Chapter 132: The Serpent Spirit Calls

Old Ma’s face was dark with fury. "You’re afraid now? Such a massive issue, and you actually hid it from us! And planting trees! It’s been five years—God only knows what the situation is like in there now! Damn it all! I’m going to—!"

Old Ma was beyond himself with rage. He had previously assumed the situation wasn't serious and had paid it no mind, but he had never expected it to be like this. Five years ago, it might have been nothing more than a few snakes, but after five years, there was no telling what had become of that deep forest.

The room full of people trembled in fear, none of them daring to make a sound.

I asked, "Have any of you gone in there since then?"

"How... how could we dare?" the gaunt middle-aged man said, his voice laced with guilt. "Even if we didn't know about the snakes, there were so many walking corpses..."

Hah! They knew the terror of it, they knew about the mass of corpses, and yet, despite all that, they had kept it from us for so long! If it weren't for the fact that something had gone wrong now, they would never have intended to speak up!

I continued, "The village doesn't keep dogs or cats—is that related to this matter?"

Before the man could answer, Old Ma snapped angrily, "Dogs have a spiritual nature; they can perceive ghosts and gods and sense evil spirits. If they kept dogs, they would surely be barking toward the mountains all day and night. Cats aren't as sensitive as dogs, but they can still sense strange things. Those cats knew to be afraid and ran off long ago, leaving only the black cats, which are born with heavy yin energy!"

I looked at the gaunt man, and he nodded timidly.

I didn't know what to say about these people. On one hand, they were terrified, but on the other, they went to such lengths to hide the truth, planting trees in the mountains to protect whatever was inside, all while giving up on keeping dogs! It was utterly contradictory.

One villager asked in terror, "Old Ma, what should we do now?"

"Don't ask me what to do! I'm just a useless old man, yet you ask me what to do! You lot are all young and strong, able to plant trees in the mountains and live without guard dogs! You're so capable! Why would you need to ask me!" Old Ma’s anger remained unabated.

The room remained deathly silent. I didn't try to calm Old Ma down; the situation sounded incredibly棘手 (thorny). I had learned a lot from him lately, and these kinds of evil entities were the hardest to deal with. If it were just wandering ghosts, you could simply drive them away, but these evil things would only go on to harm others elsewhere if displaced—they had to be eradicated once and for all.

The simplest method would be to burn them out, but they had planted the forest so densely that if a fire started, the scene would be more terrifying than a wildfire consuming an entire camp. If things went wrong, the whole village could be buried in a sea of flames!

After a long while, the gaunt man sighed. "We brought this upon ourselves. Old Ma, we hope you can be magnanimous and show mercy by helping us."

Once one person spoke up, the other villagers began to plead as well. "Please, we had no other choice." "You have a heart of gold, save us." "Please, save us."...

After all, we had come here to seek refuge, and the villagers had treated us well during our stay. Swayed by their pleas, Old Ma’s expression softened slightly, though he said unhappily, "We will make preparations today and go in to take a look tomorrow to figure out a plan! None of you are to go into the mountains! If anything happens, I won't be able to save you!"

Hearing that Old Ma had agreed to help, the villagers showered him with thanks. "Thank you so much!" "You're our savior!" "We're saved!"...

Old Ma waved his hand, signaling them to stop. He said with a frown, "Your village doesn't have a single dog; I can't even get my hands on black dog blood. Go get me a few roosters!"

"What are the roosters for?" the gaunt man asked.

"To bleed them for protection against evil, obviously! Do you think we're going to eat them?"

Back in our room, the villagers quickly brought the roosters. Old Ma called me inside and handed me a wooden charm.

"I told you before, ordinary paper talismans don't work on these evil things. This charm is made from century-old peach wood and can keep evil spirits at bay. Keep it safe!" Old Ma said.

I tucked the charm away and asked, "Master, is this situation very dire?"

"If we're lucky and there aren't many of them, we can just douse them with black dog blood and be done with it. If we're unlucky, prepare to burn the mountain."

Old Ma then told me to ask the villagers for some empty bottles to store the rooster blood for tomorrow. We couldn't very well carry live roosters into the mountains.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a rustling sound. I didn't know what was outside, but there was a constant, skittering noise.

I sat up in bed, wondering what on earth it could be in the dead of night. Could it be those ominous black cats from the village?

I turned on the light and walked toward the window. The rustling grew louder; something was frantically trying to get in. To prevent people from peeking, we had pasted newspapers over the glass, so I couldn't see what was outside.

I reached the window and pulled it open. A black shadow lunged at me in a blur! I gasped, twisting my body to dodge just in time! Fortunately, thanks to my training lately, my reflexes had sharpened considerably; if this had happened before, I would have been finished.

The creature darted into the room and landed on the floor. It was a pitch-black, two-headed snake with glowing red eyes! Its front half reared up, both heads flicking their tongues at me!

How did this thing get here? It hadn't possessed a body; it had appeared right before my eyes in its own form!

It lunged at me with incredible speed, reaching my feet in an instant! Disaster! Since we weren't leaving until tomorrow, I hadn't kept the wooden charm on me, and my other gear was by the bed!

I grabbed the first thing I could reach and hurled it at the snake. Both heads dipped, nimbly avoiding the projectile, and it lunged for my ankles again.

I leaped into the air, jumping aside to narrowly escape.

The two-headed snake immediately turned and pursued me. I grabbed whatever I could find to throw at it while sprinting toward the door.

The snake moved with lightning speed, closing in on my ankles. Without hesitation, I dashed into the living room—that was where the roosters were kept!

I kicked over two stools to block the snake and scrambled into a corner, grabbing a rooster. My heart sank—there were no knives here!

Forget the living room; I hadn't seen a knife in this entire house! Yang Man usually brought our meals over, so we didn't cook for ourselves, meaning we didn't even have a kitchen knife!

The snake bypassed the stools and slithered toward me. With no other choice, I hurled the rooster at it. The bird squawked in terror, flapping its wings wildly, trying to take flight.

The other roosters began to thrash and squawk in a panic, flapping their wings to escape, but their feet were tied, leaving them unable to move.

I couldn't worry about anything else now. I kept grabbing roosters and throwing them at the snake. The birds' cries grew more frantic, wings beating against the air, and the living room dissolved into a chaotic, feathered frenzy.