Chapter 94

T/N: Hello, I forgot to post the last page in chapter 93, so I’m including that here for everyone. I’ve already edited chapter 93 to include that last page.

It was to a viper that Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao knew, Mo Damo.

Father Mo and Mother Mo were in favor of their daughter, their second child, becoming partners with Mo Damo. Generally speaking, after their son who was Clan Head, he was the most powerful snake. The daughter marrying the second most powerful snake couldn’t be better. Mo Laosan was very happy, and Mo Laoer was quite pleased with herself. As for the reason why Mo Damo wanted to form a partnership with Mo Laoer? Probably not even Mo Damo knew why.

Yin Xiaoxiao was indifferent. He didn’t like Mo Damo. Similarly, he didn’t like Mo Laoer who, from the beginning, opposed him being together with Mo Laoda. Mo Laoda harbored some doubts. Mo Laoda knew that Mo Laoer and Mo Damo weren’t well acquainted with each other. He couldn’t even say that the two had ever before exchanged glances. Wasn’t it a little hasty to hold the ceremony? But Mo Laoda wasn’t going to put a damper on their union. One was his younger sister and the other was the young master of the previous head of their Clan who had helped him before, and, on the basis of his questions alone, there wasn’t enough for Mo Laoda to open his mouth and ask what was going on between the two.

On Mo Laoda’s return, Mo Dayi’s younger sister, Mo Daer also came to call on Mo Laoda. Unfortunately for her, they didn’t exchange even a few words, and Mo Laoda impatiently drove her out. Aside from Yin Xiaoxiao, Mo Laoda didn’t seem to possess much patience for other snakes.

Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao also didn’t spend many nights in the Mo clan lands. Yin Xiaoxiao silently asked himself whether or not coming here was a mistake. But these were his parents, after all, and receiving their blessings was only for the best. Mo Laoda stroked Yin Xiaoxiao’s head with his tail, smiling a little.

On the way back, Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda saw Zhou Feng and Wang Yanzhen. The two humans weren’t used to living in caves, and the two were talking about building a wooden house at the base of the mountain and going to collect materials. There was no deadline and the two humans needed to have something to do so that they wouldn’t feel bored. Yin Xiaoxiao watched on with great excitement as they constructed the wooden house, and even came up to offer a few suggestions. Zhou Feng and Wang Yanzhen’s eyes brightened, and they wanted Yin Xiaoxiao to stay with them for a while to give advice. Mo Laoda, face blank, dragged Yin Xiaoxiao away.

The two snakes directly returned home. After this, the cave was a world for the two lovers. Mo Laoda would also bring Yin Xiaoxiao to the bottom of the cliff or to slither about the mountain.  The days, just as they had been for several thousand years, were tranquil and beautiful.

In the blink of an eye, seventeen years had passed.

Chapter 94

Recently, Yin Xiaoxiao had been feeling a little pain. Where was it coming from? Well, from his teeth.

Based on Yin Xiaoxiao’s character, to say nothing of feeling pain, even if his scales scraped against a tree while he was slithering, he would wail about how much it hurt, causing Mo Laoda to worry. But this time, oddly enough, Yin Xiaoxiao didn’t want Mo Laoda to know that his teeth hurt.

So why were Yin Xiaoxiao’s teeth hurting? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

Half a year ago, Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao had set off once again from their cave to go for a stroll on another mountain. For young snakes, this was actually forbidden. Young snakes don’t reach adulthood until thirty years of age, and it was only then that they were allowed to leave the mountain and go to other places. Although seventeen years had passed, Yin Xiaoxiao was only twenty nine years old this year. He still was not an adult, but it wasn’t as though he still had several years until adulthood. Until then, he could leave the mountain if accompanied by Mo Laoda. Oh, and the first time was when humans invaded seventeen years ago.

Although Yin Xiaoxiao wasn’t an adult, because he was accompanied by Mo Laoda, even if he was leaving the mountains, what could be done? Besides, the boundary around the old tomb was self-contained and it was unlikely that humans or any other organisms could enter here. If it were only the creatures inside the boundary, surely Mo Laoda would be able to handle them! As a result, Yin Xiaoxiao left the mountain, accompanied by Mo Laoda. Everything seemed very normal.

This time was just one more normal day which should have continued on as normal. However, this time something a little different happened. This time, Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda traveled in a slightly different direction than they had in the past. Well, actually, each time they didn’t always head in exactly the same direction, but this time, in their travels, Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda found a mountain that had a lot of beehives, beehives with the type of bee species whose honey Yin Xiaoxiao most liked to eat.

Yin Xiaoxiao, this guy, saw the delicacy and stopped. He had to remain here and eat to his heart’s content. Mo Laoda, a Mo snake who doted on his partner, naturally agreed to Yin Xiaoxiao’s request without any reservations. Originally, they had come here without any set purpose, slithering wherever on a stroll. If they ran into something they liked, naturally they would stop for a while.

