Chapter Nineteen: Black Insects in the Water

  In just a few moments, the terrifying cobra was subdued by Dog Daxian. At this point, it was already half dead and limp on the ground, with only its tail still struggling in vain.

  After Dog Da Xian defeated the glasses snake, he drilled back into the dog's teeth carried by Ye Fei. I don't know if my uncle can see Dog Da Xian or not, after all, not everyone can see spirits.

  The snake had no ability to attack, and I and Ye Fei ran over in a hurry. He used a stone to flatten the snake's head, while I walked to Ye Fei, who was knocked unconscious by me, and saw that her forehead was swollen into a package.

  I quickly reached out to touch her nose and breath, and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. However, when she wakes up, I don't know how much medical expenses I'll have to pay. Koizumi just fainted from fright and wasn't seriously injured. After checking, I didn't find any snake bite marks on Yafuji or Koizumi's hands, feet, or neck.

  It was really too dangerous just now, fortunately, Ye Fei's grandmother sent this dog Da Xian amulet, didn't expect to use it the next day. This time it wasn't that we weren't well-prepared, but who would have known there was a second snake, my uncle also had an apologetic face.

  He said something to me, but I couldn't understand it. Finally, my uncle went back to the old grave and picked up a sickle, cutting off the head of the cobra stuck in the bamboo with one swift motion.

  I rushed over and saw that my uncle had already smashed the snake's head, which was as big as a fist, with the handle of his sickle. I asked him if he didn't want to keep the venom? He waved his hand and threw away the sickle, then walked to the other end of the bamboo grove and dragged out the dead body of the glasses snake. The ground was covered in snake blood, just like a pig slaughter scene. If someone who didn't know came to this old tomb, they would think that the owner of the tomb had become a ghost!

  I and Uncle Ye Fei Jiu returned to the pomegranate forest, Uncle Ye squatted down and pressed Ye Fei Jiu's people's hole, waking her up. After Ye Fei Jiu woke up, she touched her forehead and kept saying it hurt, seeing the dead snake next to her, she was immediately frightened again and jumped up screaming.

  She cried out for a while before realizing it was a dead snake, then squatted on the ground and started crying. I had intended to comfort her with a few words, but instead blurted out "I told you not to come, now you're regretting it!"

  His uncle's shoulder was hanging with a bloody glasses snake corpse, laughing on the side, gloating over others' misfortunes, like an old sly head.

  Yefei cried for a moment, then noticed that Kozakura had fainted behind her. She quickly wiped away her tears and crawled over to him, asking me with a terrified expression if he had been bitten by a snake.

  I told her no, Koizumi was knocked unconscious, and then Yui suddenly remembered something and said she seemed to have been knocked out by me.

  I hastily explained that the snake would only think you're not a threat if it knocked you out, and offered to pay for medical expenses. Ye Fei touched the bandage on his forehead and said, "Not only will I be compensated for medical expenses, but also for shock fees, disfigurement fees, pain fees... Let's go back and discuss how to compensate me slowly."

  Ye Fei Jiao's uncle cut a branch for Ye Fei Jiao to use as a crutch, and he tied two dead snakes to the hoe with a rope and carried it on his shoulder. I carried Xiao Jian Qi on my back and followed Ye Fei Jiao's uncle down the mountain towards home.

  It was already late afternoon, and the rate at which people turned their heads on the way home was 200%. The two big eyeglasses snakes on his back were really cool, and there were children following behind my uncle, but they didn't dare to follow too closely. Halfway through, someone even wanted to buy one of the snakes to take home and cook it, but my uncle refused. We almost got into trouble catching these two snakes.

  After returning home, my uncle hung the two dead snakes and skinned them. The snakes were hung on a ladder under the eaves of the house, with their tails dangling to the ground, still quite long. After skinning the two snakes and removing their internal organs, they became two long strips of meat. My uncle cut them into sections about 30 cm long and as thick as an arm with a kitchen knife. Finally, he salted these pieces of snake meat and hung them on bamboo sticks to cure. I counted over thirty cured snake meat strips from the two snakes.

  After dealing with the snake, Fourth Uncle took out a jar of medicinal wine from under the bed, scooped out a small amount with a spoon and poured it into a bottle. He gave it to Ye Fei Chui to apply to her forehead wound. As soon as Ye Fei Chui applied the medicine to her wound with her finger, she felt an intense burning pain, like being scalded by a lighter. Within minutes, the wound turned purple, then white, and finally returned to its normal color.

  My maternal uncle said that the medicinal materials used to soak this medicinal wine are worth a thousand dollars and can't be bought, ginseng is the cheapest among them. Ordinarily, it takes half a month for wounds to recover, but after applying his medicinal wine, they can recover in just three days.

  Maternal great-uncle asked again about Ye Fei Jiu, that black dog who bit the snake to death was the one raised by his maternal aunt's sister, Da Xian, right? Ye Fei Jiu nodded and said that her grandmother had given it to her as a protective charm.

  Before long, the sky gradually darkened, and Koizumi also woke up. I gave her a piece of candy to eat. She had been frightened by that snake during the day, and it was likely she would have nightmares again at night.

