The man in blue robes finally climbed onto Giant Rock.
The stone beneath his feet was unusually smooth. He bent down and touched it, finding it cool as jade. While he was still puzzling over this, a faint, rank odor drifted into his nostrils on the wind. His brows tightened, and unease stirred within him.
"Come back, quickly!"
The hunter who had left earlier came rushing back, his face stricken with alarm as he drew his stiff bow to its limit!
The yellow dog accompanying him tucked its tail between its legs and whined miserably, then plunged into the dense woods and vanished.
The page staggered backward, eyes wide. The green-skinned gourd slipped from his hand and struck the ground with a thud. Clear water gurgled out, spreading across the smooth stone.
The man in blue robes turned his head stiffly, with painful slowness.
At the other end of Giant Rock, a great black snake had appeared without a sound. Cloudlike markings lay hidden beneath its glossy black coloring. Its raised head tilted slightly downward, and man and snake faced each other in silence. The air around them seemed to freeze...
Suddenly, the sky darkened. Thick, gloomy clouds blotted out the sunlight.
The black snake's forked tongue quivered in the air, silently sampling the scents flowing on the wind like a probe.
It found that the other creature posed no threat and was unsuitable prey. There was no opening to exploit and no need to fight, so it chose peaceful coexistence.
It followed the same tacit understanding it shared with other large beasts. Small animals required no such consideration.
The man's mind went completely blank. Only when the black snake passed beside him did he regain his senses.
It was enormous!
Nearly twenty feet long, the black snake slithered to its usual spot and coiled there.
The hunter drew his bow fully several times, breathing hard, his rough fingers trembling slightly with the strain. In the end, he never released the arrow. He did not believe his homemade arrowheads could kill that great snake.
If the first shot failed to wound it badly and the snake suddenly attacked, there was no telling how it would end.
Fortunately, the great black snake did not attack.
While the three men held their breath in tension, they suddenly heard raindrops pattering against the leaves. Then dark spots began appearing across the surface of the boulder.
The morning sky looked like dusk. A downpour swallowed the mountains and wilderness, raising a white mist that gradually blurred the boundary between heaven and earth.
An incandescent bolt of lightning snaked down onto a mountain peak. A breath later, thunder came rolling in.
Its roar filled the deep valley.
The three were already drenched, yet none noticed. They stared wide-eyed at the strange sight before them.
The cloud-patterned black snake raised its head high and took long, deep breaths toward the sky.
Its wet scales gleamed with an eerie light. The black snake immersed itself in the coolness of the Rain Essence, but amid that ease and delight, a familiar thread of confusion crept over it again. That indistinct restraint followed it like a shadow.
It did not understand where this trouble came from. It knew nothing at all and could not pierce the fog shrouding the truth.
Thinking was an exceedingly difficult thing for the black snake.
Its thoughts often scattered, faded, or lost their way. It could not concentrate on anything other than hunting. Such thoughts could not linger in its mind, wavering like the last flame of a candle in the wind, struggling to endure.
The three men had already slipped away down the mountain through the rain.
Only after they had gone a long way did they look back despite themselves. They could still faintly make out the great snake with its head raised atop Giant Rock.
The grass rustled. The yellow dog that had fled earlier emerged soaking wet and joined them, wagging its tail.
Covered in mud and rotting leaves, they returned to the thatched hut beside the pool and lit a fire. At last, they felt a trace of warmth. Three men and one dog sat silently around the flames. Only the firewood crackled, while wavering red light played across their faces.
Outside, one flash of lightning after another lit the mountain forest, and peals of thunder piled upon one another.
The hunter spoke gravely.
"Sir, these mountains are dangerous. We should leave as soon as possible. Let me go back and find some helpers. We'll bring powerful bows and sharp hunting forks, then kill that great snake or drive it away. Once the danger is gone, we can return."
He looked at the man in blue robes after speaking.
The man was concentrating on some thought, his gaze lowered. He reached out to accept the hot tea his page offered.
"No."
The hunter and the page looked puzzled.
He took a small sip of the warm tea.
