Li Ruo enters the shrine of the old temple from the mountain near her grandmother's village and tries to advance through its garden by pushing aside the dense spider webs that are surrounding the entire settlement.

Her grandmother told her for numerous times not to go to that place because it brings bad luck but she did not listen a word the old woman said to her and hurried to see what's inside. This temple had very beautiful gardens in the old days but at some point in time, the villages suddenly stoped to visit the mountain and no one took care of it anymore.

Her steps were slowly leaving some prints in the green and fresh grease, while her hands were desperately cutting the webs in front. In this small village no one dares to enter the old temple because some strange events happened in the past. Li Ruo wasn't the type who would get scared because of some baseless rumours and due to her curiosity, she decides to take a look inside and see with her own eyes what's going on in there and why everyone thinks that it only brings misfortune to the people who are crossing its threshold.

While she advances through its deserted and degraded gardens, a voice resembling a woman resounds from the bottom of a...dry lotus pond.

"Who is it?", she asks but no response comes back.

She gets closer and closer and tries to survey the bottom of the pond. Nothing is inside the huge hole and the fact that nothing is found calms her a bit but the sound is sinister enough to scare anyone. Just when she turns around to leave that section of the garden, the girl suddenly steps on a green snake. Feeling that sly thing under her foot scares her like hell and she slips down in the dry pond. Here she falls into a deep sleep, probably because of the blow to her head.

She did not tell anyone that she was going to explore the mountain behind the village when she left, so no one will probably come to this remote and cursed place too soon.

Stepping on the green snake and falling into the empty pond's hole is the first sign of misfortune since she stepped inside the abandoned temple.

We don't know exactly how much time passes since she closes her eyes in the desolate temple and until she opens them again but when she opens them this child sees the gentle rays of the sun in a whole different environment, even her appearance is different. She looks into the water while she tries to cling on some big leaves of lotus so she doesn't drown but she can't recognize herself. This person is a bad swimmer in all her past or future existences because this one makes no exception. The child screams for help but no one is around to hear her and drag her out of the pond's water, even though the temple did not look abandoned at this time.

"Help, help, help!", she was continuously yelling.

At her desperate screams, a large green snake appears and pushes her out of the pond.

"Can't you swim, you little stupid monk?", the snake says to her.

She's all drenched and exhausted and doesn't even realizes what dragged her out of the water but when she regains her powers and sees the huge snake in front of her she starts to loudly scream again and again until the snake hets annoyed and because it can't support her noises anymore, it transforms into a human body to calm her down.

"Can you please stop screaming, I'm sensitive to sound?", the green snake says.

"Can't you see that I'm just a beautiful woman? Just a beautiful woman!"

The good looking woman rises the little monk's head to let it look at her and asks: "Are you a monk in this temple, little one?"

The human being shakes its head in response that it isn't, even tough it was wearing a monk's outfit. Not even the hair was cut, its long tails hung down the back until they reached the knee.

At a closer analysis, the snake woman realizes that this little monk is actually a girl.

"What's your name?", the woman asks.

The scared little girl murmurs that she doesn't know, she doesn't know anything.

"How is it possible not to know your own name? Don't tell me you don't remember who you are anymore?", exclaims the pretty woman.

"I don't.", murmurs the girl.

"Then...., I'll keep calling you: Ruo Ran!", the snake says. "Are you going to live here in my garden until you remember your name?", angrily asks the green snake.

"I don't know. "....replies the girl.

"Is there something you know, or you only know to shake your head?", questions her the snake.

"I don't know, I really don't remember anything!", insists the little child."

"Fine, since you don't remember where you are from and how you got here in my lotus pond, I will pretend that I don't see you. You can live here if you want until you regain your memories. The monks stopped using this area months ago and no one passes through this place right now. It's a quiet place just good for me to cultivate and live my peaceful life but sometimes I am getting bored. When I was still tiny, the young monks were playing with me in the garden. Now is just me here. Sigh...the old days!", explains the snake to the little human being.

"You don't mind if I stay here for a period of time?", shyly asks the girl.

"As long as you don't scream, I don't mind, though I strongly believe that it would be better for you to live among humans and not to stay in a isolated place.", affirms the snake.

So this is how the green snake started to live together with a human being again, even though its body was getting bigger day by day and it became more and more scary at first sight.

At the moment, the snake could not maintain its human form for long and this was also the reason why he did not leave the lotus pond or this garden. If the snake woman can continue cultivating, she will become an immortal and ascend into the heavenly realm.

The sun is rising and our small human opens her eyes and flashes her long lashes just to see her face licked buy a thin and bifurcated tongue.

