Alien Hotel.

Chapter 472 Hometown
Within the territory of the Netherworld Valley, in the Taixu Lingshu, a lush and verdant forest stretches out. A cool mountain breeze rustles through the grass and trees, and the sound of spring water drifts from afar, like shattered jade flowing through the secluded valley, highlighting the tranquility and solitude of the mountains.

Several small, unidentified animals seemed to be startled and hurriedly ran out of the nearby bushes and scattered. Immediately afterwards, there was a sound of clothing rubbing against scales from behind the bushes. As the grass swayed, a head first emerged from the tall grass next to it, followed by the upper body of a young woman, and then a long snake tail followed closely behind, quickly slithering out of the forest.

The snake princess emerged from the bushes, her eyes wide as she gazed at the lush, verdant place.

She retracted her terrifying heads and transformed into a human half-body. Her posture was no longer as frightening as before. She also changed into a simple and elegant outfit, imitating the female disciples of Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain. If it weren't for the long tail still trailing from her lower body, she would be almost indistinguishable from a human.

She was afraid she might frighten everyone—after all, it had been many years since she had returned.

But... she searched for a long time but couldn't find the village she remembered.

The Snake Princess raised her upper body, straining to gaze at the distant, vaguely familiar hillside.

It must be here—she still remembered what this hillside looked like, remembered the outline of the distant mountain from this angle, remembered that she had also found the mountain spring on her way here, drunk water from the spring, and found the huge rock near the village, resting on the rock for a quarter of an hour… It must be here.

The snake queen slowly crawled forward, her expression gradually changing from initial excitement to confusion, then to unease, and finally to a thoughtful calm.

After a while, she finally found some remaining traces at the end of the hillside. She saw the roadway that had been covered by bushes and weeds again, a house that had been abandoned for who knows how many years, and a well that had been filled in.

She thought to herself, "I even helped them dig that well back then."

The scales rubbed against the soil and stones, making a rustling sound. She stopped beside a large stone cave near the rock wall, silently looking at the dusty stone table and benches inside, as well as a few pieces of broken wood scattered in the cave.

"Oh, right, it's been many years."

The snake queen muttered to herself as she slowly crawled into the cave, curled her tail among the broken logs, and stared blankly at the wild grass outside.

How long did you stand there in a daze?

She doesn't know either.

But suddenly footsteps sounded outside, along with the scent of people—an elderly-sounding voice came from outside the cave, tinged with hesitation: "Spirit Serpent Goddess, Spirit Serpent Goddess, have you returned?"

Snake Princess was momentarily dazed, initially thinking she had misheard, but then she realized what was happening and suddenly poked her head out of the cave.

A hunched-over old man was standing beside the cave, peering in this direction with a basket in his hand.

The old man seemed startled, but then he burst into laughter, his wrinkles deepening: "It really is you, it really is you!"

He walked over, looking quite pleased. Snake Princess, however, just stared at the human in front of her with confusion. She couldn't remember when she had seen this face before. She quickly searched her memory for every face, but none of them matched. But the old man clearly recognized her—so she tried even harder to recall. When he got closer, she finally sniffed and vaguely discerned something from his aura.

The aura was actually quite different from what she remembered, so she hesitated even when she spoke: "...A child?"

“Yes, yes, yes—you still can’t remember my name,” the old man said happily, almost dancing with joy. “My name is Song Shan, back then the adults all called me Xiao Shan…”

"It really is you?" Snake Princess looked at the other person in surprise, feeling happy inside, but then she looked around and couldn't help but ask, "Where...where did everyone go? What happened to the village?"

“Most of the people are gone. You’ve been gone for almost two hundred years,” Song Shan, now an old man in his eighties, shook his head. “The village too, it was leveled more than a hundred years ago.”

The Snake Princess slowly lowered her head: "Who tied it? Why did it tie it?"

"Because of the poverty alleviation and transformation of mountain villages..."

Boa Hancock: "...Huh?"

"The mountain village is undergoing poverty alleviation and transformation. The immortals in the mountains said that even the Eight Gates Star has been lifted out of poverty, but our place is getting out of poverty every year but getting poor every year. So they simply broke up the whole village and moved it to several nearby towns. Now the young people in the village are all working in the towns."

The Snake Princess blinked, and after a long while, she muttered with a strange expression, "Oh, is that so... this is good."

Song Shan laughed and placed the basket he was carrying on a flat rock at the entrance of the cave. He then spread the blue cloth covering the basket on the rock. "I heard that you might come back in the next couple of days, so I've been coming here every day to visit. I originally wanted to bring the younger generation to pay their respects to you, but the children can't stand the hardship and don't want to climb the mountain... Haven't you eaten yet? This is something I made at home. I remember you like shortbread..."

