I cursed under my breath, cursing the universe. When fate turns sour, even a sip of cold water seems to get lodged in your throat. To think that even a few withered branches dared to kick me when I was down! Damn their mothers! I muttered, tossing the half-rotten stick in my hand away, moving to the bottom of the ditch to find one thicker and longer.

“Eagle! Watch out…” Qin Ping’er shouted from behind me, “Snake!”

My mind went blank, my balls clenched tight, and I spun around in horror, squinting, “Where… where…?”

“In your hand…” I saw Qin Ping’er’s blurry form frantically pointing and yelling at me.

Her shout finally made me realize the cold, soft texture in my grip. Letting out a yelp of terror, I immediately shone the flashlight on it, only to see a thick, pitch-black snake held right in my hand!! Perhaps fate hadn't decided my time was up; by sheer chance, I had grasped it exactly at its "seven-inch" pressure point. The snake couldn't break free, its mouth agape, revealing two rows of needle-sharp, startlingly white fangs. It struggled to twist its head, trying to sink its jaws onto my wrist. Its forked tongue darted out and retracted, missing my skin by a mere fraction of a millimeter. Due to my myopia, the snake appeared magnified and distorted, its fangs and tongue larger than life, their edges blurred as if viewed through frosted glass… Yet, even so, I felt the sheer malevolence radiating from its monstrous face!

“Throw it away, quickly…” Seeing me frozen, staring stupidly at the serpent, Qin Ping’er yelled again.

I snapped out of my daze. I intended to hurl the snake far away, but my hand had gone limp with fear. As I loosened my grip, the snake dropped straight down to my feet—a situation perfectly described by four rustic sayings: Old age brings failing health, trying to pee wets your shoes; you aim further away, but the stream just draws nearer. Of course, this feeling is better understood than explained—but what happened next was far more horrifying. As the snake hit the ground, it landed with a few dull thuds. The soft, slimy body had cleanly split into five segments, scattering across the dirt. The visual effect was comparable to watching a long icicle shatter spectacularly when dropped from a great height in winter.

I sprang away like a frog scalded by boiling water, leaping instantly to Qin Ping’er’s side, clutching her waist tightly, my head buried deep into her chest. Qin Ping’er remained remarkably composed, unconcerned if I was taking advantage of the moment. She held me, turning sideways, shielding me as if protecting a basketball, while taking the flashlight and staring intently at the severed pieces on the ground. After a moment of silent contemplation, Qin Ping’er’s voice trembled as she whispered, “The broken snake… it’s moving…”

Moving? A snake that fragile, breaking into pieces like ice shards, yet still moving?

I cautiously turned my head to look. The segments of the dead snake were writhing slowly on the ground, resembling pieces of smoked, blackened sausage, inching their way toward one specific section—which was, horrifyingly, the snake’s head! As the pieces moved, they left behind shallow, winding trails of dark fluid on the ground.

Qin Ping’er and I watched, dumbfounded. What kind of serpent was this? So fragile it shattered upon impact, yet so resistant to rigor mortis, with every piece behaving as if still alive. Following this pattern, could they possibly rejoin to form a single, whole snake again?

This question was swiftly answered. After a brief period of wriggling and nudging, the severed pieces converged, aligning themselves head-to-tail to become one contiguous body. Even more sensational was the orderliness of the reunion: each piece seemed to know its exact position, assembling seamlessly. The tail never tried to lead, nor did the central segments attempt to yield precedence; they lined up sequentially, perfectly.

Naturally, many of the finer details were later recounted to me by Qin Ping’er.

The black snake, now whole again, lifted its head, glanced at us once, executed a few S-shaped twists, and vanished into the eave trough.

I noticed that where the perfectly mended black snake had passed, there wasn't a single trace of blood!

Only after the black snake disappeared into the shadowed trough did Qin Ping’er and I dare to approach. Peering into the recess, we saw seven or eight black snakes of varying sizes, all slowly writhing, paying us no mind.

I simultaneously observed that the first snake I had picked up—the one I mistook for a branch—had left behind its scattered fragments below the ditch edge. There, too, were several radiating lines of faint, reddish trails. I also noted that the ground was paved entirely with uniform gray-white flagstones, making those curved, winding blood marks stand out vividly under the dull yellow beam of the flashlight, especially jarring and soul-stirring to my poor eyesight…

I let out a long breath and slapped my chest, finally feeling the cold sweat drenching me. Qin Ping’er, however, let out a light chuckle, saying sweetly, “Who said you were afraid of snakes? Didn't you just have a zero-contact encounter with one bare-handed? How did that feel?”

I was so annoyed my backside felt like sparking, and I could still feel the cold, slippery sensation of the black snake on my hand!

Rubbing my hand furiously against my backside, I grumbled at Qin Ping’er, “Why didn’t you warn me sooner? You almost scared my soul right out of me…”

“I didn’t see it was a snake at first. When I saw you vigorously pick up a dry branch and smash it down, I thought perhaps you were trying to fashion a torch, so I went to grab one too. Suddenly, I saw the severed pieces of the snake body wriggling. I looked closely and realized what it was… I almost got bitten by a snake myself…” Qin Ping’er pouted.

Damn those blurry eyes! It was all the fault of my myopia!

I pulled Qin Ping’er away from the eave trough. Without the visual stimuli, I felt slightly better, my tension easing. Given our current situation, those black snakes, despite their oddity, seemed unwilling to initiate an attack. Nevertheless, I felt lingering dread. I took the flashlight and swept it around wildly, finding the ground clean—no sign of those strange black snakes. This brought me considerable relief.

With my mind relaxed, my thoughts returned to logic. What the heck was this unprecedented species of black snake? The area was nothing but hard, gray-white stone; where did they come from? Why was their flesh so brittle? And how could they break apart only to reanimate? Although I knew that ‘earth worms’ (Tu She’er, earthworms) would continue to writhe even when cut into segments, they certainly never regrouped into a single entity; essentially, each piece became a new individual.

Furthermore, even though the black snakes were leaving us alone for now, who could guarantee they would always adhere to a 'we won't attack unless provoked' foreign policy? If we accidentally angered them, causing a mass assault, we were defenseless save for a single flashlight—how could we ensure the sanctity of our ‘territory’? Moreover, even if we managed to break them into pieces, it had no significant impact on them, yet it felt like a knife twisting in my own heart.

If we needed to eradicate them, sending them straight to hell, what method would truly be effective?

Before I could puzzle out this question, a tremendous crash sounded overhead, as if something massive had smashed through the roof of a stilt house further up the slope. Qin Ping’er and I snapped our heads up. In the flashlight beam, we saw a huge black sphere bouncing down from the hillside, striking the layered roofs of the stilt houses with resounding booms. With every impact, large and small black segments were ejected from the sphere.

Before we could react, the giant sphere hit the roof of the last stilt house at the bottom of the slope and hurtled toward us in a parabola. Qin Ping’er and I were hit by a wave of nauseating, foul-smelling wind. The massive black ball slammed down less than two feet from where we stood, resembling an overripe melon. It immediately burst open with a wet thwack, scattering countless sausage-like objects at high speed toward us. One segment nearly flew straight into my gaping mouth. The accompanying stench and a few drops of warm, fetid… fluid… made my spirit instantly drift away like a dandelion seed in the air…

Qin Ping’er and I shrieked in unison, instinctively lunging toward each other for cover. The violent collision sent us stumbling back a few paces, unable to stop our momentum, and we fell straight onto the ground littered with the ‘smoked sausages,’ our hands, legs, and buttocks covered in a cold, sticky, slimy feeling…