftly along the rugged path Chi Ke often took, then climbed close against the rough cliff face. Beside a pine tree, it looked down to observe the little courtyard set into the mountain rock.
The dog stared wide-eyed, trembling.
Black Snake identified Chi Ke, the hunter, and the page. There was also an unfamiliar heat source, and the apparition was approaching that person.
Since it was an unrelated stranger, whether he lived or died was none of its concern.
Just as Black Snake was about to return to breathing in the mist, however, a strange sight caught its attention.
Using its special vision to observe the sleeping stranger, it discovered that he gave off gentle fluctuations and seemed to share some unbreakable bond with the apparition. Black Snake did not know why he could make the apparition suddenly appear here, so it watched curiously.
Focusing its attention, it saw fragmented, hazy images. The man knelt before the apparition, his body trembling with sobs. Black Snake could not make out those broken syllables or understand the source of his bone-deep grief.
To Black Snake, this was merely a scene filled with incomprehensible actions and emotions, something utterly meaningless.
In his dream, a son who did not know that his loving mother had already passed away met her again through the sheer intensity of his longing.
In that instant, his heart seemed to suffer a stab. Dimly sensing an unbelievable truth, he could not help breaking into great, wrenching sobs.
Pale blue moonlight filtered through the paper window, illuminating the corners of the young man's eyes.
Tear tracks slipped silently down.
The fragmented images ended before long.
The apparition vanished without explanation.
Black Snake hurried back to the smooth great rock to make the most of its time breathing in the mist.
The scene it had just witnessed would not leave its mind, and it brought new confusion, for it could not understand where the apparition had come from or how it had left.
For Black Snake, anything capable of suddenly appearing out of thin air represented an enormous threat.
And so Black Snake grew even more vigilant.