He and It Chapter 171: The Serpent of Pharisee (37)

Chapter 171: The Serpent of Pharisee (37)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

Xie Ning was paralyzed on Echidna’s body, sweating profusely, tired and refreshed.

Alas, while after becoming a god there were no limits to physical strength, there was also no restraint…

Echidna lovingly stroked his wet hair, and noticed again that the once black and shiny hair had become pale, and felt even more distressed.

“Dorus,” he said. “Can you now tell me in detail, how after I left, what trials you encountered and  how you became a god?” 

Xie Ning turned his head lazily and contentedly, while staying in the same position, which made his neck uncomfortable.

“If I say so, you can’t move. You have to stay here honestly, got it?” he ordered in a husky voice, just in case Echidna got angry and stormed off to Mount Olympus to seek revenge. He really didn’t have the strength to raise his voice any more than that.

Echidna said indulgently, “All right. Whatever you ask for, I shall always abide by your will.” 

Having been promised, Xie Ning took a long breath in, and let it out again, then began to remember what had started everything.

“As you already know, that oath was meant to deceive you. Olympus fed me the divine wine of eternal life right after you left, which made your sentence endless…” Xie Ning said slowly. “I didn’t know about it at first, and I just wanted to go to you. However, I couldn’t go to Tartarus alone, so I provoked Apollo and got him to make a bet with me.” 

Echidna asked nervously, “What kind of bet?” 

“Now that I think about it, it was nothing.” Xie Ning smiled. “It was just a game. He and I competed to see who could paint better, two out of three. If I won, he would escort me to the Abyss so that I could be reunited with you. If I lost, he would turn me into a dandelion, and put me next to the River of Fire, so that I could only look at you forever…” 

Echidna didn’t move, but a great fury had begun to boil in his heart, his fangs grew, and his raging venom was eager to find a target.

“You promised!” Xie Ning reminded him. “Anyway, I didn’t have any other options at that point, so I started to fight him. Aphrodite helped me in the first round and he didn’t take me seriously, so I got the first win. By the way, in the first game, I painted you.” 

When he remembered the fluttering he felt while in Tartarus, Echidna’s expression softened and he gently probed with his forked tongue, and licked Xie Ning’s cheek.

“I know.” 

Xie Ning hummed pleasantly and continued, “In the second game, he started to get serious. Our theme was ‘Grapes.’ I worked hard and painted a vineyard. He painted pictures within a picture, a glass of wine that reflected all beings, and in the wine, painted them from birth to death, the ultimate cycle. Life. How could I win?” 

“I’m not a genius, and he’s the god in charge of artistic geniuses. Just think of the difference. Anyway, I broke down at that time, and when I left, I cried for a long, long time…” When he spoke of that time, Xie Ning was silent for a while, then continued, “I felt like I couldn’t win even if I spent a hundred years or two hundred years trying. I was afraid that I couldn’t beat the God of Art. In the third round, I gave up on myself, and painted a piece of art just to get rid of it. I thought to myself, ‘What’s the big deal if he turns me into a dandelion to look at you from across the river?’’’ 

Echidna’s arm tightened around him. He wanted to say something, but he was afraid that he would unleash his temper, and that he would cry out crazy words without any sense, and after that, he would rush to Olympus and injure or kill Phoebus Apollo. Therefore, he pursed his lips and didn’t utter a word.

Xie Ning sighed, “But I didn’t wait to see Apollo’s painting in the third game. I ran. Ran out of the temple of Olympus. Aphrodite chased after me, she probably couldn’t help it, seeing me so poorly, and she told me about the trick. I hated them so much at that moment that I couldn’t see. I ran back and tore my painting pieces. I demanded a chance to repaint, and asked Zeus to give me paint that would never run out or brushes that would break because, I said, ‘I’m going to paint something no one’s ever done before, or since, to take on Apollo.’’’ 

“Haha! I guess they got carried away when they agreed to my request, because they even swore that no living creature could disturb me until I finished the painting. That’s why no one can be too proud of themselves…” 

Echidna asked nervously, “Then what happened, Dorus? How did you triumph over the Gods and ask them to give you a throne?” 

