Black Snake gradually forgot his new neighbor existed and acted as though there were no such person.
His days followed the same unchanging course, repeating things he had already done countless times: hunting, basking in the sun, breathing the morning mist, enjoying the lovely, cool Rain Essence, and getting struck by lightning.
The thin man was rather withdrawn, and his daily routine was just as fixed.
He never spoke to hunters or herb gatherers who came into the mountains, keeping a long face all day and looking elsewhere, unwilling to spare them another glance.
Even when asking someone to bring him salt and grain, he offered only a few dry words.
He had never even noticed the terrifying great black snake coiled nearby. He never stopped when passing the Small Temple at the bottom of the valley, and even seemed vaguely averse to the shrine honoring the snake immortal. Deep down, he disagreed with the villagers' beliefs.
One summer night.
A howl shattered the stillness.
Black Snake was momentarily dazed, then remembered that someone seemed to be living in the courtyard. Turning to look, he saw the thin man scramble out, stumbling and crawling, trembling all over with a hoe clenched in his hands.
Immediately afterward, a wildcat darted out of his house with something in its mouth, then vanished into the darkness in a flash.
He did not even have a dog, and had failed to notice a wildcat sneaking into his house. There was really no need for such a strong reaction. Wildcats generally knew to avoid humans. It had probably spotted something good and slipped inside to take it while he slept.
His den really was unsafe.
He had been lucky this time: a cautious wildcat had sneaked inside. If a wild boar had charged through the door instead, the scene would have been entertaining. Surely the boar would have taken an interest in that skinny grasshopper.
Just when Black Snake thought it was nothing much, the thin man suddenly began howling his heart out in the courtyard, one cry after another.
Things clattered and crashed as he smashed them with all his strength, shouting as he went.
Black Snake did not care. Endless cicadas clamored all day long; these little intermittent noises amounted to nothing.
His tongue caught a trace of prey drifting on the wind, and his enormous body glided silently away.
He was lucky enough to find a badger. Suddenly accelerating, he struck like black lightning and bit his target, sinking his venomous fangs deep and injecting venom. Even as it died, the badger had never imagined a snake would kill it. Badgers were supposed to eat snakes...
At dawn, he returned to Giant Rock to breathe the mountain mist.
Hearing movement from the courtyard, he looked through the thin mist and saw the thin man shoulder a bundle, slam the door, and head downhill in dejection. Another neighbor gone.
Why "another"?
He could not remember. In any case, the courtyard stood empty again.
The withdrawn thin man's departure was as uneventful as his arrival had been, leaving the mountains neither affected nor changed.
Every day was ordinary. In spring, Black Snake woke and drank water, then went to catch fish in the river and enjoyed the Continuous Rainy Season.
Food was abundant in summer, making survival easy. Only when the weather cooled and prey grew scarce did he become busy, before returning to his cave to pass the winter. Occasionally, on clear nights, his yin spirit went out to gaze at the moon and breathe.
He could not remember when, but the villagers replaced the Small Temple with a new one. Carved from a single block of green stone into the shape of a tiny house, it stood about two feet high. The workmanship was a little crude, but at least it looked proper.
Beyond the mountains, wars raged without end. To stay alive, people gradually moved deeper into the mountains.
Some villagers settled in the meadow Black Snake often visited, living against the mountainside. They built their houses above the highest flood line of previous years, and farmland appeared in the fertile meadow.
These slow, drawn-out changes had no effect on Black Snake.
The villagers were not skilled at fishing and caught little. Black Snake merely had to take detours around the increasingly dense houses whenever he went fishing in the river.
Occasionally, he also encountered humans.
The villagers were terrified of the great black snake. After their panic, incense offerings at the little stone Small Temple suddenly flourished, and they burned incense there on every festival and holiday.
Black Snake did not know what use the pungent smoke served, though it could drive away mosquitoes and flies.
As the population grew, the Small Temple acquired more significance.
For instance, wedding processions passing through the valley would deliberately stop to burn incense and set out offerings at the Small Temple. Though the gifts were modest, their sincerity was ample. They also wound red thread around the little stone Small Temple, leaving behind their hopes for a beautiful life ahead.
Slowly, this became a custom throughout this mountainous region.
Black Snake had no sense of time and did not remember what things had been like before. He felt that whatever things were like now, they must have been the same in the past, and the growing number of humans stirred no feelings in him.
