Chapter 114

C/W: Child rearing that could be considered  inadequate guardianship for humans of the same age.

Time slowly scratched by, spring turning to autumn. Five years had already passed since the baby snakes were born.

The young snakes’ growth exceeded Yin Xiaoxiao’s expectations. Only five years, and the young snakes were over a meter ¹ long. Their bodies were thicker and more solid, although naturally, they still couldn’t be compared to Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda. As for Nine, his growth left Yin Xiaoxiao speechless. He really didn’t know what this guy was eating to grow like this! Compared to the other young snakes, he grew a lot more quickly!

Early in the morning, Yin Xiaoxiao woke from sleep and, after he came to senses and looked around the cave. Well, fine, Mo Laoda was nowhere in sight!

Yin Xiaoxiao’s originally pretty good mood was entirely destroyed. He’d had enough! Yin Xiaoxiao bitterly thought in his heart that, in the beginning when he’d had these nine snakes, it was easy for Heitan to catch prey for him ² and the young snakes, but as the young snakes continued to grow, the amount of food for them also continued to grow. So as to not be idle one day and then be dead tired the next, Heitan changed the young snakes’ meal time so that Heitan went hunting everyday! Each time, in order to fulfill the young snakes’ appetite, he’d be gone for the first half of the day! And like this, it had been a very long since he and Heitan had spent a whole day together!

In a spitting rage, Yin Xiaoxiao slithered out of the cave and saw the nine young snakes lying in a row, sunbathing in the open space in front of the cave.

Bai Jiahei was the first to see that Yin Xiaoxiao had emerged, and he saw the anger on Yin Xiaoxiao’s face. Somewhat puzzled, Bai Jiahei unconsciously stood up. The remaining eight snakes noticed Yin Xiaoxiao and, one by one, also stood up.

Mo Xiaoman slithered to face Yin Xiaoxiao and, with a happy smile, said, “Pop, you’re awake.”

Yin Xiaoxiao tried his best to remove the angry expression from his face and to calm his breathing. Wearing a smile, he softly asked, “Xiaoman, where’s your dad?”

“Dad went to go and catch food,” Mo Xiaoman tilted his head and replied, looking very cute. Unfortunately, Yin Xiaoxiao didn’t care right now whether or not Mo Xiaoman was cute.

The answer Yin Xiaoxiao had received came as no surprise, and he couldn’t stop himself from becoming even more indignant.Rolling his eyes a few times, he raised his head to face the young snakes. “Children, do you know what unity is?”

“Unity?” The young snakes thought for a while then all together shook their heads.

Yin Xiaoxiao spoke again, “Then, do you think yourselves strong?”

Except for Bai Jiahei, who didn’t move, the other young snakes shook their heads.

Yin Xiaoxiao continued the gimmick. “Then, do you want to become stronger?”

Aside from Bai Jiahei, all the young snakes nodded vigorously.

“Very good!” Yin Xiaoxiao raised his voice. “When I speak of unity, it can make you ³ even stronger! Even if other snakes want to bully you ⁴ then they won’t be able to do so.” A pause, then, “Including Yin Shuangjiang, you ⁵ four Yin snakes, even though you ⁶ alone can’t defeat stronger vipers, if you ⁷ are united, you’re ⁸ even stronger!”

Yin Xiaoxiao’s speech made the young snakes burn with enthusiasm, all wanting Yin Xiaoxiao to tell them how they could do this.

Yin Xiaoxiao’s smile became even more brilliant, and he continued speaking, “I ask you[/efn_note]plural[/efn_note], among us vipers, other than when with a partner, do snakes wander around alone?”

The young snakes nodded.

“If a Yin snake encounters a Hong snake, the Yin snake will naturally be unlikely to win. But what about four Yin snakes and a Hong snake? If these four determined Yin snakes coordinate well with each other, do you ⁹ think that the Yin snake would win or the Hong snake?”

The young snakes looked at each other. In their hearts, it seemed as though they had begun to vaguely realize something.

“Of course, this type of strength only applies if you ¹⁰ don’t have partners or before you ¹¹ have partners. After all, partners don’t want a third snake to step between them.” Yin Xiaoxiao added, “But you ¹² must know that, not so far into the future, your ¹³ dad and I will let you ¹⁴ go out alone to find your[/efn_note]plural[/efn_note] future partners. You ¹⁵ might find someone you like immediately or it might take many years, but solidarity is especially important at this time.”

The young snakes listened very earnestly. When they’d finished listening to Yin Xiaoxiao’s lengthy rationale, Mo Jingzhe hesitantly asked, “But Pop, vipers have all been very friendly. Why would a Yin snake and a Hong snake fight?”

Bai Jiahei, to the side, secretly smiled.

“….” Yin Xiaoxiao decided to change tack. “Then, I ask you ¹⁶ , what animal do you ¹⁷ most like to eat?”

At the mention of food, the young snakes’ eyes shone.

“I like to eat lion!”

“Tiger!”

“Leopard is delicious!”

“Giraffe is the tastiest!”

Each snake had their favorite food so each snake’s answer was different.

Yin Xiaoxiao secretly sighed that the baby snakes really were like this. Yin Xiaoxiao only continued once the young snakes had finished trying to speak over each other. “Then, in the future, when you ¹⁸ are living alone, can you ¹⁹ catch your favorite prey?”

When Yin Xiaoxiao said this, the young snakes realized they had a serious problem.

Now all the things that the young snakes ate had been caught by their dad. But who was their dad?! Their dad was the Clan Head of the viper clans, the most powerful viper! Their dad could catch prey by himself, but they couldn’t! Yes, some of them were Mo snakes, but absolutely not all Mo snakes were capable of catching such large prey.