Like this, Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda stayed on this mountain with its many beehives. They looked for a tidy cave so that they could stay peacefully. Mo Laoda, every day, would fetch honey from the hives to give to Yin Xiaoxiao. Although he did this every day, since each time the amount wasn’t excessive, Yin Xiaoxiao ate honey for several months

And so, at the moment, besides becoming chubby, Yin Xiaoxiao had also developed a toothache.

And the reason for the toothache was very clear – eat too much honey and honey will eat you right back ¹ !

Because he’d gorged himself and now had a toothache, Yin Xiaoxiao dared not say anything to Mo Laoda. If he told Mo Laoda, Mo Laoda surely wouldn’t let him eat honey. Since he still hadn’t eaten his fill, this was out of the question!

In the beginning, the pain was still bearable, and Yin Xiaoxiao wasn’t in too much pain. As time passed, Yin Xiaoxiao went from eating every day to eating only every three days, but this didn’t stop the pain from worsening.

And so, one night, when Yin Xiaoxiao was tossing and turning, unable to sleep because of the tooth pain, Mo Laoda finally discovered that something was wrong.

“Little Idiot, what’s going on with you?” Mo Laoda, having been awoken by the sounds of Yin Xiaoxiao tossing and turning, got up and asked.

“Oh….nothing, why?” Yin Xiaoxiao whispered in reply, voice still a little groggy.

Mo Laoda slithered forward a few paces and pushed Yin Xiaoxiao’s rolling body to a stop. Tone somewhat unhappy, he asked, “Really, what’s happening?”

Yin Xiaoxiao saw that he couldn’t hide it anymore. Well, actually, Yin Xiaoxiao admitted it because he couldn’t stand the pain anymore. The pain was so bad it could kill a snake!

“I have a toothache!” Yin Xiaoxiao raised his head to look at Mo Laoda.

“Toothache?” Mo Laoda looked astonished. He’d never heard of a viper having a toothache before! Why would Yin Xiaoxiao’s teeth hurt?

“Yes, it hurts a lot.” Yin Xiaoxiao’s eyes began to glisten with tears. When Mo Laoda didn’t know, he was still able to endure it. Now that Mo Laoda knew, Yin Xiaoxiao’s childishness made an appearance..

Actually, it was something like this: suffering a grave injury or grievance on one’s own; meeting with misunderstanding and humiliation; even suffering from persecution of one’s loved ones, if one had no one s/he could trust around, could s/he rely on someone? What was the point of even crying when  it was unlikely that there would be someone distressed by it?

“That shouldn’t be. How could that happen?” Seeing the tears in Yin Xiaoxiao’s eyes, Mo Laoda, now somewhat panicked, felt his heart throb with pain. He quickly released the pinned Yin Xiaoxiao and carefully gathered Yin Xiaoxiao in front of him. “Little Idiot, open your mouth and let me look.”

Yin Xiaoxiao obediently opened his mouth. Suddenly, he thought of something. With his mouth still opened, he asked, words somewhat unclear, “Heitan, can you see clearly?”

Mo Laoda let out a “Yes” and then asked, “Which tooth hurts?”

Yin Xiaoxiao stretched out his tail and brought it around to the front to point to a tooth on the right. “This one hurts!”

Mo Laoda’s gaze followed to the tooth Yin Xiaoxiao was pointing to. “Huh? Why does it seem that there’s a small hole?”

“I don’t know.” Yin Xiaoxiao felt a little guilty. Mo Laoda wouldn’t find out that he’d eaten too much honey, right?

“It’s really strange,” mumbled Mo Laoda. “Never have I seen a viper with a toothache. And I’ve also never seen a viper with a small hole in their tooth.”

Yin Xiaoxiao rubbed his head with his tail but didn’t say anything.

“How about this: Tomorrow we’ll go and visit other snakes to ask them.” Mo Laoda thought for a moment. “Ji Kang and Ji Zhao still haven’t shown themselves in the tomb, and the two of us can’t enter, so it would surely be better to go to the strange snakes. They’ve lived a lot longer so perhaps they’ve seen this before.”

Yin Xiaoxiao thought to himself that it would be faster if they went and saw the two humans, Zhou Feng and Wang Yanzhen, but he couldn’t say this. If he did then wouldn’t it be clear that he knew the cause of the toothache?!

“We can’t bring along all the honey here, so then let’s take a portion. When you, Little Idiot, want to eat, the two of us can still come here,” Mo Laoda added.

What? Take honey away? Yin Xiaoxiao hurriedly stopped Mo Laoda. “No need! That is, these days I’ve eaten so much honey, I’m a little tired of eating it! It’s better not to bring it!”

There was no need to argue over this, and Mo Laoda nodded his head in agreement. Anyway, bringing honey along was only for Yin Xiaoxiao. Since Yin Xiaoxiao unexpectedly didn’t want to eat honey, Mo Laoda naturally wasn’t going to bring honey with them.

