Snake’s eyes blazed with green light. ‘What do you think this is?’ she fumed inwardly. ‘You think you can just milk me on demand? If it were anyone else, I’d have killed them with a single venomous bite without a second thought.’
‘But he’s the one who calls me ‘sister’.’
Snake was conflicted for a moment, but quickly convinced herself, nodding emphatically. ‘I’m doing this for Mother.’
Snake took the porcelain vial. POP! She pulled out the cork, turned her back to Zheng Xiu, and angled her hips upward. ‘Well now, who knew she had such a nice curve?’ As Zheng Xiu wondered why she was suddenly striking such a pose, Snake, still facing away, reached back and pointed to a specific spot on her lower back. In a peculiar tone, she said, “Press this spot. Hard.”
“Uh, I don’t know about this…”
Snake’s expression hardened. “Do you want this or not?”
“I do, I do!”
Afraid Snake would change her mind, Zheng Xiu put two fingers together and jabbed the spot she had indicated.
The moment he hit the pressure point, Snake’s toes curled and her body went into a slight spasm. Zheng Xiu heard a SQUIRT as something sprayed into the vial. Instantly, a peculiar, alluring fragrance filled the study, like a thousand flowers blooming at once.
‘Amazing,’ Zheng Xiu thought, and continued to press. ‘Could this be the legendary “seven-inch” weak spot of a snake?’
‘It’s true! The best way to strike a snake is at its weak spot!’
‘A direct hit to the pressure point!’
The faster Zheng Xiu pressed, the more frequently Snake sprayed her venom, and the greater the volume became.
Intent on milking her completely dry, Zheng Xiu showed no mercy. Poor Snake. By the time the small vial was full, she had collapsed on the floor, panting and utterly exhausted.
“Thank you for your trouble!”
He kept his word, immediately telling Snake about the Big White Snake hidden on Celestial Yin Mountain.
Gratefully, Zheng Xiu stoppered the vial, carefully put it away, and scrawled a “HIGHLY TOXIC” label to stick on it. He was afraid the mischievous Zizi and the others might smell the fragrance and drink it like juice, which would be a disaster of epic proportions.
As Zheng Xiu was hunched over his desk writing the label, Snake, still lying on the floor, somehow found a burst of strength. With a soft whimper, her figure blurred—and she crashed through the window to escape, vanishing in an instant.
Zheng Xiu stared, stunned, at the shattered window.
‘There’s a perfectly good door. What’s with breaking the window? Weird.’
“Damn it!” Zheng Xiu slapped his forehead, annoyed with himself. ‘I got too into the ‘milking’ and forgot to tell her the other thing.’ Now that Snake had fled, he’d have to wait until they met again. ‘By then, maybe her venom glands will have replenished, and I can get another batch.’ Zheng Xiu was already gleefully plotting his “next time.”
On that note, Snake’s body was no longer remotely human. Her fangs, her venom glands, her habits, her physical structure—she was, for all intents and purposes, a beautiful, humanoid snake.
Carrying the vial of venom, Zheng Xiu headed back toward the dungeon to find a hiding place, his mind occupied with the Path Snake had taken.
If her transformation couldn’t be explained away as her being a “yokai,” then it had to be a result of her “Path.” ‘No wonder Ye has been lying, claiming Snake’s Path is that of a Divine-Tuning Witch. Without that cover, her transformation is so inconceivable that outsiders would simply see her as a monster.’
Her experience was similar to Feng Bei’s in some ways; they were both “monsters” that society could not accept.
‘The Crow Fosterer, Snake… It’s true. Beyond the Paths available to Humans, there are other Paths that ordinary people cannot tread. To walk them, you either need a stroke of luck, a unique gift, or… you must pay a price an ordinary person could never endure.’
Zheng Xiu recalled the World in the Painting. On the summit of Sunset Mountain, he and Xie Luohe had lifted the lid of a great coffin and discovered a skeleton inside. The bones of the first Crow Fosterer had long since warped into a non-human form.
Lost in thought, Zheng Xiu walked into his small garden. The Orange Cat was being unusually quiet today, curled up in its bed with its eyelids drooping as it dozed. It paid him no mind as he entered.
He had just closed the door and was about to trigger the mechanism to the dungeon when there was a knock. It was Pingping, bearing a tray of exquisite afternoon pastries. When she entered and saw it was the Red King, her eyes lit up. “Young Master~” she cooed, her voice dripping with sweetness. The fact that she was in on the secret seemed to make it all the more exciting for her.
She hesitantly asked if there had been someone else in the study earlier. Passing by, Pingping had heard some strange whimpering and moaning sounds.
‘No wonder she brought snacks over on her own initiative,’ Zheng Xiu realized. ‘It was a hint. She wants to ‘cultivate’.’
Zheng Xiu explained with a perfectly straight face that a venomous snake had snuck into the study.
“And then?” Pingping asked, batting her eyelashes.
“Oh, it was nothing. I was in rare form. I grabbed the venomous snake by its weak spot and gave it a thorough thrashing, striking its pressure points until it was foaming at the mouth, exhausted, and on the brink of death. But then, thinking of it as a precious little life, I, ahem, let it go.”
“You have a kind heart, Young Master.”
After fobbing her off with a few more fabrications, Zheng Xiu tactfully declined Pingping’s request for a ‘cultivation’ session, promising her another time. He closed the door, munching on a pastry.
Alone at last, Zheng Xiu began his research.
Though the liquid had been sprayed from Snake’s venom glands, Zheng Xiu figured if he thought of it as a medicinal ingredient—snake saliva, perhaps—he wouldn’t feel too weird about it. Especially since it came from a beautiful snake-woman. After a moment’s hesitation, he stuck out his tongue and took a tiny lick.
The moment it touched his tongue, a decadent floral fragrance spread out, melting instantly. It was like a delicacy from the mortal realm, causing the pores all over Zheng Xiu’s body to open. A tingling, numbing sensation washed over him, leaving him feeling utterly refreshed.
It didn’t feel like he was drinking venom at all; it was more like fruit juice.
It was sweet and fragrant, like nectar from a thousand blossoms. Zheng Xiu was a wealthy man who had tasted his share of worldly delicacies, but he felt that among all the beverages he had ever tried, nothing could compare to this vial of venom.