Chapter 269: Snake Marsh Ghost City (Part 3) Third Night: Snake Mother

"Social snakes." That phrase flashed through my mind in an instant, and at the same time I remembered something Fatty had casually said yesterday: he said these snakes acted a lot like ants, and there might be a snake queen here.

At the time I thought it was impossible, believing that these cooperative actions of the snakes were at most a manifestation of group instinct, like vultures fighting over food. I never expected to see such a relief here; it was practically a model of this snake's social behavior.

These small red cockscomb snakes played the role of worker ants in a social insect colony—numerous. Those double-scaled giant pythons were the male snakes: large in size, few in number. And this enormous dragon-like snake was what Fatty called the "snake queen," the only snake mother here. From this relief, this snake mother was so huge that the male snakes couldn't mate with her smoothly and needed so many cockscomb snakes to assist. Moreover, according to the laws of nature, such a massive snake mother probably couldn't move either, and indeed needed assistance to mate, like a captive giant sow.

Could it be that deep within this sea of trees there really is such a giant snake?

I know quite a bit about the history of snakes. In my memory, the biggest legend about giant snakes comes from the Brazilian rainforest, where someone claimed to have seen a fifty-meter-long giant anaconda. Snakes are different from humans; they don't have a fixed maximum lifespan. Ordinary snakes die naturally when they grow too large to hunt prey, but in conditions with abundant food, snakes can keep growing forever. Those giant snakes were practically the gods of the rainforest. However, even so, those snakes only lived to be about a hundred years old when they died. How long has this relief been here? At least three or four thousand years. If this snake mother really existed, it should have died by now.

And with such a huge body, if it ever existed, it must have lived in water. The swamp here obviously doesn't have that much buoyancy.

I was a bit stunned. If I had seen these reliefs in a museum, I might have thought they were ancient exaggerations or myths. But we had encountered these venomous snakes here and witnessed their bizarre behavior firsthand. So this relief most likely depicted a real scene. This could be a huge discovery in biology, history, archaeology, and even sociology.

Looking at the scene in this relief, we couldn't let it go. How did this snake's bizarre behavior evolve? Why is it completely different from other snakes? I felt there must be a deeper reason.

The next relief showed a series of worship scenes, depicting many people kneeling before a venomous snake. The snake stood erect in front of the crowd. This was probably also one of the ritual scenes. Aside from the snake's strange movements, there was nothing eerie about it.

Looking at the whole, we saw that the representation on the giant rock was centered on the snake's reproduction scene, surrounded by scenes of snake worship, snake rearing, war between snakes and humans, and many other snake-related scenes. As Poker-face said, this was a stone wall recording information about snakes. I wanted to glean more information from it, but after looking several times, I found that there were very few parts where details could be clearly discerned, and I gained nothing more. The adjacent stone wall had no reliefs either.

We pulled our attention back, and only then did we hear Fatty's voice from a distance, cursing: "What are you two lovebirds doing? Are you done or not? I've called you several times. Do you want to eat or not?"

We were still not satisfied, but seeing no more clues, and our stomachs growling, appetite overcame curiosity, so we had to stop.

I helped him climb down to the stove area, and already smelled a long-missed aroma of meat. Fatty was using a washbasin as a pot, hanging it over the campfire to cook.

Fatty asked what we were doing over there, and whether we really treated him as a cook, not even coming to help.

I told him what we had just discovered, and he was quite surprised, but also very smug. He said: "Great minds can always make the right decisions. You need to learn from this lesson. From now on, you must follow my teachings, so you won't be slow on the uptake... But if that snake mother is really dead, why are those snakes still collecting corpses? Who are they collecting the corpses for to eat?"

"Maybe they're feeding those male snakes that are like giant pythons. Do you remember last night, when we found A Ning's body, there were a lot of wild chicken necks around that double-scaled giant python, obviously protecting it. This kind of male snake is also an aristocratic class, supported by the snake colony. These snakes can continue to survive with their size, but the snake mother absolutely could not survive. There's too little food here. If such a big snake had been active in recent times, we should have seen some traces. So I think this giant snake died a thousand years ago," I said.

Hearing this, Fatty nodded. I said to him: "Now we can imagine that these snakes aren't malicious snake spirits with ulterior motives. Their behavior is also driven by instinct. That's somewhat reassuring."

He sighed and said: "We can only be slightly reassured. There are still many doubts about this matter. We don't know how we'll get through tonight. Eat quickly, so we can fight on a full stomach."

I was starving and didn't want to discuss this anymore, so I asked him what he had cooked.

"I cooked all the cans, only a little left. Stewed luncheon meat with steamed buns and sardines, a hodgepodge. But the taste is unbeatable," Fatty said. "Alright, stop talking about these snakes. It kills the appetite. Come taste your Fatty's skill. First bite is free. From the second bite onward, one mouthful equals one artifact." "What skill does it take to cook this? Isn't it just boiling in water?" I said.

"Tsk, tsk, that's why you're a much lower level than your Third Master. You'll be a peddler your whole life." Fatty was dismissive. I was so hungry my stomach growled. I immediately scooped a bowl with an empty can and took a big bite. It was so hot it made my eyes water, but it was really delicious. The taste was a bit like rice cake, at least it felt like a proper meal.

As soon as I stirred up the aroma, Fatty couldn't put on airs anymore. Without any more nonsense, the three of us wolfed it down, even drinking all the remaining broth.

After eating, I was sweating all over. I immediately felt strength return, and my knees didn't ache anymore.

"How about that? Not bad, right? Learn from me. 'Man lives to seventy, a rarity since ancient times.' Among eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling, only eating is a lifelong enjoyment. Your Fatty lives on the edge. People like us need to enjoy when we can. Who knows, this might be our last meal."

"Bah!" I was angry. "What eating, drinking, whoring, gambling? It's you who might be having your last meal. Don't drag us into it."

Saying that at this time was too unlucky, because it really could be the last meal.

"See, see? That's the lingering poison of feudal thinking." Fatty made a look that was very punch-worthy. But then he said, "These things are nourishing. Yesterday our eyes were all blurred by that fog. Eat some to replenish, or it might leave lasting effects."

I thought of last night's fog and asked curiously: "Right, why were we fine in the forest but went blind here?"

Fatty said: "I think it might be a problem with the water here. Fog is condensed water vapor. The water in the forest is all running water, but the stagnant water here might be dead water. As for the specifics, we don't know."

I nodded, and then remembered the shadow I saw when my vision returned, so I asked them if they had also experienced that. Upon hearing this, Fatty shook his head: "We went through much more complicated situations than you. How could we have paid attention to that? Who told you about it?"

"It's mentioned in TV dramas."

"You believe that stuff?" He shook his head, and then suddenly noticed that Poker-face had raised his head, furrowed his brows, and was looking at me.

Poker-face hadn't been listening to our conversation since a while ago. I thought he was still thinking about the relief, so I said to him: "Don't think about it. We'll deal with whatever comes. Later we'll go take another careful look at the relief and look for other clues. For now, just rest easy."

Before I finished speaking, he suddenly said: "You saw a dark shadow rummaging through the backpack?"

I was startled by him and nodded: "It was very blurry, I didn't see clearly. I don't know if it was an illusion, but it definitely wasn't either of you two."

Poker-face suddenly stood up and said to me: "That was Wenjin."