Daomu Biji Novel – Book 5 Summary (Part 2)

Table of Contents | Daomu Biji Universe

Book 5: 蛇沼鬼城
Ghost Kingdom Of The Snakes (Part 2)

It started raining heavily as the group entered the oasis, so they climbed up a tree to seek shelter from the rain. On the tree were lots of blood-sucking bugs that bit Wu Xie and Pangzi all over the place. Men You Ping discovered the corpse of a large python densely covered by these blood-sucking bugs. Opening up the belly of the python, they found a human corpse inside.

While the group was studying the corpse, two large pythons crawled out and attacked them. Pan Zi successfully shot down one, but the other bit Men You Ping on his shoulder, forcing him to drop his ancient black-metal saber behind. Everyone ran away from the python and hit a water rift. Surprisingly, the python stopped chasing them and turned back.

Climbing down the rift, the group met with a chicken crest snake, a small-sized crimson reptile that carried a poison so lethal that it was dubbed the king of all snakes. It was this snake that had scared the python away. Fearing for their lives, everyone hurriedly retreated from the rift.

Some time later, while A-Ning was washing her hair near a waterfall, a chicken crest snake suddenly jumped out and bit her on the neck. She was killed on the spot. Immediately, Men You Ping killed this snake by twisting its head off. Afraid that other snakes might come, Wu Xie’s team ran away from the waterfall, carrying A-Ning’s body with them.

Everyone stopped to rest after they reached a seemingly safer place. At night, the chicken crest snakes appeared again, stealthily taking A-Ning’s body away. Men You Ping discovered a mysterious person covered in mud wandering in the oasis, but the moment that person saw Wu Xie’s group, they fled. Men You Ping then chased after the person and got separated from the group. Wu Xie wanted to wait for Men You Ping to come back but Pan Zi said they needed to find Third Uncle. After discussing, they decided to search for Third Uncle, leaving their marks behind so that Men You Ping could follow them later.

Pan Zi lit up a yellow smoke to signal their location to Third Uncle, yet they received a red smoke signal from Third Uncle, which meant that Third Uncle’s location was especially unsafe, so they must not get close. Knowing that Third Uncle was in danger, Pan Zi urged Pangzi and Wu Xie to quickly head for his place.

The three marched in the direction of the red smoke. On the way, they fought with many chicken crest snakes, after which they discovered that these snakes were extraordinarily smart and could imitate human voices. If one snake got killed, its herd would come at once to take revenge and attack the killer. In addition, an injured snake would create a hissing sound to call for others to come and rescue it. Lastly, it seemed that they were most active at night when the fog had risen.

As they were approaching Third Uncle’s location, Pan Zi was attacked by the earlier python. He managed to kill the python but was seriously injured, so Pangzi and Wu Xie took him to Third Uncle’s camp to apply first aid. Pan Zi fell into a coma but the wound did not prove life-threatening.

Wu Xie and Pangzi looked around Third Uncle’s camp and came to the realisation that no one was here. Pangzi felt sleepy so he went to rest in one of the tents, while Wu Xie stood guard. Out of the blue, Men You Ping turned up, his whole body covered in mud. He explained that the snakes could detect human presence based on body heat, so by putting mud all over the body, he could avoid the snakes. He also suspected that the person they saw earlier was Chen Wenjin, but he could not catch her.

Seeing that Men You Ping had returned, Wu Xie felt a relief and went to sleep. When he woke up, Men You Ping told him that Third Uncle left behind a message saying he had found the entrance to Ta Mu Tuo and warning Wu Xie to not enter. After having their dinner, Pangzi and Men You Ping carried mud from the nearby river to splatter on the tent in order to prevent the snakes. As nighttime came, Men You Ping and Pangzi took turns to guard the place while Wu Xie went to rest first.

