Nonsense! How could my adopted son be a villain?

Because of Lan Jian's promise, Xu Lingguang was in a good mood all the way home.

He was very proud of his foresight, thinking, "Wasn't it right to cling to Jin Da's leg? Look how it's paid off!"

He sincerely praised Lan Jian in his heart and, in a good mood, decided to have a big dinner to celebrate. As he went inside to change, he happened to see the black snake lazily climbing down from the roof beam. In his good mood, he forgot about the snake stealing food earlier, and good-naturedly poked the snake's tail, saying, "Why do you seem to have grown even bigger?"

He clearly remembered that yesterday the black snake was only the thickness of a ping-pong ball, but today it was almost as thick as his wrist.

It's growing way too fast!

The black snake was poked by him, and its tail brushed affectionately against his palm, looking a little lazy.

Xu Lingguang picked it up, frowned as he examined it, and a thought crossed his mind: "Could it really have caused a problem?"

The black snake twisted and turned in his hand. It had not only grown larger, but was also much stronger than before. It actually managed to break free from Xu Lingguang's grasp, land on the ground, and then quickly crawled away along the base of the wall.

Seeing that it was climbing very fast and didn't look sick, Xu Lingguang left it alone.

That evening, Xu Lingguang and his four cubs had a big meal. They originally planned to go down the mountain to shop the next day, but unfortunately, the weather turned bad and it started to rain heavily.

Summer rains come suddenly. Outside, the wind howls and the rain pours down, with occasional thunderclaps. Xu Lingguang closed the doors and windows, moved the donkey and chicken coop inside, and huddled with the young animals inside to eat roast chicken and drink fruit wine.

However, the thunder outside grew louder and louder, and even the ground was trembling slightly.

Xu Lingguang immediately became worried and pushed open the window to look outside: "With such heavy rain, won't there be an earthquake or a landslide?"

The area where they were located was relatively high, and the rainwater gathered on the ground into streams that flowed down to the lower ground. Xu Lingguang looked into the distance again, but the grass, trees, and forests were all shrouded in rain and could not be seen clearly.

He frowned, a little worried that the house wouldn't be able to withstand such heavy rain.

The four cubs huddled with him by the window watching the rain, but the cubs were clearly not that worried. Yu Rong, who was playing with his paws swatting at the raindrops splashing in from outside, suddenly pointed in a direction and said, "There's a snake undergoing its tribulation over there."

"What snake?"

"A really big black snake."

Xu Lingguang followed the direction the man was peering in, squinting for a long time before finally spotting a black snake lying on the barren hilltop. The hilltop wasn't high, and the surrounding trees were charred black, as if struck by lightning. The enormous black snake hung half-dead on the charred remnants of the wood, only its head still held high, gazing at the sky above.

Xu Lingguang looked up at the sky and saw faint purple lightning brewing within.

"Is that a snake demon?" Xu Lingguang asked Yu Rong. Apart from Mu Yun, a minor demon that posed no real threat, he had not encountered any demons or humans in this mountain.

Based on his speculation, Lan Jian must have consciously excluded some dangerous factors from Ailao Mountain to prevent the cubs from being harmed.

Yu Rong's tone became hesitant: "It doesn't seem so, it also has four legs."

Snake demons don't have legs.

Upon hearing this, Xu Lingguang squinted and looked more closely, discovering that the black snake did indeed have four claw-like things on its belly. He then looked at the snake's head. He had only glanced at it casually before and thought the snake's head looked a bit strange, but now, upon closer inspection, he noticed two small bumps on the snake's head that looked like two tiny horns.

Xu Lingguang was a little confused: "What is this?"

A snake with four claws and horns?

Just as Xu Lingguang was observing, four more bolts of lightning struck in succession.

A blinding, purplish-black lightning flashed across the sky with tremendous force. Xu Lingguang smelled the burnt odor in the air, as well as the roars of beasts that even the sound of rain could not drown out.

The sound was very strange, like the mournful cry of a wild beast, but also mixed with the hissing sound of a snake flicking its tongue.

