Chapter 64, Chapter 1 – He is dying.

The day he met Yan Hao, Sheng Qing thought his life was about to enter its final chapter, so he lay motionless in the trash can, waiting for the breath of death to devour him bit by bit.

And then... spring came.

*

It was the hottest time of the summer when a gray freight truck carrying several huge containers like a family rumbled into the town.

In the evening, just as the car passed the Ximen Bridge, the news spread.

The children had never seen such a scene before, and a few naughty kids tried to run after the truck, completely unaware of how dangerous this behavior was.

The adults who had some experience looked calmly at the direction the car was heading, and immediately knew where they would drive the car to.

An old man sitting on the bridge enjoying the cool breeze, smoking his pipe, was the first to speak: "Is it the big circus?"

Another old man who was familiar with the old man joined in the conversation: "That's for sure, but I didn't hear it clearly. Did you hear what the loud speaker in the car said?"

A young man nearby quickly replied, "It must be Diamond Plaza. Where else in Yongxing is there such a large open space? I heard it's starting tomorrow."

Another man with a crew cut and wearing a gray cloth shirt chimed in, "The cars this time are much bigger than last year's. I wonder if there are lions or tigers..."

During this time, some children interrupted out of curiosity.

"Is it a real tiger?"

The old man who spoke first touched the child's head lovingly and said: "Of course it's a real tiger. We all touched it back then."

As he spoke, the old man narrowed his eyes and fell into memories of the past: "I haven't seen a big circus in years. I remember that the ticket price was only ten yuan back then, and Diamond Plaza was much smaller than it is now..."

The old people talked endlessly about the trivial things in the past, and the children, who could not stand their chattering, felt bored after listening to a few words and dispersed.

A middle-aged woman sitting by the bridge put a half-knitted sweater back into a red plastic bag and raised her voice to call out to a chubby child not far away.

When the fat boy came over, the woman skillfully lifted the hem of the child's clothes, took off a cotton towel that was soaked with sweat, and quickly took out a dry one from her bag and stuffed it back into her back.

"Mom, I want to go to the square to watch the circus too..."

The child took the opportunity to beg his mother.

"Didn't you hear what they said? The show doesn't start until tomorrow night. You can't see it even if you go now. Can you go tomorrow?"

"But a lot of them said we can go see it today. I want to go today! I want to go!"

Unlike the more prosperous and bustling city, there really isn't much to entertain people in their small town. Now that there's finally a big circus, even though the loudspeaker on the bus clearly states that the official performance will be tomorrow night, there are still many people leisurely going over to watch the fun.

Seeing this, the woman had no choice but to relent: "Okay, okay, you can go, but don't run around or go into the river..."

“That’s great!!!”

The child couldn't stand the chatter and ran away, telling the good news to a few other friends he knew while running.

"Wait for me, my mom has just agreed to let me go, let's go together!!"

The woman behind him worriedly said:

"Slow down, don't run so fast!!"

*

The car was about to arrive near Diamond Plaza. The driver, who had been driving all the way, couldn't wait to turn off the engine, unbuckle his seat belt, and jump out of the car by stepping on the pedal.

While moving his stiff legs and shoulders, the man took out a half-deflated cigarette pack from his pocket, shook out a wrinkled cigarette from it and put it between his lips.

"call……"

He had only taken two puffs when a box at the end of the container in the car opened automatically, and seven or eight strong men came out one after another. Each of them was sweating profusely, and as soon as they came down, they took big gulps of the fresh air outside.

"Old Joe! How are you driving today? It's drifting like this. No matter how anxious you are, you can't be this anxious!"

"That's right, I didn't want to have to deal with all of us still in the back of the car. I bumped my head and got several bumps..."

"Hurry up and reincarnate!"

“…”

A group of people gathered together, complaining back and forth. The driver, surrounded by them, puffed on his cigarette and frowned: "What can I do? I originally planned to take a break, but the boss called and urged me to hurry up! "

Just as the group of people lit their cigarettes, a black car stopped behind the truck. A middle-aged man wearing sunglasses got out of the back seat. Seeing the workers gathered together, he shouted at them to get to work quickly.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry..."

"Damn, that bastard..."

