“Is this a test?”
Yes. But it is also completely necessary for a few other things. I’ve already lowered the difficulty as much as I dare by giving you some hints. I’m going to be silent now, until you are in a safe place with at least ten of the lotuses, roots included. I believe in you, Tian. I know you can do this.
“Grandpa Jun?”
The clearing was full of sounds- the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of insects and little frogs. But not a whisper from Grandpa Jun. Tian looked around, feeling lost. When Grandpa went silent in the junkyard, Tian knew how to live. There was an order and routine to everything. There really weren’t any decisions to make, or none that mattered much.
Wasn’t this a little too scary? There were vipers in the junkyard. All the rats and mice made the trash heaps treasured hunting grounds for them. By and large, he stayed away. You only had to see a few mice die in terrified agony to learn snakes were nothing fun to play with.
All the snakes in the dump looked like little babies compared to the colorful adder sprawled on the side of the pond. And this was the smallest of the bunch.
He sighed. Snakes didn’t like eating dead food either. To lure one with carrion would be hard, never mind all the snakes still in the pond. Though… that didn’t mean he couldn’t set some traps and make some lures. It would just be a bit of a long process.
The pond itself was the next big problem. It wasn’t nearly as big as the lake he had seen, but it was still big enough to make him worried about how deep the water was. The lotuses nearest the shore were all raggedy looking. The best ones were clustered in the middle. How was he supposed to get even one of them? Let alone ten or more? A long stick wouldn’t cut it.
One problem at a time. The very first thing he needed to do was make some tools. And it all started with a stick.
The bird screeched and flapped its wings, desperate to get free. Tian felt bad, but didn’t stir. The bird had only been noisy for a minute, and the snake was already on the move. Tian had never made a snake trap before, but he thought his current plan was feasible. He’d find out in a moment.
The long adder slithered through the grass. Tian shivered. He had underestimated its size. The snake was nearly as long as Tian was tall. Its pointy head seemed particularly sinister, and the tiny scale horns over its eyes seemed to make threats all on their own.
The colors of the snake’s scales were deceptively muted. Black, gold and green… his eyes watered for a moment. Was that really green? For some reason, he thought it was something else for a moment. Was this the ‘colorblind’ thing Grandpa kept going on about? In that moment of blindness, the adder reached his trap.
Tian had woven together some thin wooden stakes, making a little fence with a single hole in it. The bird was tied to a branch in the middle of the fenced area. And just as the snake stuck it’s head in-
Tian was quite used to moving with blurry vision. He yanked the bark fiber cord and pulled the noose tight. It grabbed the snake by the neck. The cord slipped a little, then set. The snake thrashed, but Tian had him firm. The cord hauled the snake up towards the tree branch above. Tian tied the cord to a branch and dashed in with a heavy stick. He whacked the snake once, feeling it bend under his blow. Tian frowned. It didn’t feel like he crushed the spine. He swung a fast backhand, and missed.
The snake slipped out of the noose. It showed its temper the second it was free, striking fast. Needle thin fangs reached for the boy’s wrist. Tian was wide open after his swing, and could only desperately leap back. The snake pressed forward, hissing furiously and darting its head at his legs. Tian kept retreating, trying to bring his heavy stick into action. Not noticing how his elusive steps followed the pattern of the jumping games Grandpa had taught him.
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Tian thought he had the snake’s timing down, and whipped forward with the stick. The snake ducked the blow, and immediately moved to bite the swinging arm. Tian yelped and jumped back, jerking his empty hand out of the way. It took him a moment to realize that he had just flung his stick yards away. His index and thumb were not enough to hold the stick through such a sudden change of direction. Not with three missing fingers on each hand.
Tian turned and ran. No weapon, no traps? He certainly wasn’t going to box a snake. He was off on his toes. He only managed three steps when some bestial instinct screamed at him to jump!
The snake was faster than he was. It nearly had him. Those long fangs were inches from his leg this time. Tian did the only thing he could think of. Before the snake managed to set itself up again for a lunge, he grabbed it. He directly dove on the snake, grabbing just behind its head with both hands. The snake hissed furiously, lashing Tian with its tail. Tian didn’t give a damn. The adder's teeth couldn’t reach him. It was free to lash him all it wanted.
Not that he took any chances. He kept the snake’s head facing away from his body, and at arm’s length.