Without his noticing, many, many years passed...
In late autumn, when leaves across the mountains turned a riot of colors, several people came into the valley.
They carried the ineradicable smell of blood, with weapons at their waists or in their hands. Passing the stone temple, they silently offered incense.
Blue smoke rose straight into the colorful mountain scenery.
The group moved into Lone Crag Courtyard, surprised that its stone walls remained intact after years of wind and rain. Finding the place easy to defend and difficult to attack, with an excellent view, they decided to stay.
Lately, Black Snake had been taking lightning strikes on the summit. He knew people had moved into Lone Crag Courtyard, but felt nothing about it.
Only after returning to Giant Rock did he have time to observe them closely.
These people were rather different from the others. For instance, they always slipped out after nightfall, staying quiet during the day and not even lighting fires.
Thus, Black Snake concluded that they were probably a group of nocturnal humans.
As usual, he ignored them.
Winter arrived, yet the snow kept delaying its arrival, leaving everything cold and dry.
With nothing to do, he went into hibernation early. His yin spirit emerged more often than in previous years, gazing at the moon and breathing at night, or wandering about. More often still, he visited the little temple at the bottom of the valley to study that tiny, inexplicable glimmer inside.
The streams froze, while the mountain wilderness became excessively dry.
Black Snake remained indifferent. Cold weather, dry weather, icy water, dwindling water-he believed the world was simply supposed to be this way.
Then many people came to the little stone temple at the bottom of the valley. They covered the stone platform with dried fruit and plump fresh fish, and packed the small stone incense burner with incense sticks.
They said many things, their voices blending into a buzzing hum. Black Snake heard the jumble of faint sounds and could make no sense of any of it.
A day passed.
Perhaps it really had done some good. From the look of things, snow was coming.
The weather was a little warmer. By day, the murky sky looked veiled in old paper. There was no wind, and the mountain forest was oppressively quiet. Heavy cloud bases pressed down toward the ridges, blurring and softening distant outlines.
Inside the cave, Black Snake's enormous body lay coiled like a mountain, and his yin spirit underwent Soul Separation.
Evening-or probably evening, with the light so indistinct.
Emerging from the cave, Black Snake raised his head. His nearsighted eyes saw no blue, and he knew he probably could not gaze at the moon tonight. Out of habit, he glanced at the courtyard. Its several heat sources were absent.
With nothing to do, he glided down the slope to the little stone temple.
There was not the slightest breath of wind. Countless red cords hung motionless from the elm tree, vivid red, as though awaiting some solemn ceremony.
Night had not yet fallen, though it would soon. The heavy black clouds were preparing to scatter the first snowfall.
He wound his body around the stone temple and brought his head close, listening carefully to the countless jumbled, overlapping sounds coming from inside. He could understand almost none of them. Some voices had similar tones, but the vast majority lay beyond his comprehension. It was fascinating that a stone, once worked upon,
could actually retain sounds.
He suddenly remembered a solitary stone pillar on a mountain near the little basin, rather like the stone temple.
Because he followed his old trail past it every year, he could just barely remember it. Next time he passed, he might as well get close and listen. What if it could speak?
As he coiled around the little stone Small Temple, letting his thoughts wander, he suddenly sensed vibrations. Two living creatures were approaching.
He raised his head and looked toward the sounds.
He saw two people, one behind the other, running slowly and gasping for breath. Judging by their heat signatures, they should have been two of the people staying in the courtyard.
At the same time, he smelled a strong stench of blood.
He watched indifferently as the two ran panting past the temple, then scrambled up the steep mountain path on hands and feet.
He remembered several clusters of heat moving into the courtyard. Now there were only these two.
Before long, the pair came down the mountain carrying bundles. They were leaving even in the dark. Black Snake thought they probably had something very urgent to attend to.
It seemed he had no neighbors again. Humans always stayed so briefly, coming and going in haste.
Should I... make some changes myself?
Like a snowflake, the thought drifted without warning into his smooth brain.
Just then, cotton-wisp snowflakes began falling without his noticing. Black Snake raised his head. From the depths of the vault overhead, whose end lay beyond sight, endless flecks of snow drifted down, covering withered grass and silent stones in the stream.
Heaven and earth lay hushed; only the falling snow could be heard.