Chapter 46: Snake Spirit (1)

Su Rou pointed at Lao Wu, as if he had discovered a new continent, and said, “Oh, don’t blame Ding, look at his master, he can’t even play it.”

The old man laughed even more unrestrainedly, took the pipe that Old Wu had just handed him and took two big puffs before saying, “Two idiots.”

When the old man was laughing at us, Xiao Ding couldn’t take it anymore. When I and Su Rou were singing and talking about him just now, he was just laughing shyly. When it came to his master, he was anxious.

“No, no… it’s not like that. It wasn’t meant to be a flute, and… it wasn’t meant to be singing.” When Ding got excited, he spoke incoherently, and we couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“What he meant to tell you was that the bamboo flute is not a flute for playing tunes. It is used to drive away snakes. Why do you think the snakes didn’t bite just now? Wasn’t it Ding playing the bamboo flute to drive away the snakes? And their master gave us the powder.” Old man Jiang finally came to Ding’s rescue.

“But, the bamboo flute doesn’t make a sound, how can it drive away snakes? How can it be so unreliable?” I was very curious. Su Rou was even more unfamiliar with these things. His eyes were wide open, staring at my master, waiting for an answer.

“You can see for yourself.” The old man Jiang took a puff of his pipe, and pointed to the bottom of the stage for us to see.

A strange thing happened. The snakes that had originally gathered here began to move. They were no longer tightly packed together, giving a feeling of restlessness and hesitation, but instead began to slowly swim towards the other side of the curtain, as if they were going out.

“Master, tell me, what’s going on?” I jumped onto the old man’s back and asked him, grabbing his collar.

Old Jiang grabbed me and pulled me down before saying, “I don’t know how to play the bamboo flute, but I can tell you the principle. Do you know how snakes see the world? They rely on their tongues to feel heat and vibrations. In the wild, snakes have a set of instincts to survive. To put it simply, playing the bamboo flute to scare away snakes is to imitate a vibration that makes the snake feel threatened. But there is a lot of subtlety in this. These methods of vibration are the snake charmers’ secret methods, and there are many other methods. There are almost no snakes that a master snake charmer can’t handle. At a certain level, he can even communicate with the snake spirits.

I was stunned. It turns out that snakes… what, their eyes are more useful than their tongues? What is the little bamboo flute vibrating?

“This… this bamboo flute is… not an ordinary flute. The way it is made… is very… difficult.” This little Ding stuttered when he got excited, but when my master came out to explain and rescue the situation, he became proud.

“Wow, it’s so fierce and powerful!” Su Rou was already amazed, and I nodded repeatedly.

But I was a little surprised, and looked at my master and said, “Master, how do you know so much? Do you also know that snakes use their tongues?”

Old Jiang looked at me with a smug smile and said, “Is that strange? That’s why I told you to study hard. Do you think you don’t have to study if you become a Taoist priest? I’ll tell you, I was a university graduate, and I even studied abroad. I majored in biology. There’s never been a real Taoist priest who is ignorant. If he doesn’t study well, he can’t study metaphysics well either. Because people who don’t understand science think that everything is strange and supernatural.

When he got excited, Old Master Jiang slapped me on the butt: “I’m not going to say much more to you. Just remember this: If you ever get a bad grade again, I’ll beat your butt!”

Okay, I admit that I almost cried when the old man scolded me, and that slap was really heavy! I just couldn’t imagine that my master, who was like a blind wanderer, was also a scholar who studied. No, no, no, a high-achieving student, probably stupid from reading.

“I’ll tell you, don’t think snake charmers are a mysterious profession. They are more than the world’s best snake researchers…” Old Jiang was still lecturing me, but at this point, Old Wu came to my rescue.

“Lao Jiang, the snakes have been driven away. Should we go and deal with the snake spirit?”

“The snake spirit, we need to deal with it. If we don’t, it will be troublesome. If we don’t deal with it, these snakes will still gather here. The ground is nourishing the yin, the yin gathers the snakes, the snakes give birth to the yin. If we want to liberate these spirits, we must completely destroy this gathering ground of yin and deal with the snake spirit.” Old Jiang muttered to himself, as if the snake spirit was giving him a hard time.

“That’s good. After I’ve completely driven away these snakes, we’ll go and deal with the snake spirit.” Old Wu nodded and said, “Then I’ll put the green bamboo flute back in my mouth and blow it.”

