NCCnovel Chapter 7 That snake soup was truly delicious.
Chapter 7 That snake soup was truly delicious.
Guo Yuan inquired about information from the old man, and from the old village chief, the two heard a story about a "snake fairy".
Three years ago, the area began to suffer from drought, resulting in a complete crop failure. Some villagers went up the mountain to forage for wild vegetables and accidentally discovered a mysterious cave with a spring deep inside. The man immediately brought the news back to the village, and the hundred or so villagers went up the mountain overnight to fetch water. During this process, they unexpectedly pulled a sleeping white snake from the pool.
This white snake was not only as thick as an adult man's thigh, but also strangely had a human head with long hair covering its face; it was a woman.
The ignorant villagers believed that the snake demon had brought about the drought, so they chopped off the snake's head with an axe and gutted it.
After the snake demon died, the spring in the cave dried up, and the clear water that was drawn from it inexplicably turned into murky sewage. All the villagers who had drunk from the spring suffered from severe abdominal pain, and many died or were injured.
The villagers then realized they had killed Xiangrui and were filled with remorse. They made a stone statue of her and worshipped her as the Snake Fairy Goddess, replacing the local earth god originally enshrined in the temple. They offered incense to appease the Snake Fairy Goddess's anger. Later, the temple became the Snake Fairy Temple, and the village was renamed Snake Fairy Village.
Jiang Lin: "He wasn't telling the truth. If offerings could appease the snake demon's anger, then why would these villagers still have snake scales on their bodies?"
This is logic that even a child could understand.
Wang Zhe scratched his head: "Guo Yuan said that this Snake Fairy is very likely to be the final boss of this game instance."
Ding Xuehui asked curiously, "By the way, where is Guo Yuan?"
Wang Zhe looked indignant: "Hey, who knew that old man would scheme against us! After we finished talking about that, the old man's grandson brought us two bowls of noodles."
"That noodle smelled so damn good, I just couldn't resist it."
Wang Zhe didn't know how to describe it; he was gesturing wildly with joy.
Jiang Lin frowned: "You ate it?"
"How could I dare!" Wang Zhe revealed a smug smile: "My family runs a restaurant. Normal food doesn't taste like this. It must have been made with technology! Guo Yuan, that idiot, ate like a starving ghost. I couldn't stop him, so I could only pretend to drink a couple of sips and then pretend to faint."
After the two fainted, three villagers rushed in from outside. When they carried Guo Yuan away, Wang Zhe peeked out from the corner of his eye while leaning over the table and discovered that the villagers' exposed arms were covered with dense snake scales!
Wang Zhe cursed with lingering fear, "Damn it, this village is a snake-man village! Luckily, I found a chance to jump out the window and escape!"
It was still dark, and Wang Zhe, not knowing where to go, hid in an empty house. Later, hearing the commotion in the village, he went out and saw Jiang Lin and another person being chased by frantic villagers.
Ding Xuehui told Wang Zhe what she had seen at the village entrance, and the atmosphere instantly descended into panic once again.
Wang Zhe's face paled slightly: "There's not much time left at the evacuation point. Third brother, do you have a solution? This village is so big, we don't even know what the passage item looks like. What are we going to do?"
Game time: 04:53.
Evacuation point countdown: 5 hours, 46 minutes, and 17 seconds.
Jiang Lin opened the basement door and went upstairs: "There is a way, but it's a bit risky. According to the game design, the person who has the most information in the entire village is none other than the village chief. If there really is a way to pass the level, it's most likely in the village chief's house. Lead the way, let's go back now!"
If there were enough time, exploring slowly would be the safest option, but with less than 6 hours left, Jiang Lin had no choice but to resort to a simple and brutal method.
“Sure! It’s better than waiting to die!” Wang Zhe’s eyes lit up. Afraid of not having a plan, the three of them scurried around like greenbottle flies.
While the villagers were searching for them elsewhere, the three of them quietly slipped into the old village chief's house.
The journey was relatively smooth. The village chief's yard was slightly larger than the other houses, and the three of them had only been searching for a few minutes when they heard the creaking sound of a door opening. Ding Xuehui immediately hid under the bed, and Jiang Lin hid in the old, worn-out wardrobe. Wang Zhe had no choice but to crawl under the table.
Behind the old man was a boy of about thirteen or fourteen. As soon as the boy entered the house, he picked up the kettle and went to the table to get a water cup. It seemed he had come back empty-handed to rest.
Wang Zhe was tall, and the tablecloth barely concealed him, but he would definitely be exposed if anyone got too close. Jiang Lin simply gave Wang Zhe a look, and the instant the boy approached, Wang Zhe swiftly sprang out from under the table and grabbed him. At the same time, Jiang Lin jumped out of the cabinet, grabbed a pair of scissors from the low cabinet, and held them to the old man's neck.
"Don't move!" Jiang Lin threatened coldly.
The boy's eyes widened in terror: "Grandpa!"
The old man looked slightly startled, but not overly panicked. His cloudy eyes scanned the entire room, and when he saw Ding Xuehui crawling out from under the bed, he confirmed that there were three of them before glaring angrily at Wang Zhe: "So it was you!"
"You old fool, I'd like to ask you the same thing!" Wang Zhe pressed the old man down on the stool to prevent him from escaping: "Where did you take Guo Yuan, my friend?"
The old man glanced at the scissors around his neck, his face dark, and uttered two words: "Cellation."
Ding Xuehui received a look from Jiang Lin and immediately ran to the cellar. The stench of blood hit her, and the sight of crimson blood filled her eyes.
Inside the cellar was a blood-stained eight-immortal table, on which lay Guo Yuan's severed head, with drops of blood still dripping from the corners of the table.
Ding Xuehui suppressed her physical reaction and immediately ran back to tell Jiang Lin and Wang Zhe the information.
Death's scythe was already hanging high above their heads, and they could almost hear the tolling of death knells.
Ding Xuehui looked at Jiang Lin hopefully: "There are only the three of us left."
Wang Zhe couldn't help but slap the old man.
"What exactly do you want!" The boy glared angrily at the three men as he saw his grandfather's mouth bleeding from the beating.
"The origins of the snake demon, and the whole truth." Jiang Lin didn't bother with pleasantries and went straight to the point.
Seeing that the old man was still unwilling to confess, Jiang Lin's patience was running out. He picked up the scissors on the table and stabbed them into the old man's left shoulder. Ding Xuehui saw the old man open his mouth and scream, so she hurriedly stuffed a rag from the table into his mouth.
"Aren't you going to talk?" Jiang Lin turned around and pointed the scissors at the boy.
The boy was small and thin, and Wang Zhe held him down so tightly that he couldn't move at all.
"You think I wouldn't dare?" Jiang Lin's lips curled up, and the sharp tip of the knife immediately pierced the boy's cheek, drawing out bright red blood.
Seeing the boy trembling with fear, the old man panicked and said anxiously, "I said, please don't hurt my grandson!"
The drought is real, but the situation is more severe than originally described.
They had no water or food, and the wild vegetables on the mountain had been dug up clean. When the ignorant villagers mistakenly killed the white snake as a calamity, driven by hunger, they cut the white snake's body into sections and then set up dozens of iron pots at the village entrance, boiling pot after pot of it.
"That snake soup was truly delicious." The old man seemed to recall the melt-in-your-mouth taste of the snake meat, and a greedy smile appeared on his face.