Chapter Thirty-One: The Person with Their Back Turned

Ruoxi was half-kneeling on the ground, one hand gripping Xiaoshan, her gaze shifting between the boy and the old man. In the strange old man's eyes, her look was one of suspicion, confusion, and fear.

Though the old man appeared unrestrained, chopping the snake's head into pieces and collecting its blood in a bottle, speaking of a fine meal—though she hadn't had much contact with him, her instinct told her he was no ordinary person, and she couldn't guess his intentions.

He claimed to know her father, but there were many who did, and her father knew many as well. Who was this man? If he were truly familiar, why had she never seen him before?

When she looked at Xiaoshan, her eyes were full of worry and fear.

She had barely begun to fret when a sudden cough startled Ruoxi from her daze.

“Cough, cough!” Xiaoshan’s face was contorted in pain, his brows tightly furrowed, one hand clutching his throat, the other breaking free from her grip and reaching forward.

“Water…” he mumbled, his voice broken and weak.

“What did you say?” Ruoxi didn’t quite catch the muffled words. She crawled closer to listen, but was abruptly pushed aside by the old man.

“Don’t get in the way!” His sharp voice cut through the air as he pinched Xiaoshan’s mouth open, forcing it into an O shape.

Pushed aside for no reason, Ruoxi felt a surge of anger welling inside her, about to lash out—when she noticed…

The old man held a transparent bottle in his other hand, a few drops of crimson liquid swirling inside. Ruoxi recognized it at once as the blood from the snake’s head. What was he going to do with that? Surely he wasn’t about to pour it into Xiaoshan’s mouth?

Her mind raced, but she didn’t dare interfere with the old man’s actions. The blood from the bottle slid directly down Xiaoshan’s throat; with a gulp, the deed was done.

The old man slowly released Xiaoshan’s mouth. The stern expression on his face softened, replaced by a kindly, grandfatherly look. If moments before he’d been an unapproachable stranger, now he seemed the very picture of benevolence.

In the blink of an eye, everything had changed—Ruoxi marveled at the transformation.

“Where am I?” Xiaoshan opened his eyes in confusion, rubbing his still-burning throat.

Seeing him awake, Ruoxi’s face broke into a broad smile of relief. “You have no idea how much you scared me just now!”

“You were tangled up with a snake, and this old gentleman saved you!” she said, patting her chest as if to calm her lingering fright.

“Caught by a snake…” Xiaoshan muttered, gazing up at the sky. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he glanced at his right shoulder, where the snake’s bite had left a wound. Unable to resist, he touched it, the exposed injury jolting pain across his face.

“Don’t touch your wound, or you’ll risk infection!” someone in the distance called out helpfully, without so much as turning around.

“Was it you who saved me?” Xiaoshan looked around at the bloodstains on the ground, then turned a puzzled gaze toward the figure standing with his back to them.

“No,” came the indifferent reply from afar.

“Um…” Xiaoshan rubbed his nose, feeling awkward.

“It was the old gentleman who saved you!” Ruoxi hurried to set the record straight.

“The snake was on you. I only took it away because I wanted to eat it,” the man replied coldly, still not looking at them.

“Regardless, you saved my life, elder!” Xiaoshan said, trying to stand—only for pain to shoot through his wound, making him wince.

“He looked so kindly a moment ago; why is he so aloof now?” Ruoxi hurried to support Xiaoshan, her voice tinged with doubt. “Does he have some ulterior motive?”

The man stood with his back to them, picking up the chopped segments of the snake, then a bottle from the ground. He dripped its contents over the snake, and immediately a vaporous mist began to rise. In the blink of an eye, all traces of blood vanished from the snake’s flesh. He set the bottle down, picked up a skewer, and began to work, surrounded by bottles and jars of all colors.

“What’s he doing?” Xiaoshan asked.

“Is he planning to eat the snake?” Ruoxi wondered aloud.

“Can you eat snake meat?” Xiaoshan asked again.

“Of course you can!” Ruoxi stroked her chin, a sly smile spreading across her face.

“You just ate some. In fact, you ate the snake’s gallbladder, straight from its brain!” she added, her expression full of hidden meaning. “Eating the gall, drinking the blood, and smiling as you did it—I imagine it must have tasted pretty good?”

She glanced at the busy figure, then leaned in close to Xiaoshan. “Have you forgotten?”