Su Rou was completely confused by the events here, and directly pinched his own face hard, and because he was too heavy-handed, he kept crying out, “Hey, hey.”

“Sanwa, you must tell me that I am definitely not dreaming.” After pinching Su Rou, he said to me very seriously.

“You’re not dreaming.” I could only answer him like that because I was also just getting into this, and because the situation was complicated, I didn’t know how to explain it to Su Rou.

“Little friend, you are definitely not dreaming. You are in contact with state secrets. If you tell anyone, the consequences will be very serious.” Suddenly someone spoke up. I turned around and saw that it was one of the soldiers in the courtyard the other day.

“What… what consequences?” Su Rou was not afraid of anything, but he could only threaten him with food. But he was probably influenced by me too much, and he was only afraid of the PLA. When he heard the PLA say that, he was scared and couldn’t even speak smoothly.

“Shoot them all, shoot the whole family.” The man’s expression was serious, and he didn’t mean it as a joke.

“Ah… then I won’t watch.” Su Rou immediately covered his eyes. He came to watch the fun, but the whole family was executed? Can it be like this?

I was furious. I said that my friend could not be bullied like this. I was about to say something, but the old man Jiang pulled me over and whispered in my ear, “These things cannot be said. The people don’t understand, and it will only add to their panic. The country will not allow it to be said. Wait until you talk to Su Rou. He saw it anyway, but the matter must not be said. When you grow up…”

The old man stopped here and I was stunned. I asked, “What happens when we grow up?”

“When you grow up, you can tell him. He won’t be executed.” Old Jiang chuckled and ignored me. I was so angry! My master is so mean!

But although I was young, I knew that this matter was serious. I walked over, opened the hand of the crispy meat, and said to the crispy meat with a guilty conscience, “Crispy meat, you really can’t tell anyone about this. This is a secret, just like the secret of the People’s Liberation Army fighting the war that cannot be known by spies.”

“I absolutely can’t tell anyone. Sanwa, you saw it too. What should I do?” I was moved. It was rare that Su Rou still cared about me at a time like this.

But I could only tell him with a guilty conscience, “Even if I had my master here, I would still be shot if I told anyone.”

“Ah, really?”

“Yes.” I could only say this with a guilty conscience.

After a short silence, I asked Su Rou, “Do you still want to watch? If not, I’ll ask my master to take you out.”

“Look, why not? It doesn’t matter if you watch for a while. If you say it’s going to be shot, it’s going to be shot after you watch it. I… I just want to watch it. I’m going to risk it.” Su Rou said with a heroic spirit. This kid is just like me. He knows that curiosity kills the cat, but he still goes to the gun.

I knew that Su Rou would not say anything, so I didn’t say anything. What I didn’t understand was why my master would let Su Rou follow me when these things were so secret. It was so strange.

It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that my master had already roughly calculated that Su Rou would enter my life. It would have been better if he had known about it earlier, but it was inevitable anyway.

After talking to Su Rou for a while, I looked up and saw that there were no more snakes in the whole curtain. They were all gathered at one end, crawling out in an orderly manner.

Everyone was very patient. It wasn’t until 10 or 15 minutes later that all the snakes had left, and then my master took the lead and said, “Let’s go out of the snake spirit!”

My master jumped off the platform, took my and Su Rou’s hands and walked in front of us. Old Wu followed closely behind, and the others quickly followed. After walking on the uneven ground for a short while, we came to a piece of cloth.

This piece of cloth was part of the curtain, and I really didn’t see anything wrong with it. But when my master pulled the cloth, I realized that it was movable, like a door curtain. Behind the curtain was another circle of cloth, about 20 to 30 square meters in size, with a large pit in the middle. I couldn’t tell how deep it was from where I was standing.

My master took me and the su rou to the pit. I don’t know why, but the more I walked, the more uncomfortable and cold I felt. As I walked, my face became ugly.

“You’ve forgotten that you’re sensitive to those things and can easily be affected by them.” The master stopped and looked at me: “Why don’t you recite the meditation mantra I taught you?”

I quickly recited it, this time out loud. As I recited it, I felt better. Old Jiang had long expected this, and continued to lead me forward.

We didn’t stop until we reached the pit. I looked inside, and I was shocked.