Chapter 43: Ghost Snake

  The boss was still yelling: "Where's that kid? Let him come back and grind the stone himself."

  I also dragged my footsteps to Su Haicheng's side. To be honest, after walking for a day, I was quite tired too. It's just that now is not the time to look so useless. "How about grinding? I'll do it."

  "Find a flat big stone and use another stone to pound it. It's okay if it becomes powdery."

  "Is it that important? The boss is about to blow up." Liberal arts students sometimes really don't understand what the difference is between block and powder.

  Su Haicheng said: "Make it into a powder and sprinkle it around our camp. Snakes don't like realgar, so they won't come near us."

  I nodded, feeling that this was very simple and should be the same as playing house when I was a kid. But that night, Kakashi's and my mistake almost got everyone killed.

  Looking at the large pieces of realgar, I carefully crushed them into powder. However, it was too difficult to find a completely flat stone on this mountain, and I could only use a stone that wasn't very flat. This resulted in quite a bit of powder being scattered under the stone or in the crevices of the stone's uneven surface.

  After the sky had completely darkened, Kakashi and Aoba also returned. They brought back tonight's dinner, three mountain chickens. The boss scolded Kakashi for a while, as compensation, he got a new task, which was to sprinkle the ground cinnabar powder around the camp with me.

  "Hey, you two! Move further away and make a bigger circle. Don't be so stingy like kids playing house. The circle is too small, the snake can swallow both of you with just one raise of its head."

  Kakaxi was still angry and said: "Are you trying to scare kids? Where is there such a big snake?"

  We carefully held the sulfur and walked around the campsite in a circle. The light was very dim, so it was just roughly a circle. The circle was quite big, and as we walked, we even reached that ravine over there. But the sulfur powder in our hands had already run out. Kakashi patted his hand, and threw away the bag I used to hold the sulfur powder into the ravine: "Let's go, let's head back."

  "Hey, don't you need to scatter this?"

  "Do you think there will be snakes sliding down from here? Even if there really are snakes passing by, I dare say they'll slide all the way to the foot of the mountain. Let's go, I can smell the roasted chicken already. So many people and only three chickens, just enough to add some flavor."

  It seems so. The drain doesn't look like a place where snakes would crawl. Let alone snakes, if I jump down, I'd probably end up on a slide.

  I was tired and exhausted, even eating didn't taste good. I just ate a few mouthfuls, then crawled into the tent to take a nap first. My actions didn't raise any objections from anyone, they all thought I should have the right to use the tent and get some rest. Inside the tent, wrapped in a woolen blanket, listening to them arranging the night watch outside.

  After making arrangements, Su Haicheng said: "What dangers are there on this mountain, it's best you tell me now. Don't wait until something happens and then panic."

  Several men chuckled and said: "What's there to be afraid of? Don't listen to Ah Fu. There are just a lot of snakes here, as long as you don't provoke them, you'll be fine."

  I also thought that we had scattered so much cinnabar, nothing should happen. I was really too tired, my eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, and finally closed.

  I was awakened by their cries. It was indeed a cry, a shout of men using all their might. "Ah! Where did it come from?!"

  "Never mind where it came from! Kakashi, go wake up Tsunade!"

  Only Ah Tian calls me Niang. When he rushed into the tent, I was already up. "What's going on?" I was anxious too, this unknown fear made me panic.

  "There's a snake! A big one!"

  "Haven't we already scattered the yellow turmeric?"

  "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where it came from!"

  The moment I rushed out of the tent, the tent was knocked down. And what passed in front of me was sliding... a snake? Too big, as thick as a bucket, and I couldn't even be sure if what I saw under the firelight was a snake or not. The scene was chaotic, my mind went blank for a while. I had no idea what happened. I was pushed away by a force, the person who pushed me was Su Haicheng. And he slid down the mountain to stabilize me.

  "Ah!" I exclaimed, it was too dark, I couldn't even see him, but my intuition told me that was Su Haicheng. His embrace was so familiar to me. I knew he had fallen down, but I didn't know what his situation was like. If he rolled straight down the mountain... I dared not imagine, and there was no time for me to imagine it either. The gunshot rang out. In this darkness, it was really too sudden.

  "Ahh! Use the shovel! The gun is no match for its threat, Kakashi, the shovel!"

  "Snake head, snake head, this snake has no head. Ghost, ghost snake."

  "Damn it!" Ah Tian roared, and as his figure flashed by, those men also joined the fight with their carrying poles.

  I frantically kicked the stone at my feet, which was the large stone I had previously ground the realgar on, and there was still a lot of realgar powder on it. Snakes are afraid of realgar, snakes are afraid of realgar! I don't know where I got so much strength from at that time, but I picked up the big stone and smashed it towards the estimated position of the snake's head in the darkness.

  With some rustling sounds, the snake left. It crawled to where our firelight couldn't reach and vanished in an instant. It seemed like it didn't even make a sound as it disappeared.

  "While everyone was still in a state of shock, I had already burst into tears and shouted: 'Su Haicheng? Su Haicheng!'"

  "Stop shouting." His voice came from right next to my feet, and I looked down at him as he climbed up the slope. It was literally a climb, the place was too steep, if there weren't any plants, he would have fallen straight down to the bottom of the mountain.

  Atian quickly came over and pulled him up, asking: "Aren't you dead?"

  Kakaxi plopped down on the ground, still holding Tian's gun: "He's a dead man, what's the difference between dying once and twice? Doesn't anyone care? My arm was crawled over by that snake, it's still cool to the touch, is its scales poisonous?"

  The boss kicked his butt: "The snake's venom is on its teeth, don't you have some common sense? How did you two scatter the yellow powder? If it was really scattered well, could a big snake come in?"

  I wasn't in the mood to listen to them, but instead focused on Su Haicheng. He was directly knocked down and got up by himself. I found a flashlight from my luggage and turned it on to examine his injuries.

  He pushed me away: "It's nothing, just a slight scratch."

  If it wasn't for him pouncing on me, I reckon I would have been crushed by the snake. I still pulled him over to check. On his right buttock, those thick outdoor pants had a very obvious mark. If they were ordinary pants, they would have ripped open long ago. I said in a low voice: "Now it's okay, both sides of the butt should be scarred, symmetrical."

  He reached out to rub my head, and couldn't tell if he was smiling or not. This expression lasted only for a second, the next second, he had already turned serious and shouted: "Take roll call! Get your gear in order!"

  After more than ten minutes, it was finally settled. Except for Kaka Xi's slight injury and Su Haicheng's own injury, nothing else happened. My arm, because of lifting that stone, felt a bit powerless, which can be ignored.

  Nothing was lost except for a flashlight and two rows of milk from Kaka Western were crushed into an ugly shape.

  We re-lit the bonfire and Su Haicheng assigned tasks. "A Tian, you come with me to take a look around nearby. The rest of you stay here, shout if anything happens."

  A-Tian nodded, shouldered his gun and left with the engineer's shovel. The rest of us gathered around the bonfire, it was impossible to sleep now. Kakashi's sportswear was dirty beyond recognition, he crouched by the fire, asking in a low voice: "Where did that snake come from? It appeared without making any sound."

  "It walked away without making a sound."

  "That's strange!" The boss also expressed his opinion: "There are bushes all around here, with its large body size, it must have made a sound when crawling over. But there was no sound just now."

  A tall and big man said after the boss finished speaking: "It's haunted! I told you, this place is haunted!"