81: Chapter 81 The Green Snake Awakens from its Sleep
In the darkness.
Xu Qing's eyes changed.
His black eyes and white pupils turned into white eyes and black pupils, presenting a trend of Yang flourishing and Yin declining, and the surrounding scenery also changed.
He had returned to the Snake Cave beneath the River God Temple once again.
Everything around him remained unchanged, as if what he had seen before was merely a hallucination.
"Lisheng Green Snake!"
Xu Qing was so excited that he wanted to fly up to the clouds and roll around on them.
He no longer had to worry about being hunted down.
"Wait a minute, something seems wrong."
Xu Qing felt his body, always feeling as if something was missing.
"Lifespan, my lifespan has shortened!"
As a Lisheng Green Snake that fed on lifespan, Xu Qing was naturally very sensitive to the power of lifespan.
Just that brief moment of roaming the boundary between life and death had consumed a full fifteen years of his lifespan.
A Foundation Establishment Yao Beast could live for three hundred years, while humans could live for two hundred and fifty.
And Xu Qing, having been a Resurrection Green Snake and now a Lisheng Green Snake, belonged to races with vigorous vitality.
His lifespan was a full four hundred years.
Once his lifespan was exhausted, his Soul would weaken, and even if he had the Resurrection skill, he would have no way to resurrect.
"So it requires consuming lifespan..."
"No wonder the Lisheng Green Snake has a penchant for devouring lifespan; it's to replenish what is consumed."
Xu Qing sighed.
Lifespan could be replenished anyway, so consuming a little here and there was fine.
In the future, when he caught bad guys who wanted to harm him, he could make even more thorough use of their waste.
First, he would strip them of their benefits, then use them as punching bags to improve his skill proficiency, then extract their lifespan, and finally kill them to obtain their Dao Cultivation and evolution points.
"Ultimate waste utilization!"
Xu Qing turned his head and looked at the black flood dragon horn, wanting to hang on it for a while.
But looking at it now, the black flood dragon horn looked like a street lamp.
"...Forget it, I won't hang on it."
"Speaking of which, today is the Winter Solstice."
Xu Qing looked at the Magical Artifact in the corner that could automatically determine the date.
Then he crawled out of the cave.
"Morning, Senior Brother Qing."
"Senior Brother Qing, what's wrong with your eyes!"
Xu Linger looked at Xu Qing's eyes; one black and one white, they looked quite extraordinary.
"This is the Eye of the Profound Truth of Life and Death!"
"Why does it look like cataracts?"
Xu Linger muttered.
Xu Qing slapped her on the head with his tail.
This child had no idea how to speak; she really needed a beating.
"I need to find a way to get some colored contact lenses to wear."
Xu Qing pondered.
His Eye of the Profound Truth of Life and Death was easily misunderstood by others.
If word got out that he, the dignified West River God, had cataracts, how embarrassing that would be.
"Winter Solstice."
"Eat dumplings."
Lin Donglan approached with dumplings.
Come to think of it, this ice queen seemed to be talking more; this was the first time Xu Qing had heard her say so much.
"Thanks."
Xu Qing used his Demonic Power to take the plate and rolled up one of the dumplings.
"Fish filling again!"
The Green Snake almost threw up.
It was fish every day; everyone brought fish to worship him, and he was about to throw up from eating them.
Even the dumplings were filled with fish.
"Yes."
"But it's delicious."
Lin Donglan said, stuffing another dumpling into her mouth.
"..."
"What's so good about fish? I want Frogs, Frogs!"
Silly Snake was hibernating, so he had nowhere to trick Frogs from to eat.
Catch them himself? Impossible.
How could he, the dignified West River God, catch Frogs himself?
"I need to find a way to send a dream to the fishermen here."
Xu Qing felt like throwing up just smelling the fishy scent now.
He could choose not to eat the fish offered by the fishermen, but when they offered the fish, the Power Of Faith within would fuse over.
That Power Of Faith carried a fishy smell!
It was equivalent to stuffing fish into Xu Qing's mouth every day.
"Dad, Dad, it's snowing outside!"
