After transmigrating into the body of the protagonist's childhood friend, he was targeted by a

Zhang the hunter leaned against the pit wall, his lips dry, cracked, and white. Whether from excessive blood loss or pain, he had already fainted.

This was definitely not a trap dug by Zhang the hunter himself.

Hunter Zhang remembers every trap clearly and will never be careless enough to fall into a pit he dug himself.

Yu Linzhou suppressed the surging anger in his heart, transformed into human form, and leaped into the pit to help Zhang the hunter up.

His spiritual power won't last long; we need to rescue Zhang the hunter quickly and find someone to treat him.

He used his spiritual power to probe into Zhang the hunter's body and found that although his pulse was weak, he was still alive.

After the bleeding was stopped, Zhang the hunter's fingers twitched, as if he had regained consciousness.

Yu Linzhou cursed under his breath, carefully carried him on his back, and leaped out of the trap.

The rain finally started falling, hitting his face. He raised his hand to wipe it away, then turned and walked down the mountain.

His already limited spiritual power was now at its limit. He barely managed to hold on until he reached the door of the first house at the foot of the mountain before he could no longer maintain his human form. His body swayed and he reverted to his original form as a black snake.

He grew several sizes larger, used his snake tail to wrap around Zhang the hunter and leaned him against the door, then laboriously raised the tip of his tail and patted the door a few times.

After a while, the sound of slippers could be heard from inside the house, and a man shouted at the top of his lungs, "Coming, coming! Stop knocking! It's raining so hard, who is it?"

The door creaked open, and the sleepy man, while pulling on his sleeves, used the flash of lightning to get a clear look at the scene at the doorway.

A black snake, as thick as a water bucket, coiled outside the door, its vertical pupils gleaming eerily in the rainy night.

The man froze instantly, his face turned pale, and he almost fainted from fright.

Yu Linzhou knew that humans were afraid of him. When he saw him come out, he pushed Zhang the hunter forward and quickly disappeared into the rain.

The man took a while to recover before daring to move. He shakily peeked out and recognized that the person lying on the ground was Old Zhang.

"Old Zhang!"

His expression changed drastically. Forgetting his fear, he bent down to help while calling for his wife to come out and help.

When the man's wife came out and saw the situation, she was also startled and quickly helped carry Zhang the hunter into the house.

The woman looked at Zhang the hunter's injured leg, her brows furrowing. "It's pierced right through; we need to treat it quickly. Husband, change his wet clothes first, I'll go get a doctor."

The man nodded in agreement, then added, "Put on your raincoat; the road is slippery, be careful."

His wife responded, grabbed a raincoat from the wall, and rushed into the rain.

The man helped Zhang the hunter change into clean clothes and then checked his injuries again.

Apart from the wound on his calf where a bamboo splinter had pierced him, he had no other wounds on his body.

An absurd thought popped into his mind.

Surely it wasn't that black snake that carried Old Zhang down from the mountain?

He looked back at Old Zhang, who was unconscious on the kang (a heated brick bed), and then at the dark, rainy night outside the door. The more he thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed.

He had heard stories of mountain spirits repaying kindness, but he always thought they were just made-up stories to scare people.

The man's eyes were complicated. Could this really be a case of good people being rewarded?

He tucked the blanket around Zhang the hunter and muttered to himself, "Alright, you're lucky. I'll never laugh at you again."

The doctor was quickly summoned. He walked briskly to the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), lifted the quilt, and carefully examined the wound on Zhang the hunter's leg. His tightly furrowed brows relaxed a little.

"Fortunately, no bones were broken. Just pull the bamboo out, apply some medicine, and let it heal slowly."

He opened the medicine box, took out hemostatic powder and a roll of gauze, and then asked the man to boil a pot of hot water on the stove.

The man responded and went to fetch hot water quickly.

The old doctor turned and instructed, "Hold him down and don't let him move. It will hurt when they pull it out, but don't panic if he wakes up. Just hold him down."

The two men nodded and pressed down hard on Zhang the hunter's body.

The doctor grasped the bamboo splinter, took a deep breath, and with a swift movement of his wrist, pulled the bamboo out.

Blood gushed out immediately. Zhang the hunter let out a muffled groan while unconscious, his brows furrowed tightly, and his body instinctively struggled, but was held down firmly by the two men.

The old doctor quickly stopped the bleeding and bandaged the wound.

After finishing his work, he was covered in sweat. He then instructed the two to change the medication twice a day, prescribed an oral medication, and gave them a long list of precautions.

"It takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone. Although the bone in this leg wasn't broken, the tendons and veins were pierced. It will probably hurt when it's cloudy or rainy. I'm afraid I won't be able to do heavy work anymore."

The man nodded: "We understand, thank you, doctor. It's good enough that he's alive; we'll talk about the rest later."

……

Zhang the hunter woke up the next day.

Men can't keep secrets, and within a day he had embellished his thrilling experience from the previous night and spread it throughout half the village.

After learning that Zhang the Hunter had woken up, the villagers used this as an excuse to visit him, curiously asking if it was true.

Old Zhang leaned against the pillow, his face still pale from blood loss, but he grinned upon hearing this: "Of course it's true. It's a black snake I rescued in the mountains a while ago. It's very intelligent and can understand what I'm saying. If it weren't for it, I might have died in the mountains."

The room erupted in chaos.

"Good heavens, do snakes repay kindness?"

"I knew Old Zhang hadn't wasted his time saving those wild animals all these years!"

"You didn't say that before. You said he was mentally ill!"

"...That's just how it is."

These days, people rarely eat meat, not even once a year. Every time Zhang the hunter goes up the mountain, he not only doesn't know if he can catch any prey, but he often loses a lot of things instead.

Everyone used to say he had something wrong with his head.

However, after this extraordinary encounter, everyone felt a sense of awe, and there was much less gossip.

Zhang the hunter's leg was in severe pain, so his neighbor asked him to stay a few more days.

Hunter Zhang was preoccupied with the black snake at home. By the third day, he couldn't stand it any longer. Leaning on a makeshift wooden cane, he insisted on going home.

The man couldn't persuade him otherwise, so he had no choice but to help him slowly walk towards his dilapidated house.

When I pushed open the courtyard gate, the house was quiet.

In the wooden tub in the east room, Yu Linzhou rested his head on the rim. Hearing the door open, he flicked his tongue, his vertical pupils slightly narrowed in the dim light.

This was the first time the man had seen the black snake clearly in broad daylight, and he felt both awe and fear.

Although Zhang the hunter had said that the snake was intelligent and wouldn't harm people, his legs still felt a little weak.

However, he had a question in his mind: He clearly saw that the black snake was much bigger that night, as thick as a water bucket, so why did it look so much smaller today?

Could it really be a spirit that has become sentient and can change its size at will?

The man carefully helped Zhang the hunter sit down on the kang (a heated brick bed), gave him some instructions, and then prepared to leave.

Before leaving, he turned around, clasped his hands together in the direction of the wooden basin, and bowed devoutly.

Whether it's a spirit or not, praying to it more often can't hurt.

Maybe it will actually work?

Yu Linzhou: "..."