He and It Chapter 159: The Serpent of Pharisee (25)

Chapter 159: The Serpent of Pharisee (25)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

“Such childishness.” Xie Ning burst into laughter, but that was his own childishness, so Xie Ning had nothing to complain about.

Love made people radiant, and that was no joke. Echidna’s majestic beauty itself was a deadly weapon that could make hearts explode, especially with his contrasts. At first sight, perhaps ninety-nine point nine percent of people would think he was an unpredictable ancient creature, who possessed a wild and uncontrollable temperament.

However, Xie Ning was fortunate to be among the point one percent of the lucky ones who knew how easily Echidna’s heart could be softened and his speech rendered clumsy by love. Every time he acted foolishly, Xie Ning’s heart would swell with indescribable tenderness, and he almost envisioned a troop of rosy-cheeked cupids with snow-white wings, blowing horns and scattering crimson rose petals over their heads.

Perhaps this was the pinnacle of moe…? Xie Ning mused, as Echidna’s soft and tender kisses covered his face and turned his bones and joints into jelly. It was as if he could be sucked into the snake demon’s mouth and hidden beneath his tongue at any moment.

No, he didn’t want to do that in broad daylight. Xie Ning knew how strong Echidna’s physical strength and endurance were. He was too keen on their affairs. Once they started, it would be unstoppable, lasting a day and a night…

Blushing, Xie Ning reluctantly pulled himself away, then hastily opened his mouth against Echidna’s insistent pursuit, as he panted, “Wait, wait a moment! I have a question.”

Echidna, “Hmm?”

“If we want to plant some flowers and plants, will they survive? After all, there’s no sunlight here…”

“First came the earth, then came the sky,” Echidna answered his question attentively. “After Chaos gave birth to Gaia, the Earth Mother, then Uranus, the Sky God, was born from Gaia’s embrace. It wasn’t until Uranus was castrated with a dagger and could no longer unleash his lust upon the Earth Mother that the earth and sky separated, leaving orbits for the sun, moon, and stars to traverse. So, as long as there is Gaia’s divine power, the growth of plants doesn’t depend on sunlight or rain; they are rooted in the body of the mother!”

Haha! Distraction successful!

“So magical…” Xie Ning breathed a sigh of relief, and felt a strong, immediate curiosity rise within him. He was eager to try it out. “Let’s try it now!”

Their intimacy was interrupted, and Echidna felt a bit disappointed, but when he saw his lover so eagerly anticipating doing something, he seemed to be infected by the lively vitality and couldn’t help but feel happy.

“We only have grain seeds here.” Echidna scratched his head, then hastily added, “Perhaps there are also grape and fig seeds…apple tree seeds! The people of Cilicia offered them to me. It’s hard to say it wasn’t in mockery, because I am poisonous to them, I can’t make plants grow. That is why I haven’t carefully looked at them. Come on, let’s search for the traces of those seeds.”

So they went back to the treasury. They ignored the vast piles of scattered gold and silver jewels. Echidna sniffed around, and finally, in a small room in a corner, they found many brightly colored clay pots piled together, filled with a large number of once high-quality seeds.

The underground was dark and damp, and the neglected room, naturally, did not have any good preservation measures. Although insects and snakes dared not appear there, influenced by Echidna, Xie Ning could only scoop up thin, soft, decaying dust with his hands. With the demon’s approach, the seeds that had long turned gray and black even showed an accelerated trend of decay.

“Oh dear, I knew it!” Echidna grumbled discontentedly. “How could they be friendly with me? Leave it, Dorus. Don’t stay in this polluted air place for too long. I will ask the people of Cilicia to send fresh flower and plant seeds again to ensure that your vision is realized.”

The demon’s commands were not to be ignored. The day after he said that, a large convoy of splendid carriages and horses arrived at the entrance of the underground palace, carrying high-quality plant seedlings. However, as the stone door slowly opened, a gust of air blew out, which caused most of the exposed plants to wither, and left only the seeds sealed in jars to escape unscathed.

Upon hearing the news, Xie Ning felt a bit amused and helpless. However, both he and Echidna had been proactive. They had long embedded many glowing magic orbs in the domed ceiling over the dark soil, which allowed them to create a bit of daylight for the vast expanse of fertile land.

Since the fully grown plants hadn’t survived the underground, he decided to sow the unidentified seeds and grass seeds, and let the giants push those carts eagerly to the entrance of the dark soil room.

Unable to touch them, Echidna could only coil around the beams above, looking somewhat unhappy.