Seeing the expression he wanted appear on the faces of the young snakes, Yin Xiaoxiao was pleased. It seemed that the baby snakes couldn’t get out of his trap. “I believe you have the answer!” Continuing, Yin Xiaoxiao spoke

again , “But if you ²⁰ are united, and go hunting together? Could nine snakes not be enough to catch the prey they want?”

“Pop, you’re right!” Yin Dahan was the first to declare.

“We are going to stand united so that we can catch the food we like to eat!” Mo Qingming followed closely behind.

After, each young snake aside from Bai Jiahei made it known that they were resolute to stay together to catch prey to eat.

Yin Xiaoxiao finally made his intended point, “Since you all decided to catch prey together, from now on, that’s what you should do! Hunting with great rapport and mutual understanding requires time and practice, or do you ²¹ believe that you ²² can already catch prey? Naturally, that’s impossible. You ²³ must practice a lot before you ²⁴ can.

“So what do we do?” Mo Bailu asked.

Yin Xiaoxiao pretended to ponder for a moment, only then saying, “Let’s do it like this: starting tomorrow, your dad won’t go hunting for you. Instead, you ²⁵ will hunt yourselves. Spending time practicing like this, the rapport between you all will be sure to increase more and more.”

The young snakes very much approved of Yin Xiaoxiao’s method. Each and every one was excited and eager for tomorrow.

To the side, Bai Jiahei listened from beginning to end and finally realized what his Pop’s purpose was for speaking these words. With a dark face, he unhurriedly stated, “I’m not going.”

“Huh? Why?” Yin Xiaoxiao asked.

“Because,” Nine smiled faintly at Yin Xiaoxiao. “My favorite food is rabbit. There’s absolutely no need to go together with other snakes to only get rabbits.”

Ah? Heitan still had to go and catch food for Nine? Yin Xiaoxiao howled in anguish in his heart. By no means did he want that!

“However, I now can already catch rabbits on my own, so there’s no need for Dad to catch my food,” added Bai Jiahei.

Yin Xiaoxiao immediately sighed in relief.

–There weren’t many fathers who would do this, you know!

“Little Idiot, are you awake?”

Yin Xiaoxiao was lost in thought when Mo Laoda returned and stole a kiss, bringing him back to his senses. Seeing the lion Mo Laoda had returned with, Yin Xiaoxiao snorted twice. “Heitan, you really are slow.”

“Yes.” Mo Laoda let go of the prey, pressed a few kisses to Yin Xiaoxiao’s mouth and, with a smile said, “I brought back some honey for you. But carrying a beehive along with a lion, I had to be very careful slithering back so that it wouldn’t fall.”

“Huh? Honey?” Full of joy and expectations, Yin Xiaoxiao rushed past. Ever since Yin Xiaoxiao had had that cavity, Mo Laoda had strictly controlled how often and how much honey Yin Xiaoxiao could eat, causing Yin Xiaoxiao to complain endlessly.

Mo Laoda dotingly watched as Yin Xiaoxiao, eyes squinted in happiness, ate honey. The young snakes looked at this happy scene in front of them and laughed. Pop and Dad were still so sticky after so many years. Then they slithered away one by one, giving Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao some space. Bai Jiahei was the last to slither away. Before leaving, he hmphed twice at Mo Laoda. Mo Laoda ignored it since Nine, from his birth until now, had never clashed with him.

In the evening, when the young snakes fell asleep in the deepest part of the cave, Yin Xiaoxiao, who had been struggling to stay awake this whole time, poked Mo Laoda.

Mo Laoda immediately woke up when he was poked by Yin Xiaoxiao. “Huh? What is it?”

Yin Xiaoxiao moved closer to Mo Laoda and furtively said into Mo Laoda’s ear, “Heitan, starting tomorrow, you won’t have to go get food for the children.”

“Why?” Mo Laoda asked, puzzled.

And so, Yin Xiaoxiao told Mo Laoda what had happened that day, and finally summarized, “From now on, you can sleep with me until I wake up.” Yin Xiaoxiao wanted Mo Laoda to be the first thing he saw upon waking up each day. And each night, when he went to bed, he wanted to fall asleep in Mo Laoda’s embrace.

Mo Laoda was silent for a long time. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“…Just two more years. Wait two more years, and I’ll drive them all out. Then it’ll be just the two of us. Only the two of us.”

“…Yes, just the two of us.”

As expected, early the next morning, the young snakes gallantly and full of vigor left the cave while Mo Laoda remained coiled around Yin Xiaoxiao until Yin Xiaoxiao awoke.

Ever since then, Mo Laoda became more relaxed, no, a lot more relaxed, and returned to how he’d been before having the young snakes. Yin Xiaoxiao was quite satisfied. But, from the young snakes’ point of view, this was not a good thing. After all, they were still very small and, while naturally their venom was quite potent, their fangs still weren’t enough to pierce through the tough hides of some animals.

It wasn’t that the young snakes didn’t want to back down, but each time Yin Xiaoxiao encouraged them to go back. Was this a joke?! Yin Xiaoxiao was already living in a lovey-dovey two-snake world. How could he ever let the young snakes destroy it?!

And so, the young snakes could only grit their teeth and persevere. But they very quickly tasted the sweet taste of success – they were already able to rely on their own strength to catch prey! The young snakes, as a result, became more enthusiastic about catching prey, which made Yin Xiaoxiao’s cherished dream even more of a reality.

T/N:

Footnotes

<ol>a little over a yard YXX plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural plural</ol>