Black Snake lay coiled on a smooth rock atop the Azure Cloud Monastery Back Mountain, his body occasionally shifting slowly.
His enormous head remained raised toward the heavens, his tongue flicking endlessly at the sky as he yearned to catch rain essence on the wind and waited for a downpour. He spent three days waiting on the summit.
Agitation, the stifling frustration of having four limbs curled up and unable to stretch, and all manner of unbearable sensations churned together. Black Snake could no longer maintain his usual composure, and he kept writhing around the rock, rubbing against it with a sandy hiss.
At dusk, the sky seemed perfectly clear, but the outlines of distant mountains grew slightly blurred, and a barely perceptible dampness crept into the air.
Birds and beasts instinctively made their preparations for rain, bringing countless inconspicuous changes.
The mountain forest was windless and sweltering, its vegetation utterly still.
Heaven and earth held their breath, awaiting a rain that had long been brewing.
Black Snake held his head high and waited on the rock all night. When the sky finally began to pale, the familiar sound of morning prayers drifted from Azure Cloud Monastery, and cooking smoke that could not rise spread slowly along the mountainside.
A few figures became dimly visible on the stone steps up the mountain. Some people had set out early in the sultry morning, once again deliberately coming in the rain to search for a dragon from the legends.
Wealthy folk who had no need to toil had both money and leisure, and with nothing to occupy them, they sought curiosities and amusement.
Black Snake could not be bothered with them and ignored every human heat signature.
He turned his gaze toward the horizon where mountains met clouds. The indistinct distance had