4 The Snake in the Lake

She LiangLin hissed to himself in annoyance. He had finished cleaning the brothel in record time, fuelled entirely by his desire to get the hell out from the suffocating fumes of liquor and sex for at least a few hours.

The Sun was still high up in the sky as he reported to his mother and made his way out - with his second eldest sister in tow. He had wanted to go alone! He wanted - that was an entirely separate fact that no one seemed to care about, the least his mother. But judging by his sister's, LiYue's facial expression, she didn't want to babysit him either.

She was fanning herself leisurely with her little fan as the two trotted down the main-street, aimlessly heading towards the Wind pier. A light wind came in from the water, rustling their robes. LiangLin was looking at the clear, blue water that stretched out in the distance, framed by the hills that were now in full bloom. It was June, the lake should be warm enough for a leisure swim. LiangLin looked visibly dejected and LiYue seemed to notice it as she turned to him, studying him silently with her round, dove eyes.

"AhLin, if there is something you want to say, say it. I am good at many things, but reading minds is not one of them."

LiangLin contemplated on it. Should he be honest? Was he mean towards his sister? He really wanted to have some alone time. He just wanted to get rid of her for now - grab her by her tail and fling her somewhere far kind of way.

LiYue sighed and smacked him over his head with the fan. "Just say it, if you want to be rid of me. It's not like I enjoy walking under the Sun. It's too hot, my skin is too delicate and pale to withstand it."

Snakes had thick, scaly skin. Even when in their human form, they were durable compared to regular mortals. Delicate was surely not a word for it, but LiangLin refrained from pointing it out.

"But mother-" Another smack of the fan silenced LiangLin, and he rubbed his sore head in defeat.

"How would she know, if you don't tell her? Meet me before dawn at the inn, and we will walk back home together. Until then, go wherever you want and I'll just go curl up and take a nap somewhere in the -"

LiangLin dashed off as if he was caught up in flames before LiYue managed to finish her sentence. He already had his eyes set on the shimmering lake. The cool caress of the water against his scales as he weaved through the currents - Heaven on Earth, that is what it felt like taking a dive in the water in his full form. If he lingered long enough into the late evening and broke the surface of the lake with his head at dawn, the setting sun would set the entire lake glimmering like fiery gemstones.

To LiangLin's dismay, the pier was filled with people, visitors from far and wide were making their way to the inner land, high expectations carved over their features. They threw him curious looks as they pushed pass LiangLin, gracing against him accidentally - their valuable jade pendants over their sash cleanly cut off and tucked away by LiangLin as he gave the travellers a relaxed smile.

LiangLin might not have any skills of enchantment like the women of his family, but he could charm people with only his pleasant looks and smile. A light flush crept over the face his smile reached and LiangLin hummed to himself, pleased of the little souvenirs he acquired. Taking a turn down the side of the pier, he soon walked away from the crowd and found himself strolling under the shade of trees growing along the edge of the lake.

He dug out the various pendants he had just snatched and turned them under the Sun. Cheap knock off of a real jade, LiangLin realised and threw the jade he held away. He went through each of them, throwing away the ones that had no value. In the end, only two were of some higher grade jade. Those he put back inside his robes.

Finding a secluded patch of lake and forest, LiangLin hurriedly disrobed, throwing his clothes aside. The cool wind caressed his skin, and he shivered in excitement. It had been a while since he took on his snake form. Working in the brothel, it was one endless shift from day to day. He usually finished cleaning up and restocking at the wee hours of the night and barely managed to take a quick bath before passing out on his bed.

A tingling feeling started from his stomach and LiangLin took a deep breath, relaxing his shoulders and let his head droop over to the side. He felt the warmth within his gut rush through every vein in his body, sending tickling shocks all the way down to his toes.

He watched in awe as his toes merged together, the skin taking on a pure white, scaly form of the snake. His eyes widened, the pupils stretched from round orbs to thin slits. The deep brown colour of his irises turned blood red. In his full form as a snake, LiangLin slithered towards the edge of the lake, then sensing the water first with his forked tongue, hissed with content and disappeared under the surface.

The parts of the woods LiangLin had stopped at were far enough from the city to be hidden by anyone who happened to walk along the pier. The tree branches grew far and heavy. They drooped down towards the lake, covering the area in a curtain of thin branches, leaves and colourful petals. In those shadows, hidden from passer-by's and the noise and smells of the city, XueYa had taken cover.

He was reading from his book that he carried everywhere with him and protected at all costs. The book in question was open on his lap, the final pages describing various snake colours, scale patterns and their hidden magical powers and uses. The information on the pages would have captured anybody's attention for a long time, yet XueYa had stopped reading through it. Something else, far more interesting, had seized his full attention.

It was not the captivating man, with bright eyes that had walked by, oblivious of XueYa's presence in the shadows that mesmerized XueYa. It wasn't even the way how the man so hastily ripped away his clothes. Men and women had wilfully torn off their clothes before XueYa. There wasn't anything he hadn't witnessed before. Although, XueYa was quite pleased with the smooth, bright skin and the faint outlines of toned muscles that unfolded before him.

XueYa especially enjoyed the narrowing waist and the long, flowy black hair that stopped right before the small of the other man's back, framing the perfectly taut and rounded pair of globes. There were even dimples on the man's lower back, right over where his body curved into two very squeezable cheeks. And those legs that stretched on for miles… But in any other circumstances, none of this would have held XueYa's gaze - for this long at least.

When the pretty man in front of XueYa suddenly morphed into a large, white snake, XueYa's interest peaked. Then, as he noticed the shimmering blue mosaic scale formation that ran along the snake's forehead down to the back of its head, XueYa nearly jumped at the creature. It took all of his self-control to sit back and merely observe the snake.

As it disappeared under the surface of the lake, XueYa turned his attention back to his book. A smile tugged at his lips as he flipped the page and taking out his ink brush, started writing over the blank page. The brush hadn't been dipped in any ink, yet with every stroke, clear black lines appeared over the page.

'Blue belly snake, the mosaic pattern reaches from eye to eye, covering most of the back of the head. So far, only one specimen spotted with this specific location of the blue mosaic– a male snake god.'

XueYa put the book and the ink brush away as he stood up from the tree roots he had sat upon and made his way towards the discarded clothes. He rummaged through them, making sure he didn't move them in ways that might raise any suspicions. Finding two jade pendants hidden under the piles of robes, he looked them over. The strings they had dangled on were cut out in a clean angle. A little thief, XueYa mused as he took a jade pendant of his own from his pocket and cut the ribbon in the same, clean angle.

He put his jade and one of the other two back into its hiding place, the stolen one XueYa kept to himself. The stolen pendant was of a fairly valuable jade, yet the craftsmanship was average at best. XueYa made a wry face as he reluctantly put the jade inside his robes.

The one he left for the snake god was at least a thousand times more valuable, and the craftsmanship was of the highest calibre. But it was a fair price to pay. XueYa was in a terrific mood as he threw a final glance over the undisturbed surface of the lake before making his way out of the woods.

"You might not know it yet, little one. But your body belongs to me."