The Silver Harbor Serpent Lord Refuses to Hibernate - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On my first night at Blackstone Manor, I realized that what I had signed wasn’t a debt contract.

It was a ridiculous cohabitation treaty.

There were only three clauses.

First, I was responsible for organizing the ledgers, purchasing medicinal herbs, and recording the tides for each of his voyages.

Second, he was not allowed to bite me without my consent.

Third, I could not sell him to the Royal Capital Research Institute while he was asleep.

I stared at the second clause for a long time.

“Why does this need to be written separately?”

Ling Changsheng was leaning by the fireplace, reading a book.

Hearing my question, he looked up with an innocent expression.

“Because you smell very sweet.”

“Writing it down beforehand makes me seem like a man of principle.”

I set my quill down on the table.

“Your way of complimenting people is a good way to get punched.”

He let out a low chuckle.

His tail slid slowly across the carpet.

Under the firelight, the Silver Scale was a bit too bright.

During those few days, I kept thinking.

A snake is truly a creature born to be misunderstood.

He didn’t even have to do anything.

Just by sitting there, the air felt as if it had been spiked with wine.

I wasn’t drunk, yet I felt flushed.

There weren’t many people in the manor.

The cook, Meifu, was a loud-voiced widow.

The butler, Luoyin, was tall and thin, resembling an umbrella.

His face seemed to say one thing to everyone he met: “Less talk, more work.”

Yet they were both exceptionally polite to me.

Polite to a fault.

It was as if I wasn’t a female bookkeeper here to settle a debt, but some kind of vital resource.

When Meifu brought me hot milk, she even gave me a sincere piece of advice.

“Miss, if your feet are cold, remember to call for the Master.”

“The Master is very experienced in that regard.”

I nearly choked on the milk.

Ling Changsheng called it hibernation.

But he didn’t just lie still all day.

He spent most of the daylight hours in the conservatory or the study.

At night, he would often disappear for several hours.

When he returned, he always carried the scent of the sea breeze and fresh wounds.

Once, I got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and saw him sitting on the back porch steps, treating a wound.

His clothes were pulled back slightly.

Beneath them wasn’t a human shoulder or back.

Instead, there was a patch of cracked silver-white scales.

They looked like armor, but also like a wound.

It was only then that I truly understood.

The Snake Lord wasn’t just a legend.

He was simply too good at pretending to be human.

I stood behind him, holding a medicine box.

“Seen enough?”

He didn’t even turn his head.

“No.”

I knelt down to apply the medicine.

“I’ve never seen the person I’m supposed to be compensated by losing his own scales before.”

“Disappointed?”

“It’s alright.”

I poured the medicinal powder onto the wound.

“At least you’re not a pure natural disaster.”

“Natural disasters don’t let out soft groans.”

As expected, he let out a muffled grunt of pain.

He tilted his head to look at me.

He was so close that I could see the golden rings around his pupils.

He didn’t pull away.

He let me touch him.

However, his tail wasn’t so well-behaved; it coiled around and pinned down the hem of my skirt.

He trapped me there by the steps.

“Let go.”

“I’m cold,” he answered with perfect composure.

“The fireplace is so big, why must you wrap yourself around me?”

“The fireplace doesn’t scold me.”

I was momentarily speechless.

Later, I discovered that the supposedly terrifying Snake Lord of the rumors was indeed wicked and possessed a sharp tongue.

But he had a very embarrassing weakness.

He was afraid of the cold.

And he refused to admit it.

When I was doing the accounts at night, he would always slowly slide his tail from under the table.

First, it would touch the chair legs.

Then, it would brush against the tips of my shoes.

Finally, it would coil around my calves with total confidence.

It was as if he were saying, *I’m not taking advantage of you. I’m just borrowing some warmth.*

At first, I would kick him.

Later, I found it too much trouble and just let him be.

Meifu saw it once and beamed as if she were already celebrating a wedding.

I glared at her.

She turned around and stewed a large pot of thick soup for me.

She said I was too thin and needed nourishment.

I grew increasingly suspicious.

It seemed that in this entire house, I was the only one who treated “spending the winter with him” as a serious job.

Until the third week.

When the sound of crying came from the attic.