Serpent Sarcophagus

Chapter 1 The Dream About a Black Serpent

On the day of my birth, my parents were digging our ancestral grave in our old village to move it

somewhere else. When the sarcophagus was open, they found a black serpent lying inside. It was

about the width of a bowl, wearing a black cover on its head and a pale skin indicating it almost finished

shedding.

Given its black color and pale skin, the geomancy master told my father that the serpent was going to

turn into a flood dragon.

But then my father grabbed the serpent, hoping to take it home and make medical liquor out of it.

Unfortunately, that beast bit my father though it was weak after shedding. Bursting with anger, he killed

it immediately.

When my mother heard of the news, she hurried to find him some medication in the mountains. On the

way over a hill, she stumbled over a snake the size of a belt, which triggered a premature delivery.

When I was born, all snakes circled around the house with their heads erected halfway and they were

hissing towards my mother. The noise was like an angry snarl, or according to someone, they were

paying their respect.

Witnessing this abnormal scene, the geomancy master who was helping us move our ancestral grave

fled away immediately, not even charging us a thing. He even moved out of our town because he didn’t

want to be involved in troubles.

A tempest hit us that night. A flash of lightning stuck the new spot where we had chosen for burying our

ancestors, and the body of the serpent killed by my father disappeared as well.

What followed was my father’s coma for over three days, and he was talking gibberish. My grandma

had to seek the favor of a famous Channeler who lived nearby.

After the Channeler channeled the Spirit (an activity when the psychic channeled the dead spirit from

the eternal realm so that the living could communicate with their deceased ancestors), she ruled out my

father as the center of the problem. She said it was because of something from me. Then, she gave my

grandma a snake-headed jade and had her give me it after I came of age. Then they sucked the poison

out of my father’s body with sticky rice.

My father woke up that night. But that Channeler was not so lucky. On her way back home, she was

bitten by snakes to death. The cause of her death was not snake poison, but the extreme pain from the

bites.

There were rumors in the village that my father had been revenged after he killed that serpent which

was about to turn into a flood dragon.

They also said that it was a bad omen when I was marked by snakes since my birth.

My father never cared about any of these stories. However, we had to move to the town because my

mother was plagued by health problems due to the premature delivery. My father still dealt with the

snake liquor business.

A serpent had been haunting my dreams for as long as I could remember. It was a giant snake with

black scales covered all over its body. That serpent was always in my dreams no matter what I had

dreamed of.

It just stared at me with that silent look, whether it was hanging, its head held high, or just coiling up.

What was even more bizarre was that every next morning after my dream, there would always be

snakes coiling up in front of our door. Sometimes there were just a few and sometimes there were

awful lots of snakes. But they would all end up being my father’s material to make liquor.

For so many times had I told my parents about my dreams, and so many times had they displayed

impatience while yelling at me, “Aurora, dreaming of snake is a good thing for a girl. It either means you

will make a fortune recently, or you will deliver a boy in the future. Either way, it is nothing bad. Don’t

make a fuss about it.”

However, images of that serpent in my dream were getting clearer as I grew. Sometimes when I woke

up in the middle of the night, I could almost feel its presence.

When I moved my fingers in bed, I could almost touch the cold, rough scales.

Maybe because I had dreamed of it so many times that I had grown accustomed to it so I was not novelbin

scared by it. Sometimes in my sleep, I would drop a few words with that serpent. Words like, what do

you want? What are you doing? Why do you keep showing up in my dream?

But that serpent spared no answer for me and just stared at me silently.

On the night of my 18th birthday, the serpent no longer stared at me from a distance. Instead, it

crawled slowly toward me.

I wanted to escape by instinct, but I couldn’t move an inch in my sleep. And that serpent found itself

near me.

I was terrified and sweating as I was trying to wake up.

“What’s on your mind? You looked scared.” The black serpent crawled to my feet and gradually

assumed the shape of a man wearing a black robe.

His face was chiseled, his eyes as dark and shiny as the stars in the sky, his thin lips slightly pursed.

I froze at the sight of this face.

He was lying beside me as if his body was soft and boneless, with his eyes staring at me, “Ask John

Dragon (my father) to move all his snake liquor out tomorrow! The serpent is coming! You cannot leave

a single snake at home!”

His tone was steady and fast. The way that he spoke seemed to suggest some of his concerns. He

looked around and said, “You Mustn’t leave a single one at home!”

Then he transformed into the black serpent again with sadness flashing across his eyes, “Aurora, I

can’t protect you out there, you have to be careful!”

When that black serpent moved away, I suddenly woke up from my dream.

The house was awfully quiet. I stared at the ceiling, not daring to turn my head around. I moved my

fingers towards the direction where I had spotted the serpent in my dream. I felt relieved when I

realized it was just my blanket.

My father was snoring terribly in the next room. I went downstairs to fetch some water with sweat all

over my face.

We lived in a three-story building constructed by my parents. The first floor was used as the shop, the

second floor saved for us to live in. And the third floor was rented to a family of four who ran some

small business in town.

The water dispenser was placed at the corner of the stairs. I was still thinking about what had

happened in my sleep!