In the middle of the night, Wu Xie woke up to find that he had completely lost his vision. Wu Xie called out to Pangzi, at which moment Pangzi suddenly dashed in and gave him a gas mask. Pangzi mentioned that Men You Ping had been bitten by a snake so he needed to come rescue Men You Ping, then asked Wu Xie to stay put inside the tent. In the darkness, Wu Xie recovered his sight and saw a mud-covered figure rummaging through his backpack. When Wu Xie reached out, the figure ran away. A few moments later, Pangzi and Men You Ping ran into the tent, informing Wu Xie that the snakes were coming in great numbers. Whichever tent that the snakes attacked collapsed instantly, yet strangely, the tent where Wu Xie’s group stayed in remained unharmed.

The snakes finally withdrew when morning came. At noon, while Pangzi was searching other tents for food and preparing lunch, Wu Xie and Men You Ping went to the nearby ruins of a temple and found many murals on the wall. One mural depicted a herd of tiny snakes surrounding a snake as big as a dragon mating with a smaller one. Men You Ping pointed out that the tiny ones were chicken crest snakes acting as a support base while their queen – the biggest snake in the mural – mated. The other murals described the people of the Xi Wang Mu kingdom worshiping the queen snake. There was a scene where a priest was leading a grand ceremony and people were throwing ceramic jars with human heads containing corpse-eating bug eggs inside as offerings to the snakes. Many people were seen kneeling and paying their respect to the queen snake. The next mural told the story of how Zhou Mu Wang¹ brought soldiers to invade the Xi Wang Mu kingdom, but the entire army was bitten and killed by chicken crest snakes.

¹ 周穆王 [Zhou Mu Wang], or King Mu of Zhou, was the fifth king of the Zhou dynasty of China. The dates of his reign were roughly 976–922 BC. In the universe of Daomu Biji, he existed at the same time as Lu Shang Wang and Iron Mask Man (refer to Vol.1).

A moment later, Pangzi called them out for lunch. While eating, Wu Xie told Pangzi and Men You Ping of the mud-covered figure that he saw last night. Men You Ping was certain the person was Chen Wenjin, who came to the tents looking for food. They decided to set up a trap to capture Chen Wenjin. The group waited patiently until evening and Chen Wenjin indeed turned up. The three managed to corner her from all directions, but Chen Wenjin pushed Wu Xie aside and ran away. Men You Ping wasted no time to chase after her, and Pangzi and Wu Xie followed suit. However, Wu Xie was not as physically fit, thus half-way through the chase, he lost track of the other two. Wu Xie heard someone calling his name, so he traced the voice and fell into a swamp filled with human corpses.

Taking a closer look, Wu Xie realised that most of the corpses in the swamp were in fact Third Uncle’s underlings. A-Ning’s corpse was also here. It was then Wu Xie learnt that the chicken crest snake laid eggs in human belly, taking advantage of the body’s heat to incubate their eggs. As the eggs hatched, baby snakes would come out and suck on the human bodies’ blood. The snakes were white when they were born, but after absorbing the host’s blood, their body turned crimson. At this moment, Wu Xie saw Pangzi floating on the water. Pangzi had been bitten but was still breathing, and his belly had become swollen. Wu Xie pressed hard on his belly, triggering Pangzi to vomit out lots of snake eggs. Wu Xie wanted to bring Pangzi out of the swamp but Pangzi’s weight was not easy to lift up. As Wu Xie was still struggling, a whirlpool formed on the water, dragging both Wu Xie and Pangzi into a sewage system underground.

There, Wu Xie encountered a chicken crest snake and was almost killed by it when all of a sudden, Hei Xiazi appeared and rescued both Wu Xie and Pangzi.

Wu Xie was reunited with Third Uncle’s team. Third Uncle explained to Wu Xie that the three persons whom Chen Wenjin mentioned in her diary were him, Wu Xie and Men You Ping, and that he himself also received another set of videos. Men You Ping actually sent the videos to A-Ning in order to make her track down Ding Zhu Zhuo Ma, which would then help them find the way to Ta Mu Tuo. The videotapes that Third Uncle received recorded no images but rather the sounds of a group of people trying to cross a forest. At the end of the tape, there was a strange blast that seemed to come from a horn. Chills ran down his spine as Wu Xie realised the sound was eerily familiar: It was the exact same sound that he heard when the Bronze Gate below Heavenly Palace On The Clouds opened!

[End of Book 5]