At this sight, the girl starts yelling like crazy, rolling her eyes backwards and forward.

"What are you doing, "Greeny"? indignantly questions the little girl. "Why are you on top of me?" "No wonder that I felt a heavy rock above my chest while I was sleeping! I almost couldn't breathe and forcibly woke up!"

"I was studying your face, you know? Here at this temple are only monks and this is the first time that I am seeing a woman!"

"Aren't you a woman yourself?" replies the girl.

"Sort of!", speaks back the green snake.

"How's this, sort of? You look like a female to me!", exclaims the human being.

"I don't know the difference between a female and a male snake right now! I never stepped outside this garden before!"

"Where you born here?", asks the girl.

"I think so! I don't remember the details of my birthday because I was probably too small to realize something at that time with my closed little eyes."

"Anyway, get off me! You're so heavy!", says the girl.

After so many complaints from Ruo-er, the snake gets off her body and jumps into the lotus pond.

"Are you hungry?, Greeny suddenly asks her.

"I think so.", replies the girl in a low voice while her stomach was making loud noises."I particularly miss my grandmother's lotus roots soup right now. I haven't eaten cooked food for several days."

The snake starts picking up lotus seeds pods and also digs up sweet lotus roots.

"Do you know to cook?, asks the girl.

"You think the wild animals can cook?, asks the snake. We, the wild creatures, don't have a pair of skilled hands like you humans. It would be impossible and pointless for us too cook. We only eat raw food, everything that we find around us is very good as it is. It takes thousands of years of cultivation for us to transform into a human body and start acting like one does.Cook it yourself!"

"I'll give it a try if you help me gather what I need!, murmurs Ruo-er.

Hearing that, Greeny puts down on the grass, in front of her, a bunch of lotus seed pods and roots.

Later come: two rabbits, a bucket with cold water, some stones, dry branches of tree, a huge pot and two bowls stolen from the monks.

Looking at the dirty pot and bowls, Ruo-er asks Greeny how did she carry them and the snake tells her that in her mouth.

"I swallowed them when a monk was washing the crockery in front of the well and spit it right here.", this answer satisfies the girl's curiosity in an instant.

"No wonder that they're all full of this thick saliva now! I must properly clean them before starting using them!", the girl mumbles.

When the pots are clean again, Ruo-er puts the big one on a trivet made of stones, starts the fire below it by hitting two stones between them and throws the sliced rabbit meat inside the pot. After the meat browns a little, she pours the water and the round sliced lotus roots. Realizing that she still needs something, Ruo-er asks Greeny to borrow from their neighbours again.

Of course that the snake could not simply knock at their doors and ask for some salt because everyone will be terrified by her appearance, so she sneaks into their barn and swallows a bag with salt. Fortunately, the salt was protected by a waterproof bag so it didn't become wet from the snake's saliva.

"Greeny, you should stop this habit of yours of swallowing anything you see in front!, complaints the Ruo-er.

"I'll stop doing it when I'll have a human form, for now I must be satisfied with this!"

The soup is properly seasoned, the greens are added and the smell of fresh cooked food fills the entire garden.

When the boiling is over, Ruo-er fills the two bowls with soup and hands one to Greeny who reluctantly looks at the hot soup.

"Though the soup smells good,I already said that we don't need cooked food and besides this I don't have hands to hold it." Greeny complains about her form over and over again.

"Then I'll put it on the table so you can sip from it." Ruo-er insists. "Take care, it's still hot!"

The big snake takes some sips but because of the soup's temperature, she burns her tongue and yells that her seventh senses were destroyed by the pot's heat. Greeny is so aggrieved that she rolls over the ground for several times and later she dips her head in the pond's water.

When she's out, her seventh senses are back.

"I've told you to be careful! How old are you, seriously?" says Ruo-er.

"I have nine hundred and ninety nine years!" the snake proudly answers. "Just a bit more and I'll attain my human shape. When that day comes, I'll try copying all the habits of the humans until I'm satisfied."

"Do you want to be a human that much?" asks her Ruo-er.

"Yes! Because the humans are considered intelligent creatures, more intelligent than us animals.", Greeny says.

"That's not true!", answers back Ruo-er. "You're the most intelligent snake I have ever seen in my entire life, more clever than many humans in the world and you can speak clearly just like a human. It's amazing!", happily explains the girl.

Hearing this the snake smiles and waves her head in unison with the wind, not wanting to stop from shaking it. Ruo-er checks the bowl of soup from the table and affirms that its temperature is normal now and it can be safely eaten.

Hearing her words, Greeny sips again from it with her bifurcated tongue and makes a long "mmmm...." sound of happiness.