Echidna’s heart was smothered with sadness at the thought that while Dorus was suffering, he was still asleep in the Abyss, having fallen for a trick.

“Later, I found Gaia.” Xie Ning said. “Having eternal life strengthened my memory, and I remembered in the prophecy of Prometheus, Zeus and the sea goddess Thetis, they have a child that would overthrow his throne. So I wondered, how could I fulfill that prophecy? Then I came up with a bold idea: since I am a man from the future, I have witnessed the time when the Gods’ have suffered their demise and I know it. Therefore, I can borrow the eyes of Gaia, and in that way I will paint all the Gods truly, including the union of Zeus and Thetis.” 

Echidna’s eyes widened in shock.

“It is for that reason that they call you ‘Dorus the Recorder and Witness’…” He murmured. “Ah. You have taken the place of the Goddesses of Fate, yet you are even more haughty than the three sisters, for in your painting, they too are to be encompassed! Dorus, what a price you paid to save me!” 

By now, his stifled sadness had transformed into intense pain, and Echidna said in a trembling voice, “Have I brought you down, Dorus? If I hadn’t been so unwise, you wouldn’t have had to suffer all these agonies, and live alone and downtrodden…” 

The god wept grievously for his afflicted lover. Xie Ning hastily turned his head, held his face and placed many kisses on the other’s lips.

“What are you thinking?” he said, half comforting, half scolding. “It’s not like you caused the problem! If you can admit fault, then I can as well. If I could have resisted temptation and not gone out to drink and feast with people, then you wouldn’t have been locked in the Abyss to suffer. As for the crimes that followed, aren’t they all my own fault?” 

He pretended to be sad. “Alas! I have sinned so much, I am going to throw myself into the river now!” Xie Ning said then immediately started to roll off Echidna’s body. This so scared the Snake Demon that he hurriedly grabbed him, and pulled him back firmly against his chest.

“Don’t go, don’t go!” Echidna screamed. “Don’t you go. I’ll never say that again…” 

At the moment he was holding Dorus as if he were drowning in hot, myrrh oil ¹ , his bones were drenched in insatiable pleasure. At times like this, even a small separation could send chills of trepidation down his spine.

Successfully pacified, Xie Ning settled back onto his chest and asked, “I’ve been talking too much about me. What about you? What happened to you in Tartarus? Did you get hurt? Aren’t there other gods locked up there? Did they come after you?” 

Echidna shook his head honestly. “No, I was just sleeping there. Tartarus is an abyss that devours all things. Any god that has been there knows that they cannot move freely. The more they struggle, the faster the Abyss devours you, except for Typhon, who is, after all, the natural son of Abyss and Gaia. In front of his biological father, there must always be some privileges.” 

“Then weren’t you afraid?” Xie Ning was heartbroken. “Wasn’t it the same as absorbing your life force all the time?” 

“No,” Echidna said frankly. “I could feel you. Every time you touched my soul, you were infusing me with a new level of courage and happiness…How could I be afraid of the prison of the Abyss? I was only afraid that you were alone in the world, and that the Gods do not carry out their vows well, or that you were subject to their bitter torments and insults. That there was no one who would take care of you and protect you…” 

At that point, he couldn’t speak anymore and could only rely on delicate kisses that fell on Xie Ning’s lips and cheeks to ease his unrelieved distress.

Still, after twenty years, they were finally reunited. The original roof was gone, and they couldn’t sleep under an open sky, so Xie Ning made a new roof out of vines. The closed space, like a small cave, accommodated the pair of hibernating lovers.

At first, in addition to whispering intimately, they just quietly snuggled together. Sometimes they would open their eyes and roll back and forth on the bed ² . Echidna’s snake tail got tangled in a hundred ways, as it circled around him, as it tried to get tighter and closer to him. He wanted to open his mouth wide and swallow Xie Ning bit by bit.

After a month of rolling around like that, even though Xie Ning had become a god, the bones in his body still looked like they had been completely disassembled and reorganized several times.

He finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough!” He woefully pushed Echidna’s face, trying to end the other party’s sticky kiss, but even if the other couldn’t kiss his lips, the Demon God’s long forked tongue could still wander between the cracks of his fingers. “It’s time to find a new home! We…we can’t stay here forever, can we?” 

Oh. It was business.

Echidna blinked and said, “What do you have in mind? You know I only listen to you.” 

With difficulty, Xie Ning finally got a moment to catch his breath, so he grabbed it and asked, “Do you want to stay in Arima?” 

Echidna thought for a moment, then hissed and spat, “This is our old home, but it is also the place where I was imprisoned for countless years. It is where my happiest moments have been, and where I witnessed my wretchedness and humiliation. Ah, my feelings for it are very mixed, so, therefore, I defer to your opinion.” 

“Then we’ll move to a place with good mountains and water!” Xie Ning immediately decided. “A change of place and a change of mood.” 

Once the decision was made, Echidna was happy to get busy.

In the collapsed underground palace, there were still many precious buried things. The dragon’s teeth had been all thrown out, but Echidna pulled out a few scales, buried them in the soil of Gaia, and planted a dozen serpent-scaled giants, to help clean up the remains of the ruins.

In addition to a large amount of jewelry and treasures, they also unearthed the divine mirror that Nyx had given to Echidna; dragged out the nest he had made for Xie Ning; dug up Xie Ning’s paintings that he had spent a lot of effort on in the past and had stored in a golden box; along with the golden book that would travel through space and time and land in the modern era.

Echidna asked, “Should I take this with me?” 

Xie Ning thought for a moment and smiled.

He shook his head and replied, “No, just bury it here.” 

With several large bags, they left the ancient plains that were once a prison for the Demon God, Echidna, to look for a new home.

“To Elis?” Xie Ning asked.

Echidna shook her head critically, “It was conquered by Herakles in the old days, and I don’t like the cowsheds there.” ³

“To Crete?” 

“There is nothing to see there but the Labyrinth where Minos imprisoned people. The king of Crete, moreover, is a cowardly monarch.” 

Looking at the map, they searched and searched, then finally Xie Ning suggested, “What about Sicily?” 

Echidna pondered for a long time, then nodded. “Sicily is the land of Hephaestus. There are volcanoes there, and there are also many geothermal springs that I think you will like. We can go to Sicily.” 

They traveled slowly. As he sat on Echidna’s back, Xie Ning was very happy. This trip wasn’t lonely like others in the past. He opened his box and chatted to the snake demon about what he had seen and heard on his travels.

Upon arriving in Sicily, Echidna summoned his demons and quickly picked out a spot in the untouched wilderness. They worked together to build an underground palace, as they brought in strong bronze and blackened copper. They opened up hot springs deep in the land, and in only ten days and nights, they had built a larger and more magnificent palace.

The snake demon then used his divine power to move Gaia’s land there. He carefully re-built his and Dorus’ love nest, and as if to make up for the couple’s past twenty years of hardship. He made it as beautiful and extravagant as a magnificent temple, full of animal skins and silks.

Now that he had settled down, Xie Ning was back to his old self, a rice bug who didn’t work or eat. Echidna wouldn’t let him do anything, even when it came to drinking or eating, he had to hand it to Xie Ning himself – despite being a god meant he wouldn’t go hungry, he could still enjoy the wine and the sumptuous feast.

“How pitiful you are, my Dorus,” the demon embraced him lovingly and whispered in his ear. “You have become such a great god and yet you have no followers, no one to serve you. Then I will be your believer and your servant! After all, this is a pleasure that I am willing to do.” 

Xie Ning couldn’t help but laugh quietly as he hugged his neck and combed his fingers through the Demon God’s long black hair one by one, then bit his ear lightly. “Aren’t you afraid that people will laugh at you if you’re like this?” 

“If anyone laughs at me, I’ll…” In the middle of the sentence, Echidna paused to think. “Never mind. If the Gods want to laugh at me behind my back, let them! On the contrary, I will mock them greatly for not loving someone as much as I do.”