“Social snake colony.” In an instant, this phrase flashed through my mind, and I recalled something the fat man casually mentioned yesterday—he said that the behavior of these snakes resembled that of ants and suggested that there might be a ‘queen snake’ here. At the time, I thought it was impossible; the cooperative actions of these snakes seemed to be nothing more than a manifestation of instinctual behavior, akin to vultures competing for food. To my surprise, I encountered such a relief here, which is practically a model of animal social behavior.

These small red cockscomb snakes play the role of workers in a social insect colony, being numerous, while the reticulated pythons represent the males—large in size but few in number. The enormous snake, resembling a dragon, is what the fat man referred to as the “queen snake,” the only female snake in this area. From this relief, it is evident that this female snake is so gigantic that the males cannot mate with her directly and require the assistance of many cockscomb snakes. Moreover, according to natural laws, such a massive female snake would likely be unable to move, truly needing help to mate, much like some domesticated giant sows.

Could it be that deep within this forest of trees, there really exists such a colossal snake? I have a good understanding of the history of snakes. In my memory, the largest legend of giant snakes comes from the rainforests of Brazil, where someone claimed to have seen a 50-meter-long giant anaconda. Unlike humans, snakes do not have a fixed lifespan; they typically die when they grow too large to hunt for food. However, under certain conditions of abundant food, snakes can continue to grow indefinitely. Those giant snakes are practically the gods of the rainforest. Even so, the age at which these snakes die is usually around 100 years. This relief has been here for at least three or four thousand years; if this female snake ever existed, she should have died long ago.

Furthermore, such a gigantic body, if it ever existed, would have to live in water; the swamp here clearly does not provide enough buoyancy for such a creature. I found myself somewhat dazed. If we had seen these reliefs in a museum, we might have thought they were exaggerations or myths from ancient times. However, having encountered these venomous snakes and witnessed their bizarre behaviors firsthand, it is highly likely that this relief depicts a real scene. This could represent a monumental discovery in biology, history, archaeology, and even sociology.

The situation depicted in this relief left us unable to let go of our thoughts. How did such strange behaviors evolve in these snakes? Why are they completely different from other snake species? I sensed that there must be deeper reasons behind this, undoubtedly related to the history of the Western Queen Mother’s kingdom.

The subsequent relief depicts a series of worship scenes inside a temple, where many people kneel before a venomous snake. The outline of this temple is clearly the place we are in now. Counting down, before the swamp submerged this area, the temple had five levels, but now the mud has buried the lower three levels entirely. On the altar of the temple, the snake stands upright before the crowd; this should also be one of the sacrificial scenes. Aside from the snake’s strange movements, there is nothing else unusual about it. The altar is located at the front of the temple’s main entrance, where we found only rubble upon our arrival, indicating that it has completely collapsed.

From a broad perspective, we find that the performance technique of the stone wall centers around the reproductive scenes of snakes, with surrounding elements depicting snake worship, snake breeding, the war between snakes and humans, and many other snake-related scenes. As mentioned by the character “Men You Ping,” this is a stone wall that records information about snakes.

I wanted to extract more information from it, but after several readings, I realized that there were very few details that could be clearly discerned, and I had no further gains. The stone wall nearby also lacked relief carvings.

Our minds returned to the present when we heard the voice of the Fatty coming from a distance, cursing, “What are you two lovebirds doing? How long is this going to go on? I’ve called you several times already—do you want to eat or not?”

We were still intrigued, but seeing that there were no leads for the moment and our stomachs were growling, our appetite quickly overcame our thirst for knowledge, and we had no choice but to pause.

I supported him as we climbed down to the stove, where a long-lost aroma of meat welcomed us. The Fatty was using a basin as a pot, hanging it over the campfire to grill.

He asked us what we were doing over there, as if he really thought he was the chef and didn’t come to help at all.

I told him about our recent discoveries, and he appeared quite surprised but also very pleased with himself, saying, “Great minds always make the right decisions. You should learn from this lesson and listen to my guidance in the future, so you won’t be caught off guard… However, if that mother snake is really dead, why are those snakes still collecting corpses? What are they feeding those corpses to?”

