The snake's head was triangular, large enough to top four or five basketballs. Its two large eyeballs were like 100-watt light bulbs. Its forked tongue, when extended, was over two meters long, like another large snake. Two enormous fangs, dripping with an unknown liquid, jutted from its upper jaw, looking like tusks. Most distinctively, two colorful protrusions grew from its head, resembling inserted mineral water bottles.
Having some knowledge of snakes, I knew some indeed had horns, like vipers. I wondered if "Laoda" was a type of viper.
Fortunately, its body behind the head wasn't thick like the small snakes we usually encountered. Its massive triangular head was the widest part of its entire body. Compared to its head, the snake god's body appeared somewhat slender, though still nearly half a meter in diameter, likely getting stuck if it tried to crawl into a sewer.
Laoda was startled by my reaction and didn't dare move for a long time. Knowing she posed no threat to me, I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and got up from the ground. Only then did Laoda slowly emerge from behind the stone. Her length was estimated to be ten to fifteen meters, but her coiled posture made an accurate measurement impossible. Her head and body were covered in exquisite, gleaming silver scales, each as large as a palm.
"You, you really do look like a dragon..." I said, trembling, glancing at Zheng Bingbing beside me. She hadn't moved at all, her legs and teeth chattering rhythmically, "de de de." Her muscles were likely so terrified they had gone rigid, unable to move.
Laoda slightly opened her mouth, as if showing me something. Just as I was about to lean closer, she suddenly opened it to its widest, her lower jaw touching the ground and her upper jaw pointing to the sky, a gap of fully three meters. Forget me, even Yao Ming could stand inside her mouth. And even then, he might not be able to touch her fangs!
Hiss hiss hiss!
It turned out she was demonstrating a snake's hiss. Her voice contained some infrasound, making me feel dizzy. I noticed two membranes at the corners of her mouth vibrating rapidly. The sound, I realized, came from here, not her throat. Besides producing sound, these membranes likely served to envelop prey. Because her mouth was so wide, it was leaky. If prey was bitten and agile enough, it could escape from the corners of her mouth. With these membranes covering it, the prey would be completely enclosed within her mouth. Coupled with the rhythmic contraction of powerful muscles in her throat, she could then swallow the prey.
It seemed the saying that snakes could swallow prey much larger than themselves was true. Common large animals like cows, horses, and pigs would surely be an "easy swallow" for her.
"Amazing, amazing!" I gave her a thumbs-up. "Alright, Laoda, change back!"
Laoda closed her mouth and swam back behind the stone. Her snake form shrank and then disappeared. A moment later, Laoda emerged from behind the stone, tidying her clothes. She massaged her chin, moving it left and right, then pushed it upwards with a click. It seemed she might have dislocated it while demonstrating her "swallowing technique" in snake form.
"How much do you weigh, now?" I asked Laoda.
"Hmm? About... 120 jin?"
She was over 1.7 meters tall. Although she looked slender, her muscles were dense and firm, making her weight around that figure.
In her snake form, however, her size was comparable to the world's largest snake, the anaconda, which could weigh 500 jin.
So, the question arose: where did the remaining 380 jin go when she transformed from 500 jin to 120?
Had Lomonosov's "law of conservation of mass" been mistaken?
Or should Einstein's more advanced "theory of relativity" be used to explain it?
I was uneducated and didn't understand much, but having witnessed it with my own eyes, I believed it couldn't be fake. This wasn't Laoda performing magic tricks; the transformation between demon and human form was an objective reality.
After a while, the other demons also arrived at the mountaintop, each carrying remnants of their prey, possibly for a late-night snack.
The sun sank between the mountains, and the sky grew dark. Yao Yao took many photos with her phone. I thought she was capturing the scenery and asked her about it. She replied that she was constructing a defensive system. The location of the small building at the foot of the mountain had excellent feng shui, with all five elements present. As long as the valley entrance was secured, no matter how many enemies approached, they would be helpless.
Was this reliable?