Hearing the sound, Xu Lingguang's heartstrings were suddenly plucked. He turned his head to look at the roof beam, but did not find the black snake lying on the roof beam.

Has anyone seen the black snake?

The cubs looked at each other and shook their heads.

The black snake is elusive, spending most of its time perched on the roof beams, making its presence very inconspicuous.

The thunder outside continued to rumble, and Xu Lingguang's mind was in a jumble of noise. He leaned against the window again to look at the black snake. The snake's scales had been peeled off and its flesh torn open by the thunder. But it never lowered its head, as if it were resisting the thunder overhead.

Xu Lingguang's gaze swept over it inch by inch, and the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed.

It looks a lot like that black snake.

More like... Song Nanchu.

He hadn't considered Song Nanchu before, only feeling that he'd seen him somewhere before. But now that he had the idea, the more he looked, the more similar it seemed. Apart from the two small horns on its head and the four claws on its belly, this black snake was almost identical to Song Nanchu's original form.

Xu Lingguang frowned: "Is this a tribulation? But getting struck by lightning like this, won't you be struck dead?"

The black snake was clearly unable to withstand the successive lightning strikes; its tail could no longer wrap around the charred trees, and its body was almost washed away by the rain.

Xu Lingguang saw its four claws on its belly gripping the tree tightly, struggling to move its body upwards. Its body, its scales peeled off by lightning strikes, rubbed against the rough rocks and branches, and bright red blood flowed into the water below, endlessly.

Xu Lingguang's heart clenched as he watched, his gaze fixed on the black snake.

Perhaps his gaze was too intense, for the black snake, which had been looking up at the sky, suddenly turned its head and glanced in his direction.

Their eyes met for a moment, and Xu Lingguang noticed that black scabs were peeling off its chin, indicating that it was molting.

Then the thunder started to rumble again. Xu Lingguang counted them one by one, and including the previous ones, there were a total of nine bolts of lightning.

In the end, the black snake was struck by lightning and lay motionless on the ground. All its scales had fallen off, and its body seemed to have grown much larger. Its original snake skin was stretched and peeled off in pieces, washed away by the rain.

If it weren't for the slight swaying of its head, Xu Lingguang would have almost thought it was dead.

After the nine bolts of lightning struck, the torrential rain suddenly stopped.

Xu Lingguang pushed open the door and came out. Looking at the ferocious giant lying motionless on the spot, he hesitated for a moment, then told the cubs to wait at home and walked towards the mountain that had been scorched by lightning, his steps uneven.

The closer they got to the mountain peak, the stronger the smell of burning and blood became. Xu Lingguang stopped, a little uneasy, as he looked at the blood flowing past his feet.

From a distance, the black snake didn't seem particularly terrifying, but the closer one got, the stronger the fear became. Xu Lingguang hesitated, stopping to consider whether to approach further. What if he was mistaken, and it wasn't Song Nanchu after all?

Just as he hesitated, he suddenly saw Lan Jian coming on a cloud.

Xu Lingguang felt safe as soon as he saw him, and quickly jumped up and waved to him.

Lan Jian approached him, disgusted that the mountain was covered in rainwater and blood and hadn't landed. She used a gust of wind to lift Xu Lingguang into the air: "What are you doing here?"

Xu Lingguang scratched his face, looked at the giant snake below that was taking in more air than it was exhaling, and said hesitantly, "I think I recognize it."

Lan Jian gave a strange look and said, "You know Hui?"

"Hui?" Xu Lingguang looked bewildered.

Lan Jian said calmly, "A hui transforms into a jiao after five hundred years, a jiao transforms into a dragon after a thousand years, a jiao becomes a horned dragon after another five hundred years, and an yinglong after a thousand years. Since the death of the previous demon king, no hui has been seen in the entire Shangyang Continent."

He lowered his eyes and carefully examined the snakes in the area: "This one looks like a snake that has just reverted to its ancestral form. How do you know it?"

Xu Lingguang looked increasingly bewildered and said in confusion, "This seems to be my eldest disciple, but I'm not quite sure, so I came to check."