“I’ll give it a try…” Xie Ning picked up a bag, grabbed a few grass seeds from inside, and tossed them on the ground.

The tiny seeds fell silently to the ground invisibly since the ground was too dark, almost like a carbon nanotube black body that had swallowed the light source. Xie Ning’s eyes stung from staring, and he couldn’t even see where the seeds he tossed went.

He frowned slightly, but just as he was about to speak, there came a rumbling noise from underground, like a raging underground river. Countless thick vines, resembling pythons, burst out from the surface!

“Oh my!” Xie Ning fell heavily on the stone platform, and was almost bounced away by the force of the impact.

“Hiss!” Echidna’s face turned pale with shock. He instantly leaped from the beams, stood in front of Xie Ning, and grabbed the wildly dancing vines, the muscles in his shoulders bulging as he forcefully uprooted the uncontrollable plants. In just a few seconds, their root systems, nurtured by the soil caressed by the Earth Mother, had already stretched out to seven or eight meters in length.

With another forceful pull from the snake demon, his lethal talons lightly pierced the vine’s skin, injecting deadly venom. The plants immediately deflated like punctured balloons, wilting rapidly into a few strands of charred carbon.

Shaken, Xie Ning struggled to get up. Both his elbows were scraped, which caused Echidna to scream in pain, as he hastily discarded the plant debris in his hands and retrieved the godly ointment to carefully apply it to the wounds.

“Wow, that was fierce!” Xie Ning steadied his mind. He wasn’t afraid. Instead, his eyes gleamed. “Now we don’t have to worry about plants dying here!”

“Your safety is the most important!” Xie Ning wasn’t seriously injured, but Echidna’s heart thumped with fear. He wished he could wrap him up and take him away, so the demon admonished seriously, “Don’t underestimate the magic of that soil, Dorus, my ruthless lover. If anything happens to you, you will have me die of a broken heart!”

Through gritted teeth, he spoke, while he practically enveloped Xie Ning in kisses and held him tightly against his chest. He seemed to want him to hear the rapid beat of his heart.

Xie Ning was engulfed by his chest muscles, and struggled for a moment before he managed to escape.

“Then you watch over me.” Xie Ning, like a small cat licked all over by a big cat, weakly pleaded, “You stay beside me and keep them from growing too aggressively, okay?”

After careful consideration, Echidna reluctantly agreed to this request.

With the poisonous snake god overseeing them, the plants indeed didn’t grow as wildly anymore. Xie Ning tossed down a few dragon teeth, which grew into ten tall, strong warriors. They all stripped off their armor and turned into farmers, as they helped with the cultivation and played a real-life version of Stardew Valley with him. ¹

Xie Ning was very pleased. With Echidna and the warriors’ help, his garden development plan proceeded smoothly. He only needed to use his aesthetic expertise and indulge in designing.

A week later, the human kingdom sent a batch of marble statues, stone tablets, water jars, and a three-tiered fountain, all with traces of weathered water stains. They were clearly old objects, but that was because Xie Ning had specifically instructed that the decorations didn’t need to be brand new. The older, the better.

Although the people of Cilicia couldn’t understand the significance of the request, since Xie Ning had asked for it, they complied and happily brought over discarded furnishings from the royal palace.

For the final decoration phase, Xie Ning persuaded Echidna to leave, and didn’t let him see.

“Don’t look yet,” he said. “I’m planning to give you a surprise!”

Echidna was initially reluctant to leave, but upon hearing that, he hesitated.

“A surprise,” the demon tugged on a strand of hair and twisted around, unable to contain his excitement. “Is it the same kind of surprise as last time?”

Xie Ning, “…I said it’s not. Can you trust me?”

In the end, Echidna listened to him. Actually, there was never a time he didn’t.

Xie Ning came and went mysteriously from his newly completed garden, and was busy for several days. During meal times, he was often absent, and only at night, when it was time to sleep, would he return, covered in dirt and exhausted. Several times he fell asleep in the hot spring, requiring Echidna to monitor him carefully and hold him.

Echidna was left alone during the day, as he pouted and waited very unhappily for the final day. Until one morning when he didn’t need to open his eyes to feel his lover sneak out of his embrace, move his heavy snake tail aside, and run towards the flower room.

With his eyes closed, the demon refused to accept the fact that his lover didn’t warm to him in his embrace. After a while, he opened his golden eyes and saw a note folded neatly on Dorus’s pillow.

Curious, he unfolded it to find some poorly written scribbles that read, “Come find me.”

