Volume 8 Chapter 27: Mother Snake

“Social snake group.”

This phrase flashed through my mind in an instant, and I also remembered the words that Fatso had casually said yesterday. He said that the behavior of these snakes was very similar to that of ants, and that there might be a snake queen here.

At the time, I thought this was impossible. The cooperative behavior of these snakes was at most a manifestation of the group instinct of vultures fighting over food. I never imagined that I would see such a relief here, which is simply a model of animal social habits.

The red small-sized chicken-crowned snakes are the role of the engineers in the social insects, and there are many of them. The king cobras are the males, and they are large in size and few in number. The huge snake that looks like a dragon is the “queen” that Fatso was talking about, and it is the only snake mother here. Judging from this relief, the snake mother is so huge that the male snake cannot mate with it smoothly and needs so many chicken-crowned snakes to assist. And according to the laws of nature, such a huge snake mother probably cannot move, and indeed needs the assistance of others to mate, just like some giant sows that are kept in captivity.

Could it be that, in the depths of this sea of trees, there are really such huge snakes?

I know a lot about the history of snakes. In my memory, the biggest legend about giant snakes is that someone claimed to have seen a 50-meter-long giant anaconda in the rainforest of Brazil. Snakes are different from humans in that they do not have a fixed lifespan. Most snakes die naturally when they become too large to hunt for food, but in some cases, when there is an abundance of food, snakes can continue to grow. Those giant snakes are simply the gods of the rainforest. However, even so, the age of those snakes when they died was only about 100 years old. This relief has been here for at least 3,000 to 4,000 years. If this snake mother really existed here, it should have died.

And with such a huge body, if it ever existed, it must have lived in the water. The swamp here obviously does not have such a large buoyancy.

I was a bit stunned. If we saw these reliefs in a museum, we might think they were ancient exaggerations or myths, but we have encountered these poisonous snakes here and witnessed their strange behavior, so it is very likely that these reliefs depict real scenes. This could be a huge discovery in biology, history, archaeology, and even sociology.

Looking at the reliefs, we couldn’t help but wonder how this strange behavior of the snakes evolved. Why is it so different from other snakes? I feel that there must be a deeper reason. These reasons must be related to the history of the Xiwangmu country.

The next relief is a series of worship scenes. In a temple, many people are kneeling before a poisonous snake. Looking at the outline of the temple, it is obviously where we are. Counting down, before the swamp flooded the area, this temple had five floors. On the altar of the temple, the snake stood upright in front of the crowd. This should also be one of the scenes of sacrifice. Apart from the strange movements of the snake, there is nothing strange about it. The altar is in front of the main entrance of the temple. When we came, there were only rocks there, which had obviously completely collapsed.

If we look at the whole thing, we can see that the giant stone is a representation of the central scene of the snake’s reproduction, surrounded by scenes of snake worship, snake breeding, snake wars with humans, and many other scenes involving snakes.

I wanted to get some more information from it, but after looking at it a few times, I found that there were very few details that I could identify clearly, and I didn’t get any more. The reliefs on the side walls were also gone.

We withdrew our attention and only then did we hear the fat man’s voice coming from afar, scolding, “What are you two doing? Have you finished yet? I’ve called you several times. Do you want to eat or not?”

We were still in a daze, but seeing that we had no clues for the time being, our stomachs were also calling out, and our appetite won out over our curiosity, so we had to stop.

I helped him climb down and walk to the stove, and I could already smell the long-lost aroma of meat. The fat man was using a basin as a pan and hanging it over the campfire to grill it.

The fat man asked us what we were doing there, and really thought we were the cooks, not helping out.

I told him what we had just found, and he was also quite surprised, but also very proud, saying, “Great minds can always make the right decisions. You must learn from this lesson and always listen to my teachings in the future, so that you will not be too late… But if the snake mother is really dead, why are the snakes still collecting the bodies? What are they collecting the bodies for?

“Maybe they’re feeding the male anaconda. Do you remember when we found Aning’s body last night, there were a lot of pheasant necks around the anaconda, obviously protecting the anaconda. This type of male snake is also a noble class, and will be supported by the snake group. The size of these snakes can continue to survive, but the snake mother will definitely not survive. There is too little food here. If there were really such a large snake active in recent times, we would have seen some traces of it. So I think this giant snake died a thousand years ago.” I said.

The fat man nodded, and I said to him, “Now you can imagine that these snakes are not snake spirits with evil intentions. Their behavior is also based on instinct, so you can be a little more relieved.

He sighed and said, ‘I can only be a little relieved. There are still many doubts about this matter. I don’t know how to spend tonight. Eat quickly. Eat well and fight well.’

I was so hungry that I didn’t want to discuss this anymore. I asked him what he had cooked.

“I boiled all the cans, except for a few. Luncheon meat stewed with steamed buns and sardines, a hodgepodge, but the taste is beyond words.“ The fat man said, ‘Okay, forget about these snakes. They make me sick to my stomach. Come and try my cooking. The first bite is free, and the second bite is a bite of a memento.’

”What kind of cooking is this? Isn’t it just boiling water?” I said.

“Tsk, tsk, that’s why you’re so much lower in rank than your third uncle, and you’ll only be a peddler for the rest of your life.” The fat man didn’t think so, and my hungry stomach was calling out, so I immediately scooped up a bowl with an empty can, took a big bite, and it was so hot that I was in tears, but it was really delicious. It tasted a bit like rice cake, at least it was like a meal.

As soon as I stirred the fragrance, the fat man couldn’t act like a big shot anymore. Without any more nonsense, the three of us finished the soup and the rest of the food.

After eating, I was sweating all over, and I suddenly felt stronger. My knees weren’t sore anymore.

“How was it? Not bad, right? You should learn from me. People live to be 70, but it’s rare. Eating, drinking, whoring and gambling are the only things that people enjoy in their lives. I, your fat master, have lived a life of danger. People like us should enjoy life when we can. Who knows if this is our last meal.“

”Pah!” I was furious: ”What eating, drinking, whoring and gambling? You’re the last meal, not us.”

It’s too unlucky to say this at this time, because it really could be the last meal.

“You see, this is the feudal legacy of the feudal class.” The fat man made a very annoying expression. But then he said, “These things are strong. Yesterday, our eyes were blinded by the fog. We need to eat something to replenish ourselves, or we’ll easily get sick.”

I thought of the fog last night and wondered, “Right, why were we fine in the forest but blind here?”

The fat guy said, “I think it might be the water here. The fog is condensed water vapor. The water in the forest is all fresh water, but the water here might be stagnant. We don’t know the specific situation.”

I nodded and then thought of the shadow I saw when I regained my sight. I asked if they had the same phenomenon. The fat guy shook his head: “The situation we experienced was much more complicated than yours. Who told you that?”

“It was mentioned in a TV series.”

“You believe that stuff.” He shook his head, and suddenly saw that Mian Youping raised his head, frowned, and looked at me.

Mian Youping hadn’t been listening to us since just now. I thought he was still thinking about the relief, so I said to him, “Don’t think about it. We’ll go take a closer look at the relief and look for other clues. Now you can rest in peace.”

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

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

Muyoubing suddenly stood up and said to me, “That was Wenjin.”