After that, Bai Suzhen would come to the medicine shop every day.

She used all her means to try to kill me.

But every weapon would turn into flying dust before touching me.

Bai Suzhen dropped her snake venom into my water.

But the water turned into a gray mist and vanished before I touched it.

After each failure, as a cost, she would transform into her true form—a big pink snake.

Occasionally, I would touch her scales and murmur to myself:

"If she were still here, she would probably have grown this big too."

Upon hearing this, Bai Suzhen would immediately transform into a human form and leave.

The assassination continued for a whole year, but Bai Suzhen was very patient.

Perhaps for a fairy, a year is just a fleeting moment.

But one day, when Bai Suzhen came, I changed my mind.

I asked her to accompany me to Lei Feng Pagoda because it was the one-year anniversary of the departure of that little snake.

I swept the entire Lei Feng Pagoda with a broom, just like before.

She sat there watching, resembling the young girl from the past but not entirely.

She grew impatient, and she didn't like the steamed bun I handed to her.

She turned to me, feeling incredulous:

"Don't you know that snakes don't eat vegetarian food?"

While I was having a meal, Bai Suzhen asked me if I knew the purpose of snake skin oil-paper umbrellas.

I told her that my master said the oil-paper umbrella handle was a seal used to suppress her.

But Bai Suzhen shook her head and asked me in return:

"If you can flay me and break my bones, why can't you kill me?"

Actually, this question didn't need an answer; it already had one.

Bai Suzhen said there is only one purpose for snake skin oil-paper umbrellas.

It guides ghosts.

There are many ghosts in the world, and many of them get lost in certain special places.

Snakes are spiritual creatures, and snake skin appears as a light to ghosts.

By writing the names of the ghosts on the inner wall of the snake skin oil-paper umbrella, no matter how far they are, the ghosts can see that light.

She had never heard that snake skin oil-paper umbrellas could suppress evil spirits.

I pondered with doubt about that oil-paper umbrella, but I couldn't recall if someone's name was written on the inner wall.

Next, Bai Suzhen turned her head and asked me a serious question:

"Do you like me?"

I was stunned, not knowing how to answer that question.

But Bai Suzhen said that from the moment I saved her, our fate was already determined.

Furthermore, even her name was given by me.

All spiritual beings in the world must repay kindness, and the way a snake spirit repays kindness is by becoming the person's wife.

She waited for me for a thousand years, and if it weren't for that nightmare, she would have asked me this question long ago.

I looked at Bai Suzhen's face and firmly shook my head:

"The Bai Suzhen I like is not you.

"The Bai Suzhen I saved is also not you."