Chapter 21: What a Massive Serpent

Some time had passed since he arrived in this world.

Song Xuanqing had gradually grown accustomed to sitting high upon the shrine each day, listening to the wishes and prayers of the villagers.

Though not every villager who came to offer incense had a specific request.

Some came simply for peace of mind, burning a few sticks of incense whenever the mood struck them.

After the villagers finished their offerings, Song Xuanqing would leave Xuanqing Temple.

Outside, the sun blazed fiercely, and the weather had been growing steadily hotter.

Not that Song Xuanqing could feel heat or cold — he only knew of it from what the villagers said.

Lately, whenever he had nothing to do, Song Xuanqing would wander through Song Family Village, keeping an eye out for any suspicious outsiders.

His range of perception was limited. To keep a full grasp on everything happening in Song Family Village, he still had to come out and patrol in person.

The words Mu Tong had spoken before his death still lingered in Song Xuanqing's mind.

Though at the time he had been fearless, not particularly worried about the Tianshan Sect coming to cause him trouble afterward.

But Song Xuanqing wasn't truly indifferent to the matter.

If he were, he wouldn't be coming out to patrol every day just to catch any early signs of the Tianshan Sect's movements.

After all, he couldn't very well have the Tianshan Sect waltz into his Domain without him knowing a thing about it.

After making his rounds within his patrol range, Song Xuanqing had once again found no trace of the Tianshan Sect today.

He was even starting to wonder whether Mu Tong and Mu Nan had simply been small-time lackeys within the Tianshan Sect — perhaps the Sect didn't care about their deaths at all.

If that were truly the case, so much the better.

After finishing his patrol of Song Family Village, Song Xuanqing didn't rush back to his idol. Instead, he drifted over to the farmlands.

The fields of Song Family Village were all clustered together in one area, and they were no small stretch — a rough glance suggested over a hundred acres.

When the wind blew through, green waves of crops swayed and rustled, flecked here and there with sparse patches of yellow, filling the air with a soft swooshing sound.

These fields sustained the food and livelihoods of over a hundred souls in Song Family Village.

Men with their trouser legs rolled up worked busily among the paddies, sweat pouring freely under the blazing sun.

It was hard labor, yet there was a certain contentment and ease to it all.

Watching the villagers under his protection living in such contentment within his Domain, Song Xuanqing felt a faint swell of satisfaction in his heart.

The world outside was not a kind one. Just a couple of days ago, he had overheard villagers talking about a place called Baoluo Village in Wan'an County — a village of three or four hundred people, slaughtered to the last, every one of them reportedly drained of blood and left to die in agony.

That manner of killing had the unmistakable mark of some wicked, evil path at work.

Even the county magistrate of Wan'an County had been shaken, dispatching a number of Martial Masters to investigate.

But what good would it do? The people were already dead. Never mind whether they could even track down the killers — who had long since vanished without a trace — what would finding them change?

The dead could not be brought back to life.

When the villagers of Song Family Village first heard the news, they were badly frightened.

That very day, Xuanqing Temple saw another small surge in visitors.

Villagers came streaming in to offer incense to Song Xuanqing.

They counted themselves fortunate to live in a place blessed by a divine spirit, burning incense to pray for safety — and for peace of mind.

Baoluo Village was still a fair distance from Song Family Village. Before the massacre, most villagers had never even heard of the place.

Closer to home, there was a small village just two mountains away from Song Family Village where some unknown demon beast had devoured three or four people, all of them killed with their hearts and innards ripped out.

The villagers there had been so terrified that some fled outright while others rushed to the county seat to hire help.

In a world like this, the saying that human lives were worth less than weeds was no mere figure of speech.

Song Xuanqing's abilities were limited, and his Domain was confined to Song Family Village. He couldn't look after other places, but at the very least, he could do his best to protect Song Family Village.

In this brutal, man-eating age of chaos, he would let the people under his protection live and work in peace.

The villagers had no idea that the Lord Xuanqing they revered was right there among them.

A group of men worked in the fields, chatting and laughing as they went.

Then, in the next moment, a startled cry rang out.

"Ahhh! Good lord! What a massive serpent!"

Not far away, in one of the paddies, a dark-skinned man leapt back several meters in fright.

The nearby villagers heard the shout and immediately dropped their smiles, grabbing their hoes and running toward him.

"Where's the snake?!"

