My Path to Immortality with a Blade of Grass - Chapter 3

04

Another year went by.

The humans simply moved their bedding into the herb garden. Outwitting me became their daily pastime.

They never won.

I protected my little Lingzhi well. I never left his side.

At last, almost halfway through the third year, one tall, brawny human finally snapped.

I watched him glug down three large bottles of liquor in front of me, his steps growing unsteady.

“I’ve had enough!” he announced with a drunken hiccup.

Then he reached for me.

I sprang up and sank my teeth into his wrist.

He sobered instantly. His alcohol-flushed face turned deathly pale.

He collapsed to the ground in terror and shut his eyes to await death.

A quarter of an hour passed. My jaws were starting to ache.

But nothing happened.

The man opened his eyes and found me still clamped onto his wrist.

We stared at each other, both rather confused.

Things got a little awkward.

Good heavens!

I, the chosen snake entrusted by an immortal with the sacred duty of guarding the lingzhi…

Wasn’t venomous.

You old bastard. Fuck your mother.

That day, they stripped the herb garden bare.

They took the fat mushroom I was always beating up. They took the ginseng nearby. They took the peaches of immortality from the old tree…

They even stuffed me into a sack, still hanging from the man’s wrist.

But at least they hadn’t noticed my little Lingzhi, whom I’d hidden behind me.

As they carried me away, he desperately wound his stalk and seed head around the tip of my tail, nearly tearing himself out by the roots.

The big man I refused to stop biting took me home.

He said he was going to make soup out of me and the rooster.

The thought that I might never see my little Lingzhi again filled me with such bitterness that I nearly cried.

So I turned and bit the rooster, hard.

If I had to die, I’d die with a full belly.

The rooster kicked its delicious, plump legs and spread its tempting wings in pain, racing around the kitchen.

The man scrambled after it.

In the chaos, the rooster knocked the jar containing the little white snake onto the floor. She immediately slithered out through the broken pieces—

And the man stepped on her tail.

She let out a scream that only another snake like me could hear, whipped around, and bit him savagely on the leg.

He went down.

The little white snake was venomous!

Wow.

If ever there was a time to run, this was it!

Seizing my chance to avoid becoming soup, I slithered over the man’s body, shot out the door, and vanished into the vast darkness.

Very soon, I encountered one tiny problem.

I didn’t know the way back to the herb garden.

I had no idea where it was, but I’d made up my mind to return to my little Lingzhi. At worst, I’d search the whole world.

Besides, in less than half a year, the old immortal would come down from heaven with a new batch of chicks.

If he didn’t find me in the garden, the contract’s power—and the Heavenly Dao—would tell him where I was.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

But right now, I understood an even greater truth: a snake runs on chicken, and missing even one meal leaves her starving.

In a snake’s life, a full belly comes first.