The man keeping watch suddenly felt a chill at the back of his neck and assumed the wind had carried over damp air from the mountain stream.
The fat man was snoring when, without warning, his snores stopped.
His whole body gave a violent shudder. Cold seemed to seep into every crevice of his bones, and his head spun as though he had fallen into a whirlpool. He gave two muffled groans but failed to wake. Two more waves of cold followed, draining his ruddy face to an ashen black. He desperately tried to open his eyes, but his body would not move...
In his dim field of vision, Black Snake retreated wearily.
He had intended to sink his teeth in and tear, but he had lunged too hard and passed straight through, as though plunging into a cloud of warm mist. He knocked some warmth from the man's phantom outline and felt unwell himself.
Even tired, I have to keep going.
Forcing down the surging exhaustion, he approached again. He slowed, moving with particular care, and twice sank his fangs into the phantom outline and tore.
He could clearly see the man's life force rapidly weakening.
Like an animal poisoned by a snakebite, the warmth that represented life in this special vision escaped in wisps and threads. Once it weakened past a certain threshold, death would follow.
That will do. As for the others whose life force is still strong, I have no strength left to bite them.
He swiftly returned to his own body. Sure enough, the exhaustion came back with him.
It was not physical weariness. He could not tell exactly what part of him was tired, but he felt he needed a few days' rest, or to breathe in a rainfall, to recover.
He glanced at the campfire, then turned and slipped into the pitch-black shadows.
He climbed to the summit that night. After a little thought, he retreated a short distance down the slope and quietly waited for the rainy season.
Waiting was part of survival.
There was no use rushing many things. What was meant to come would come; what mattered was seizing the opportunity.
After the men who had come into the mountains looking for trouble returned home, nothing more was heard from them. Perhaps they had thought better of it, or perhaps they had let it go. Only Chi Ke remained worried. The young Hunter knew something, but he kept his mouth firmly shut, confiding in the black dog only when they were out hunting alone.
Fox was the same as ever, delighted whenever he caught Black Snake's scent.
He laboriously climbed to the summit, called twice to the coiled Black Snake, then circled anxiously. Only when he saw Black Snake twitch the tip of his tail did he grin and trot lightly away.
The villagers came into the mountains with supplies again. The old hunter came along to look around, tirelessly reminding his son to work hard.
They took several letters Chi Ke had written when they went back down the mountain.
The party timed its departure perfectly. Rain began the next day; this year's rainy season had arrived a little late.
Lightning instantly illuminated the roiling, ink-black clouds, and thunder shook the pebbles on the summit.
The charred old stump that had once stood on the summit was gone. The dazzling lightning Black Snake had awaited so long finally struck, though a little off target, leaving him briefly dazed...
His skull still rang incessantly, and even his forked tongue was too numb to flick properly.
Wisps of white mist escaped uncontrollably from his body. Not daring to covet the heights any longer, he hurried some twenty feet down the slope.
The rainy days here were not an uninterrupted downpour. The rain constantly grew heavier and lighter, with unsettled breaks of cloud and sunshine between. Lightning was stingy too, either bestowing its favor on distant mountains or simply hiding behind the clouds with a muffled rumble. Very few bolts were his to enjoy.
Fortunately, Black Snake never complained.
He raised his head and breathed in the rain-laden air, quietly awaiting the scattered lightning strikes.
Chi Ke had been badly troubled these past few days. His interest in refining qi had waned, and the Pill Furnace sat cold to one side. Every day, he watched the path leading out of the mountains as though waiting for something. His air of an immortal sage had faded somewhat, with a blister at the corner of his mouth and a hoarse voice.
He feared the people outside really would gather a band and march into the mountains under the banner of vanquishing demons and banishing evil. No matter how capable Snake Brother was, how could he withstand them?
He could only watch helplessly, unable even to say anything that carried weight.
Whatever motives they harbored, killing a Demonic Beast in the wilderness could always count as the righteous act of "ridding the people of a menace." Though just who those "people" were remained debatable, once the banner of righteousness was raised, he might well be branded a demonic heretic if he dared step forward.
Before the rainy season ended, several young men from the village braved the heavy rain to deliver letters.
Chi Ke impatiently peeled away layer after layer of waterproof waxed paper and oilcloth, revealing the wooden box within. He repeatedly examined the sealing wax to confirm that no one had tampered with it before drawing out the letter and reading it carefully, word by word, by candlelight.
After his eyes passed over the opening lines, his tightly knitted brows suddenly relaxed, and his face broke into a smile.
