Chapter 24: Where Do the Snakes Come From?

After delivering the Pills and completing the task Song Xuanqing had assigned, Xuanmo wasted no time dashing back to Xuanqing Temple to collect his reward.

But he returned to an empty shrine.

Song Xuanqing was nowhere inside.

After searching for quite a while, Xuanmo finally found Song Xuanqing on the hill behind the village.

The hill behind the village was not particularly tall, nor did it have a proper name — the villagers simply called it Back Slope Hill.

Among the several hills surrounding the village, Back Slope Hill was the lowest and most gently sloped, and it was where most villagers spent their time when venturing into the hills.

Directly behind Back Slope Hill lay Wolf's Head Mountain.

The entire expanse of Wolf's Head Mountain fell within the outer reaches of the Falling Glow Mountain Range.

When Xuanmo found Song Xuanqing, he was staring pensively in the direction of Wolf's Head Mountain.

After handing Xuanmo the delivery task, Song Xuanqing had wandered the village on his own.

At first, he simply wanted to know just how many snakes were lurking around Song Family Village.

His perception could reach into every nook and cranny — even the blind spots invisible to the human eye held no secrets from him.

And what he sensed gave even Song Xuanqing a start.

There were simply far too many snakes.

It was normal for snakes to appear more frequently as the weather warmed, but if the numbers were excessive, that was another matter entirely.

Moreover, Song Xuanqing noticed that while the snakes were plentiful, their nests were not — most were scattered across the mountain fields. Yet even so, the number of snakes was wildly disproportionate to the number of nests.

This suggested that the many snakes appearing in Song Family Village were very likely not native to the area.

So where had all these extra snakes come from?

Were the snakes appearing in Song Family Village a coincidence, or was something deliberately driving them here?

Guided by the assumption that this world was rife with demons and evil, Song Xuanqing conducted a thorough sweep of his Domain.

He found no Demon Beasts.

Every single one of those snakes was completely ordinary.

At most, a few of them showed faint signs of developing spiritual intelligence and becoming Demon Beasts.

After his survey, Song Xuanqing finally noticed something unusual on Back Slope Hill.

It wasn't a Demon Beast he had found — rather, he had discovered where all those extra snakes in the village had come from.

The snakes had fled out from the direction of Wolf's Head Mountain, entered Back Slope Hill, and then made their way down into Song Family Village at the foot of the hill.

As for why so many snakes had fled Wolf's Head Mountain, Song Xuanqing had no answer.

He wasn't even entirely certain the snakes had truly come from Wolf's Head Mountain — he still harbored some doubt.

After all, Wolf's Head Mountain bordered the Falling Glow Mountain Range, and the Falling Glow Mountain Range was Demon Beast territory.

Yet the snakes that had emerged were all ordinary snakes, not demon serpents. Whether this had anything to do with the Demon Beasts within the Falling Glow Mountain Range remained unclear.

Unable to puzzle out the key detail, Song Xuanqing happened to see Xuanmo arrive, and he took the opportunity to ask.

"There have been far too many snakes appearing in the village lately. This god has found that those snakes seem to have come from the direction of Wolf's Head Mountain. As you know, behind Wolf's Head Mountain lies the Falling Glow Mountain Range. You are a Demon Beast yourself — do you know anything about this? Do you know why these snakes would flee from Wolf's Head Mountain?"

The string of questions nearly left Xuanmo dumbfounded.

"My lord, you've asked the wrong Demon Beast. If you hadn't said so, I wouldn't even have noticed that all those snakes down in the village had come from Wolf's Head Mountain."

In other words, he had no idea either.

Song Xuanqing let out a quiet sigh but said nothing more.

Xuanmo's Cultivation was weak and low — he was likely at the very bottom of the food chain in the Falling Glow Mountain Range. Getting nothing useful out of him was perfectly understandable.

Though the reason remained unclear, now that Song Xuanqing knew the snakes were coming from Wolf's Head Mountain, he couldn't simply ignore the matter.

Even if they were all ordinary snakes, their sheer numbers were causing real problems for the villagers.

After a moment's thought, Song Xuanqing turned to Xuanmo.

"You are a Demon Beast. Ordinary snakes that catch your scent should instinctively retreat, shouldn't they?"

Xuanmo nodded. "Naturally. Ordinary snakes that haven't yet become Demon Beasts will instinctively fear the Demonic Aura of one."

Song Xuanqing gave a satisfied nod. "Then is there a way for you to leave your scent in a particular place?"

At that, Xuanmo seemed to think of something and replied with a slightly awkward squirm, "It's possible."

Song Xuanqing relaxed. "Then do this god one more favor. Along the stretch where Back Slope Hill meets Wolf's Head Mountain, leave your scent to stop those snakes from crossing over. And in the spots within the village where snakes are most concentrated, leave a few more traces of your scent to drive them away."

That should be enough to reduce the snake activity in the village.

This situation was clearly abnormal and likely wouldn't last long. He would try this approach first and reassess later.

After hearing Song Xuanqing's request, Xuanmo looked a little embarrassed.

"My lord, this little demon's Cultivation is weak and feeble. If I'm to leave my scent the way you describe — to drive away snakes and insects — the only way I can do it is by urinating. And it'll only last a day or two at most. Is that acceptable to you?"

He was worried Song Xuanqing might object, since Song Family Village was Song Xuanqing's Domain after all.

Leaving a scent was one thing, but doing it by urinating — he feared Song Xuanqing might find that unacceptable.

As it turned out, Xuanmo had worried for nothing. Song Xuanqing didn't mind at all.

And even if he had minded, it wouldn't have mattered — Song Xuanqing had no way of leaving a scent to drive off snakes himself.

This was something only Xuanmo could do.

"It's fine. Just do it. Whenever the scent starts to fade, come back and refresh it."

Following Song Xuanqing's instructions, Xuanmo left his scent throughout the village and along the border where Wolf's Head Mountain met Back Slope Hill.

The effort nearly wrung him dry — he had to trot to the riverbank and drink several times to recover.

But the results were gratifying.

The snakes that had come out of Wolf's Head Mountain caught Xuanmo's Demonic Aura and, for the most part, dared not enter Back Slope Hill, let alone venture into Song Family Village.

The snakes already inside the village were so startled by the scent Xuanmo had left that they either bolted out of Song Family Village or cowered in corners, too frightened to move.

And so the villagers noticed that the snakes had suddenly grown scarce again.

Even the fields showed barely a trace of them.

No longer were villagers being bitten by venomous snakes on a regular basis.

Some villagers believed it was Lord Xuanqing's blessing. Others thought it was simply a natural occurrence and never connected it to Song Xuanqing at all.

Hadn't it always been this way in past years? There would always be a stretch of time when snakes and insects were more active, and then they would gradually thin out again.

Granted, the snakes had been a bit unusually active this time around.

But hadn't it all settled down now?

And so many villagers put the matter out of their minds.

Until, two or three days later, someone came from Liu Family Village.