Despite having been there for many days, Dorus still struggled to write in the local language. He was only able to listen and speak. Once he read his message, Echidna immediately felt invigorated, as if he’d been freed from a prohibition, and hurriedly made his way towards the garden.

He slithered past the bronze gate and arrived at the stone platform above. Then, even the experienced demon was momentarily stunned.

The garden was already very beautiful. The lush vegetation adorned the underground palace with life, rather than the death he was used to seeing.

Clumps of wildflowers pressed heavily against an undulating sea of grass. Their petals were plump, while the grass leaves bore a concentrated inky color, as if there was an uncontrollable wild vitality struggling to break through their thin surface. A dim green moss covered the pebbles Xie Ning had picked up from outside, and formed a charming path that would turn anyone’s bare feet green.

Statues carrying water jars, the multi-tiered fountain, and a small, running dog statue were all gradually being consumed by ivy. Birds nested in bushes and trees, butterflies fluttered their wings like shining silver, as they moved from one flower to another. Further away, tall and lush apple and fig trees stood, forming an orderly path that led to a small square.

Dorus sat quietly at the edge of the square, with a long blanket spread beneath him. Cups and dishes were laid out, like a waiting feast.

Echidna slowly made his way over, as he tried his best not to touch the lush vegetation that grew so well in the arms of Mother Earth. He suppressed his poison, as his scales softly rolled over the moss-covered cobblestone path. Overhead, the light was as bright as daylight. Grapevines brushed against his shoulders, and the fragrance of flowers and trees uncomfortably tickled his nose, and faint memories from too long ago floated into his mind. Once upon a time, he too had days of freely roaming the earth, but those times had been too precious, too fleeting…

“Dorus,” the snake demon softly called out, “You summoned me, so here I am.”

Xie Ning looked up as he smiled mischievously. “Surprise! Today, we’ll have a spring picnic here. What do you think?”

Echidna hesitated for a moment, then chuckled. “It’s not spring yet. Demeter hasn’t taken away the winter chill from the earth.”

“I said it’s spring, so it’s spring. Who’s to say otherwise?” Xie Ning waved his hand dismissively. “Come on, sit here. It’s time to slice the picnic bread!”

Echidna, as if in a dream, silently complied. He coiled around his human companion, and watched as he sliced bread with a knife, spread thick fig jam on it, sprinkled some raisins, and then broke it in half to share.

“Spring picnics require jam sandwiches.” Xie Ning grinned, and took a big bite, while he gazed at the old fountain pool, where golden decorations sparkled amidst fluttering petals. “Back when I was in elementary school, we used to organize these picnics every semester. The night before, we’d go to the supermarket and buy lots of delicious foods, pack them in our backpacks, and then walk along together. Because there were so many elementary students, the cars on the road would yield to us…”

Echidna took a slow bite. The jam was sweet, and the bread as soft as air, which didn’t allow his sharp teeth to tear and chew freely. However such moments were scenes he couldn’t dream of anymore.

“Oh, I also prepared a basket for you,” Xie Ning proudly lifted a cloth to reveal a leg of bronze bull, which gleamed with a metallic sheen. “Ta-da! And there’s wine. Pretty good, right?”

Even after all this time, Echidna still couldn’t believe he deserved this. What had he done to merit it? He was allowed to be with Dorus, to kiss him, to love him, and to listen to his joyful voice. No matter how dark the surrounding world was, Dorus was like the sun, the moon, and all the stars that shone in the empty sky.

The ancient demon laughed sincerely and felt thoroughly happy. It ignited a spark of fireworks in his heart and flesh.

They shared several bottles of wine, despite there being no one else around, only the distant bird calls and the drowsy buzzing of bees. They stayed close together, as they whispered intimate words, laughed softly and bit each other’s ears.

As the sky gradually darkened, the glow of the magic orbs dimmed accordingly, so they lit a bonfire. The roaring warmth illuminated Xie Ning’s rosy cheeks and the gentle golden eyes of the big snake.

While they were sharing the last bottle of wine, Echidna held him close and sang ancient ballads by the fire. They were from a time before the heavens had opened, when words and language had not yet been invented by the wise. “I”, “you”, and “love” were still completely unfamiliar concepts. He sang those primitive tunes as if they were thunder echoing through the sky, as they passed over his forked tongue and into Xie Ning’s heart.

Overwhelmed by drunkenness, Xie Ning grinned foolishly, and he trembled with joy. Perhaps it was because he had drunk too much wine, but his stomach felt like melted, warm honey, and full of a swarm of butterflies that fluttered back and forth.