“They might be feeding them to the male pythons, just like those we saw yesterday when we found An Ning’s body—the python was surrounded by a lot of wild chicken necks, clearly protecting it. These male pythons are also part of the aristocratic class and are supported by the snake community. Their size allows them to continue surviving, but the mother snake absolutely cannot survive; there is too little food here. If such a large snake were active in modern times, we would have seen some traces of it. So I believe that this giant snake died a thousand years ago,” I replied.

Upon hearing this, the Fatty nodded. I told him that I could now imagine that these snakes were not malicious snake spirits; their behavior was also driven by instinct, which made me feel a bit more at ease.

He sighed and said, “We can only feel a little more at ease. There are still many doubts about this matter, and I don’t know how tonight will go. Let’s eat quickly so we can be well-fed for the fight.”

I was extremely hungry and didn’t want to discuss these things anymore, so I asked him what he had cooked.

“I boiled all the canned food, and there’s only a little left—luncheon meat stewed with steamed buns and sardines, a mishmash, but the taste is undeniable,” the Fatty said. “Forget about those snakes; thinking about them makes my stomach turn. Come, try my cooking. The first bite is free; from the second bite on, it’s one mouthful for one piece of silver.”

“What’s so special about cooking this? Isn’t it just boiling it in water?” I replied.

“Tsk tsk, that’s why you’re of a much lower class than your family’s Third Master; you’ll only ever be a street vendor,” the Fatty scoffed. My hungry stomach growled, and I quickly scooped a bowl with an empty can and took a big bite. It was so hot that it made me tear up, but it was indeed delicious; the taste was somewhat like rice cake, at least like a proper meal.

As soon as I stirred it up, the fat guy couldn’t act all high and mighty anymore. He stopped wasting time with us, and the three of us quickly finished off the broth. After eating, I was sweating all over, and I suddenly felt energized; my knees didn’t ache anymore.

“How about that? Not bad, right? You guys should learn from this. It’s rare for a person to live to seventy these days. Eating, drinking, gambling, and womanizing—eating is the only lifelong enjoyment. I, your Fat Master, live on the edge of a knife. For people like us, when we can enjoy ourselves, we should. Who knows, this might be our last meal.”

“I spit!” I got angry. “What do you mean eating, drinking, gambling? You’re the one facing your last meal, don’t drag us into it.”

It was really inauspicious to say such things at that moment, as it could very well be our last meal.

“Look at you, this is the feudal legacy of the feudal class,” the fat guy made a very annoying expression. But then he added, “These things have substance. Yesterday, our eyes were clouded by that mist. We need to replenish ourselves; otherwise, we might be left with lingering health issues.”

I remembered the mist from last night and asked curiously, “By the way, why were we fine in the forest but got blinded here?”

The fat guy replied, “I think it might be the water here. The mist is just water vapor. The water in the forest is fresh, but the stagnant water underneath here might be dead. We don’t really know the specifics.”

I nodded and recalled the shadow I saw during the recovery, asking them if they had experienced something similar. As soon as I mentioned it, the fat guy shook his head, “What we went through is much more complicated than yours. We didn’t have the energy to pay attention to that. Who told you about it?”

“It was mentioned in a TV show.”

“You believe that kind of thing?” He shook his head, and suddenly noticed that the Muffled Oil Bottle had raised his head, furrowing his brows and looking at me.

The Muffled Oil Bottle had not been listening to us since earlier. I thought he was still pondering about the relief sculpture, and I said to him, “Don’t think about it anymore. When soldiers come, we fight; when water comes, we bury it. We’ll take a closer look at the relief sculpture later and look for other clues. For now, just rest easy.”

Before I finished speaking, he suddenly said, “Did you see a shadow rummaging through the backpack?”

I was startled and nodded, “It was very vague, I couldn’t see clearly, and I don’t know if it was an illusion, but it definitely wasn’t you two.”

The Muffled Oil Bottle suddenly stood up and said to me, “That was Wen Jin.”