He walked to the door and asked, "Yunfeng, it's so late and it's still raining. Where are you going?"
"I have to go and watch him! What if something happens to someone alone in the middle of the night? Don't worry, I'll be back soon!"
After saying that, I hurriedly chased after him.
I was wearing a raincoat, but she didn't even hold an umbrella. She walked very fast, and I trotted to catch up.
"Wait! Where are you going? Also, what is this thing you are holding?"
"This? This is sulfur-smoked dried star grass," she said, turning her head back and forth and looking around: "I can feel it, it's not far from here."
"Then we can't come here during the day? It's still raining! Look at your clothes and pants, they're all soaked!"
"No, it will definitely not be around here during the day."
The snake girl's hair is stuck to her cheeks and she squints her eyes. Her eyes are pure orange, which makes her look strangely beautiful.
"Shh..."
"Don't make a sound..."
After speaking, she stuck out her tongue like a snake, and her tongue kept moving left and right.
"In that direction!"
She trotted toward the southwest, and I followed closely.
She took my flashlight and kept looking back and forth at the ground while holding it up.
I looked and saw nothing but some toads jumping in small puddles.
Countless raindrops fell on the puddles, causing ripples.
"It's strange... where did it go? I just smelled something coming from this direction."
"You smelled it with your tongue?"
She nodded, then shook her head and said, "I have lived with snakes since I was very young, so I am familiar with their smell. I only need three steps to find snakes."
"Smell the smell of the snake, listen to the sound of the snake, and recognize the snake's path."
She pointed to her feet and told me: "As long as there is a snake crawling over on the ground, it will leave a trail of snakes on the spot. Some are diamond-shaped marks, and some are uneven marks, just like a water pipe pressing down."
After she explained, she held up a flashlight and got into the lush grass nest.
"Come and see!"
"This is the trace! This is the snake path!"
I also got into the grass nest. It didn't matter what I saw. My scalp felt numb instantly!
I saw that a large area of grass had been flattened.
Something seemed to be crawling across the rainy ground quickly. Looking at the mark, it was thicker than the mouth of a stainless steel bowl, probably more than 20 centimeters in diameter!
It's cold in the Northeast and there are few snakes.
But this is an uninhabited land in the mountains! It is inaccessible, so it is not surprising that there are snakes, but I have never seen such a big snake, let alone seen it with my own eyes or heard of it.
"I...I'm going back to sleep, you...go find it yourself."
"No! Don't you want to see the Snake King?"
My head shook like a rattle, and I said I didn't want to at all. Then I asked her: "If you find the snake king, what do you want to do?"
"You can eat meat and drink blood. I really want to drink the blood of the snake king."
"Drink...drink the blood! Didn't you say snakes are your friends?!"
She nodded and said, "They are friends, but friends are for eating. I started eating them when I was 6 years old."
"Isn't your Zhanghu custom not to eat or kill snakes?"
She smiled and said: "I am different, I have privileges."
I was dumbfounded. It was the first time I heard that friends were used to eat.
Seeing that I was stunned, she explained: "Brother Xiang, snakes are solitary animals, so there are very few snake kings. Since 1984, the ones we rated every year in Zhanghu cannot be regarded as real snake kings, at most they are relatively rare.