The dark-skinned man gripped his hoe with a nervous swallow and pointed ahead into the paddy.

"Right there — what a massive serpent!"

There, beneath the lush green rice seedlings, lay coiled a great banded krait — nearly three meters long and as thick as a man's calf — its scales a vivid green with white rings.

The midsummer rice seedlings had grown almost to full height, reaching up to a man's calf, and the great green-scaled, white-banded serpent lay hidden beneath them. You wouldn't notice it at all unless you walked right up to it.

No wonder the man had been so badly startled when he suddenly came upon it.

Now disturbed, the great snake was deeply displeased. It reared up its upper body, tongue flickering, fixing its gaze on the villagers before it with an air of readiness to strike at any moment.

The men who had come running with their hoes took one look at the size of the snake and felt their palms go sweaty with nerves.

"Good heavens, how did this snake get so big?"

"It's a banded krait too — I thought they only grew to about four or five feet at most? How is this one so enormous?"

"Never mind that — banded kraits are deadly venomous! A small one is bad enough, but one this size with venom? What do we do? If we don't drive it off or kill it, how are we supposed to farm this land?"

Before the villagers could finish talking, the banded krait struck first.

Its thick, long body looked cumbersome, but it moved with incredible agility.

In the blink of an eye it lunged at the villagers before it.

Its gaping jaws revealed sharp fangs dripping with venom.

The villagers were nearly caught off guard, but managed at the last moment to block the great snake with their hoes.

But snakes hold grudges — it wasn't about to let the villagers off so easily.

Hissing, it coiled and lunged again, trying to sink its fangs into someone.

The villagers, however, were no pushovers. Farm men had strength to spare, and they had long hoe handles to work with.

The snake wanted to bite; the villagers wanted to be rid of the snake.

But the snake was remarkably nimble.

In no time at all, the two sides had reached a standoff.

The villagers fended it off while shouting at the top of their lungs: "Big snake over here! Someone come help!"

Song Xuanqing drifted overhead, watching quietly, with no intention of intervening.

Because this great snake, despite being larger than its species should naturally grow, had not in fact crossed the threshold into the realm of a Demon Beast or evil spirit.

It was simply an unusually large ordinary snake.

If it had been a Demon Beast or malevolent spirit, Song Xuanqing would have already stepped in.

But against a plain ordinary snake, the villagers were not entirely helpless.

He was Song Family Village's guardian deity, not a babysitter.

He couldn't possibly help the villagers with every difficulty they encountered.

Of course, if a villager were truly about to be killed by the snake, Song Xuanqing would consider making a small move.

After all, these were his believers — the people who provided him with Incense Value through their offerings.

And truth be told, scenes like this were nothing new to Song Xuanqing. He had seen plenty of them over the past few days.

Whether it was the warming weather or some other reason, snakes had been appearing more and more frequently of late.

All kinds of snakes, too — and this banded krait, nearly three meters long, wasn't even the biggest one.

This was far from the first time Song Xuanqing had come out to the fields for a stroll and witnessed villagers encountering snakes.

In fact, one could say that snakes were turning up in the fields every single day.

Some snakes were timid and fled at the sight of people; others were bold, like this banded krait, and attacked the villagers outright.

It wasn't just the fields, either. Snakes had been slipping into people's homes throughout the village.

Even drawing water from the well would occasionally turn up a snake or two.

Some venomous, some not.

At first, some villagers had actually been rather pleased about it — snake meat was still meat, after all, and perfectly edible.

Aside from the deadly venomous ones that the villagers dared not touch, any harmless snake they caught and killed could add a dish of meat to the day's meal.

But as the snakes kept multiplying, incidents began piling up — someone would wake from sleep to find a venomous snake coiled at the foot of their bed, and things of that sort.

Whatever small delight the villagers had taken in eating snake meat was quickly washed away.

With so many snakes appearing abnormally often lately, quite a few villagers had already been bitten.

If it was a non-venomous one, they were lucky. If it was venomous...

Well, they could only pray it wasn't one of the deadly kind.

Otherwise, the whole village would be attending a funeral.

Song Xuanqing was well aware of all this, but hadn't paid it much mind.

It was the countryside, after all — a few more snakes in summer was perfectly normal.

Even if there were perhaps a few too many of them.

But since no serious problems had arisen yet, Song Xuanqing couldn't be bothered to deal with it.