A Guide to Raising Snake Spirits - Chapter 31

Bairishi Qing was currently in a state of mental frenzy, granting him the privilege of skipping classes. However, Mitsuki Nozomi, as a teacher, still had to fulfill his duties.

The Guide headed back to the Tower to teach without a moment’s rest.

Bairishi Qing’s seat was empty again. During the lecture, Nozomi caught glimpses of those young Sentinels who were close to Bairishi constantly staring at him, looking as if they were dying to say something but hesitating, secretly exchanging meaningful glances.

As soon as class ended, the class monitor a young man with a buzz cut and a simple, honest face—crept into Nozomi’s office. He was followed by two “little tails,” Lonicera and Ye Ran.

“Teacher Mitsuki…”

The young and striking Nozomi looked up from a mountain of homework. “What is it?”

The monitor had personally seen Nozomi leave with the Tower’s security personnel. As an eyewitness, he had already been questioned.

Usually, after a Sentinel went into a frenzy, those with good physical recovery could return to class the next day. Yet, Bairishi Qing had been absent for two days now.

Furthermore, there was that snake tail…

Just as the monitor was trying to find the right words, a certain Sentinel who always wore his heart on his sleeve spoke up.

“Bairishi Qing is famous now! There are photos of him on the school forum. How come he never mentioned having such a cool ability before?” Lonicera waved his hands around excitedly. “The photos were taken down quickly, though. Luckily, I was fast enough to grab a screenshot.”

Ye Ran noticed Nozomi’s expression soured and gave Lonicera a hard kick under the table.

Lonicera yelped, “Ow! What did you kick me for?”

Ye Ran: “…”

The Monitor: “…”

The small office was suddenly crowded with three tall, sturdy Sentinels and Teacher Mitsuki sitting behind his desk.

Nozomi leaned back in his chair, watching the two students’ antics. Amidst the awkward atmosphere, he raised an eyebrow and said, “He’s reminding you not to say things you shouldn’t.”

Ye Ran let out a forced laugh, wishing he could have stuffed Lonicera back into the womb.

The monitor, being the truly sharp one, understood immediately after Nozomi spoke. He said right away, “I understand, Teacher Mitsuki. I won’t spread a word about this, and I’ll keep an eye on the other students who saw it.”

Ye Ran finally seized the chance to escape the suffocating awkwardness, adding quickly, “Me too. Even if someone held a quantum gun to my head, I wouldn’t talk.”

“Oh, uh, me neither,” Lonicera added, finally catching on.

Nozomi nodded. “Good. Spreading rumors wouldn’t be good for any of you either.”

The monitor asked hesitantly, “Then… how is Bairishi Qing? Are we allowed to know?”

“He’s currently in the observation room in the Tower.”

Nozomi glanced at the obvious worry on the faces of these three young Sentinels and added a sentence he hadn’t originally intended to say. “He’ll return to class once his condition stabilizes further.”

After sending them away, Nozomi let out a long sigh and buried his head back into the pile of student assignments.

He hadn’t liked turning in homework as a student, and he didn’t like grading it as a teacher, but it was a mandatory part of the Tower’s curriculum.

With a flourish of his pen, Nozomi marked a large “X” over an answer that was wildly incorrect, adding a comment: “Beautifully written. Forty years ago, this would have passed as a graduation thesis! However, this conclusion was proven false at the beginning of this century. You were simply born too late. I suggest deleting it.”

The Guide moved on to the next piece of academic torture.

Nozomi had noticed that every time something happened with Bairishi Qing, he would have certain dreams.

In the dream, he was holding a tiny snake egg. Fearing that the egg—his mental construct—might break, young Nozomi had found a small box specifically to keep it safe.

“Mom, what do you think my spirit animal will be?”

“What do you hope it will be, Little Nozomi?” His mother’s appearance in the past was almost identical to the present, as if time had been exceptionally kind to her.

“I want a super, super powerful one! One that can take on a hundred enemies at once!” Young Nozomi said excitedly, cradling the box. “The kind that is small but incredibly strong!”

