Do You Want a Wife or Not?

When the scholar woke up the next day, the snake demon was no longer there.

The strange sensation of the snake’s tail in his arms still lingered faintly. His clothes were slightly open and looked a bit messy, but the scholar didn’t think too much about it. He just let out a sigh of relief, glad that the snake demon had finally left.

After all, this snake demon only seemed to think of him occasionally, coming by to seek him out and then leaving again after playing its games. How could it possibly understand that he had lost his job and home because of it and was now forced to hide in a cave day after day?

When the scholar pushed himself up with his hands, he noticed that his body was damp, with sticky snake fluid dripping from him.

“…”

It truly was a lecherous snake.

The scholar gritted his teeth and made his way to the water pool deeper inside the cave to clean himself.

He had two long robes: an outer blouse and an inner blouse. Since he had to alternate wearing them, the outer blouse had started to turn slightly white from repeated washing. After untying his clothes, he knelt by the pool and scrubbed them with his hands. Lowering his head in both shame and anger, he clenched his fists tightly.

Oddly enough, the bruises from being tormented in the Snake Immortal Temple the previous day had disappeared overnight. The scholar glanced down at his legs, startled to see that the skin there was as white and flawless as mutton-fat jade.

It seemed almost like an illusion, but the slippery snake fluid didn’t wash away easily with water. When he rubbed his fingers over his skin, the fluid seemed to seep in rather than rinse off. Kneeling by the pool, he stared at himself in surprise.

He recalled the events of the previous day when the snake demon had bullied him. The snake’s tail had felt cold to the touch, yet it had somehow created a strange warmth in his lower abdomen. But once he had run out of the cave into the cold night, that warmth had gradually faded.

The scholar had been living alone in the mountains for several months. The harsh hunger and cold had left him thin and frail. His weakened body had struggled to endure the freezing mountain air, leaving him bedridden with fever multiple times. Now, his body felt so fragile it might as well have been made of paper.

Yet, last night, he had still managed to run out of the cave and endure the icy mountain winds for hours. And when he woke up in the morning, he felt neither discomfort nor illness. Instead, he seemed surprisingly well-rested, even full of energy.

The scholar looked toward the mouth of the cave, lost in thought.

Monsters and humans were fundamentally different. Could it be that what the snake demon had done to him was, in some strange way, beneficial to his body?

…No.

The scholar suddenly turned away and lowered his eyelashes. How could a monster have such good intentions? The snake demon was naturally both handsome and sinister, showing no mercy even as it drained his essence. It was clear that when it sought him out again, it harboured ulterior motives, merely toying with him. How could he have entertained such a ridiculous idea, thinking the snake demon intended to nourish his body?

The scholar hastily put on his shirt, got to his feet, and prepared to leave the cave, hoping to find something to occupy himself and dispel these foolish thoughts.

Since birth, his life had been fraught with hardship. His mother had suffered during childbirth, and his father had died of illness. He had grown up surviving on the bare minimum, with no one showing him genuine kindness. Over time, he had come to understand the cold indifference of human nature. As a child, he had spent days crouched outside a private school window, listening to the teacher’s lectures. He had scavenged charcoal for makeshift brushes and used the ground as paper to teach himself. It was through such perseverance that he had gained the recognition of a scholar.

He would never indulge in fanciful illusions or fantasies. His only focus was survival, no matter the cost, to make all the suffering of his twenty years worthwhile.

.

However, just as the scholar was about to leave the cave, a familiar hissing sound reached his ears from outside.

He froze. It was the unmistakable sound of a snake’s tail brushing against dead branches and coiling itself up.

Unbeknownst to him, the snake demon had already marked the cave as its territory by leaving its aura there. All the scholar knew was that the snake demon had left and now returned, clearly with no simple intentions.

He cursed himself. He should have left earlier.

His heart sank like a stone, and his fingertips trembled slightly as he recalled the cold, humiliating touch of the snake’s tail. He had already been claimed as the snake demon’s plaything. What sort of “snake wife” was he? His role was merely to undress and spread himself for the creature’s twisted pleasure.

Was this his fate? Would the rest of his life be like this?

The scholar didn’t know where the sudden surge of courage or desperation came from, but he took a step back, grabbed the bamboo pole he used for drying clothes, and swung it toward the mouth of the cave. Taking advantage of the moment, he bolted, hoping to escape while the snake demon was distracted.

But with a resounding bang, his plan was thwarted. In the next instant, the all-too-familiar snake’s tail lashed out, coiling around his waist without mercy. The scholar let out a sharp scream as he was pulled back and dragged before the snake demon.

“Ah!”

The snake demon’s familiar, handsome face loomed close to his, its strange vertical pupils fixed on him. Those cold, scrutinizing eyes seemed to pierce through him, indifferent and commanding.

The scholar’s heart pounded wildly. Trembling with fear, he instinctively raised his hands to shield his face, desperate to hide from that unrelenting gaze.

With a “pop,” his hand was grabbed by the snake’s tail and taken away. The snake demon stared at it carefully. After realizing that he had done all this, he frowned in confusion.

Then the snake’s tail wrapped around the scholar and pressed him firmly against the cave wall. The snake demon leaned in and brushed his cheek heavily with its fingers.

“Don’t…” the scholar opened his eyes in fear.

The snake demon stared at him deeply, its two fangs exposed. “My wife is not good.”

“I won’t throw something at you anymore…” the scholar swallowed hard and placed his hand against the cold stone wall. “I won’t do it anymore. Please put me down, okay?”

The snake demon’s tail once again supported the scholar’s legs, lifting him so they were face to face. The scholar almost sat on the snake’s tail; his legs spread. To stabilize himself, he had to hug the thick body of the snake demon with both hands. At this moment, he and the snake demon were nearly touching, and he could smell the bloody scent coming from the snake demon.

“Don’t be angry…” the scholar said, trembling and regretting his earlier actions. “Don’t eat me. I will give you my body to play with, okay?”

‘As long as I can survive, it doesn’t matter if I end up a bit of a mess.’

However, a hissing sound whispered in his ears, and the scholar clenched his fingers, looking at the snake demon uneasily.

The snake demon seemed to understand only the word “eat.” It picked up the chicken it had under its hand and stared deeply at the scholar.

“For my wife… to eat.”

The scholar froze, and then he realized that the snake demon was holding a chicken in its hand.

The strong smell of blood that he had noticed seemed to come from the chicken, whose neck had been bitten off.