NOVEL WEB Ch. 16
Chapter 16: Hong Sheng
At Hong Xiu’s call, Hong Tianyun came to his side and looked at the wall under the window where his finger was pointing.
Beneath the window were two characters written in smeared blood, scrawled in great haste, clearly written under duress.
“Snake… snake… this first one is the word for snake, right? And this second word…”
Uneducated as he was, Hong Xiu helplessly raised his head and glanced at Hong Tianyun.
“Uncle Yun, do you recognize the second word?”
Hong Tianyun’s cheeks twitched slightly, and he gave a light cough.
“Sanjiang’s writing is especially messy. Even your Uncle Yun can’t make it out. I think we should find someone else to identify it.”
Hong Xiu lifted his head and nodded in agreement.
“Yes, Sanjiang Uncle’s writing is indeed too sloppy. Uncle Yun is right, we should ask someone else to recognize it.”
The two exchanged a glance and left Hong Sanjiang’s house together.
Entering the village, as they passed by Hong Tianfeng’s house, Hong Tianyun immediately saw a fair-faced youth—Hong Sheng, the second son of his late elder brother.
Hong Sheng was sitting at the door, reading a book.
Seeing this scene, Hong Tianyun couldn’t help but feel a wave of emotion.
Books, for Hongjia Village, were an extravagant luxury.
Before this, only the village’s schoolteacher owned a few volumes of the sages’ writings.
Though called a schoolteacher, he was merely someone who had once ventured beyond the mountains, gained a little knowledge, and learned a handful of characters.
As for Hong Wen’s household, they were too impoverished to even afford the imperial taxes, let alone purchase books.
But this situation had changed last winter.
Hong Sheng’s father, Hong Tianfeng, had done well catching snakes, managing not only to pay the taxes but even saving a little extra.
With that surplus, Hong Tianfeng hoped his children could learn to read and write.
Unfortunately, when Hong Tianfeng went alone into the mountains in winter, he was bitten in the neck by a venomous snake and perished.
Even so, the eldest son, Hong Wen, still used the leftover money to buy Hong Sheng a few books.
Thus, Hong Sheng became one of the few in Hongjia Village who could read.
At this thought, Hong Tianyun suddenly realized—
That’s right, Hong Sheng could read! They could ask him!
With that, Hong Tianyun smiled and walked over to him.
“Hong Sheng, reading again?”
Hong Sheng looked up, and upon seeing it was his uncle, gave a small smile.
“Yes, Uncle Yun. Do you need something?”
Scratching his head, Hong Tianyun said:
“It’s like this. Hong Xiu discovered your Uncle Sanjiang is missing. There’s a pool of blood in his house, and two words written on the wall in blood.”
“Seeing you reading, I thought perhaps you could recognize the words.”
Upon hearing this, Hong Sheng closed his book.
“Uncle Yun, then let’s go.”
Hong Tianyun hurriedly waved his hand.
“No, no need. I memorized the strokes. I’ll just write them down here for you to recognize. You don’t have to go to that place.”
Hong Sheng shook his head.
“Uncle Yun, I’d better see it for myself. If I misidentify the words, that wouldn’t be good.”
“And besides, when my father passed away last winter, it was Uncle Sanjiang who helped us. Now that you say he’s missing, I want to do what I can to help.”
Hearing this, Hong Tianyun couldn’t help but recall when Hong Tianfeng died in the mountains last year.
At that time, he and Hong Wen had found Hong Tianfeng, who had gone alone to hunt snakes, and personally witnessed him being attacked above a pool by a venomous snake.
When Hong Tianfeng and the snake both fell into the pool, there was naturally no chance of survival.
With night falling, for his and Hong Wen’s safety, Hong Tianyun had suppressed his grief and taken Hong Wen back to the village.
At dawn the next day, he led the village corpse-fishers back to the pool.
There, by the poolside, they had found only a clean-picked skeleton.
It was needless to say whose it was—Hong Tianfeng’s.
Bringing the remains back to the village, his wife fainted on the spot upon seeing her husband’s bones.
Hong Wen and Hong Yu wept bitterly, unable to stop their sobbing.
Yet amidst the grief, what shocked Hong Tianyun most was Hong Sheng.
The second son merely stood by his father’s bones, gently stroking the remains.
At that time, just as now, he was calm and tranquil.
As though his father’s death had left no wound upon him.
Out of curiosity, Hong Tianyun had asked, only to be left speechless by the boy’s reply:
“Natural selection, survival of the fittest. Father and Grandfather lived by catching snakes. To one day die by a snake is only natural. Though I feel reluctant, I can only accept it.”