"The human food is not bad at all! I never thought that the meat can be this tasty fried or boiled together with the vegetables. When I'll transform into a human, I'll learn cooking too!", says the green snake.

" Ten days later...."

The festival of autumn harvest is taking place in this area and people from all over the region start coming at the temple with their offerings to worship the local deity.

It's a period of renewal and celebration for everyone down the mountains and forests.

Once the temple opens its gates to the visitors, the place will become crowded and less quiet.

This festival lasts for seven days and today is the first day of celebration.The monks dressed in their white blue attires and running from a corner of the settlement to another one are making the place to look more bustling than ever.They send someone to lock the doors to the lotus pond garden so that no visitor can get inside, after all this is the green snake's territory and they were aware of its magnificent presence because their elders once played with a smaller version of it. Surprisingly for them, the snake considerably took in proportions lately and it became big enough to scare a regular human.

"What kind of snake is this?", they were asking themselves, "It growns much larger than it should grow a normal one!", "Maybe is a python!".

No one finding a plausible answer and because the snake never agressed or killed any human being, they decide to ignore it and seal that area of the temple.

Inside the sealed garden the green snake and the girl are living their lives in tranquility but lately became the snake is growing bigger and is eating more day by day, the small animals (rabbits, birds, lizards, rats) are on extinction and the only edible things left are the fruits, roots and the lotus pods, that of course won't last for the entire year or forever. Ruo-er is greatly preoccupied by this matter but the snake assures her that they can leave this place if the situation becomes more drastic than it is and in the worst case, Ruo-er can go anywhere in the world because she has no frightening appearance and the people won't banish her. "Don't panic! The world is big, there must be a place for everyone!", she says to Ruo-er. "As long as you believe in it, good things will happen to you sooner or later!"

Still, the girl isn't worrying for herself, she's worrying for her new green friend who treated her very well all these days that they have lived together and it was her only consolation and moral support when she found herself all alone in the world.

"Greeny, I'm only worrying that the others will mistreat you when they meet you.", says Ruo-er. "You've become a gigantic green snake and your size keeps getting bigger and bigger. When they'll see you like this, the people outside will think that you're a bloody monster and they will not know that you are actually a kind creature that never harmed humans before."

"I can't do anything about my size right now! I will become more voluminous than this in time. It's called growth! Aren't you humans the same, you keep growing?",questions the snake.

The day passes and nothing extraordinary happens, besides the fact that the temple is full of voices and prayers from the crowds that are coming and leaving frequently and so the lotus pond garden's tranquility is disturbed by this uproar. When the night comes, the quietness is finally returning back to the lotus pond but this only lasts for twelve hours because once the sun glitters on the serene sky again, it also brings inside the countless people eager to worship the deities and thank them for this year's harvest.

The second day is the same, nothing out of ordinary. Ruo-er sneaks through the crowd to enjoy the festival as well and in the evening, when the people are fewer, she steals from the crowd's offerings to bring back to the lotus pond garden.

This lasts for five days, until the people realize that the offerings to the deities are completely gone. "How can they all be gone?", they ask themselves. "Did the monks ate them over night?" but that would be impossible because it was simply to much.The monks were also surprised by this event but they didn't say a word about the closed area of the temple to the people because they didn't believe is harmful to them, after all only fruits, vegetables, and other ailments were lost. The visitors were assured that the situation is under control and that the offerings were moved by them to a safe place, so that other people can place theirs in front of the deity too.

Somehow, before the last day of the celebration, a suspicions guy who attended the previous events wants to ambush and catch the creature that steals the offerings, so he waits in the hall where the gifts are placed all night. At some point, he falls asleep but he suddenly wakes up when Ruo-er leaves with the offerings.

He jumps on his feet and runs after the the one who just left. Ruo-er is already far away but he keeps following her foot prints until he reaches the garden. She isn't aware that someone is trailing her. He enters the forbidden area of the temple and a green and gigantic reptile assaults him and frightens him so much that he pees into his pants and faints right there on the spot.

When the sun is rising the next day and wakes him up, he instantly runs out of that place and tries to find someone to tell what happened that night. The gates of the temple are already widely open for the last wave of visitors and the people are crowding inside, when a mad man throws himself into the crowd screaming that there's a green monster in the east side of the temple. This temple is situated on the lowest peak of a chain of mountains and the entire area has several main gardens and a few smaller gardens. Our lotus pond garden was one of the small gardens situated somewhere in the far away east side of the settlement. Even though the monks are trying to calm down the man, they can not, that's why they are forced to politely throw him outside so that the festival can end successfully.