Senior Green Tea Turned Into an Abused Heroine Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Snake Demon (2)
Lin Xiaocha had a surprised expression on her face, but her heart felt very uneasy.
Didn’t this mean she’d be the only one to face the demon?
Moreover, this scene wasn’t a part of the original work, so she had no idea what would happen once she passed through the teleportation gate.
It is well known that people are always afraid of the unknown.
Besides, she didn't want to go through the experience of being a sacrifice again.
However, the person she was impersonating was supposed to be a kind and selfless little white flower.
Furthermore, she once volunteered to be sacrificed in place of a mother and daughter pair she had never even met before. To save a man, she took off her clothes and huddled with him all night. She even donated all her wealth to the refugees.
If she were to let Jin Xuan’er, a girl she acted quite affectionate with, die while safely staying on the sidelines, wouldn't her image collapse?
This was too difficult.
When she finally decided to speak...
Jin Zhifeng impatiently asked, "Why does it have to be a woman?"
"Demon snakes are sexual predators by nature. The snake that has your sister is a male one that can already take human form, meaning it’s most definitely looking for a human female to mate with."
Even while disclosing such obscene words, Han Yu’s face was still indifferent, and his pure demeanor remained untainted. This caused Jin Zhifeng's pupil to widen with concern, "Then Xuan'er, she…."
Han Yu didn't answer his implied question.
He could only assure the boy that Jin Xuan'er was alive for the time being, but he couldn't guarantee anything else.
On the other hand, Lin Xiaocha felt as if ten thousand horses were galloping through her heart.
A snake…
A giant snake that can transform into a human...
At that moment, Lin Xiaocha remembered this famous quote: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them[1].” Meaning, if the profit looks big enough, those driven by greed will happily contribute to their own downfall. Just like she is about to.
A hundred little people in her heart were unwilling, yet she whispered, "I'll go and lure the demon out."
Jin Zhifeng stared at her with surprised eyes, "You..."
Does she even know what she is talking about?
"Xianjun, time is running out. Let’s hurry before Xuan'er is in real danger..."
Jin Zhifeng's heart was frustrated, he didn't want her to go, but he couldn't bring himself to stop the girl because this truly might be the only way to save his sister.
On the contrary, Han Yu gazed at Lin Xiaocha without a trace of surprise in his eyes.
He already knew that she would go to save the other girl without hesitation.
Suddenly, Lin Xiaocha took off her hairpin, and her smooth waist-length hair fell down her back like a waterfall.
"Am I good-looking enough like this?"
She asked both men, but none of them could answer.
They were too shocked to do so.
Because right now, with her long hair cascading down her back like a shawl, her originally beautiful yet innocent face carried a more seductive charm.
Han Yu's fingers twitched slightly, while Jin Zhifeng felt like he could see the gods.
But, why was she asking this?
Soon enough, she used the hairpin to pull her hair up again and continued to speak,"Do you think the demon snake will be drawn out if he sees me like this?"
Although her naive question was tinged with feigned calmness, her eyes were moist, and her eyelashes stained with teardrops, like a mountain camellia dampened by the morning mist.
Besides all that, the two men also noticed that the hands holding her hair were slightly trembling.
"Are you scared?" Han Yu asked.
"I'm not afraid." Lin Xiaocha replied resolutely, but her voice was shaking so obviously even a fool could see that she was lying.
An imperceptible pity passed through Han Yu's eyes.
"Don’t worry, I'm here. You will be fine."
There was a camellia tree next to Han Yu, and he picked one of its white flowers.
"Xianjun, what is this?"
"Don't move." Then he took a step towards Lin Xiaocha.
Lin Xiaocha: ...
Xianjun, are you going to put a white flower in my hair? It doesn't seem to be particularly auspicious[2].
"I cast a spell on this flower so I could easily find your position through it." After speaking, he placed the flower in her hair.
Lin Xiaocha: ...
Forget it. Let’s not worry about this pragmatic and clueless man.
So she obediently stayed motionless, allowing him to insert the flower into her bun.
He was very tall, and Lin Xiaocha was quite petite. So, when the two stood next to each other, Lin Xiaocha could only reach his shoulders.
In this green forest, a man in white and a beautiful girl in an apricot dress were facing each other, like an incomparably harmonious painting.
And Jin Zhifeng felt even more upset when he saw this scene.
*
Lin Xiaocha walked along the path she saw in front of her after leaving the teleportation gate, and she didn't encounter a single demon along the way.
Soon she saw the abandoned temple Han Yu had mentioned.
The Demon King Temple!
The trees around the temple were denser compared to other places in the forest. And although It was still daytime, the surroundings were very gloomy.
Moreover, the chilling wind swiping through made people shudder.
But as long as Lin Xiaocha thought of the money she would receive at the end of all this, she instantly found the courage she needed to go through with the plan.
