Golden Python (Part 2) There are some legends about snakes in rural areas. Domestic snakes protect the house. You must not hit a domestic snake when you see it. After being beaten, you will suffer disaster, your official career will not go smoothly, your wealth will be lost, your

Golden Python (Part 2)

There are some legends about snakes in rural areas. Domestic snakes are used to protect the house. You must not hit a domestic snake when you see it. After being beaten, you will suffer disaster, your official career will not go smoothly, your wealth will be lost, your descendants will die young, in short, many misfortunes will befall you one by one in the days to come.

Even with these legends, I still remember that my next door neighbor caught a snake at home and skinned it and cooked it. Although I have never seen it with my own eyes, my family has always eaten snakes. What's more, the fact that their family eats domestic snakes is well known in Taiwan.

I was talking to my father and mother in the pottery house in my hometown in Taiwan, and I don’t know what was said during the conversation. A golden python came unexpectedly. I was so scared that I jumped on the bed and shivered. The mother was also afraid and hid behind her father. I think my father was also afraid, but he could only pretend to be calm and protect his wife and children.

The golden snake is not that long, but its body is fat and as thick as an adult's thigh. It shines with a faint golden light in the dim earthen house. The snake crawled slowly in the small house, only half a meter away from my father.

The father stretched out his hand to grab the snake's head and pinched its throat, but he was afraid that he would not be able to catch the snake in the right direction. If he caught it too far, the snake would turn around and bite him. I don't know when my father held a few bamboo sticks in his hand. He aimed at the snake's seven inches and inserted it until the bamboo stick was just a few inches deep into the ground.

The snake's head naturally resisted. It shook more than seven inches of its body in pain. In a trance, it seemed that the snake had transformed into many heads and had become a legendary basilisk. Maybe it had some magic power.

The snake struggled for a while and finally calmed down. When the father saw that the snake's head had stopped moving, he inserted another bamboo stick into the snake's throat. The snakehead was unable to resist and seemed to have no choice but to die.

I jumped out of bed, took the murder weapon from my father's hand, and stabbed a needle under the snake's head until the bamboo penetrated the snake's body and inserted into the soil. Looking at the seven inches of the snake, it was already rotten to the point of disgrace. There was a big hole, and red and green liquid flowed out of it.

I thought I had finally subdued the snake, otherwise I would be scared to death if I touched a cold snake while sleeping in the middle of the night. The three of them recovered from their panic, and the snake seemed to be dead. My mother and I were about to leave the house, leaving my father to deal with the aftermath, when the snake moved. The bamboo was pulled out of the soil, and the snake jumped onto the bed. The liquid from its seven inches flowed onto the bedding, emitting a fishy stench.

The snake sat on the bed, straightened its upper body, and stared at the human who had just hurt it. Man and snake, snake and man were in a stalemate for a while, but no one moved. Finally the snake moved, climbed down from the bed, disappeared under the dark bed.

After a long time, my father and I turned on the light and crawled under the edge of the bed to look under the bed. The snake really disappeared, but there was a faint golden light in the corner. When my father opened the bed, he discovered that there was a big hole in the corner. When he shined a flashlight, the hole was so curved that it was impossible to see the bottom.

I thought of the snacks that were lost in the past, the food that was chewed to pieces, and the meat hanging on the beams that was eaten by animals. I used to think it was a rat, but now I think it might be a snake. This snake has stayed in the old house for who knows how many years. Maybe it has hidden under the bed and peeked at us many times. Maybe at night when I'm asleep, it often climbs out for air, and occasionally rolls onto the bed to stay with me for a while.

Since then, I moved out of Taowu and built a small bed in the autumn house where my parents lived. Even in the daytime, one would not dare to set foot in the pottery house alone.

June 25, 2022

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