From that day on, Hong Tianyun understood: the second son of the Hong family was no ordinary child.
It was one thing to see life and death with indifference.
But to remain unmoved by the death of one’s closest kin—that was something else entirely.
It meant this person was either cold and unfeeling, or possessed a spirit of “Heaven and Earth are without benevolence.”
“Heaven and Earth are without benevolence” did not mean cruelty or evil, but that such a person could regard all beings’ rise and fall with equal detachment, holding a heart as vast as Heaven and Earth.
Hong Tianyun couldn’t help but click his tongue.
As Hong Sheng’s uncle, he had watched him grow up.
He knew the boy wasn’t heartless.
Could it really be that Hong Sheng’s state of mind was so much higher than his siblings’—higher even than his own, though he had long been accustomed to life and death?
“Uncle Yun?”
A voice called him back to the present.
It was Hong Sheng.
“Uncle Yun, what’s wrong? Let me go take a look at Uncle Sanjiang’s house too.”
After a moment’s thought, Hong Tianyun nodded.
Hong Sheng was no ordinary child.
Letting him see might indeed yield more insight.
“Very well, come with me. Should we call your brother too?”
Hong Sheng shook his head.
“My brother is sleeping. Let’s not disturb him. I know a few words; let me accompany you, Uncle Yun.”
With that, the two of them went together to Hong Sanjiang’s house.
Looking at the two blood-written characters on the wall, Hong Sheng said to Hong Tianyun and Hong Xiu:
“They read ‘Snake Demon.’”
“Snake demon?!”
Hong Xiu’s face turned pale, and even Hong Tianyun’s expression darkened.
It seemed certain now that Hong Sanjiang had met with disaster.
And the one who took him was the snake demon.
“It looks like a snake demon came down the mountain, broke into Uncle Sanjiang’s house, and carried him away.”
Watching Hong Sheng calmly analyze the scene, Hong Xiu’s lips trembled.
“Hong Sheng, maybe Uncle Sanjiang was mistaken? Maybe it was just an ordinary snake that entered his house? I’ve never seen any demon in my whole life.”
Hong Tianyun shook his head.
“Sanjiang was the village corpse-fisher. He’d traveled mountains and rivers, recovered bodies, buried the dead. What strange thing hadn’t he seen?”
“If it were only an ordinary snake, he wouldn’t have written the words ‘Snake Demon’ so clearly.”
At this, Hong Xiu’s face grew even paler.
In contrast, Hong Sheng was utterly composed.
He touched the blood on the ground and said lightly:
“Since Uncle Sanjiang left the words ‘Snake Demon,’ they were not written without reason.”
“Leaving aside whether it was truly a demon, from the scene itself, it seems the snake first constricted Uncle Sanjiang to death, then dragged him away.”
“And judging by the traces, its size should be quite large—roughly bigger than a python.”
Hong Xiu asked doubtfully:
“How do you know that?”
Hong Sheng explained:
“Snakes kill in only two ways: venom or constriction.
“If it was venom, even if there were blood, it would have dripped. But here there’s only one large pool of blood, spread wide. That suggests Uncle Sanjiang’s chest was crushed by constriction, leading to massive internal bleeding.”
“To kill a man by constriction requires at least a python-level snake.”
Hong Tianyun nodded, agreeing with his reasoning.
Snake-hunters usually died of venom; it was indeed rare to see such a pool of blood.
And venomous snakes, needing to secrete toxin proteins, were generally not large in size.
He gestured for Hong Sheng to continue.
“You must have more evidence, don’t you?”
Hong Sheng walked to the door and touched its broken remains.
“The wooden door was forcibly smashed. If I’m not mistaken, Uncle Sanjiang discovered the python in his house, locked the door, and the python broke in by force.”
“This also supports my earlier point. Only a python could smash through a door, only then would Uncle Sanjiang feel such danger and dare not open it.”
Here, Hong Sheng paused, thinking for a moment.
“Tell me, Uncle Yun, would ordinary snakes break down a door to eat a man?”
Hong Tianyun shook his head firmly.
“Impossible. Whether venomous snake or python, none would attack a person with such an obstacle in the way. And never would one break into a house.”
Hong Sheng’s gaze grew thoughtful.
“To break through a door means it had a considerable degree of thought. That is not something an ordinary snake could do.”
“It seems, just as Uncle Sanjiang wrote—”
“In our village’s vicinity, there is a snake demon.”