Su Qing flicked her tongue, looking at the old man before her with some confusion.
The old man spoke, his expression tinged with sorrow, "If I count carefully, Xiao Qing, you've been with me for over ten years now."
"Xiao Qing, I'm old now," the old man said. "It's time for me to live out my final years in peace..."
The old man knew Xiao Qing was intelligent and could understand him. But the usually slick old man didn't know how to bring the matter up today.
He couldn't help but let out a long sigh.
"Xiao Qing, I'm old, and I don't plan to go out and perform anymore. According to the government's rules, I should kill you... to prevent you from harming the common people. But I can't bear to do it... So, you should go! I'll just report that you were stolen..."
As the old man spoke, his eyes brimmed with tears.
They say a man doesn't cry easily, but after spending more than ten years together day and night, he couldn't help but feel reluctant to part with his companion.
Over these ten-plus years, if it weren't for Su Qing, how could he have gotten a wife at his age? And how could he have such a well-behaved and sensible daughter?
The life he, Li Er, had today was all thanks to Su Qing!
"Go, go! Xiao Qing, just go!"
Su Qing looked at Li Er and sighed softly in her heart. How could she not have known this day would come? From the moment she realized she was still strong and vigorous after living for more than a decade, she knew this day was inevitable.
She just hadn't expected it to come so soon...
She had thought she could stick around with Li Er until he died of old age!
Su Qing flicked her tongue, turned, and slithered away, but she couldn't resist looking back.
In truth, she was also reluctant to leave. Having stayed at Li Er's home for over a decade, she had long grown accustomed to the life there, to Li Er bringing her food every day, and to his mischievous little girl and virtuous wife.
But she couldn't just stay with Li Er and refuse to leave...
Because if Li Er stopped performing, he would lose his source of income, and her own appetite was growing larger and larger as her body grew...
If she didn't leave, with the Li family's finances, she could eat them into poverty in less than two years.
Su Qing kept looking back as she went, finally disappearing into the dense thicket of grass.
After Su Qing's figure had vanished, Li Er bowed once in her direction.
He said in a clear voice, "For more than ten years, thank you for your care!"
Su Qing hadn't gone far. Hearing Li Er's words, she flicked her tongue and sighed in her heart.
Then, she crawled deeper into the woods.
After living in the human world for over ten years, she felt somewhat unaccustomed to returning to the wilderness.
And the biggest thing to get used to was probably that no one would actively bring her food anymore, right?
Fortunately, however, the Su Qing of today was no longer a newborn snakelet.
With her current abilities, surviving in this forest wasn't a difficult task.
As long as she didn't court death by provoking snake catchers, goshawks, or other such natural enemies, she could live quite comfortably.
Su Qing searched around the forest, planning to first find a small nest to settle in.
But having grown used to staying in a "big house," Su Qing really couldn't stand the idea of a random pile of grass or a bush.
She searched in the mountains all morning and finally found a ruined temple on the mountainside.
Su Qing couldn't tell who this ruined temple had originally enshrined from the statue, as it was broken. She could only tell from the peeling characters that it was dedicated to a mountain god.
But it was very clear that no one had come to this mountain god temple for a very, very long time.
"Since no one has come here for a long time... I'll just make this my nest for now." Su Qing flicked her tongue, feeling quite pleased.
So, she slithered up to the front of the divine altar, coiled up, and began to rest.
Snakes are a naturally lazy species; aside from when they are hunting, they prefer to lie still most of the time.
Su Qing was naturally no exception.
She had eaten two chickens in the morning and wasn't hungry at all now, so of course, it was time to sleep.
In the afternoon, the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse...
What had been a clear, boundless sky was soon covered in dark clouds.
It looked like a heavy rain was about to fall.
Sure enough, before long, a torrential downpour began.
The sound of the rain was so loud that even Su Qing was woken up by it.
"What a heavy rain... It's a good thing I found a ruined temple for a nest, otherwise I'd be soaked like a drowned rat—no, a drowned snake."
Su Qing flicked her tongue, feeling secretly fortunate.
Although she had lost her home in the human world, at least on her first day back in the wilderness, she had a little nest of her own.
With that thought, Su Qing lay down to sleep again. With it raining, she was in no mood to go hunting. She would go out after the rain stopped.
"I wonder what life will be like for Li Er's family in the future... It shouldn't be worse than it is now, right? I wonder what his daughter will look like in a dozen or so years?" Su Qing thought as she closed her eyes.
Life in the mountains had no record of years, and Su Qing didn't know how many had passed in a flash.
She only knew that her body had grown much longer over these years... and that she gradually had no rivals left in this mountain forest.
As long as she didn't encounter a pack of wolves, snake catchers, or a fierce tiger, Su Qing feared nothing.
And over these years, Su Qing had never moved her nest. Whether it was a normal day or hibernation, she basically spent all her time in this ruined temple.
This place was great. It could shelter her from the wind and rain, she didn't have to worry about being buried by snow in the winter, and very few people ever came here.
She could live here quietly and undisturbed.
So many years passed, and Su Qing lived quite well here.
In the middle of summer one year, the sky was pouring rain, just like on the day she had first arrived at the ruined temple.
"It's raining again."
Su Qing flicked her tongue, her thoughts drifting back to the day she had left.
"I wonder how Li Er's family is doing now?"
Just as Su Qing was thinking this, a woman's voice suddenly came from outside the ruined temple.
"Miss, there's a ruined temple here!"
"Let's go inside to take shelter from the rain, shall we? We can go back after the rain stops!"
Su Qing lifted her head slightly. She found the woman's voice a bit familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before.
But she didn't think much of it and prepared to hide from these people to avoid scaring them.
But before she could move, she saw a man and two women rush in frantically.
The man seemed to be a guard, and of the two women, one was likely a maidservant, and the other was naturally the young miss.
Upon seeing Su Qing, the man immediately blocked the two women behind him and said, "Miss, be careful! There's a long crawler in here!"
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