ATFBETIBM Chapter 682.1

New Arc: Snake Mountain

Chapters 682-692

“Wake up, everyone! Stop sleeping, we’re almost at Snake God Mountain.”

A sudden jolt shook beneath them.

A chaotic and noisy clamor echoed in the air.

The stench of burning low-quality diesel and sweat filled the air.

Bai Lixin frowned and opened his eyes, his eyelids narrowing almost imperceptibly.

‘Where was this?’

A rundown bus, and an endless expanse of loess hills outside the window.

The bus had no air conditioning, just two old, creaking oscillating fans at the front and back swaying left and right.

The bus was packed with people, some snoring loudly, others curiously gazing out the window.

The temperature inside the bus was stiflingly high, but because the wind and sand outside were too strong, the windows were tightly shut.

The road the bus was driving on was rough and bumpy, not a paved asphalt road but a yellow dirt track riddled with deep potholes.

With each bump, the windows shook.

The bus groaned and creaked, as if it might fall apart at any moment.

The fragile glass windows did little to block out the howling of the wind outside. The loess hills undulated endlessly, with clouds of dust swirling in the air, as if they were about to sweep towards them.

Bai Lixin narrowed his eyes as he looked out the window.

He had mistaken it earlier—those weren’t clouds of dust, but locusts.

A massive swarm of locusts formed an army that resembled the vast yellow sand, surging forward in a relentless wave toward them.

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

One by one, locusts crashed into the windows, making loud banging noises against the glass.

“Bang!”

A locust hit the window next to Bai Lixin, its body immediately turning into a smear of goo stuck to the glass.

Soon, a second smear appeared next to the first, and more and more locusts’ bodies piled up on the window. It was unclear why these locusts were committing these suicidal attacks, but what was certain was that the death of their companions didn’t deter the others. They kept coming, crashing into the windows relentlessly.

The passengers that were already terrified by the rickety state of the bus, began to scream in fear.

A sales attendant with a green shoulder bag holding onto the railing shouted over the chaos, “Don’t be scared! We travel through here all the time. Just hold onto the seats in front of you, we’ll get through this soon!”

Before the attendant’s words had faded, a passenger suddenly screamed, “The window’s broken!”

This person was sitting just in front of Bai Lixin. Following the voice, he saw that the window next to the passenger was covered with dead locusts. The constant impacts from the locusts had cracked the glass.

With each collision, the cracks spread wider.

The driver at the front had already turned on the windshield wipers. A thick layer of locusts had piled up on the front windshield, obscuring the view ahead.

But even with the wipers on, it was of little help. Every time the wipers cleared some locusts, more immediately took their place.

“Crack!”

The sound of shattering glass rang out in the stifling bus.

“Ahhh!”

The passenger in front screamed as the locusts finally found a crack to breach and swarmed into the bus.

In an instant, the narrow, cramped space was filled with locusts.

The attendant quickly retrieved a bottle of insect spray from under a seat and began spraying it into the swarm.

But in the face of this endless horde of locusts, a small bottle of insect spray was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

Terrified passengers covered their faces, screaming in panic.

The bus suddenly lurched violently, and Bai Lixin even felt the vehicle tilt sharply to one side.

As the passengers screamed, a loud and clear sound rang out from outside.

It was like a horn, or perhaps the cry of some animal.

The locusts, which had been attacking the passengers, suddenly stopped as if they had encountered a terrible natural enemy. They stopped attacking and flew away in unison.

The locusts trapped inside the bus were unable to find an exit and fluttered wildly around the enclosed space like headless flies.

Some crashed into the dark ceiling and died, while others slammed into the windows and died.

The attendant caught a moment to breathe and decisively took out insecticide, spraying it with a “zzzz” sound.

It wasn’t until the last locust flipped over on the ground, showing its white belly, that the attendant gasped and shouted, “Folks, please open the windows.”

Bai Lixin opened the window, and a refreshing breeze immediately rushed in, dispelling the thick smells of diesel, sweat, and insecticide inside the bus.

The locusts’ corpses were scraped off by the moving windows, and they fell to the ground outside.

The attendant picked up a broom from the corner and slowly began sweeping the locust corpses off the floor. Her movements were skillful, clearly indicating this wasn’t her first or second time dealing with such a situation.

Bai Lixin looked out of the opened window.

The loess hills were gradually left behind, with the yellow earth interspersed with sparse patches of green. Moving ahead, there was a mountain sparsely covered with green plants.

The mountain didn’t seem very tall but it was quite large.

Perhaps due to the yellow dust in the air, the green plants appeared as though they were draped in a layer of yellow gauze, not as bright and vivid as the vegetation in the water towns of the south.

Bai Lixin didn’t understand why he had ended up here.

What had he been doing before this?

He tried hard to recall.

It seemed he had gone to a convenience store after dark to buy something and passed through a small alley.

He vaguely remembered hearing someone calling his name from the alley, so he entered.

At this point in his memory, Bai Lixin frowned.

After entering the alley, his memory went blank. When he woke up, he found himself on this bus.

[S419M.] Bai Lixin subconsciously called out in his mind.

Three seconds passed, and there was no response.

[Sister System.] He then called another name, but again, there was no response in his mind.

