Ning Dao Covered with Snow

Chapter 307 Poisonous Snake
Yan Ciwan dodged the flying bamboo plate by sidestepping it.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, An Tong pulled out a paper packet from his sleeve. He quickly opened the packet and sprinkled the white powder inside towards Yan Ciwan.

Yan Ciwan immediately held her breath, stood up, and kicked the stool away.

The stool hit An Tong squarely. He quickly pulled A Dan out of the room, and they then closed and locked the door from the outside.

White powder fluttered to the ground. Yan Ciwan took out her embroidered handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose, bent down, dipped her finger in the white powder, and smelled it. The smell was a bit fishy, ​​unlike the smell of Datura stramonium in her memory.

Then she picked up a mutton pie, broke it open, and brought it close to her nose to smell it. Amidst the rich aroma of mutton, she could vaguely detect a familiar scent.

Before she could think about it, she heard a strange flute melody coming from outside the door.

Yan Ciwan listened carefully and discovered that the flute music was mixed with some strange rustling sounds.

Suddenly, a white voice came from above.

"careful!"

As the sound fell to the ground, a black snake suddenly darted out from under the wardrobe, crawling rapidly along the ground. It opened its mouth, revealing its fangs, and lunged at Yan Ciwan!
Outside, An Tong held a short flute engraved with a snake totem, from which the music originated.

Adan pressed her face against the door, trying to peek inside through the crack. However, the oil lamp inside was out, and the light was so dim that she couldn't see anything clearly. She could only strain her ears to listen. She heard a man's voice, and immediately frowned, speaking to An Tong in a Western Regions dialect.

"There seems to be another man inside."

An Tong changed his previous timidity and said with a serious face, "It should be her accomplice. She didn't come alone."

"Are the venomous snakes we keep capable of dealing with them?"

"I just sprinkled snake powder. That snake powder is not only poisonous, but it can also stimulate venomous snakes, making them extremely agitated. With so many snakes, if any one of them can bite them, it can kill them on the spot."

Hearing this, Adan felt a little relieved. She rarely praised her husband, saying, "You really have a way with people, you specially lured her into this room."

The east wing was nominally a guest room, but it was actually a snake house used by the couple to raise snakes. The doors and windows could only be opened from the outside. At this moment, Yan Ciwan, who was locked in the snake house, was like a turtle in a jar to the couple.

Inside the room, Yan Ciwan neither dodged nor evaded, but expressionlessly raised her right foot and stomped down, striking the black snake precisely at its vital spot.

She pressed her toes down hard, and the black snake struggled fiercely, but stopped moving after a moment.

Immediately afterwards, three more snakes darted out from all directions and pounced on Yan Ciwan. Yan Ciwan drew her Ning Blade and swept it across, cutting them in half with a single stroke.

But that wasn't all; venomous snakes kept emerging from all directions, their numbers so great it was terrifying.

Following the scent, they crawled precisely towards Yan Ciwan's location.

……

Adan pressed her ear to the door and listened for a while, then turned to Antong and said, "There's no sound from inside. Have they been bitten to death by poisonous snakes?"

Just to be on the safe side, An Tong suggested that she wait and see.

The two waited for a long time, but the room remained quiet and without a sound.

An Tong guessed that the person inside must have been bitten by a poisonous snake, and even if they were not dead, they should be unconscious by now. So he put away his flute, picked up the wood-chopping knife that was placed in the corner, tucked it behind his waist, and asked A Dan to bring a torch and a rope from the woodshed.

They opened the door, slowly pushing it open a crack, and peered into the room by the light of the torches. They saw the floor littered with the scattered corpses of venomous snakes, and the woman who had been locked inside was nowhere to be found.

Adan watched in horror: "She didn't run away, did she?"

An Tong's face was extremely pale. He had a very bad feeling and immediately tried to close the door again. Unfortunately, he was too late.

A slender, gleaming silver blade emerged and pierced the door, jamming it shut. An Tong and A Dan followed the blade's edge, their gaze sweeping up the hilt to reveal a slender, fair hand holding the blade. Their eyes traveled upwards along the wrist, until a woman's face, hanging upside down, suddenly came into view.

Caught off guard, Adan screamed in terror, "A ghost!"

Although An Tong didn't scream, he was so frightened that his limbs went weak and he almost fainted.

The woman grinned at them.

That smile looked especially sinister and terrifying in the darkness.

Adan instinctively turned to run away, but accidentally bumped into Antong. Antong was already unsteady, and he fell to the ground with a thud, the torch almost burning his hand.

They scrambled to their feet, heard a creaking sound, turned around, and saw that the door had been fully opened.

A woman stepped across the threshold and came out.

Under the bright moonlight, her face gradually became clear.

It was late when the swallows departed!
An Tong regained his senses and realized that the so-called female ghost was Yan Ciwan. He secretly thought that things were not good. The poisonous snakes had been unable to do anything to this woman. She was more difficult to deal with than he had expected!
He shoved Adan hard: "Let's go!"

Adan turned to look at Antong and saw him pull out a wood-chopping knife tucked into his waistband. He held a torch in one hand and the knife in the other, standing in front of Yan Ciwan, seemingly ready to fight her to the death to give her a chance to escape.

Adan stomped her foot angrily, then turned and ran away.

But instead of running towards the back door, she ran straight into the kitchen.

She quickly ran out again, this time with a fire poker in her hand.

Waving a fire poker, she recklessly handed it to Chao Yan Ciwan and lunged at her, shouting, "I'll fight you to the death!"

However, before the fire poker could fall, Ning's knife was already pressed against Adan's neck.

The icy touch sent a shiver down her spine, and she stopped moving.

An Tong was horrified at the sight and rushed forward to protect A Dan. He gripped his wood-chopping knife tightly and said to Yan Ciwan with a fierce but weak voice, "Don't forget, your grandmother is still in the hands of the shaman. If you kill us, the shaman will definitely not let your grandmother go!"

Yan Ciwan looked at the two people in front of her. Their bodies were trembling, and even though they tried their best to suppress it, they could not hide the fear in their eyes.

She called out Fu Bai's name.

Fu Bai came out of the house and asked, "What are your orders, Madam Ning?"

Yan Ciwan raised her chin at the couple and said, "Tie them both up."

Adan had a hemp rope wrapped around her waist, which she had taken out of the woodshed earlier. It was originally meant to tie up Yan Ciwan, but now it was convenient for Fubai.

Fu Bai used hemp rope to tie An Tong and A Dan to the stone mill in the yard.

At this moment, the couple stood back to back, separated by a heavy millstone. They could not see each other, their hands and feet were bound, and they were both extremely panicked.

Yan Ciwan picked up all the mutton patties that had spilled on the ground and put them back into the bamboo plate.

She carried the bamboo tray to the stone mill and asked, "Is there datura in this mutton pie?"