Chapter 238 Giant Fungus (Fourth Update)
Humans often curse each other by saying someone is "as lazy as a dead snake." In the wetland, that's exactly what it looked like, dead and respired snakes of all shapes and sizes everywhere. Snakes, big and small, lay limp and motionless.
Suming used his spiritual power to probe around and discovered that the vast majority of the snakes had not suffered fatal injuries; even a small number of venomous snakes with broken fangs weren't going to die anytime soon. It's just that the snakes were originally supposed to be hibernating at this time; all their bodily functions were at a low ebb, and after this battle, they had almost run out of energy.
The most tragic was actually the python king.
This fellow made a big fuss, and there were several times when he nearly ran out of strength. Suming seized the opportunity, and with a wave of spiritual power, he healed its wounds and replenished its strength, or else it would have been brought down by the snake horde long ago, definitely unable to achieve the current results.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om
With spiritual power as its support, the python king became like a perpetually moving machine, thoroughly clearing the field. Most of the poisonous snakes in the wetland were too weak to fight again, and even within the entire wild pig's home, there weren't many snakes that could still pose a threat to Suming; but the python king was also seriously injured in the battle, and had been sustained by spiritual power all along. As soon as Suming withdrew the spiritual power, the python king immediately collapsed, limp like a person who had been relying entirely on stimulants - as soon as the effects wore off, they went from superhero to super scared.
Heaven have mercy, it was only a step away from that delicious patch of morels!
Small wounds covered its entire body, various venomous teeth had exploded among the scales, and its five- or six-meter-long body had at least four or five hundred poison fangs stuck in it, with a few places where even the scales were torn, revealing the pale red snake flesh beneath.
"With a clap of thunder, daddy makes a shining entrance!" Suming strode toward the wild pig's home.
Haidong Qing faced a ground full of food, having endured a whole night, and now finally it could feast to its heart's content. With a flap of its wings, whoosh, it dashed over and pecked viciously at a half-dead silver ring snake.
Suming greeted Haidong Qing and chose to start with the snakes that were almost dead. The living ones might still be useful to him later.
"Huff... roar roar roar..." The wild pig's enthusiasm was in no way inferior to Haidong Qing's, spreading its hooves and roaring as it charged forward.
This group of creatures was also quite miserable. They were originally living here comfortably, drinking from mountain springs, eating various herbs and Lingzhi, with a large patch of delicious morels about to mature, life as happy as that of immortals; however, misfortune came from the sky while they sat safely within their home, and such a good place was seized by a swarm of snakes.
If the territory had been seized by other animals, the wild pigs might have felt a bit better. After all, they are a bunch of heartless, rough creatures that don't even care when their young are captured and cooked. But it was particularly irritating that it had to be snakes that took over their territory, considering that they were supposed to be the natural predators of snakes.
Especially the second pig, who had lost a testicle, got red-eyed and rushed to a Large Red Chain Snake more than a meter long, striking fiercely with its tusks and – whoosh – punctured a huge hole in the Red Chain Snake's belly.
That Red Chain Snake was only as thick as a child's wrist, and such a large hole nearly severed it in half, killing it instantly.
The second pig was still not satisfied. It kept jabbing, jabbing, jabbing with its tusks, reducing the Red Chain Snake to a pile of mush. Then it turned around, sat down heavily on it, crushing it into a pile of mush, and finally, with a plop, it defecated a large pile on top of the remains, only then happily wagging its little tail.
Poor second pig, full of resentment, finally avenged the deep-seated hatred for its lost testicle.
"You wait for me by the water, and be careful of the snakes," Suming warned Su Meng, then rode on the Second Brother, carefully wading through the water towards the center of the wetland.
The water in that part of the wetland wasn't deep, just about thirty to forty centimeters, and places were even shallower than ten centimeters. For the size of the second pig, it was no trouble at all, and it quickly reached the patch of morels.
A vast expanse, with at least hundreds of sheep's stomach mushrooms, tender yellow, made one involuntarily want to take a bite. Among them, one mushroom was about as big as half of a mineral water bottle, standing out like a crane among chickens.
"This big?" Suming estimated that it probably weighed at least half a pound!
The density of fungal plants is low, their volume is small, and their weight is light, especially sheep's stomach mushrooms, which usually only weigh a few tens of grams. Two or three hundred grams would already be quite exaggerated. Suming had heard from Zhao Yun before, who, along with a professor, spent almost three million to buy black truffles, known as the king of mushrooms, and it weighed just over two hundred grams.
The sheep's stomach mushroom before him, if taken to auction, would likely be extraordinarily valuable.
Thinking this, Suming subconsciously wanted to bend over and touch the large sheep's stomach mushroom.
Just as he bent down, the snakes around, which had seemed half-dead, many of them struggled to raise their heads, fixing their gaze on Suming!
The python that had seemed lifeless just now also strenuously raised its head and stuck out its forked tongue towards Suming in a threatening gesture. Likely because it was truly out of strength, that red, forked tongue only protruded a small section before the python could no longer hold itself up and collapsed back into the puddle.
If these snakes were human, they would certainly feel frustrated enough to cough up blood; they had guarded this spot for so long, fought life and death battles, almost losing their own lives, only for someone else to easily pick the fruits of victory.
"This isn't good of you."
Suming crouched by the water, extended a finger towards the group of snakes and shook it, saying seriously, "As snakes, what's the point of eating these sheep's stomach mushrooms? They can't actually increase vigor, right? What's the point of kidney replenishment for you? At most, it's just for the taste. But if I sell them, I can get you a lot of tastier, cheaper food. Even if I don't take them, so many of you dividing up these few mushrooms, in the end, not even one snake will get a bite. In contrast, if I take them back to cultivate, when there's a harvest later on, everyone will have some to eat..."
Completely worn out, the snakes helplessly lay there listening to Suming's brainwashing. Suming summarized earnestly, "So you see, everyone supports my work, lets me take these sheep's stomach mushrooms, and I won't let you down in the future. It's a mutually beneficial good thing. As the saying goes, at home one relies on one's parents, outside one relies on friends, right?"
The snakes knew no such reasoning! It won't be brainwashed by Suming so easily, and as their strength slowly returned, a few even assumed an attacking stance.
Suming glared, simply used his Soul Attachment Ability on those snakes that had the strongest intent to resist, then cheerfully took out some Haidong Qing powder, sniffed it under his nose.
...
Using a combination of soft and hard tactics, reasoning, stating facts, employing strategies, and finally communicating through spiritual power, over a hundred snakes calmed down.
Suming then used a large amount of spiritual power to help the python, which was quite seriously hurt. If not treated promptly, it might indeed not survive.
Maybe it's true that snakes have a sense of spirituality. While being helped by Suming with spiritual power, the python gradually dropped its hostility and even became willing to try communicating with Suming. This was probably also due to its 'breed'; the nature of pythons isn't very aggressive, they are comparatively mild and can even be kept as pets.
In addition to keeping over a hundred venomous snakes and the python, the vast majority of the other snakes were sent back by Suming to their original habitats once they regained some strength.
So many snakes could perhaps account for the total snake population of several nearby mountains. If left in this place, or all taken away, then in the short term, the 'snake' link would be missing from the local ecosystem, which would cause not insignificant damage to the biological system. Perhaps the next year, a certain kind of animal would proliferate into a plague or even cause a pestilence in the nearby villages.