"Shh, keep your voice down..."

Several men in short T-shirts complained quietly, but they still moved their hands and feet swiftly according to the instructions. However, they were still angry, so the movements of their hands inevitably made a little more noise.

The banging and banging sounds mixed with the noisy voices outside and when they reached the container, they were inexplicably distorted into a weird and blurry noise.

The noise seemed very close yet very far away.

Inside the pitch-black container were stacked iron cages of various sizes, each filled with animals huddled in a corner.

One of them is the weakest.

The upper body looked like a thin teenager, but there were obvious scales on the face near the ears, and below the waist it was almost entirely a snake's tail.

The strange half-human, half-snake boy crawled weakly in the iron cage, his long black hair covering his face, and the scales on many parts of his snake tail had fallen off, revealing the bright red tender flesh inside.

"He" was motionless, breathing weakly, looking as weak as if he had already lost his breath.

There was a monkey in the cage opposite the snake man. With its thin body, it easily squeezed out from the edge of the iron cage and ran straight towards the cage opposite.

However, just as its claws were about to touch the snake man, the iron chain on the monkey's neck pulled it and it could no longer move forward. It could only stretch its arms as far as possible to poke, while making sharp cries.

“Chichichichi!! Chichichichi!!”

In the cage next to Shengqing's was a goat with hair dyed in rainbow colors. It was also constantly banging its head against the cage, making a banging sound.

The lion with its teeth pulled out was placed in another carriage. Hearing the noise from next door, it kept pacing around in the small cage. A bear with one eye blind and an old male tiger next to it were also banging their cages anxiously.

The workers outside were carrying boxes of heavy miscellaneous items. From time to time, they would look up, attracted by the movement inside the container in front of them, but would soon lower their heads as usual.

"Damn, it's so noisy..."

"We didn't feed them all the way, so those beasts must be hungry. I wonder who will be so unlucky to have to go in and clean up later... Anyway, don't call me..."

"I was the one who went there last time, and it stinked..."

…

When Shengqing regained some consciousness, he heard this noisy and chaotic sound.

He could feel the wobbly car come to a steady stop, and knew that they had reached their destination again. He didn't think about where it was this time, but only thought:

——Why aren’t you dead yet?

He struggled to raise his upper body and barely leaned his limp back against the edge of the cage.

Just with this small movement, the "boy" was so tired that he gasped for breath, especially when the exposed wound on his tail scraped against the rough ground, causing waves of familiar pain again.

“Chichichichi!!”

“Mee…mee!”

“Ouch—”

He can understand animal speech. Those sounds that may be meaningless howls or hums in human ears become words of concern and greetings in his ears.

"Sheng Qing! Sheng Qing!!"

"Shengqing, how are you?"

"Shengqing? Are you okay?"

The container is completely opaque, and the sweltering heat continues to accumulate in the small space. The animal feces piled up around it continue to ferment, mixing with the heat to form a disgusting, indescribable pungent smell.

There is no doubt that the environment here is terrible, but the animals have long been accustomed to it.

Compared to the hot, cramped and extremely smelly environment around them, they were obviously more worried about Shengqing, whose body temperature was higher than usual.

Animals can smell the breath of death. In their sense of smell, Sheng Qing's body temperature is usually very low, but at this moment, his whole body is burning hot, and he is already shrouded in a bitter breath of death.

——He is going to die.

Seeing that Shengqing, who had just woken up, was about to lose consciousness again, the monkey stretched out its bald arm, but still could not reach it.

“Chi! Chichichichi!!”

Sheng Qing's chaotic consciousness regained a little clarity. He struggled to open his eyes, looked around, and shook his head to indicate that he was fine.

Other animals could smell his death, and he could naturally smell the gray and bitter smell that was more or less on everyone.

This is sickness, the smell of pain.

There's no way around it, this time the car seemed to be driving longer than ever before.

Sheng Qing heard from bits and pieces of information that there seemed to be some new regulations. It seemed that other humans were expelling the circus, so the circus humans had no choice but to take them into hiding and try to perform in some remote towns.

But since it is remote, the journey must be long.

Sheng Qing stammered twice through his cracked lips, but he lacked the strength to utter a single sound. As the sounds outside grew closer, his consciousness gradually faded.