Nozomi’s mother smiled. “That sounds lovely. Unfortunately, Mommy won’t be able to see it. Why don’t you draw it for me once it hatches?”

That was right. His mother was a regular person, so she couldn’t see the Black Mamba’s egg.

Young Nozomi hadn’t awakened yet back then either, but he had been able to see Bairishi Qing’s egg.

“A powerful spirit animal, huh? I’ve heard you have to feed it powerful things.” His father, who had been watering flowers nearby, chimed in leisurely.

“Feed it what?” Young Nozomi rushed over, peering up at his father’s face. “Meatballs? Crabs?”

“None of those.” His father wagged a finger. “You have to feed it something important to you. But as for what exactly that is, your spirit animal chooses it for itself.”

***

By the river, Teacher Mitsuki Ziming had said, “After your spirit animal hatched, you no longer remembered things related to Bairishi Qing.”

“This is a natural phenomenon. Just as a chick absorbs the yolk to hatch, or a mother cat eats the placenta to recover nutrients after giving birth, a spirit animal ‘eats’ some of the host’s memories to serve as an anchor.”

This was actually similar to the principle Nozomi used to wake Bairishi Qing in the mental realm—letting the Sentinel find memory anchors.

It also explained why Bairishi Qing had fallen so deep into the mental abyss back then. He had amnesia, and the few memories he had left were agonizing, leaving him with no rope to climb out.

Nozomi lay on his bed reflecting for a while, then rolled over and dragged the snake out of his mental realm to interrogate it.

“What memories did you swallow?”

The Black Mamba was sluggish, ignoring its master as usual.

Nozomi tried stretching it like a noodle, threatening it, and even holding it upside down to shake it, but to no avail. Rubbing the back of his hand where the snake had struck him, Nozomi watched as the Black Mamba retreated into the depths of his consciousness, refusing to come out again.

“Fine… time for work again.”

“Teacher Mitsuki, you’re here again?” the staff greeted him warmly.

“Yes,” Nozomi nodded with a smile.

Nozomi had been visiting the “prisoner” every day after work without fail, and the staff in the observation room already knew him.

Bairishi Qing’s snake tail looked as if it had been there since birth, showing no signs of changing back.

The Guide skillfully stepped over the tail and pulled up a chair to sit down.

Perhaps the staff had felt sorry seeing the Guide sit on the floor every time, because by his second visit, a chair had appeared in the room.

Nozomi propped his chin on his hand, looking at the tail with a bit of worry. “Can you still feel the Anaconda?”

Bairishi Qing shook his head. “Hardly at all.”

“Sounds like the Anaconda’s consciousness has fallen into a deep sleep,” Nozomi commented.

The Black Mamba was acting restless in his mental realm, so Nozomi let it out. The two men and the spirit animal all stared at Bairishi’s tail, studying it.

The Sentinel’s tail curved and looped around the room, with the tip resting right by the Guide’s feet.

Nozomi reached out and touched the tip of the tail.

“Does it feel like anything when I touch you like this?”

During the previous susceptibility period, the Sentinel had also entered a state of mental fusion, but Nozomi hadn’t been close enough to him then to feel comfortable asking to touch it.

Now, Nozomi naturally reached for the tail he had always been curious about, asking Bairishi with a straight, seemingly professional face.

“Yes.”

On the surface, the Guide appeared to be listening intently, but in reality, he was preoccupied with the sensation under his palm.

Bairishi’s tail felt no different from the Anaconda’s—it was cool to the touch, soft when relaxed, but capable of easily demolishing a thick wall when tensed with sudden force.

“Mitsuki Nozomi.”

The Guide was becoming a bit reluctant to let go. Although his Black Mamba was also a snake, its thin body wasn’t nearly as satisfying to touch as this large one. He kept his head down, offering a distracted “Hmm?”

“You’re touching the tip of my tail.”

The Sentinel’s green, serpentine pupils were fixed on him. His voice was low and slightly husky, and the tip of the tail twitched restlessly in Nozomi’s hand.

Nozomi silently withdrew his hand, placing it properly back on his lap.

