The old village chief's face turned ashen, then flushed a deep crimson. He trembled from head to toe, overcome with terror.

He opened his mouth several times but couldn't get a word out.

"Only one person died in the well, and that was today. It's never happened before, never, never! Only Tie San..."

One of the kneeling villagers spoke up nervously, but his words were evasive and he kept changing the subject. It was obvious he couldn't be trusted.

"Village Chief, you should tell us everything. Don't hide anything. Otherwise, it might affect the Celestial Master's ability to vanquish demons."

Tu Xiao'an's eyes glinted. He ignored the others and focused on the village chief. The situation was growing more and more bewildering.

'This feels just like a detective case.' It was enough to make him, the great and powerful Snake King, inexplicably nervous.

Celestial Master Zhang chimed in, "If you're hiding something, it will indeed affect my ability to perform the ritual. The consequences will be very serious."

"If you insist on hiding things, then you're on your own."

With that, Celestial Master Zhang put on an angry act, making as if to flick his sleeves and storm off.

The old village chief grabbed hold of Celestial Master Zhang's robes, frantic with fear. "I'll talk! I'll talk!" he stammered. "Someone did die in this well before. It was three years ago."

"What happened three years ago? Tell the truth."

Celestial Master Zhang's eyes bulged. 'So there really is an untold story,' Tu Xiao'an thought to himself. 'And it's clearly related to the Snake Spirit.'

'Otherwise, why would an intelligent Snake Spirit go to such great lengths to torment a village? It could have just come out and eaten everyone.'

The village chief's gaze turned inward, his expression a mix of regret, remorse, and helplessness. Slowly, he began to recount the untold story of what happened three years ago.

The story was utterly unbelievable to those who heard it.

As it turned out, a severe drought had struck the village three years ago. Not a drop of rain had fallen for days on end. This was a common enough occurrence, so the villagers didn't pay it much mind. After all, they had the well; they weren't worried about going thirsty.

But strangely enough, the village's main well also began to run dry. It was as if the spring had vanished, no longer producing any water.

The discovery sent the entire village into a panic. It was their only well. The villagers lived off the mountains, but for water, they depended entirely on that well. If it dried up on top of the long drought, everyone in the village would be finished.

Just as panic was setting in, a rumor suddenly started to spread through the village, growing more intense by the day. It claimed that a demon had appeared among them, a scourge that had angered the Well Dragon King and caused the spring to stop flowing. The only way to make the water return, the rumor said, was to find this demon and throw it into the well as a sacrifice for the Well Dragon King to kill.

What was a demon? No one knew. For generations, the people of Ping'an Village had been simple, honest mountain folk. How could a demon appear among them? But the rumor gave a clue: this demon was born in a yin year, on a yin month, on a yin day. It would be heavy with Yin Qi and Evil Qi. If they could find a child born at that specific hour, then they would have found their demon.

This rumor gave the villagers a direction for their search, because there was, in fact, a child in the village who had been born at that exact hour.

The child had been born to a widow—or rather, the woman wasn't technically a widow. She had never even been married.

Back then, at eighteen, she had blossomed into a radiant beauty, fresh and lovely. As the belle of Ping'an Village, she had secretly captured the hearts of countless young village men.

Nearly every young man of marrying age had gone to her family's home to ask for her hand, hoping to make the gorgeous village belle his wife.

The village belle's mother had died young, so she was raised solely by her father, an old hunter who doted on her dearly.

But despite the many proposals, the village belle wasn't interested in any of them. Her father never forced her, figuring she was still young and could take her time to find someone she truly liked.

But then, one day—no one knows who noticed first—people saw that the unmarried village belle's belly was growing larger by the day. She was nearly due to give birth.

There was no hiding her swollen belly.

Suddenly, the whole village was buzzing with gossip. They said the village belle was shameless, pregnant with some bastard's child before she was even married.

It was a massive scandal, especially in a village so isolated from the outside world. It was a complete disgrace. Her father was furious and demanded she tell him who the father was.

But strangely, no matter how her father pressed her, the village belle refused to name the child's father.

The villagers, meanwhile, were all speculating about which local lad had managed the feat of getting the village belle pregnant. What was done was done; he should just step forward and admit it. The worst he'd get was a beating from her father.

And yet, in the entire village, not one man came forward to take responsibility.

The village belle went into labor, and her father had no choice but to let her give birth. He figured the child's father would have to show himself eventually.

But on the very day the child was born, the village belle's father died unexpectedly. His death was a complete mystery.

The village belle had given birth to a boy, and the villagers all said this fatherless child had cursed his own grandfather to death.

With her father gone, the village belle raised her child alone. She had almost no contact with the other villagers, and none of them wanted anything to do with her.

But one day, a mob of villagers burst into her home and snatched up her three-year-old son.

They told her the child was a bad omen. He had not only cursed his grandfather to death at birth, but was now bringing an unprecedented disaster upon the village. They declared they were going to throw the boy into the well and let the Well Dragon King kill him.

The village belle and her young son had only each other; how could she possibly let them take him? She fought desperately to stop them. Many of the village women couldn't bear to watch, either. They knew a child is a piece of its mother's heart, and putting themselves in her shoes, none of them would want their own child thrown into a well.

The women tried to reason with the crowd, urging them not to believe the rumor. Perhaps in a day or two, they said, the well would fill up on its own.

Many of the men wavered. For these simple villagers, the thought of so cruelly throwing a three-year-old boy into a well was unbearable. It felt like an offense against nature itself.

But at this moment, a man rushed out and knocked the straw hat off the three-year-old boy's head.

The moment the straw hat hit the ground, a wave of terror washed over the villagers. Their hair stood on end as if by some wicked magic. In that instant, all pity vanished. The child had to be thrown into the well. Immediately.

Even the women who had felt sorry for her fell silent; not one of them raised a voice in protest.

Why had everyone's heart turned to stone so suddenly? Because in that moment, they were all convinced that the child was truly a demon—the one responsible for the village's thirst.

It was because of what they saw when the man knocked the hat from the three-year-old's head. The sight was beyond terrifying.

A person's head should have hair, right? But this boy's didn't.

Instead, the boy's scalp was covered in a writhing mass of moving tentacles, like countless tiny snake tails. They squirmed before the villagers' eyes, a sight so horrifying that the mere thought of it sent chills down the spine. It was more frightening than seeing a ghost.

A demon! A little demon! If this wasn't a demon, then what else in the world could be? 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

No wonder his grandfather died the moment he was born.

So the old man must have been literally scared to death by this newborn demon.

Anyone would have been scared to death.