It took him a moment to realize the problem. He had caught the snake. The very alive, very angry, very venomous snake. If he let go of the snake with one hand, the snake would escape and kill him. He, therefore, had to find a way to kill the snake without letting go of it.
Drowning? Tian glanced over at the pond. The snake’s siblings were all in there. The pond was out.
Bash it against a rock? It seemed dangerously unreliable, but he didn’t have a better idea. He looked around for a suitable braining rock, and had a small bit of good fortune. There wasn’t a convenient stone, but there was a very narrow v notch in a tree. He jammed the snake’s neck into the gap, and yanked down hard. Once he had it good and wedged, he ran off and found a rock. The snake wasn’t dead. It was still thrashing and writhing, trying to escape. Tian raised his rock and smashed it down on the back of the snake’s neck. Once, twice, three times- he kept going until the rock was covered in blood and the snake stopped moving.
Tian looked around quickly. No more snakes. No cats sneaking up on him. He exhaled hard, inadvertently blowing all the strength out of his body. He collapsed, gasping. He could feel the snake's fangs biting into him. They had come so close, so often, that they had pressed themselves into his mind. He had been an inch from death. Less than an inch. The fury in the adder’s eyes! The hate!
Tian shuddered. He had seen furious animals before. He had hunted for as long as he could remember. He still wasn’t prepared for that degree of malice. Grandpa Jun had called it a Three Venom Seven Death Adder. Tian was prepared to believe it. It seemed like a snake that would make you die seven times before Hell was permitted to claim you.
He was still kind of vague on what Hell was. Grandpa used the word a lot, but wouldn’t explain it. “Costs too much,” was all he would ever say. It sounded like the kind of place a horned, venom dripping adder would drag you to.
“One down. An entire pond-full to go.” He muttered.
Tian calmed down and tried to think through what worked. The bird lure worked. The noose worked for a while, but the snake could slip out of it if he wasn’t careful. The stick was a complete failure. Even when the snake was hanging in the air, the stick hadn’t been enough to kill it. Pinning the snake worked. Beating it to death with a rock eventually worked.
He could lure at least one snake at a time. He didn’t know about luring more, but… that problem could wait for now. He could fix the noose slipping problem. The cord needed to be smoother, so it could pull tighter. Maybe make it a little thicker too, just in case of accidents. He couldn’t expect the snakes to stick their head into the same hole over and over again. Was there a way to make a more portable snare? Could he… put the noose on a stick?
He tried to imagine it. It kind of made sense, but it kind of didn’t at the same time. How exactly would he pull the loop tight? And once he had, how would he bash the snake with a rock? He looked over at the dead snake hanging from the fork in the tree.
Was that the answer? Just use a forked stick to pin it in place, slide his hands down, and bash with a rock. Straightforward and easy to manufacture. Just one or two slight problems. Starting with, but by no means ending with, his ability to actually pin a snake down with a stick.
It was an interesting problem. Tian got busy. First- collect sticks. Second- experiment. Third- figure out how to run away if the hunt goes wrong. Because he got lucky last time, and he was absolutely certain he wouldn’t get lucky a second time.
Tian set the bird next to the pond, but not too close. He didn’t know how the snakes hunted, but it sounded like they ambushed prey. Which, if it was him, meant hiding just at the edge of the water, waiting for something to get close. Then they explode out at maximum speed. He would have to draw them out and make them lose that first lunge advantage.
Assuming this worked. Assuming he could do it repeatedly. Assuming there were no accidents.
The bird fluttered helplessly, making a racket. It knew damn well there were snakes around, and it wasn’t resigned to death. How could a bird understand being tied to a branch?
Tian waited. The snakes understood birds too. The one he had snared was a little small, but even a mosquito still had meat on it. They would come. He almost didn’t notice when his prey inched its way out of the water, forked tongue tasting the air.
The adder crept closer, moving slowly, scarcely disturbing the grass as it moved. The grass near the water’s edge was short here, the ground carefully chosen by Tian. The little fence was the same, the noose was modified, a new stick was selected to be the hoist. Tian didn’t need the snake up high. He just needed it to not be moving around too much when he went in with the forked stick and the heavy rock.
The snake smelled its prey, and moved to kill. It nosed through a little hole- then was suddenly choked! Yanked up off the ground by something it couldn’t see or smell. The adder lashed its long tail, furious that it was attacked by things it couldn’t see or understand.
How could a snake understand the viciousness of the human heart?