Where does this hatred come from?

Wu Xie let out a long sigh. If he had known in advance that the things the snakes saw would pass on this hatred along with the information to him, he might not have been so eager to obtain that knowledge. By the time he realized this, it was already too late.

This hatred wasn’t even his own; it was the unreasoned hatred of others invading his body, with no source to be found, just intense enough that his eyes turned blood-red and uncontrollable. Sometimes he didn’t even know if the targets of this hatred were the right ones. Did he truly hate those hidden in the mist, or was it that the pain experienced by several generations was all condensed into him alone?

He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the restlessness and the demonic imaginations within him. He remembered the conversation he had with Black Eyeglasses before injecting the liquid.

“The organs beneath the red-black scales on the head are the ones that store pheromones. The subspecies is in the comb part of the head. If you cut these parts, purify them, and inject them into the middle of your nose, it can make the information transfer more clearly,” Black Eyeglasses said. “It will hurt a lot, and a large amount of pheromone information is meaningless. After your consciousness is interrupted, you might feel like a snake for several years.”

“Will I salivate when I see frogs?” Wu Xie asked.

Black Eyeglasses, wearing a white coat, was disinfecting Wu Xie’s nose. “No, but to help you feel more clearly, I’ll perform a small surgery on your nose. You’ll lose your sense of smell; I don’t know if it will recover.”

“What are the consequences of losing my sense of smell?”

“I don’t have similar experiences, but you might be calmer in a public restroom fight than others,” Black Eyeglasses said. “I’ll ask you one last time: Are you really sure you want to do this?”

“Do you think there’s a reason I can accept this information? Could my ancestors be snakes?”

“In the myths of Yan and Huang, everyone’s ancestors are snakes,” Black Eyeglasses replied. “Isn’t Nuwa a snake? We are all born from snakes. Pangu was born from an egg; in the earliest myths, many beings were oviparous. So, it’s quite possible that your ancestors were snakes. In biological evolution, humans evolved from reptiles to mammals, which means if civilization is continuous, there was likely a reptilian civilization before us. Their history might connect with our myths, and much of their history would become our mythological history.”

“That’s a chilling theory,” Wu Xie said. “Then, do you have any clues as to why I can receive this information?”

“I think after you accept the pheromone information, you’ll naturally know, and then you can tell me.”

“Then I have no other choice.” Wu Xie closed his eyes.

Black Eyeglasses took out a scalpel. This was an underground temporary clinic, usually used for double eyelid surgery, but this time the operation would probably be the biggest one ever performed here.

“I will lift your upper lip, cut from the root of the gums, then peel back your facial skin to expose your nasal cavity. Then I will deal with the pheromones…”

“Please, I don’t want to know any of this,” Wu Xie said.

“Boss!” Wang Meng’s shout broke Wu Xie’s contemplation. He straightened up and noticed Wang Meng looking a bit nervous, constantly staring at the rearview mirror. Wu Xie lit a cigarette, rolled down the window, and saw four or five large Jeep Grand Cherokees following them. He glanced ahead and realized he was stuck in the middle of a convoy of Grand Cherokees.

“How are you driving?” he frowned and scolded Wang Meng.

“They suddenly surrounded us.”

“It’s very difficult to encircle a vehicle on these mountain roads. The fact that you’re only telling me now means you were completely distracted while driving,” Wu Xie said, finishing his cigarette in a few puffs. He checked the GPS. “When’s the next sharp turn?”

“A little over a kilometer.”

“180 km/h, grab your bag, open the sunroof.”

“Is it really necessary to do that?” Wang Meng asked.

“We need to show them what kind of attitude we have when we compete with them,” Wu Xie replied.

When he placed the lives of others on the scale and abandoned any beliefs that would keep him from being involved, his own actions became increasingly extreme. He could understand Panzi’s self-destructive tendencies; he wanted to punish himself, to punish the part of him that once hoped everyone could be well, but now weighed the lives of others in his hands.

He had become the kind of person he despised the most, and what was worse, he had to remain that way for a long time.

Cutting up those bodies and sending them to an innocent middle school student. Injecting pheromones into Su Wan’s bottle of wine; the slowly released pheromones, triggered by that snake, would convey a false scenario.

If Li Cuo hadn’t died, he would have already been under the control of those people. Li Cuo thought he knew everything, understood his purpose, but once the other side started asking questions, a continuous stream of misinformation would reach every ear in this fog.

As the only person who could currently read pheromones, the key information brought out by that snake—information they wanted to steal, which led Wu Xie to discover the traces—was something Li Cuo would surely read.

No one knew that all the details of their next plan were slowly being transmitted to Li Cuo through the scent of that snake. When Li Cuo opened his eyes again, all the plans for the first step would reset to zero. The value of all sacrifices would only be realized after this “0.”

The convoy slowly passed them, one by one, moving away. It seemed to be a false alarm.

Even though Wu Xie had thought of various possible plans, he couldn’t avoid a direct confrontation with them. But after the cars gradually drove away, he still breathed a sigh of relief.

He foresaw it but was unwilling to experience it.

Wang Meng began to drive quickly, and Wu Xie lit another cigarette, telling him to slow down. Wang Meng gradually reduced his speed, drenched in cold sweat. “Can I resign?”

“Take me to my destination first,” Wu Xie exhaled smoke and took off his backpack. He closed the sunroof and then opened a blank phone.

There were no messages at all. He closed the phone, suppressing his inner anxiety.

He suddenly thought that if everything went smoothly on his side, it would mean that the fierce battle on the other side had reached an indescribable level.

Beijing, Beijing. The most meaningless yet necessary sacrifice weighs on the few people I least want to see. Are you still alive? The scars on my hands have started to ache again. Even though they are completely healed, I can still feel the pain from when they were cut.