Xiao Yi had not expected Xiao Yan to pull a stunt like this. Seeing that living snake whip come crashing down at his head, its tongue flickering, made his scalp prickle.
"That's for kicking me in the face! That's for kicking me!" Xiao Yan roared as he swung the "flexible weapon" in his hand, flames of rage burning in his eyes.
Xiao Yi dodged aside, spotted an opening, and lunged in, seizing the wrist Xiao Yan was using to swing the "snake whip." The two immediately grappled. Their feet slipped, they both lost their balance, and with a thud, they tumbled into the wet, soft mud beside the road. The fields were a muddy mess in the spring plowing season, and the moment they rolled in, they became two mud men thrashing in the sludge.
Neither would let go. They rolled and wrestled in the mud, trading punches and kicks while constantly cursing each other. Mud splattered everywhere, coating their eyes, mouths, and noses. There was no technique to their fighting; they looked more like children throwing tantrums in a mud pit. As they struggled, their bodies rolled helplessly down a gentle slope beside the field ridge.
After rolling for who knew how long, they suddenly felt something different beneath them. It was no longer soft earth, but something writhing, cold, and slippery, clustered together in tangled masses. They stopped and looked down almost simultaneously. They were lying in a shallow pit packed with dozens of long snakes of every color, freshly awakened and slowly wriggling!
"Aaaaaaah!" Two screams, indistinguishable from each other and filled with terror and revulsion, pierced the clouds. The brothers, who had been fighting to the death a second earlier, now sprang from the snake pit in perfect unison, as though springs had been fitted beneath