He began to dream again.

For a long time, Shengqing didn't know whether he was a human or a snake.

In his earliest memory, he was a snake, a snake that was originally sleeping soundly in a cave.

Although he had never seen his relatives or siblings, from his remaining memories, Shengqing knew that even though he was just a thin little snake now, he would grow up and become thick and strong in the future!

As his body becomes thicker and thicker, he will end his long childhood and enter the adolescence with a human body and a snake tail. After the adolescence, there will be an adult period in which he can switch to any form at will.

He only vaguely knew that there was such a process, but how could it be changed specifically?

Shengqing didn't know.

When it was still a small snake, there was no big snake around to find food for it. After it finished eating the eggshells, it could only go out to find food and feed itself.

When it was still small, it could eat only a few voles and then lazily curl up in its hole and sleep for several days. Later, as it grew bigger, it ate more and more. Sometimes it would work for a long time before it could barely eat half a full meal...

If there were not enough field mice and birds were hard to catch, he would be so hungry that he would go to the river to eat loaches. However, those loaches were so small that every time he gnawed on them, his mouth would be full of mud, and his body would become dirty and smelly. He didn't like it very much!

He likes to curl up under a cool tree to bask in the sun, enjoy the breeze, and sleep...

But he was so hungry, really so hungry, that he swallowed his own tail as food several times.

There was no choice but to risk going down the mountain.

Of course, Shengqing's decision to go down the mountain was not entirely because he was too hungry. There was another reason: he woke up one day and found that his body had changed.

He finally ended his childhood and had half a human body. He had a pair of dexterous hands and could see things more clearly than before!

When he was a full-bodied snake, he could only crawl on the ground, but now he can half-support himself with his hands; before, his eyes could only capture heat sources, and everything he saw was a blur of red and blue, but now it is much clearer!

Shengqing was very happy at that time.

Because in his cognition, he was a snake before, but now part of him has become like a human. Doesn't that mean he can be good friends with humans?

Can I have something to eat?

Not much, just a little bit is fine.

Shengqing thought so.

So he approached the foot of the mountain little by little with anticipation, and soon he met a group of farm men in gray clothes.

There were about ten of them in the group, all holding various hoes, forks, and pickaxes. The hairy-faced burly man in the front was holding a homemade □□.

They soon discovered Shengqing.

The older hunters were relatively calm, but the two or three teenage boys were different. They were frightened by the sudden appearance of the monster with a human body and a snake tail. They screamed and were immediately slapped on the head by the adults next to them.

"Shut up!"

Shengqing couldn't understand their words at the time. He only heard a repetitive noise. They said they had found something. They said it was much bigger than before. It was indeed a human body with a snake tail. The tail looked like a python... white... and it didn't seem to be able to speak...

"Call! Quick! Tell them we've found the reincarnation of the snake demon!"

"I didn't expect to run into him so easily!"

"*, still want to run!"

“…”

At that time, Shengqing actually didn't understand what they were saying and just looked at them blankly. He just wanted to get closer, but was blocked by a sharp fork.

The leading man unscrewed the strange object, and there was a loud bang. The ground next to Shengqing's waist suddenly exploded, and several of his scales fell off. Bright red blood instantly flowed out, and he immediately cried out in pain.

"Don't beat me to death..."

"Why don't I give it a try?" the big man laughed, "And I didn't hit it either, it was just a grazing shot..."

Shengqing was tied up, and a group of people sat next to him and started smoking. He watched one of the humans use an old-fashioned keypad phone to call a master, saying that he had found it in the mountains.

After hanging up the phone, the two or three teenage boys lost their previous fear and began to look at Shengqing curiously, asking what was going on.

"Is he really some kind of snake spirit?"

The relative who was questioning the child was the first to answer: "You can also treat him as one."

Another person took over and said that he had only heard that Master Caisheng had this unique skill and could create such lifelike snake people.

I've heard that children are forced to drink special drugs daily from a very young age, their hands and feet are tightly bound, their bodies are twisted while their bones are still soft, and some even have their limbs amputated. But I've only heard about it; this is the first time I've seen it with my own eyes...

The person who was speaking sighed as he spoke.

