Chapter 13

Yin Xiaoxiao’s lips curled as he reluctantly accepted Yun Dabai’s coaxing. He rolled his eyes, laughed mischievously, then said, “Dad, it seems like if we continue like this, you leading and me following, then it’ll be dark by the time we return, right?”

“Yes,” Yin Dabai replied, shocked. He had no idea that Yin Xiaoxiao had been thinking like this.

“I know how we can get home earlier,” Yin Xiaoxiao suggested to Yin Dabai.

“What is it?” Yin Dabai asked, full of joy and expectations. The sooner he returned, the sooner he could see Xiaohua!

“Dad, if I wrap myself around the front half of your body, you can travel much more quickly! Then we can return home sooner!”

Yin Dabai looked doubtfully at Yin Xiaoxiao. Xiaoxiao’s method seemed sound, but he couldn’t help but feel as though he ended up with the short end of the stick in this plan. He hesitated a moment, but ultimately his desire to see Xiaohua faster prevailed over his suspicions. Yin Dabai accepted Yin Xiaoxiao’s proposal.

“Okay, this is so that we can get home faster.”

Yin Xiaoxiao cheered, impatiently crawled down from the boulder, slithered over to Yin Dabai’s tail, then, with great effort, crawled up Yin Dabai’s body. And crawled, and crawled until, finally, he’d wound his body around Yin Dabai’s ¹ body and ended up about ten centimeters away from Yin Dabai’s head. From this vantage point, Yin Xiaoxiao surveyed his surroundings. Ah, sure enough, it’s much easier to see everything when higher up.

“Dad, let’s go!” Yin Xiaoxiao shouted, extremely excited.

And so, with Yin Xiaoxiao coiled around his upper body, Yin Dabai continued moving forward!

Sure enough, the speed had increased greatly. Yin Dabai was quite impressed: Yin Xiaoxiao’s method really was not that bad. Although his current speed still wasn’t very impressive, he was, after all, carrying a young snake, he still could not ask for more.

If Yin Dabai was glad, then Yin Xiaoxiao was cheerful. Now, not only was there no need to rush, he now had the luxurious experience akin to sitting on an express train and taking in the sights. Words couldn’t express how happy he was.

Naturally, we can already see that, in the not so distant future, Yin Xiaoxiao will have had a great time while Yin Dabai will not have had a great time.

Yin Dabai slithered and slithered, then slithered and slithered some more until ultimately he was achy and exhausted.

Ah, Dabai. In this life you can’t even think about messing with Yin Xiaoxiao.

Because Yin Dabai had Yin Xiaoxiao wrapped around his upper body, he needed to keep his upper half vertical while slithering. For a short time, it wasn’t a problem. But as time passed, this strong snake couldn’t bear it! Yin Dabai inwardly complained, ‘What can I do?’

Looking down at where Yin Xiaoxiao was wrapped around his own body, Yin Dabai ² knew that if he set Yin Xiaoxiao down, Yin Xiaoxiao would be very disappointed, wouldn’t he? And more, if he did set Yin Xiaoxiao down, wouldn’t that be proof that he wasn’t strong enough? And then how could he bear to face Yin Xiaoxiao in the future?!

And that is why Dabai clenched his teeth and persevered rather than lose face in front of Xiaoxiao. This is the textbook example of die to save face, live to suffer ³ .

And because of this, Yin Dabai grit his teeth and increased his speed until he was practically flying towards their destination. He had to persist until the end!

By the time Yin Dabai finally saw the edge of the grove, he couldn’t keep tears from brimming in his eyes. Naturally, Yin Dabai didn’t let these tears fall. And naturally, it was also impossible for his eyes to tear. But if he could produce tears, then he would definitely have teared up.

When they finally arrived at the grove, Yin Dabai immediately dumped Yin Xiaoxiao to the ground by wildly shaking his upper body, looking like a lunatic. In short, this scene looked very strange. Yin Xiaoxiao’s stare at Yin Dabai conveyed just how strange it was.

