Chapter 7: Snatching Food from a Snake's Jaws?

After leaving the tree hollow, he crawled forward along the stream without stopping, and along the way the tall trees with dense foliage gradually gave way to sparse ones.

The sky above grew ever more open, no longer blocked by branches—this was a sparsely wooded mountainside.

At this moment, Baichuan stopped, no longer crawling forward.

Because the sky ahead was too open, making it very hard for him to conceal his tracks.

He quietly hid himself on a tree branch, his snake head lowered as he gazed into the distance, his forked tongue flicking in and out.

A long period of waiting began.

Time slowly began to slip away; he did not know how long had passed.

During that time deer herds passed by, snakes passed by, three or five wolves ran past, but Baichuan acted as if he saw nothing and paid them no heed.

Suddenly, just then, two furry rabbit heads appeared at the same time in the distant shrubs, then vanished, then appeared again.

If someone had crept close enough to look carefully at this moment, they would surely have seen that these two rabbits had somehow risen up on their hind legs and were continuously "sparring" with their two forelimbs.

It was utterly bizarre.

Seeing this, Baichuan's eyes lit up.

Good lord, a buy-one-get-one-free deal too—how wonderful.

Having finally waited for his target to appear, Baichuan no longer kept hiding; his thick, long snake body began to wind down along the tree trunk.

Thanks to the rabbit ability he had strengthened earlier—Danger Perception—he finally had a rough idea of the rabbits' alert range.

With this knowledge of the other's details, and the other having somehow let down its guard—

Baichuan, the schemer against the unsuspecting, quickly crept close to the bushes near the two wild rabbits.

Then Baichuan saw a sight that stunned his eyeballs—the two rabbits were imitating humans and "sparring" with their forelimbs.

For an instant his mind went blank, and a great many questions popped up in his head.

What's going on here? Have these two rabbits gone mad? If he ate them, would he catch this disease?

At the same time.

At some unknown moment, not far behind the spot where Baichuan had been hiding, at the end of a thick tree branch, a dashing, handsome raptor had appeared without anyone knowing when.

Its forehead, crown, nape, and sides of the head were blackish-brown; the base of its neck feathers white; the brow stripe white with black shaft streaks; the ear coverts black; the upper body to the tail greyish-brown; the flight feathers had dark-brown barring, and the inner webs had white patches at the base.

This was unmistakably a Cang Ying!

At this moment it stood quietly there, its sharp eagle eyes fixed intently on the two rabbits frolicking on the ground below.

Clearly, this Cang Ying had also set its sights on Baichuan's target.

And at this moment down below, Baichuan was still unaware. Having come back to his senses, he no longer bothered with what was going on—anyway, he'd take down the other side first.

If he was worried then, he could just scan it directly.

Holding his breath and going still, he prepared to attack—because this hunt was not for food, but solely to obtain an ability model.

So Baichuan did not plan to attack the relatively larger one, but instead chose the smaller one.

His upper body arched up, gathering strength…

Just then, a sharp sound of something tearing through the air came from far to near.

Startled, Baichuan raised his head and saw a massive bird, wings half-folded, diving down.

Affected by this, the two "frolicking" wild rabbits were also startled, stopped their movements, and as if overjoyed each picked a direction and bolted off on their legs.

"Damn!" Seeing this, Baichuan couldn't help blurting out a curse—this sudden turn of events had frightened his target into running, causing his sure-fire attack to miss.

He raised his snake head, flicked his forked tongue, and stared fixedly at the eagle that had swept past. That eagle, as luck would have it, had also chosen the smaller one as its target.

He wasn't sure what kind of eagle it was; he could only barely make out that for some reason a patch of its head was bald, as if pecked away by something. Its wingspan was over one meter, but no more than one and a half meters.

That size, relative to a wild rabbit, could indeed be called a raptor, but compared to his giant snake body over three meters long, it could only be called small.

Admittedly, those raptors all count as natural enemies of snakes, but Baichuan could be certain that among the natural enemies of the Yanjingwangshe, there was absolutely no name for this little fellow.

Watching the big bird, which had not long after taken his intended target and flown away—during which it was even so arrogant as to not glance at him once—an indescribable feeling of frustration welled up in Baichuan's heart.

Reason told him that a failed hunt was common; if it didn't work this time, he'd just try again next time, and a snake like him that couldn't fly, how could he fight a bird that could?

Let alone a raptor, which was exceptionally dangerous among birds.

Admittedly, this eagle couldn't do anything to a snake of his size, but neither could he do anything to the other—if the situation turned bad, the other would just spread its wings and fly high.

If he pushed the other too hard and it bore a grudge, it would keep harassing him whenever he was hunting, startling his prey in advance—that would be the truly unpleasant part.

If it were a bit smarter, it might attack while he was feeding and unable to resist; those sharp eagle talons were no decoration, and he might well fall to the other.

So this silent loss was one he had to swallow.

Endure it, endure it for now.

After waiting another stretch of time until he grew stronger, coming back for revenge would not be too late.

As the saying goes, a gentleman avenges himself—ten years is not too long.

……

Four days later, deep in the night.

The bright moonlight spilled over this lush, dense forest.

At this moment, the surroundings were utterly quiet; only the occasional chirping of insects and the now-and-then "rustle, rustle" sounds signified that creatures of the night existed in this dense forest.

A pair of eyes emitting a faint glow suddenly lit up in the darkness.

Then a very faint slithering sound arose.

That was the sound of a large snake crawling past.

In the darkness, the snake freely stretched out its massive body, winding forward.

It seemed to have some purpose, all the way doing its utmost to avoid the places touched by moonlight, as if worried about being discovered by something.

It kept heading in a certain direction; only at the few places that could not be avoided did the terrifying aspect of this snake get revealed.

A body of jet-black scales, under the bright moonlight, radiated a metallic sheen, giving an extremely hard impression.

On its thick and massive serpentine body sat a broad, flat neck like a cloak, and atop the dangerous snake's head, two small bumps rose from the great occipital scales — savage and beautiful.

Soon, the snake silently climbed up a tall tree trunk, and quickly crawled into a large hollow in the trunk, raising its upper body half a person's height as it stared into the interior of the hollow.

Above the hollow, beneath the moonlight.

At this moment, a hawk-like bird standing some fifty-plus centimeters tall with its wings folded had its head tucked into its chest feathers, sleeping, still unaware that death had arrived.

This scene was like a beautiful yet horrifying painting.

Beneath the moonlit night, the savage, enormous venomous snake raised its upper body and stood to the side of the Cang Ying, opening its massive maw; its sharp fangs gleamed coldly in the moonlight, and the golden venom at the tips of the fangs swayed with a bewitching shimmer.

Beneath those fangs was a pitiful male hawk, lost in sweet dreams, unaware that death had arrived.

(End of this chapter)