Yin Xiaoxiao and Mo Laoda didn’t waste much time on this mountain. Instead, at dawn on the second day, they left. The two snakes traveled unhurriedly. This was a positive aspect of being a snake, moving house was especially clean and efficient, no need to bring anything along.

Lying as usual on Mo Laoda’s back, Yin Xiaoxiao anxiously asked Mo Laoda to hurry. “Heitan, now I’m afraid to bite anything. Do you know if my teeth will be like that from now on?”

Mo Laoda said, “Don’t worry. You’re twenty nine years old. When you’re fully grown, your adult teeth will grow in. But if this happens again after thirty, you won’t get any new ones. That’s why, right now, I want to go and find the cause for your toothache, so in the future we can prevent it and it won’t happen again.

Yin Xiaoxiao let out an “Oh”. It seemed that, in the future, he couldn’t eat so much honey. Only – “Eh? Vipers get adult teeth when they grow to adulthood? How come I didn’t know? Strange. Heitan, when you were thirty, I didn’t see you get adult teeth!”

In fact, Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao had been together for almost twenty years. For trifling matters, Yin Xiaoxiao was disinclined to remember clearly. After all, when Mo Laoda was thirty, quite a lot of things happened, like him taking part in the selection for Clan Head and dealing with the human invasion. So Yin Xiaoxiao’s memory was detailed on things like that, but Yin Xiaoxiao absolutely didn’t remember Mo Laoda losing his teeth!

Mo Laoda coughed twice, lightly. Actually, Mo Laoda’s adult teeth hadn’t come in when he’d reached adulthood but when he’d taken the Mo Grass, which was why Yin Xiaoxiao didn’t know when Mo Laoda had lost his baby teeth. And so, Mo Laoda could only lightly trick Yin Xiaoxiao. “Little Idiot, do you remember that time you and I went below the cliff and we were separate for half a year?”

Yin Xiaoxiao nodded his head. This had left a deep impression; after all it was the first time that Mo Laoda had left him for a long time!

“My adult teeth came in a little early. When I lost my teeth, getting the adult teeth was such a small matter, I didn’t mention it to you.”

Yin Xiaoxiao suddenly realized. “So it was like this. Then, from what you said, the adult teeth don’t have to come in at thirty?”

Mo Laoda turned and, seeing the expression on Yin Xiaoxiao’s face, could only nod his head. “Yes, that’s right.”

Yin Xiaoxiao no longer spent time thinking about this and asked, “Is losing teeth very painful? How long until it’s over?”

Mo Laoda answered, “Not painful. Vipers’ adult teeth come in at night when sleeping, and it only takes one night.”

“Ah?” Yin Xiaoxiao was shocked. It happened so fast? So it will only take one night for all his teeth to fall out and be replaced with new ones! Now knowing what would happen, Yin Xiaoxiao could only imagine himself waking up one morning, opening his eyes and then finding a pile of his own teeth on the cave floor! That kind of scene would surely have been very comical!

Mo Laoda used his greater speed to hurry down the mountain – a speed that was too fast for Yin Xiaoxiao to handle!

Mo Laoda very quickly found one, no, two strange snakes. Or rather Mingshe and Xionghui.

“Huh? Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao? What are you two doing here?” Xionghui rushed over to greet Mo Laoda and Yin Xiaoxiao.

Mo Laoda didn’t return Xionghui’s polite greeting and directly asked Xionghui and Mingshe, “Xiaoxiao says he has a toothache. Do you know what happened?”

“Huh? Toothache?” One of Xionghui’s heads leaned towards Yin Xiaoxiao.

Yin Xiaoxiao opened his mouth to allow Xionghui to see his teeth. Xionghui glanced at Yin Xiaoxiao’s teeth and saw that small hole.

“How come there’s a hole?” Xionghui asked, dumbly.

And so Mo Laoda learned that Xionghui didn’t know what had caused Yin Xiaoxiao’s toothache. Mo Laoda turned his head, beseeching help from Mingshe, Mingshe’s head shook. “I don’t know, either.”

Mo Laoda was very disappointed and anxious. The Little Idiot’s tooth had already hurt for a very long time and it was only getting worse and worse. Lately, the Little Idiot hadn’t been able to eat very much and wasn’t very energetic. The body which had easily gained weight had recently become thin again.

“But perhaps other strange snakes know. I’m going to ask them to come over,” Xionghui said before flying away to look for the other strange snakes.

T/N2: Also, sorry for the late update. I’d thought that I updated this. It’s been a rough week, so I misremembered. Don’t get old.

Footnotes

<ol>the raw had a bit of a pun “吃太多的蜂蜜吃的！”. The word for eat also means to suffer, so it reads “eat honey, suffer honey”. Assuming YXX has a cavity, then the sugar in the honey is literally eating away his enamel and dentin</ol>