Daya rushed in excitedly.
Xu Qing's heart stirred, and he poked his head out of the River God Temple.
White snowflakes drifted down, and soon it was snowing heavily.
Such heavy snow.
"It only started snowing on the Winter Solstice this year."
Xu Linger said.
However, this was a good thing, as it gave the villagers here more time to prepare food for the winter.
Life would be difficult after the heavy snow sealed off the mountains.
"Senior Brother, why did you rush out!"
Xu Linger was about to turn her head to look at the large green snake next to her, when she saw the large green snake rush into the sky, dancing in the snow.
"The first snow since arriving in this world!"
Xu Qing flicked his tongue, carefully feeling the snowflakes landing on it.
The surrounding villagers looked up one after another.
Seeing the large green snake fluttering in the snow, they all clasped their hands together and prayed silently.
"Green Snake Goddess, please bless us so that fewer people freeze to death this snow season."
At the bottom of the West River.
Xu Qing swam to the place where he had previously discovered the Spiritual Jade.
The Spiritual Qi here was rich, and the Spiritual Qi from the surrounding mountains and rivers gathered once again in this heaven-made treasure land.
Xu Qing looked at this heaven-made treasure land, with thoughts in his mind.
He took out the Physical Body he had shed and placed it in this cave.
He manifested his two claws and continuously performed incantations.
Vines stretched out, wrapping the Physical Body layer by layer into a vine ball.
Then, he connected the vine ball to the stone wall at the top.
Spiritual power immediately flowed down along the green vines, surging toward the Green Snake Physical Body within, emitting a faint light.
It was like a silkworm cocoon.
Gathering the Spiritual Qi of the surrounding mountains and rivers, and using the power of the mountains and rivers to refine his Physical Body, he completed the first step of Artifact Refining preparation.
This was much better than refining it himself with spiritual fire.
"When I get ruthless, I even refine myself."
Xu Qing left the cave and swam toward the River God Temple.
As for this place being discovered by others, it was basically impossible.
This was a heaven-made treasure land, hidden by the power of heaven and earth.
If it weren't for the River God connecting to the West River, it would basically be impossible to discover.
"I am, quite modestly, the River God."
He flew out of the West River.
The whole world was covered in silver; everywhere he looked, whether mountain or ground, was white.
The heavy snow continued to fall without stopping.
Apart from the initial excitement, Xu Qing now felt a bit sleepy whenever he saw snow.
After all, in his previous life, he was a southern snake—bah, a southerner—and hadn't seen much snow.
"Back to the River God Temple to sleep for the winter."
Xu Qing returned to the River God Temple, his huge body crawling into the Snake Cave.
Like Silly Snake, he began to hibernate.
But Xu Qing did not sleep for too long.
The tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Major Cold.
He had slept for a month.
The discomfort brought by the evolution had disappeared, and his Dao Cultivation had even increased by a year.
Xu Qing had never been this lazy before.
Perhaps in the first year of becoming a snake, one must hibernate once.
After all, for a Lisheng Green Snake to lose to hibernation—how laughable that would be if it got out.
As for why Xu Qing woke up.
Downstream of the West River, there was a very strong unclean aura that wafted over and woke Xu Qing up.
If it were before, it naturally wouldn't have been enough to do this.
But during this period, due to the people's Power Of Faith, Xu Qing's connection with the West River had deepened.
Several branch temples of the Green Snake Goddess had even been built upstream.
While Xu Qing was sleeping, surrounding villagers braved the wind and snow to travel to the upper reaches of the West River to unify the clay statues of the Green Snake Goddess.
At the same time, they corrected the title of the local River God Temple's Green River God.
"What Green River God? That is the Green Snake Goddess, the West River Maiden!"
They solemnly corrected the title.
"So that's how it is; I hope the Green Snake Goddess does not blame us!"
The person who was corrected hurriedly bowed to the green snake statue.
The Green Snake Goddess branch temples did not yet have dense incense, and Xu Qing had no way to connect to the statues in the branch temples.
So he did not know about everything that had happened.