The boy who had asked the first question frowned, "So he was once a human? Not a snake spirit, so why are we arresting him?"

Another person responded: "Leave the kid alone."

"I've already collected the deposit and spent all the money... Do you still want to study? Besides, if you catch someone, they'll give you hundreds of dollars!"

The boy who was speaking fell silent.

“…”

Shengqing didn't understand what they were saying, but he had a vague feeling they were looking for someone else and had mistaken him for someone else. He wanted to explain, but he couldn't speak. The more he struggled, the tighter they tied him, assuming he was trying to escape.

Later, the master they were talking about really came.

The other person's clothes were obviously much more stylish than those of the dozen or so farm men before him. He drove a black car, wore a pair of sunglasses on his nose, and had a string of wooden beads on his hand.

Shengqing thought that he would recognize that he was not the "reincarnation of the snake spirit" they were looking for, and would let him go, but the middle-aged man did not deny it.

He first squatted down to carefully examine the joint at his waist. While touching the scales on his body, he praised it profusely, saying he didn't know which fellow disciple had made it, the joint looked so perfect...

The men asked if this was the item he was trying to rob. The middle-aged man nodded, handed each of them a few red banknotes, and took him away.

Shengqing had completely forgotten how many times he had been sold. Every time he was sold, it was just like an anesthetic needle whizzing into his body. He would then fall into a drowsy state, and when he woke up, he would be in a different place.

He has been in many different circuses, but the one he remembers most vividly is his first circus.

After all, he had just been caught at that time and still wanted to escape secretly. He had no idea why he had to do those strange actions and naturally was unwilling to cooperate.

But those animal trainers are not there for free. They have tamed countless ferocious beasts, and they only follow one rule: beat them if they don’t obey!

The barbed whip and the crackling electric baton forced Shengqing to obey. With his own strange appearance, he attracted curious guests to buy tickets to watch the show, and he became a cash cow in the troupe.

He stayed in the troupe for several years, learned a lot of performances, and also learned how to speak.

Later, as the times progressed, people had other entertainment options, and the circus lost its former glory. Even though the animals performed hard, the revenue decreased day by day.

The owner of the first circus had a keen sense of smell. He realized early on that the trend had passed and quickly packed up and sold the animals in the circus.

So Shengqing began to be resold in different troupes until it ended up in the current circus.

In fact, the environment was not so bad at the beginning. There were some good days at the beginning.

At that time, after each performance, the troupe leader and the trainer would give him and the other animals some extra food, and they would also have some dry straw to sleep on.

But later on, the profits were not good, and inspections were very strict everywhere, plus he was sick now.

Those humans would definitely not take him to see a doctor. After all, the circus itself was hiding, and taking a monster like him out would be asking for trouble.

The circus owner only wanted to make one last fortune from him before he died.

…

With a "bang", the door of the container was opened from the outside, and a worker walked into the container with a flashlight, frowning and covering his nose.

The footsteps grew closer, and finally the worker stopped in front of the iron cage holding Shengqing. He shone his flashlight into the cage, but when he saw that Shengqing didn't respond, he muttered, "Is he dead?"

The other animals banged their cages restlessly. The worker naturally didn't understand what they were saying, so he took a long wooden stick and poked Shengqing through the cage.

Once, once, and again.

Shengqing's hazy consciousness was awakened by the pain, and he slowly moved. Seeing him move, the workers stopped prodding and poured the slop-like food on the ground at the edge of the iron cage as if it were a meal.

Food...

He has been on the road for some time, and people outside haven't brought him food for more than two days. He suddenly brought him food this time. There must be a performance tomorrow, right?

Shengqing thought dully.

He hadn't eaten in a long time, but he just stared blankly at the mushy food, thinking to himself, "Tomorrow is the last performance, right? I'm sure I won't be able to sell it now, what will happen then?"

Will I die?

Sheng Qing could smell a strong bitter smell on himself. Other animals in the circus had this smell on them before they died.

What is death?

Is he lying there motionless? Shengqing recalled the scene he had seen before and wondered if the pain in his body would disappear after death.

Death is great.

.

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Author's words: Next chapter appearance [sunglasses]

"Shengqing" is an elegant name for snake.