A snake’s tail tip is very sensitive. When handling a coiled snake, one must be careful to avoid the head and the tail, but Nozomi had touched both on Bairishi.

Touching a tail shouldn’t mean I have to take responsibility for him, right… Nozomi thought guiltily.

The Sentinel’s tail, however, seemed to have a mind of its own. it slid nimbly onto Nozomi’s chair, resting heavily across his lap.

“As long as it’s Teacher Mitsuki, you can touch it for as long as you like.”

Bairishi’s low voice now sounded almost like he was trying to cast a spell on the Guide.

“No need.” Nozomi quickly scooped his Black Mamba back up, rubbing it between his hands. “If I want to touch something, I’ll just touch the Black Mamba. It’s a snake, too.”

The Black Mamba struggled in Nozomi’s grip, its entire body radiating “displeasure.” It hissed at its master and rattled its tail, clearly annoyed.

Nozomi ignored his spirit animal’s protest and lied through his teeth. “See? It’s very happy to be touched.”

The Sentinel considerately changed the subject, though he didn’t move his tail from Nozomi’s lap.

“Before you arrived, the Tower sent two researchers over.”

Nozomi frowned. “For what?”

He loosened his grip, and the tormented snake immediately slithered away.

“They took two vials of my blood. They said they were going to test it to see if they could find a way to help me break the mental fusion state.”

Bairishi looked somewhat submissive and obedient at that moment.

“You just… gave it to them?” Nozomi asked, his tone sharpening.

A flicker of nameless irritation rose in the Guide’s heart. He had no reason to be angry with Bairishi, but the way the Tower handled this made him feel uneasy.

The Sentinel lowered his head without a word, looking like a dog that had done something wrong.

 Nozomi took a deep breath. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with what they did. “Next time, refuse them. Or at least wait until I get here.”

“Okay.”

Bairishi leaned closer, the tip of his tail sliding off Nozomi’s knees. As he moved, the entire length of the tail rippled like a brown-green wave, the dark brown circular patterns making one feel dizzy.

A Sentinel in a state of mental fusion seemed far more supple and flexible than usual, like a literal python.

As he lowered himself onto the carpet, his chin came to rest exactly on Nozomi’s hand, which was resting on his thigh.

The irritation in Nozomi’s heart suddenly vanished. He turned his palm over to cup the Sentinel’s chin.

“Do you know what you did wrong?” the black-haired Guide asked, looking down at him. Concerned that there might be listening ears, he kept his words vague.

“I made Teacher Mitsuki angry.” The gray-haired Sentinel’s long hair draped down, covering Nozomi’s knees. His eyes, looking up at Nozomi, were as clear and translucent as green emeralds under the light.

“And?”

The Guide lowered his gaze, hiding the flicker of deep blue within.

At that moment, the Sentinel seemed to understand why Nozomi was angry even better than Nozomi did himself.

“I belong to Mitsuki Nozomi.”

However, Bairishi’s tone sounded less like he belonged to Nozomi, and more like he was claiming Nozomi belonged to him.

The Guide felt like someone suddenly jolted awake from a dream. His hand on the Sentinel’s chin trembled as if it had been burned.

Bairishi’s hand moved to cover Nozomi’s, holding it firmly in place and cutting off any chance of the Guide pulling away.

“Right.” The Guide’s momentum suddenly weakened, and he gave a faint, slightly guilty response.

**

When Nozomi left the observation room and turned off the silent mode on his terminal, he found a message waiting for him.

[Xudian: Until we meet again.]

[Mitsuki Nozomi: ?]

Nozomi tried sending two more messages, but there was no reply. He had a sinking feeling.

The Guide began calling his contact. The dial tone rang for a long time, but the contact didn’t pick up.

He regretted not hitting on a young nurse to get an alternative contact number.

Nozomi immediately hailed an automated taxi and rushed to the Special Species Hospital.

Ignoring the strange looks from other patients and medical staff along the way, he ran to Xudian’s ward, leaning against the doorframe, breathless.

He saw only an empty bed with freshly changed sheets. Even the thermos Xudian usually used was gone from the nightstand.

The room was empty, Xudian had left.

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