The Snake Princess stared blankly at the scene, but distant memories involuntarily surfaced in her mind. In a daze, she seemed to have returned to many years ago, back to when the village still existed. She remembered the old houses, the crooked paths, and the children who placed fruit and burned incense at the cave entrance, imitating the adults in their games of worshipping the mountain god—the children in her memory were thin and small, like dark mountain monkeys, holding a half-eaten pastry in front of her cave…

The frail old man slowly placed the flatbread on the blue cloth. His arms were thin and his back was bent—he seemed to have once been strong, but those days were long gone, and now he was thin and small again.

"You're so old, kid."

"You... don't seem to look the same as you used to." The Snake Princess slowly moved to the large rock, looking behind the old man: "Where are those children who used to play with you?"

The old man paused, then slowly shook his head: "Dong-ge and Liu-zi passed away a hundred years ago, Liu A-niu and San-mei died more than twenty years ago, and now I'm all left..."

He raised his head, looked at the Snake Princess and smiled: "We all wanted to wait for your return, and we all learned some rudimentary Taoist arts from the master, but none of us have mastered anything. I have been quite diligent, and by working hard, I have managed to get into the right path and have been lucky enough to live for these two hundred years—otherwise, no one would have come to bring you cakes today."

The Snake Princess remained silent for a moment. The names slowly matched with equally blurry faces in her somewhat chaotic and hazy memory. She murmured softly in her recollection, "I've never seen what you all looked like when you grew up..."

"You have actually met them before."

The Snake Princess looked up in confusion.

“We’ve visited you,” the old man said slowly, placing his basket beside the large rock. “When everyone was still alive, we would go to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain every few years. The immortals of Spirit Mountain would take us to visit you—but you wouldn’t recognize us then. After they passed away, I visited you myself a few times. The immortals there said that although you couldn’t recognize people, seeing familiar faces often would help suppress your inner demons. That Master Yuanhe also said that you would always be much calmer when you saw us…”

"The last time I saw you in the Demon Suppression Tower, you were already able to speak to people, although you were cursing... but that was all."

"Now, you can recognize me."

The old man smiled, picked up a piece of pastry, and handed it to him: "Please try it."

Snake Princess hesitated for a moment, then slowly and clumsily reached out, but failed to catch it, and the pancake fell onto the stone.

“I… I’m not very good at using my ‘hands’ yet,” she said somewhat awkwardly. “Old… Yuanhe only taught me how to transform, but hasn’t had time to teach me how to use these extra arms and fingers.”

"It's alright, it's alright," the old man quickly said, then smiled and picked up the pastry and brought it directly to the Snake Princess's mouth. "Then I'll feed you. I've fed you before."

The shortbread was delicious, and the red bean paste pastry was also very tasty.

The fruit was also delicious.

Of course, these mountain delicacies cannot compare to the exquisite fruits and pastries of Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, but Snake Princess felt that she had not eaten anything so delicious for many years.

She ate everything in the basket, and she also drank the whole pot of homemade wine that Song Shan had brought.

The wine brewed by ordinary people is very weak. To the demon immortal, both its taste and the spiritual power it contains are as thin as water. But she still got drunk and, in a daze, told Song Shan a lot of things in one breath.

About Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, about the Demon Suppression Tower, about the strange stone sphere at the bottom of the tower, the strange and peculiar creatures imprisoned inside, the disciples on the mountain whom Yuan He and Yuan Ling call "wicked disciples" every day, and the group of oddballs who recently arrived at Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain and are called the "Inn"...

There are many things she doesn't understand. She doesn't know what a "dark angel" is, nor does she know what a master from the border region means. She attained enlightenment in the mountains and forests, lived her days in a small village, and spent two hundred years in a daze in the Demon Suppression Tower. To her, this world is just a bizarre and chaotic mess.

But she never felt there was anything wrong with it, because that's just how life has always been.

Using her own understanding, she told Song Shan, a "mortal" with low cultivation, many stories about the immortal mountain, until it got dark.

Song Shan is going back.

If you go back late, you'll inevitably be missed—mortals live short lives, but they are very prolific. This dark-skinned child from the past has now grown into a "grandfather" with a large family.

As the clouds on the horizon gradually darkened, the Snake Princess thought they resembled the sea of ​​clouds on Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain.

"Do you want me to escort you down the mountain?" she asked, looking at the old man before her. "You are very old."

“It’s alright. I have some cultivation. Crossing mountains and valleys is just a leisurely stroll for me,” Song Shan shook his head, but then seemed to remember something. Looking at the “Spirit Snake Goddess” in front of the cave in the dimming light, he said, “Do you have somewhere to go? If you don’t mind, you can come to my house.”

The Snake Princess thought about it very seriously.

As darkness fell, several colorful fireballs faintly rose from beneath the distant clouds. They seemed to be fireworks from a nearby town, part of a celebration. The fireworks were set off a little early, but they looked quite beautiful as they exploded in the fading sunset.

"No," the Snake Princess finally shook her head. "Knowing that you are all doing well after I left, I am at ease. Go back now, and if I have the chance in the future... I will come to find you."

After thinking for a moment, she added, "I have a very keen sense of smell, I was able to find your house—now, I'm going home too."

(End of this chapter)