Chapter 279: Third Night: Poisonous Tongue

But at this point I had completely thrown caution to the wind, thinking that even if it was a corpse rising, this fresh corpse didn't have a jaw, so it couldn't bite me to death. Just as I was about to start a fight, I suddenly saw beneath that tongue a fiery red snake head emerge, the size of a fist, with a huge cockscomb on its head. As the snake head twisted, the entire snake crawled out from under the tongue and onto the pile of branches.

The well mouth where Fatty and I were was less than two or three meters away from that branch pile. After the snake slithered onto the pile, it slowly moved down along the horizontal branches growing out of the pile. The snake was quite long, over a meter—even longer than the one that bit A Ning to death.

This snake had obviously been hiding inside the corpse in the branch pile and was disturbed by me.

The snake quickly climbed up the stone wall along the branch pile. The stone wall was very uneven, and it silently crawled toward us like a gecko. I realized it was bad—I had no time to avoid it. In a panic, I quietly slid down from the well mouth and shrank into the water.

I was already two meters away from the branch pile. I immediately looked up and saw that the snake's attention was attracted by Fatty. Next to it was the well shaft where Fatty was. It followed the stone wall down to the well opening, immediately noticed that Fatty in the shaft was a living person, stopped, and turned its head a few times.

My heart immediately leaped into my throat. I thought: It's not going to bite Fatty, is it? That's unlikely—Fatty was lying there like a dead fish. If the snake wasn't disturbed, it wouldn't actively bite anything. After all, venom is precious.

Watching the snake suddenly move again, it crawled into the well shaft straight toward Fatty's head, and actually coiled onto Fatty's forehead, as if it wanted to burrow into his mouth.

I saw it was bad. It was going to go in and give Fatty more protein again. I immediately tried to find something to throw at it to drive it away, but I couldn't find anything in the water, so I could only splash water with my hand to hit the snake.

That was really a stupid decision. If it had been another kind of snake, it might have been scared away, but I forgot that this snake was evil. When my water hit it, the snake immediately shot out and spotted me. It raised its body, its cockscomb standing erect, and emitted a series of sharp "cluck cluck cluck" sounds, as if threatening me.

I thought it was working and continued splashing water. Before I could splash a second time, the snake suddenly contracted, then shot out like an arrow from a bow, flying out of the well opening, tracing a graceful figure-eight dance across the water surface, and reached me in less than a second.

I only saw a flash of red light and instinctively raised my hand to block. The snake coiled entirely around my arm and shoulder. I felt it was as thick as an arm, its scales slippery. In that instant I almost saw its fangs, and my mind went blank. I cursed loudly and flung it away.

That was a crazy move; I must have used all my strength in that fling. I actually flung the snake several meters away, but as soon as it touched the water, it suddenly pivoted, slapped the water with its tail, bounced up again, and came at me skimming the surface.

I turned and fled, thrashing with all my strength. I lunged forward, dove into the water, changed direction, swam several strokes, and hid under the branch pile in the gap.

I stayed hidden until I absolutely couldn't hold my breath anymore, then emerged from the water. I tried to suppress my heavy breathing and looked around to see if I had fooled the snake.

My thought was that a snake is still a beast, after all, and wouldn't understand human tricks. This simple little ruse should work.

It really surprised me; I looked all around, but there was no sign of the snake on the water surface. It seemed it hadn't followed.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, "You little rascal! I barely got my life back." Just as I was bitterly smiling, before my mouth even opened, suddenly behind my head, someone gave a sinister cold laugh.

I couldn't take any more shocks. Immediately I felt a chill run through my body. I turned around and saw that blood-red cockscomb snake standing upright right behind my head, its venomous yellow snake eyes looking down at me.

My throat constricted, and I immediately wanted to dive into the water, but then I saw its cockscomb twitch, and suddenly it let out a faint voice: "Third Young Master?"