“Ah?” I was taken aback for a moment, thinking to myself, do you know him? He’s your second uncle?

Then the muffled oil bottle said something, and I immediately realized I had misunderstood. He said, “These eight horses… this person is King Mu of Zhou.”

“King Mu of Zhou? The one who wrote ‘The Legend of Mu Tianzi’?”

I was quite familiar with the legend of Mu Tianzi, as that group of people often mentioned it before coming here. The legend mainly records how King Mu of Zhou led a group of seven talented individuals, riding on the red steed, the black horse, the white righteous, the surpassing wheel, the mountain child, the yellow canal, the splendid horse, and the green ear, with Zao Fu driving the carriage and Bo Yao as the guide. They set out from Zongzhou, crossed the Zhang River, passed through Hezong, the mountains of Yangyu, and the Qunyu Mountains, reaching the land of the Queen Mother of the West, where they were warmly received by her.

In other words, he came to the palace of the Queen Mother of the West riding on eight fine horses, and at that time, he was graciously entertained by her.

However, from the relief sculpture, it seemed that Mu Tianzi did not come for tourism. Could it be that the legend was mistaken? King Mu of Zhou indeed came to the land of the Queen Mother of the West, but it was for war?

I immediately continued to look at the reliefs, and the next scene made me gasp. I saw King Mu of Zhou’s army storming into a palace, where many snake-headed women appeared. They were pouring something into the holes of a tower, and then countless cock-headed snakes crawled out of the tower, attacking King Mu of Zhou’s army.

At this point, I understood the significance of these stone towers in the rainforest: “It seems that King Mu of Zhou indeed attacked here but was defeated by the poisonous snakes. Perhaps to cover up his failure, he fabricated that story. These poisonous snakes protected the land of the Queen Mother of the West. No wonder they treated these snakes like gods. This is similar to how the Manchu people do not kill crows.”

After thinking for a moment, I felt there was more to it. The stone towers below must be interconnected; the snakes lived in the passages beneath the city, fed by human heads. In times of danger, something was used to lure the snakes out to confront the enemy. This was a designed defense mechanism. With such poisonous snakes that were also fast, no one could stop them.

In other words, humans lived in the city, and the snakes lived beneath it. Now that all the people were dead, the snakes came to the surface. The civilization of the Queen Mother of the West is somewhat similar to that of the Amazonians, who use piranhas to defend against enemies and beasts, sacrificing both living humans and animals, while here they used human heads.

As I looked further, the more I saw, the more it aligned with our conjectures. My understanding of this place gradually became clearer.

Just as I was feeling enlightened, the muffled oil bottle’s gaze stopped, focusing on the central part of the stone wall. In the center of this area was a huge relief pattern, clearly the focal point of the entire rock carving. It depicted a massive snake surrounded by many smaller cock-headed snakes, engaged in battle. The large snake was coiled around a giant tree, while the cock-headed snakes were entwined around it like decorative patterns.

“This is a fight between that kind of double-scaled python and the cock-headed snakes here. It seems that during the time of the Queen Mother of the West, there were already two types of snakes. This double-scaled python might be the natural enemy of the cock-headed snakes,” I said.

The muffled oil bottle touched the stone carving and shook his head, “No, this is mating.”

“Breeding?” I was taken aback for a moment, unable to comprehend it. After thinking for a bit, I finally understood what he meant: “Are you saying that the chicken crest snake and this double-scaled python are hybridizing? But these are two completely different snakes, and their sizes differ so much. How can they breed?”

“Do you know what a ‘madam’ is?” the muffled oil bottle suddenly asked me.

“A madam?” I was puzzled, wondering why he suddenly brought this up. “A madam is someone who runs a brothel.”

“That’s a colloquial term. A madam is actually a type of bird. In ancient times, people discovered that this bird only has female individuals and no males. To reproduce, they can mate with any other species of birds, thus being called the wife of all birds. That’s why people used this term to refer to promiscuous women,” he said淡淡道. “However, the ancient understanding of the madam was completely incorrect. In fact, there are male individuals of this bird, but the size difference between males and females is so great that males are several times larger than females, leading to the misconception that they are two different species.”

I understood what he was saying and immediately grasped the meaning. “So you think these two snakes are actually the same species, just two different sizes based on gender? Then which one do you think is the male and which is the female?”

“Based on their numbers, the smaller one should be the male and the larger one the female, but it could also be the other way around.” He was touching the surface of the rock when he suddenly extended his long fingers to touch the giant tree pattern coiled by the double-scaled python.

“What’s strange?”

“What’s wrong?” I also reached out to touch it but couldn’t figure it out. I watched him as he furrowed his brow, suddenly stepping back a few paces to take up charcoal and began to shade the unpainted parts above and below the relief.

Soon the entire relief on the stone wall was revealed. I stepped back to take a look, and the moment I saw the whole picture, I gasped in shock.

On the relief, the giant tree that the double-scaled giant snake was coiling around, when viewed from a distance, was not a tree at all but a much larger snake coiled into a circular shape. This snake was so enormous that the double-scaled giant snake looked like a chopstick compared to a rolling pin, and those chicken crest snakes were like toothpicks. Therefore, when looking at it up close, it was impossible to tell that it was a snake.

“What… what is this? A dragon?” I stammered. The double-scaled giant snake was already enormous, and this snake was so much larger that its diameter was practically that of a freight truck. Could this still be considered a snake?

The muffled oil bottle stared blankly, not saying anything, as he touched the patterns of the chicken crest snakes one by one. After a while, he said, “Look, these small snakes are not coiled around the python; they are just clustered on it, helping it not to slide down. The ones really mating are this python and this giant snake…”

I immediately looked where he was tracing the patterns of the small snakes, and sure enough, I found that the small snakes were merely intertwined with each other and were not coiled around the python at all. Meanwhile, the python was tightly coiling around the giant snake. I was astonished and suddenly realized something, taking a sharp breath, “My God, the fat guy was right!”