Chapter 574 - 227: Poisonous Snake Bite, Reduced to White Bones

This one thing dashed their hopes of hunting for a living.

Fortunately, however, the rice paddies in Stone Village are extremely fertile, making it possible to earn a living through farming.

Farming is hard labor, steady but with limited prospects. Women from other villages are unwilling to marry into the village, and women from within the village try every possible means to marry out. This cycle continues, leading to an increasingly dwindling population in Stone Village.

Old Zhao is still a bachelor even to this day.

After resting for a while, Old Zhao got up and continued planting rice seedlings.

Just as he stepped into the rice paddy, a fast-moving black shadow flitted past his eyes, too quick to make out clearly.

Old Zhao rubbed his eyes and said, "Getting old, losing strength, and even my eyesight is failing."

With that, he continued picking up seedlings one by one, planting them into the ground.

"Hiss~"

Not long after, a sharp pain shot up from his leg.

"The leeches in these paddies are truly becoming more numerous. In a few years, I’m afraid even the last rice paddy will be overrun by them."

After complaining, Old Zhao resumed planting seedlings.

Soon enough, night fell, and Old Zhao, dragging his weary body, slowly made his way back to his wooden hut.

"Old Zhao, you’re back~~"

"Yeah, let me tell you guys, the paddies’ levees are getting overrun with leeches, and one even left such a big mark on my calf."

The villagers of Stone Village greeted Old Zhao warmly, and he was happy to respond. After all, without a wife at home, he could only seize this time to talk to others.

The villagers were also very curious about the leeches Old Zhao mentioned.

"Old Zhao, roll up your pant leg and let’s take a look, see if the leeches are more poisonous now."

Old Zhao sat on a stone by the roadside and rolled up his pant leg.

"Look here, hasn’t it always been like this? We’ve been farming for generations; how could we not be aware of the toxicity of leeches?" Old Zhao replied grumpily.

"Huh? This isn’t right!" The villagers looked at Old Zhao’s calf, puzzled, "This mark doesn’t look like it’s from a leech!!"

"How could that be?" Old Zhao didn’t believe it. "Besides leeches, what else is out there to bite calves on the levees?"

Old Zhao was very confident in his guess.

"It’s really not a leech!" The villagers, seeing Old Zhao’s disbelief, continued, "Look here for yourself; the mark has only two small puncture wounds, and there’s even a little black stuff at the wound. There’s no way this looks like a leech bite."

"Let me see!" Old Zhao looked down at his calf and his expression changed drastically.

"Damn it, it’s not a leech, it’s a snake!!!"

"A snake!"

As soon as Old Zhao spoke, the onlookers around him were startled, whispering among themselves.

"A snake? Old Zhao’s luck is really bad if he ran into a snake in the paddies."

"Alas~ Old Zhao’s luck truly is poor, unable to marry a wife, and now getting bitten by a snake in his older age while farming."

"Sigh~~ Seems farming also has its dangers. He’d have been better off joining the Great Wilderness Border Village and hunting in the mountains."

"But fortunately, the snakes in the levees aren’t poisonous, so it’s no big deal!"

Old Zhao heard this and quickly added, "Exactly, the snakes in the levees aren’t venomous, so there’s no need to worry."

"Then what’s that black stuff at the wound? Isn’t that venom?" someone asked.

"When you’re planting seedlings, you don’t get mud on you? Stop speaking nonsense!!" Old Zhao immediately retorted.

"Alright, enough talking. I need to go home and eat."

With that, Old Zhao quickened his pace and walked briskly towards his home.

Perhaps it was mental, but after realizing his calf wound was from a snake bite, his leg started to feel numb.

If it weren’t to save face in front of the villagers, he’d be limping for sure.

Seeing that Old Zhao wasn’t having trouble walking, the villagers concluded it wasn’t a venomous snake bite and that the black stuff was just mud from planting seedlings.

"Creak--"

Old Zhao walked quickly, taking two steps for every three until he reached his home, heading straight for the kitchen. He took out the cornbread he made a couple of days ago from the pot, not caring that it was cold, and ate it in big bites.

