Serpent Ancestor

At noon, under the scorching sun, Xu Hei was drenched in sweat.

Two young children, kicking a leather ball, passed through the fields. One was a boy, the other a girl, both around the same age. As they moved, the ball bounced high and landed in Xu Hei’s watermelon patch.

Xu Hei glanced at the two and suddenly thought of Wang Xiaoniu and his sister.

”Look, that’s Uncle Xu who just moved here!” the girl pointed at Xu Hei.

”Yeah, I heard Uncle Xu is quite wealthy. He spent a hundred taels to buy a piece of land, which made the Li family so happy they moved to the county town,” the boy whispered.

After speaking, he waved at Xu Hei and called out, ”Uncle Xu,” as a greeting.

Xu Hei forced a smile and nodded in response.

In his memory, the boy was called Tiedan, and the girl was Er Ya, both children of the neighboring Gao family.

”By the way, Uncle Xu, the day after tomorrow is the Spring Equinox. Our family plans to go worship the Mountain God. Would you like to join us?” Tiedan picked up the ball, speaking enthusiastically.

Worshiping the Mountain God was a mortal custom to pray for favorable weather and a bountiful harvest every year.At the mention of the Mountain God, an image of a dog suddenly popped into Xu Hei’s mind.

”Sure,” Xu Hei was about to nod.

From a distance, a farmer suddenly rushed out, pulling Tiedan and Er Ya back, taking them away. Before leaving, he smiled at Xu Hei and said, ”Brother Xu, our kids are ignorant, please don’t mind them.”

Xu Hei shook his head, ”It’s fine.”

The farmer hurriedly left with the two children, not looking back.

Xu Hei fell into silence.

He could see through the thoughts of mortals at a glance. The man from the Gao family looked at him with intense vigilance and caution.

In these chaotic times, with demonic paths rampant, being wary of outsiders was normal. Xu Hei didn’t know what he did wrong, so he just shook his head and continued planting.

For two consecutive days, the Gao family’s children never appeared again.

Three days later, it was the Spring Equinox.

The town’s residents went out one after another, heading towards the Mountain God Temple outside the city. They prepared pastries, flowers, and incense candles to clean the temple and used pigs, cows, and sheep as offerings to pray for favorable weather this year.

It wasn’t until evening that the ceremony ended.

At night, Xu Hei appeared at the entrance of the Mountain God Temple and walked in without anyone noticing his presence.

The Mountain God in the temple had a kind face, a benevolent smile, and held a cane, resembling the human Earth God.

If he had truly transformed into a mortal, Xu Hei would naturally worship to pray for a bountiful watermelon harvest.

But Xu Hei couldn’t do it!

He just couldn’t, without any reason! He couldn’t kneel to a so-called deity in human form!

Instead, a question arose in his mind: Do these deities that mortals believe in really manifest?

Xu Hei had a thought: should he conduct an experiment?

Xu Hei smiled slightly, and with a wave of his hand, the statue of the Mountain God immediately reassembled into a ferocious monster snake.

Of course, ferocious was only from a human perspective; to Xu Hei, it was incredibly familiar.

Then, Xu Hei cast a small spell, creating an illusion so that people would still see the original form of the Mountain God, but in reality, it had become a snake.

”Let’s see if worshiping a snake in secret can ensure favorable weather,” Xu Hei thought to himself.

This experiment was just to verify some of his suspicions.

The Mountain God was only the first step; he planned to try this with the statues of the Buddhist sect, Daoism, and other heavenly deities to see what would happen if they were replaced with snakes.

Xu Hei was rebellious by nature. Why should so-called deities only be human? Even the Dragon King in the Dragon King Temple had a human form.

Of course, this was just an experiment. If anything went wrong, Xu Hei would stop immediately.

After finishing these tasks, Xu Hei went back to farming.

In the following days, people continued to worship at the Mountain God Temple. Yet, no one noticed that the statue had long turned into a snake; they only saw the illusion.

...

In the spring of the 33rd year of the Jin Kingdom, a severe drought occurred.

This drought lasted from the Spring Equinox to the Summer Solstice, with only a single light rain, and then not a drop more.

In the afternoon, under the blazing sun.

Xu Hei stood in the field, looking at the withered watermelon seedlings, his expression calm, without a ripple.

The town was deathly silent, occasionally interrupted by cries of sorrow. Due to the prolonged drought, many farmers’ rice crops had withered, destined for no harvest.

Xu Hei didn’t know if this was a coincidence or if it was related to him, but either way, it happened.

This prolonged drought lasted until late summer.

Eventually, the Jin Kingdom dispatched a Core Formation Stage cultivator to investigate. Using a borrowed demon-revealing mirror, he finally discovered that an inconspicuous Mountain God Temple on the border had been tampered with.

And Xu Hei, the instigator, had long since slipped away, leaving the Jin Kingdom and heading to the next country.

...

In the western part of the Central Divine Continent, there were many such small countries, as numerous as cattle.

Since Xu Hei was on the move, he naturally couldn’t stay in one place for too long, at most a year before slipping away.

The second country was Zhao Kingdom. This time, Xu Hei was smarter. He no longer spent lavishly like before, buying land for a hundred taels. Instead, he pretended to be a refugee fleeing famine, haggling to buy a straw hut with a string of copper coins.

This made the villagers much less wary.

Xu Hei no longer farmed. He became the village cook, chopping wood and fetching water for others, surviving on shared meals.

But due to his overly aloof nature or the inadvertent aura of dominance he exuded, he was recognized by a passing cultivator, and Xu Hei eventually left.

Being a mortal was truly difficult for him.

As for Xu Hei’s plans to swap out the statues, he didn’t carry them out again. The reason was simple: there are gods three feet above your head.

For things he couldn’t understand, Xu Hei still kept a respectful distance.

In fact, with his current cultivation, Xu Hei could easily control the weather of a small country by himself, and he could become a god in the eyes of mortals.

But he was truly afraid of angering certain existences, provoking a backlash from the laws of heaven, leaving him in a sorry state.

”One day, I, Xu, will ascend to see what these so-called deities are really up to.”

Xu Hei looked up at the sky, a cold gleam flashing in his eyes, then thought to himself, ”But before that, I should keep a low profile.”

Throughout his journey, although Xu Hei had transformed into a mortal, he was still essentially a mortal snake.

Some of his actions were at odds with human nature.

However, as Xu Hei passed through more and more countries, his experience grew richer. At the very least, he no longer gave himself away when interacting with people.

One day, Xu Hei, disguised as a martial artist among mortals, was hired by an escort agency to transport a batch of goods.

The destination happened to be the Ma Kingdom to the east, which was on Xu Hei’s way.