Yin Xiaoxiao decided to ignore Yin Dabai’s seemingly spasm-like movements, when, in fact, Yin Xiaoxiao had actually gravely wronged him. But, Yin Xiaoxiao had forgotten that Yin Dabai would have to keep his upper body vertical for the entire time, leading to upper body aches…so we have to forgive him.

While Yin Dabai was vigorously flinging his upper body around, Yin Xiaoxiao wandered around within a five meter radius.

Yin Xiaoxiao didn’t know if there was a reason why they were at the edge of the forest. He certainly didn’t see anything living, other than the ants and beetles crawling around under his body.

Yin Xiaoxiao visually estimated the height of the trees. Oh, most were much more than ten meters tall, huh? They kind of looked like the tall trees in rainforests.

Yin Xiaoxiao looked up again. With most of the sky blocked by leaves, most of the sunlight was blocked as well. The little sunlight that shone past the leaves dappled the ground with small round spots of light. Yin Xiaoxiao thought that this would make a good summer vacation spot.

While Yin Xiaoxiao was engaged in this flight of fancy, Yin Dabai finally felt as though his upper body had recovered. Acting as though nothing had just happened, he calmly and with composure slithered over to face Yin Xiaoxiao. “Xiaoxiao, follow me.”

Yin Dabai headed deep into the woods, Yin Xiaoxiao following him closely. Feeling somewhat nervous and afraid in an unfamiliar place, he followed Yin Dabai very closely. After he saw that there was nothing dangerous in his surroundings, Yin Xiaoxiao stopped following quite as closely as he began to take quick looks around. Yin Dabai’s pace slowed to accommodate.

Slithering ahead, Yin Dabai watched the trees for birds’ nests. It’d only been five or six minutes when Yin Dabai stopped. There was definitely a bird’s nest in the tree to his right. Not only that, it was a nest from which he had never before taken eggs. At this moment, Yin Dabai had decided that he would try his luck with this bird’s nest.

“Xiaoxiao, you stay here. Do not run around, understand?” Yin Dabai turned around to repeatedly warn Xiaoxiao.

Finally, Yin Xiaoxiao also saw that bird’s nest, so he nodded his assent to Yin Dabai that he wouldn’t run all over the place. At this, Yin Dabai felt relieved and he climbed the tree.

Curious, Yin Xiaoxiao raised his head to watch Yin Dabai unceasingly climbing the tree. This was the first time he’d seen a snake scoop up a bird’s egg, okay? Of course he wanted to  be able to observe it!

Yin Xiaoxiao watched  Yin Dabai climb the tree, approaching the bird’s nest, getting closer and closer. Good, he’s already reached the nest. Good, he’s already stretched his head inside. Then…

Then Yin Dabai wrapped his tail around the egg and descended.

“That, that’s all?” Yin Xiaoxiao stared incredulously as Yin Dabai, who had already finished climbing down the tree, returned to his side.

“Yes? What else is there?” Yin Dabai glanced, baffled, at Yin Xiaoxiao. Then he took the bird egg and placed it in front of Yin Xiaoxiao before climbing the tree again for the second egg.

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Yin Xiaoxiao suddenly felt like he’d been cheated a little. How ⁴ is that possible? How can something like that be possible? Is it possible for it to be that simple? Was it really as easy as just climbing the tree and grabbing the bird eggs? How could it be like this?!

What was wrong, Yin Xiaoxiao? Could it be that you wanted to see a snake and bird duking it out? Did you want a dramatic finish, screen zeroing in on Yin Dabai’s battered and bloody ⁵ head, proudly raised in victory?

Y’know Xiaoxiao, you watched way too many movies in your past life.

T/N:

Footnotes

<ol>added for clarity added for clarity 叫做死要面子活受罪: a common saying which means that people will make themselves miserable for the sake of their face or reputation 肿么: literally means ‘swollen’; used on the internet to mean ‘how’. All of the ‘How’s in this paragraph were written as ‘肿么’ in the raw. 头破血流: an idiom used to describe something that is badly injured. Was originally a quote from Journey to the West</ol>