His tightly knitted brows relaxed, and his dull eyes regained their clear brilliance. His breathing unwittingly grew heavier, as though the knots pent up in his chest for years had suddenly dissolved.
"A spirit! A snake spirit that knows how to breathe in the spiritual qi of heaven and earth!"
"This spirit has shown us no ill will. Why take its life? Better to live peacefully as neighbors than make an enemy of it. These deep mountains are treacherous, but with a snake spirit keeping watch, we could be safe and free of worry!"
Having said this, he could barely contain his wild joy.
"I knew it! The path of qi refinement is no empty fantasy! Cultivating immortality is real!"
"!... Hahaha!"
Watching his employer lose his mind, the hunter felt as though his own head had gone a little haywire.
Before they entered the mountains, the man had spoken with extravagant eloquence. Yet judging by him now, he was clearly an outsider who knew nothing about cultivation. Then again, without seeing it with their own eyes today, who would have believed monsters truly existed in this world?
From the hunter, the man in blue robes learned that the black snake belonged to a common species, was male, and had venom that was not especially potent. Its size, however, far exceeded all reason. Even the experienced hunter could not say how they ought to deal with it.
He had lived half his life before finally encountering a supernatural creature. How could he let this chance slip away? In his youth, proud and lofty, he had disdained creatures clad in scales or bearing horns. Only now, in middle age, with a deeper knowledge of the world, had he awakened to the truth: the boundary between good and evil was muddled to begin with. Humans were not necessarily kind, nor monsters necessarily wicked.
He had to seize this chance to touch another world and hold it fast!
And so, after being drenched in the cool rain, the man decided to stay for good. He would refine qi and become an immortal for his family and friends to see.
The enormous rock halfway up the mountain.
The black snake breathed in the rain-scented air, its head raised as it watched that gray mass of rain clouds recede. Mountain rain was always like this: swift to arrive, swift to depart.
Out of habit, it stared blankly up at the sky.
Its gaze was vacant. In truth, it could not distinguish much, only blurred daylight and cloud shadows.
Occasionally, it flicked out its tongue to check for hidden dangers nearby.
It did not know that its new neighbor intended to live in the valley for a long time. It was, however, interested in the yellow dog it had glimpsed earlier. The size was just right. It could be prey.
Then the black snake's simply structured brain forgot the yellow dog, retaining only the three strange humans.
If it did not see them for a few days, even its impressions of those three would eventually fade from memory.
The next day.
White mist formed in the valley on the morning after the rain. The black snake coiled on the enormous rock at its usual time, treating the mist as the rain-scented air it loved and breathing it in.
Unexpectedly, the three men appeared again.
The page and hunter waited cautiously beneath a tree. The man in blue robes climbed onto the rock, held his breath, and slowly sat down beside the black snake.
"..."
The black snake lowered its head and extended its forked tongue toward him.
The man remained motionless, though cold sweat had already soaked his back. The snake's tongue swayed almost directly before his eyes, and its rank breath washed over him. The hunter and page held their breath and stared, afraid the great snake might suddenly lash out and hurt him.
The black snake quietly inspected him for a moment, then raised its head toward the white mist rising leisurely from the valley.
It breathed in and out.
The man in blue robes let out a long breath, a smile touching his lips. Then he closed his eyes and began his breathing practice.
In truth, the black snake classified things outside itself quite simply.
There were three categories: edible, inedible, and threatening.
As for the person beside it, it treated him as a tree that radiated warmth, or a placid large beast. Neither had any intention of disturbing the other.
Before long, the morning mist dispersed.
Droplets hung from the dark green pine needles. Though the sunlight was fierce, a hint of autumn had slipped into the wind.
The black snake slipped into the mountain forest and began to hunt. The wind carried the scent of prey, faint but distinct, drawing it stealthily closer like an invisible thread...
On the gray rock, the three men discussed things in low voices. Though weighed down by doubts, their words brimmed with nervousness and curiosity about supernatural matters.
They also discovered why the rock's surface was smooth as jade: the black snake had spent years coiling around it, wearing it smooth.
Being able to coexist was an excellent beginning.