The letter said the fat man from before had slipped while crossing a bridge and fallen into the water. He had fallen ill, failed to pull through, and died.
Good that he died.
Once dead, he can never open his mouth again. Death is the greatest peace...
I haven't stepped outside this valley in a long time, and I'm old now. I only hoped that swallowing my pride and making arrangements might do some good. Those favors and connections outside-every bit I could put to use would be another bit of solid help.
But none of it matters now.
In this lifetime, the road to immortality is probably beyond my reach. I can count my remaining years on my fingers. If I can win twenty years of peace for an old friend, that would be good enough. Ah, if only it could be a little longer. The road ahead is ultimately Black Snake's to travel himself.
Chi Ke had not thought too far ahead. Death was like a lamp going out; even the most careful preparations could not withstand the upheavals of the world.
Demonic Beasts and spirits had their own ways of enduring. If he insisted on using human schemes to pave the way, others equally skilled in calculation would eventually see through his intentions. Better to let Black Snake move by his instinct to seek fortune and avoid calamity. Perhaps he could find an unexpected road to survival.
Besides, demons were hardly ever seen in the world. Most depictions of them came from tales passed from mouth to mouth among ordinary people. Genuine supernatural encounters were exceedingly rare.
Even those reputed to be all-powerful, whose attention in truth lay on authority and wealth, might not understand.
Between the mortal world and the realm of spirits, there seemed to be an invisible barrier in the unseen order of things.
For the vast majority of people, all they would ever hear in their lives were a few dubious legends. That was probably simply how Heaven had arranged it.
A sodden tit fluttered onto the wall, shook its feathers hard to scatter the tiny droplets, then spread its wings and flew back into the hazy curtain of rain.
"Ah."
Half a lifetime squandered, and in the end, all I've cultivated is a pair of eyes that can perceive spirits.
"Hard, so hard. There is no hope for me in this life."
Facing the empty silence of the rain-streaked window, he let out a long breath of stale air.
Lightning briefly lit the gloom outside the window. A breath later, the muffled thunder finally rumbled across the sky.
Life... too short. As short as that flash of lightning. Too many things remain undone.
He folded the letter twice, held it to the candle flame, and lit it. With a casual motion, he tossed the sheet, its edges curling in the fire, into a clay basin. Every letter that mentioned the trouble involving Black Snake was consigned to the flames. He crumpled the remaining letters in his hand and threw them into the fire too.
The paper curled and blackened, eventually turning to slowly cooling ash.
Choking on the smoke, he coughed twice, rose, and pushed open the door. The mountain wind swept through the room, carrying away all the smoke and secrets.
While he was still alive, he would do his best to teach Black Snake a few more words of human speech. It did not matter if he learned slowly or forgot quickly. Even one more word remembered would be worth it.
Leaning against the doorway, he gazed toward the high mountain veiled in rain and mist. Just then, a gust of wind swept the thick fog swiftly away, briefly revealing the summit's ancient pines. He barely had time for two glances before the heavy, sodden curtain of cloud sank again, hiding everything as tightly as before.
At the summit, Black Snake reveled in the pure exhilaration of life itself.
He made no deliberate effort to remember that he had hunted and killed a human.
Eliminating threats was a survival instinct, just as he never counted how many fish or wild boar piglets he had swallowed in the preceding days.
Beautiful hours were always brief. When he could no longer breathe in the cool, refreshing rain-laden air, and warm sunlight fell upon his body, Black Snake knew the rainy spell was over. Who knew when the next rain would come? The scorching weather would usher the mountain forest into its most restless, clamorous season of the year.
He slid down the steep slope and stopped at Giant Rock halfway down the mountain, quietly awaiting the white mist of night and dawn.
Morning.
Chi Ke came to the rock for his breathing practice as usual, and Fox and the fat Weasel quietly arrived too. After finishing his breathing exercises, he opened a book and began expounding on it in a calm, even voice.
Black Snake flicked his tongue, feeling that Chi Ke seemed to be talking more than usual today.
Out of habit, he switched to his heat-sensing vision. Seeing a change in the warmth that represented Chi Ke's life, his tongue paused for an instant. He sensed that Chi Ke's life was weakening.
Chi Ke was like an autumn leaf. He had passed through spring's budding and summer's green, and now was slowly, irreversibly turning yellow.
Though he still hung from the branch for now, he would not remain there much longer.
Black Snake had no particular feelings about it. Death and new life appeared every day in the grass, in caves, or up in the trees. It was perfectly ordinary.