Bai Lixin looked out the window thoughtfully.

Both of them were not around?

He glanced around. All the people on the bus were strangers to him, there was no familiar face.

The clothes they wore weren’t out of date; they were clothes typical of this era.

Some were looking down at their phones, some were sleeping with earphones in.

Others had their phones pressed to their ears, talking on the phone.

Behind the seat in front of him, stuffed in the fabric pocket, was a small, yellowed booklet, with the words “Snake God Mountain” faintly visible on it.

He pulled the booklet from the pocket. It was a tourist brochure.

The cover featured a picture of a mountain, its shape resembling a coiled giant anaconda.

The image on the cover was likely photoshopped, with lush vegetation and vibrant green colors.

At the top were large characters saying, “Snake God Mountain Sacred Site.”

On the left side, in vertical text, were the words: “The Snake God manifests.”

On the right side, also in vertical text: “Prayers always answered.”

At the bottom, there were several lines of text introducing the place.

“Snake God Mountain Sacred Site, located in Y Town, M City, X Province. According to legend, a snake must cultivate for a thousand years to transform into an anaconda, an anaconda must cultivate for a thousand years to transform into a jiao, and a jiao must cultivate for ten thousand years to become a dragon. The Snake God Mountain was once home to a snake god who, after transforming into a dragon, ascended to immortality. This place is the sacred site where the spirit of the snake god lives. After the snake god’s ascension, the locals built a temple in his honor, making this a place blessed by the snake god. It is said that people often see a glowing white snake on the mountain. The appearance of the white snake brings blessings. To see the white snake is a rare fortune. The Snake God manifests, prayers are always answered, and it never fails.”

Bai Lixin opened the booklet, and the first thing that caught his eye was a photo of a temple.

The temple built with red bricks and dark tiles looked grand and majestic. Inside, there was a golden giant snake coiled several times, its head lifted towards the entrance of the temple, its mouth slightly open, and a golden tongue flicking out, exuding an aura of solemnity and majesty.

Next to the giant golden snake stood a “person” with hands in a lotus position. The word “person” was in quotes because, below the neck was a humanoid shape, but above the neck was the head of a snake.

Bai Lixin turned to the next page.

This page showed many people, seemingly attending some important celebration. Everyone’s faces were painted with colorful patterns, and they were kneeling and dancing around a giant totem platform.

The last page was an extended view of Snake God Mountain from the cover.

Bai Lixin stuffed the booklet back into the pocket in front of him.

He wasn’t sure where this place was, because the province and city mentioned in the booklet didn’t exist in Xia Chi’s plane.

Bai Lixin’s lips twitched, and he rubbed his temples helplessly.

‘No way, right? I couldn’t be so unlucky and transmigrated again?’

‘God, you can’t be playing with me like this.’

‘Wait, that’s not right.’

‘Wasn’t God just my husband and myself?’

“Are you feeling carsick?” A hand reached out from beside him, holding a strip of pills. “This is for motion sickness.”

Bai Lixin glanced through his fingers. The person sitting next to him was a young girl. She looked around twenty-one or twenty-two years old, with clear eyes and dressed like a college student.

“No, thank you.” Bai Lixin shook his head. “I’m fine.”

The girl secretly glanced at Bai Lixin, her cheeks slightly red. “Are you here to attend the Snake God Festival too?”

The Snake God Festival?

That should be what was mentioned on the second page of the booklet.

Bai Lixin nodded subtly: “Yes, I heard it’s very effective. Are you here for the festival too?”

“I’m not.” The girl smiled, showing four neat, white teeth. “I’m from Snake God Mountain. It’s summer vacation, so I brought my friends back here to hang out.”

“Jing Jing, your hometown is way too hard to get to.” A girl about the same age peeked her head from behind. “I was almost scared to death by those locusts earlier.”

“Yeah, it’s stuffy in the bus, and the road’s terrible.” Another girl sitting behind Bai Lixin also leaned forward.

The girl beside Bai Lixin immediately gave an embarrassed smile, “Sorry, it’s a seasonal issue. Around this time every year, the locusts swarm, and with the bumpy road, even good buses break down after a few trips. That’s why the buses that come here are all this kind of passenger bus. Hang in there, we’ll be at Snake God Mountain in half an hour.”

The girl behind Bai Lixin looked at his face, and her eyes lit up, “Whoa, a handsome guy! No wonder you suddenly got so attentive, Jing Jing. I want to switch seats with you.”

The girl next to him blushed, “Really, right now?”

“Tsk tsk, Chen Min Min, you big flirt. You think Dong Jing’s like you? Sit still, I’m too irritated to bother getting up and letting you switch.” The girl behind Dong Jing shot a glance at Min Min, her tone slightly threatening.

Min Min stuck out her tongue playfully, “Alright, alright, no switching then.”

Then she looked at Bai Lixin: “Hey, handsome guy, where are you staying? I’ll come find you after we get off the bus.”

Bai Lixin lowered his head at her words: “…”

This child just hit the spot—he also wanted to know where he was staying.

“Man Man, look, he’s shy. How cute.” Min Min shook the girl next to her excitedly.

The girl sounded impatient: “Alright, alright, I know. Shut up, you’re so annoying.”