  I asked Ye Fei Jiu to ask her uncle, what if the venom of the glasses snake is gone.

  Maternal uncle said it's okay if there isn't any, the snake venom is needed to dissolve and mix those few medicines, without the snake venom then manual dissolution will do, but still lacks crystal blood...

  As soon as crystal blood was mentioned, my uncle's face changed color. I saw it in his eyes and asked him where he had seen the crystal fish before, and I went to catch the fish back.

  My uncle smiled and said that the crystal fish lives its whole life in deep water underground, it's extremely rare for them to drill out into surface rivers. Even if they do, they can't adapt to the temperature and brightness of the environment on the surface, and will die within an hour. The most important thing is that their entire body is transparent, so even if there's one in this fish tank, you wouldn't notice it unless it had eaten something and its belly was full.

  I thought to myself, I have Tongtong, why worry about not catching one? Just ask her to drill from the spring eye into the underground river, isn't that simple? However, I wanted to hear Uncle Biao's idea, so I pretended to be helpless and asked him, since it's so hard to catch, what method should we use to get one?

  My uncle said he had a way and went to catch it early. Even if you use bait to lure it out, you can't put it in the spring eye.

  I said, since that's the case, I might as well try my luck. I've always been a lucky person, so let him tell me where the mountain spring is located. My uncle said that once we reach the foot of the mountain and turn a corner, we'll be there in just over 10 minutes walking distance. If we can't find it, we can follow the stream upwards to search for it.

  I took a snake skin bag after hearing this, let Ye Fei and her maternal uncle wait for my good news! However, my maternal uncle also wants to go take a look.

  Was rejected by me.

  After getting off the mountain, I saw that there was no one around and called out to Tongtong. I asked her if she had ever seen a completely transparent fish before. Tongtong said she had! She remembered that when they went into the cave with those police uncles last time, many of the fish in the river were transparent.

  Tongtong's words made me feel depressed, I guess the fish living in the dark underground river, due to years of not seeing sunlight, are all transparent or white. However, this is just my speculation, combined with Tongtong's words, if I really guessed correctly, then catching a transparent fish back doesn't necessarily mean it's a crystal fish.

  But no matter what, as long as it's transparent, bring them all back and identify which one is later.

  Before long, I and Tongtong arrived in front of a huge stone as big as a van. Under the stone, there was a hole as large as a basketball, from which spring water gushed out continuously.

  I shone the flashlight onto the slightly calm water surface, and the mouth of the spring cave was pitch black and bottomless. I took out the pearl from my pocket and gave it to Tiantian, patted her head and asked if she was okay.

  Tongtong said there is a problem

  I asked her if she had any questions

  Tongtong said she caught fish and wants a reward.

  I asked her what reward she wanted!

  Tongtong said he hasn't thought of it yet and will tell me when he thinks of it.

  I told Tóng Tóng, no matter if you catch fish or not, I will reward you. After finishing speaking, I patted her head again and told her to be careful, and run away when encountering danger.

  The little boy nodded and then jumped into the spring water and disappeared.

  I climbed up onto a large rock and waited for about five minutes before Tiantian emerged from the spring, standing on the water's surface with empty hands.

  I hastily asked her why she came back empty-handed, didn't you see the transparent fish below?

  Tongtong said no, but in fact there wasn't even half a fish below, she searched a large area and didn't see any sign of fish.

  I was so shocked that I jumped down from the stone and asked Tongtong if there's something wrong with the water here? How is it possible that not even a single fish can be found?! Brother Ye Fei's uncle said he had seen them here before, what should we do now?!

  The little one was stunned by my question and said to look further next time, go a bit farther away to find something, then dived back into the water.

  I walked back and forth by the spring for at least twenty minutes, but still didn't see Tiantian come up. Suddenly, a flashlight shone over from not far away.

  The flashlight shone on me as it walked closer and closer, finally arriving at the spring. It was a tall and thin old woman, probably over 50 years old. I guessed she was from the household across from Ye Fei's uncle, but although they were across from each other, the distance was still several hundred meters away, almost on another hillside.

  The old woman came to the spring and shone her flashlight at me, then asked me something in Miao language, but I couldn't understand, nor did I know how to answer her. The old woman saw that I was ignoring her, so she scolded me, and I also scolded her in Hakka dialect, neither of us could understand each other, and finally she left.

  Not long after the old woman left, Tongtong came out of the water again and jumped directly to the shore. I saw that she still had nothing in her hands, and without waiting for her to speak, I eagerly asked her how things were going.

  Tongtong shook her head and said no, she went very far away to find some but couldn't even get half a fish.

  Tongtong's answer almost petrified me on the spot. Is there poison in this water or something? Otherwise, where did all the fish go? Tongtong's next answer really petrified me on the spot.

  Tongtong only said that there were no fish in the underground river, but there was a kind of insect everywhere, and it was as big as a green bean. She encountered a huge black object under her feet, which was as big as a house, and she was so scared that she prepared to run away, but found that this huge object was composed of countless small insects.