Stepping on fallen leaves, she entered the temple through the slanted door frame. As soon as she stepped inside, a layer of dust rose up from the ground, and a musty stench spreaded out.
At the center of the decrepit temple, amidst the faint lighting, stood the statue of a gigantic black dragon.
And despite being mutilated, with even its horns broken and the rest of it covered in dust and spider webs, the statue remained remarkably lifelike, exuding a powerful and fearsome presence.
While staring at it, the dragon’s pair of eyes pierced through Lin Xiacha with intensity, evoking memories of the large blue orbs that emerged from earth’s crevices when she almost died in the burial ground.
The Demon King is a Scaled Dragon[3].
She observed the massive statue, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
Suddenly, a violent blast of wind swept around the temple, causing the shadows of the trees to pass through the worn out gate, and scarily dance upon the floor.
Sensing movement at her feet, she cast her gaze downwards only to discover an enormous serpent sawing with the wind around her.
Covered in scales comparable to those of a crocodile, the snake’s appearance made goosebumps spread all over her body.
And as she nervously looked around, she noticed an accumulation of fallen leaves on one corner of the wall next to her.
Despite the presence of trees in the vicinity of the temple, to find such an excessive amount of leaves inside gave Lin Xiaocha the impression that they were purposely there to conceal something.
Then, accompanied by the sound of rustling, a gray silhouette slid along the ground and walls of the ruined temple.
The combination of dim light and swirling dust made it impossible to see the actual appearance of the moving entity.
The big and long black shadow slowly crept along the corner of the wall, circling around Lin Xiaocha.
At that precise moment, the leaves she had seen earlier, stacked against the wall’s corner, fell down in a flutter followed by a cascade of dense bones..
And just when Lin Xiaocha thought that her heart was going to jump out of her throat, a brown, triangular, and large sheep-shaped head snake struck the ground, and crawled in her direction, flicking its red tongue.
It is almost the same size as the Madam White Snake[4] I once saw on TV; Lin Xiaocha thought, and the extreme fear she was feeling instantly calmed down.
She thought about how she sneakily came out of the burial ground with the Demon King’s Egg, and fed her blood to it, hoping to raise the hatchling.
She did not plan to repeat the original heroine's mistakes, who let herself be repeatedly abused because she has no spiritual roots and nothing to defend herself with.
So why would she be afraid of a mere snake?
Determined, she forced herself to stare into the eyes of the big snake as it stopped before her.
Suddenly, the big snake disappeared, and a man in a red robe stood in front of her.
The snake demon had turned himself into a very handsome man. Those golden eyes of his were not too lofty, and even had a mysterious beauty to them.
But looking down, Lin Xiaocha saw a thick and long tail protruding from his robe, twisting and twirling on the ground.
He asked gloomily, "What are you doing here?"
"The person you took away is my sister. I came here for her,"
"Sister?" He repeated, lifting up Lin Xiaocha's chin with his cold fingers.
He took a closer look at her face before adding "You don't look alike."
"The dragon gave birth to nine sons, each one different[5]. It is common knowledge that not all siblings in the world look alike."
The snake demon seemed to have believed her lies because he got closer to her white neck, sniffing the smell of her body, "So, you're telling me that you came here to break off the good deeds between your sister and I? How do you plan to compensate me?"
His breath smelled like blood.
Lin Xiaocha also leaned towards his ear, talking with a charming voice, "I'm here to replace her~ why don’t you let her, and let me keep you company instead?"
Needless to say the snake demon was taken aback.
Whether it’s the other demons here capable of taking a human form or the cultivators who had come to the Ten Thousand Demon Forest, he had never seen such a beautiful face until today.
Her innocent features were dyed with a charm that was even greater than a fox demon.
So he merely said one word, "Okay."
Then he swept Lin Xiaocha off her feet, and walked behind the colossal statue where four inconspicuous small stone statues stood.
There was a two-headed snake one, a nine-tailed fox, a six-winged bird, and a black tortoise with a human face.
The snake demon casted a spell, and the mysterious tortoise statue slowly moved away, revealing a hole less than one meter in the ground.
Next, he lowered his body with Lin Xiaocha still in his arms, and jumped into the hole.
The cave was slanted down, dark and narrow. And Lin Xiaocha, who was shackled by the snake demon, was spinning downwards, the demon’s bloody smell filling up her nose.
Nausea made her dizzy, and her stomach juices churned.
People could only crawl down to access this underground lair. Lin Xiaocha couldn't think of the appearance of the man in white clothes crawling down this tunnel.
The narrow hole suddenly opened up, allowing her to stand up.
And as light from above lit up the lair, Lin Xiaocha could vaguely see numerous forked roads ahead of them, the entrances were of various sizes.
The snake demon hugged her and took her into the deepest looking one.
After entering, she found out that the tunnels were intertwined like a labyrinth.