The black serpent changed into a human form and told me that I must ask my father to throw all the

snake liquor tomorrow. It seemed that something was coming, and he was so afraid of its coming.

I just grabbed the glass and started to drink, without even turning the light on because I was too thirsty.

The water dispenser was growling with water. There seemed to be other voices in the shop.

And it sounded like someone was tapping on the glass, to give it a tremor with a snap.

I held the glass of water, and was thinking about what the black serpent had said in my dream. My

body was shaking because of fear.

With the glass still in my hand, and I didn’t know what was pusing me, but I was walking toward the

shelf where my father used to keep his products.

There were two big shelves up against the wall in the shop. In them were bottles of liquor made of

various kinds of snakes, all soaked in alcohol with various crude drugs.

Those snakes, which usually lied at the bottom, seemed to have come back to life with the light

illuminating the amber liquor. The spotted, variously colored snakes swam slowly near the bottle.

Some of them even hit the glass with their tails, making a sound of purling.

I was so frightened that I held my glass even more tightly. In that same moment, all snakes turned their

body around and raised their head, forcing their way to the bottle glasses.

Their eyes slowly opened and glared at me through the glasses while their tails were beating it in a

rather odd pattern.

The green light was flickering in the eyes of those snakes. I felt my head spinning due to the light.

The sounds of beating the bottle glasses gathered together, and they all turned to a different voice of

the hiss, as if they were calling my name repeatedly, “Aurora, Aurora.”

I thought about running. But their green eyes stared at me when I turned around, as if I was surrounded

by walls made of those bottles of snake liquor, and each of them stared at me creepily, hissing.

It seemed a voice was roaring in my head, and everything seemed so swirling. Then the man in a black

robe suddenly appeared next to me.

The black robe with wide sleeves stretched out, covering my head, “Don’t look at it.”

After that, I fainted, and then a sprinkle of light sprang into my eyes, and I heard water splashed all

over.

The black-robed man still stood beside me. His body was shaky, his face wan, and his thin lips, though

looked nice, went pale.

He said to me in a solemn tone, “You have to send all the snakes away by tomorrow! Remember that

you mustn’t keep any of them in this house. I can only come out once, and I can’t…”

Before his words were finished, his shape gradually faded before he disappeared completely.

The shop seemed to have become awfully quiet. On the two shelves, all the snakes in the snake

bottles seemed dead, with their body turning upside down, and their bellies up, floating in the amber

liquor.

Snake liquor was best with live snakes. My father was always most proud of his snake liquor, for, in

every bottle of his snake liquor, the snakes were alive.

But now, all of them were deceased.

Holding the water glass, I quickly ran upstairs.

I woke my father up while he was sleeping, snoring terribly.

“Aurora, what the fuss is about? Don’t you have to go to school tomorrow?!” My dad was a little angry

when he mumbled to me, “If your mother doesn’t get enough sleep and loses the mahjong game

tomorrow, see if you will get away from a good whip!”

“Snakes are all dead,” I yelled.

But still, I concealed the story with the black snake, “I went downstairs to get some water, and then I

saw that the snakes soaked in the liquor have turned their bellies up.”

My dad became sober immediately, and he couldn’t mind if he would wake my mother or not. In a

hurry, he went downstairs without wearing his shoes, and then downstairs came my dad's frustrated

voice.

Fears were lingering in my mind about the snake liquor. I saw my dad around the corner, “Let’s just

throw them away before anyone knows.”

“You know nothing. These are money!” My dad was so angry that he was pulling his hair and waved at

me, “Okay, fine. Now you stay away from this and go sleep! I will deal with it!”

“If people find out that our snake liquor is made of a dead snake, it will ruin our brand! Let's dispose of

them all today, shall we? “Thinking of the word of that black snake, I still didn't give up.

My dad nodded impatiently because he valued his brand of this live snake liquor most.

At noon, I called my mother from school especially, and my dad seemed to be at her side, promoting

his snake liquor to customers.

My mother seemed to be playing cards on her mobile phone, while she said impatiently, “It's sold out.

Your father has been doing this business for years, selling dozens of bottles of snake liquor is just a

doddle to him! There are even not enough of them for old customers!”

At dinner, I made a deliberate excuse that I forgot to bring a book when I actually took a taxi back home

to check the matter out.

I felt a certain admiration for my dad after I was certain that all the liquor on the shelves was gone.

My dad picked me up after the evening lessons.

He told me proudly, “Your dad has sold out all the snake liquor today. We’ve gained a great sum of

money. We will go traveling after you have completed your college entrance exam. Get it done nicely!

And earn your father some honor!”

Seeing that there was no more bottle of snake liquor on the shelves in the shop, I sighed with great

relief.

It seemed that my mother might have collected all the money today and went to play mahjong. After

sending me home, my father went out to feast with his friends.

I was alone at home. After a shower, I returned to my room, thinking of dreaming about that black

snake again. I must insist on asking him for an explanation.

Then I seemed to hear a sound of water splashing on the third floor before I bolted the door. It sounded

like the snake tails tapping on glass bottles the last night.