"How did this happen so unexpectedly, getting bitten by a snake?"

As he ate, Old Zhao rolled up his pant leg to check the wound again.

He found that his calf had turned completely black, the emaciated skin with protruding veins also darkened, looking like a thin tube stained with ink, extremely frightening.

Seeing this, Old Zhao abruptly stood up, intending to find a doctor in the village.

He had just stood when a sensation of the world spinning engulfed him.

"Bang--" and with that, Old Zhao collapsed to the ground.

...

At this time, the moon hung on the treetops.

Like the Great Wilderness Border Village, Stone Village had no entertainment at night. After dinner, people would take a stroll around the village, chat here and there about mundane matters, and after simple social activities, they’d return home to sleep.

"Do you think Old Zhao will be alright today?"

The speaker was one of the villagers who had encountered Old Zhao at the village entrance earlier today. He was now lying in bed with his wife.

"It’s not like he was bitten by a venomous snake, what’s there to fear? At most, he’ll be bedridden for a few days."

"Yeah, that’s true. Besides, he lives alone; as long as he eats his fill, it’s fine. There’s no rush for planting seedlings."

As they talked, rustling noises came from the ceiling beams.

"Hiss--hiss--hiss--hiss--," the sound was particularly eerie.

"Husband, did you hear something up on the beams?"

"What sound? I didn’t hear anything. You must be imagining it!"

After some thought, he concluded, "No, there’s definitely a sound up there on the beams."

"Yeah, there is a sound." The man said, "Maybe the snake that bit Old Zhao in the paddies now came to our house and is watching us from the beams!"

"What nonsense are you spouting at night?" The woman slapped the man a few times, her body trembling slightly.

"Weren’t you the one who said there was a sound on the beams? Look up now, you might even see a pair of eyes."

With that, the man forcibly turned the woman’s head towards the beams.

"Ah!!!" the woman shrieked, "Eyes, there are eyes."

"Seriously?" The man looked up too, and saw a pair of ghostly green eyes on the beams, staring intently at them.

"Run, hurry..."

Before he finished speaking, a black snake descended from the beams, biting their necks before they could react.

In an instant, silence fell.

Under the cloak of night, the poisonous snake slithered out the wooden door and headed towards another house.

Not long after the snake left, the room they had been bitten in was filled with a sickly green hue, the two people’s eyes bulging, their veins protruding gruesomely.

That night, half of Stone Village was enveloped by the poisonous snakes, nearly half the households were bitten to death by the snakes.

The next morning came.

The surviving villagers woke up, had breakfast, and wandered around the village as was usual.

They found that today was different from usual; there were far fewer people.

"What’s happening today? Is everyone oversleeping? Is no one going to the paddies to farm?"

"Could it be they heard Old Zhao got bitten by a snake in the paddies yesterday and are too scared to go?"

"We’ve all gotten injured in the paddies before, there’s no way such a small thing would stop us?"

"Exactly, if we don’t farm, how will we feed our families?"

"Come on, let’s go call them. If the Stone Village people stop farming, even fewer would want to marry in."

After reaching a consensus, the gathered villagers at the village gate set out grandly to other households.

The first place they headed to was Old Zhao’s.

Old Zhao was the most well-known bachelor in Stone Village. Not just in Stone Village, but in the surrounding hundred miles, his name was widely known. Old Zhao had become a symbol of Stone Village, though not for the best reasons.

If Old Zhao, a lifelong bachelor, were to give up and stop farming, it would tarnish Stone Village’s reputation even further if word got out.

In no time, the group arrived at Old Zhao’s doorstep, knocking hard on the door.

"Old Zhao, Old Zhao, come out."

"Old Zhao, get up, it’s time to farm."

...

They called out for a long time, but there was no response from inside.

"Do you think something happened to Old Zhao?" someone asked.

"It shouldn’t be, the snakes in the paddies indeed aren’t poisonous."

"Then why are we calling out to him, and there’s no response?"