After what felt like a long time, she could finally see a door with two red lanterns hanging on it at the end of the tunnel.
They finally arrived at their destination.
The demon snake opened the door with his long tail, and on the other side of it was a pair of red candles, and a big bed adorned with a red canopy.
He then proceeded to throw her on the bed, and Lin Xiaocha discovered that there was already someone dressed in luxurious clothes on the bed.
That someone was none other than Jin Xuan'er.
However, Jin Xuan'er was sleeping a little abnormally. Lin Xiaocha was suddenly thrown next to her, yet she didn’t even flinch.
Taking a closer look, she found that Jin Xuan’er’s blood vessels had turned black under her pale skin.
"What happened to my sister?" Lin Xiaocha asked, suspicious.
"Poisoned." The snake demon's face showed impatience, "If she was as quiet as you, I would have kept her alive for two more days."
After hearing those words, Lin Xiaocha hurriedly opened Jin Xuan'er's collar, and just like Jin Zhifeng, there were two holes on her shoulders.
The area around the wounds were red, painfully swollen, and had already begun to fester.
At this moment, the bloody scent surrounded her again, and the demon snake whispered into her ear from behind,
"You said that you wanted to take her place, didn’t you?"
Then, he opened his mouth, showing his fangs, and getting dangerously close to her white and slender neck.
*
Simultaneously, Han Yu was opening another teleportation gate, and after Jin Zhifeng entered it, he found out he was not at the Demon King’s Temple but another location in the Ten Thousand Demon Forest.
"What are we doing here? The entrance to the demon’s lair is somewhere in the Demon King Temple."
Han Yu ignored him as blue light flashed in his hand, and a long sword appeared. He pulled out the sword from its white scabbard, making it emit an icy blue light.
Jin Zhifeng: A sword?
Isn't he a magic user?
*
At the same moment, the tip of the snake demon's teeth had touched Lin Xiaocha's slender neck.
Although she was immune to all poisons, Lin Xiaocha still felt creeped out and didn't want to be bitten.
She subtly moved her neck away and looked at the demon with pitiful eyes, "Didn't you say that I am quiet, Lord? Why do you want to bite me too?"
"But you are not obedient," he took off the camellia on her head, "You use yourself as bait to lure me out, and rescue your sister. You underestimated this one too much. There are thousands of tunnels in here, by the time they find you two, both of you would already..."
He rubbed the flower in his hand until its petals fell to the ground one by one before adding, "be like this camellia."
Lin Xiaocha: !!!
...
As soon as he finished his words, a strong blue light came from above.
The room, no, it should be said that the whole cave was split into two.
Immediately afterward, the earth quaked and the mountains shook, the whole area rumbling loudly. Stones fell from the sky, almost crushing the man-snake's giant tail.
The snake demon looked up at the sudden crack on the top of his head, dumbfounded, and his pupils angrily turned into a vertical line.
"What the hell is going on..." Jin Zhifeng stared at the blue light shining in the sky with his mouth agape.
Inside the blue light stood a man in white fluttering clothes, wielding a longsword, akin to a deity.
He had split the ground in two in a single strike...
Han Yu never planned to crawl down the hole.
.
.
.
Footnotes:
[1] The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them - Quote by Vladimir ilich Lenin. It means as long as there is profit, there are bound to be people who would risk their lives to earn it.
[2] white flowers - Traditional funerals in China are donned in white. White represents death and ghosts in Chinese culture, which explains why they are often found at funerals. White iris wreaths are traditional Chinese funeral arrangements. Basically not a very good color to wear right before sending ourselves into dangerous situations.
[3] Scaled Dragon - or otherwise known as Jiaolong (蛟龙/蛟龍) or jiao (chiao, kiao) is a dragon in Chinese mythology, it is hornless according to certain scholars and said to be aquatic or river-dwelling. Thus in the legend around the Scaled Dragon hovering above the mother giving birth to a future emperor i.e., Liu Bang, the founding emperor of Han, r. 202-195 BCE. They are known with the ability to control rain and floods
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaolong
[4] Madam White Snake - Legend of the White Snake, also known as Madame White Snake, is a famous Chinese folktale that dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The script was set during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1733–1735) of the Qing Dynasty and became widespread all over China after the Emperor’s review. Over the centuries, the story has been retold in novels, and adapted to operas, shadow plays and movies.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_White_Snake
[5] The dragon gave birth to nine sons, each one different - The saying that a dragon has nine sons has a long history. In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Yingqiu's Yuzhi Hall recorded that the dragon gave birth to nine sons: “The nine sons of a dragon will not become dragons, and each has his own preferences.” According to legend, the Dragon King gave birth to nine sons, and each of the nine sons is not a dragon, and the nine sons are very different in character and appearance, and each has his own advantages. You can read more in the links below.
Sources:
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