Siheyuan, integrating everything, cultivating the city

Lao Zhang laughed and said, "This is normal. You are new here and you are not familiar with this place yet. This is our territory, but there are other little creatures looking for food here. If you are really scared, you might as well put some realgar wine, which is worse than any herbal medicine in repelling snakes."

"Realgar wine?" Li Xiangqian was stunned, a hint of doubt flashed in his eyes. This was a method of driving away snakes that he had never heard of, but seeing that Lao Zhang said it so confidently, it seemed to be reliable.

Old Zhang looked at his hesitation and grinned, "Don't worry, everyone in my hometown does this and it works. Besides, realgar wine is natural, unlike those chemical agents. Although the smell is irritating, it is not harmful to plants."

Li Xiangqian nodded, thinking that what Lao Zhang said made sense. He secretly made up his mind: "Since it is so easy to drive away snakes, why don't I give it a try?" He immediately got up and went to the town with Lao Zhang to find a bottle of realgar wine. After returning, he followed Lao Zhang's instructions and carefully sprinkled a circle of realgar wine around the vegetable field. He even buried a small piece of realgar stone in each corner to form a "protection circle".

After all this trouble, Li Xiangqian felt a little relieved. After returning to the house, he took a sip of water from his cup and thought, "With this protective circle, no more snakes should come in." However, the taboo deep in his heart did not completely dissipate. At night, he felt even more uneasy.

Late at night, Li Xiangqian tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. Various images flashed through his mind, especially the cold eyes of the snake, as if it was still watching him from somewhere. He couldn't help but blame himself: "What's wrong with me? It's just a snake, is it necessary to be so nervous?" But the more he thought about it, the clearer the taboo became, and he even felt like he was being pricked in the back.

While he was half asleep, he suddenly heard a small noise outside the window, like something gently hitting the ground. He sat up suddenly, his eyes widened with nervousness, his heartbeat quickened. It was pitch black outside the window, with only the dim yellow light in the yard swaying gently, and the surroundings seemed even quieter and more eerie.

"What...what is this sound?" He muttered to himself, got out of bed carefully, put on his clothes, tiptoed to the window, gently lifted a corner of the curtain, and stared at the vegetable patch in the yard.

At the edge of the vegetable field, a long and thin shadow was moving, and it seemed to be slowly approaching the place where he had sprinkled the realgar wine. Li Xiangqian's breathing froze instantly, and his heart felt like it was being gripped by something, and it ached slightly. It was a snake, and its scales shone slightly in the moonlight. The snake's head was slightly raised, and it looked hesitantly at the place where the realgar wine had been sprinkled, as if it was frightened by the smell.

He watched the snake lingering on the edge of the realgar wine, and couldn't help but feel relieved: "It seems that this realgar wine is really effective, it doesn't dare to come over." However, immediately afterwards, another thought popped up in his mind: "But... why did it come back? Could it be that it came to find its companions?"

As soon as this thought came to his mind, Li Xiangqian felt a chill down his spine and could not help but take a step back. He looked at the snake's cold eyes and felt a chill down his spine. The taboo deep in his heart became clearer. He could sense that the snake had bad intentions. Perhaps, the battle between the snake and him was far from over.

The next morning, Li Xiangqian dragged his tired body out of the house. What happened last night kept him awake all night. He walked to the edge of the vegetable field and carefully checked the place where the realgar wine was sprinkled. Sure enough, he found some slight crawling marks, as if the snakes were trying to break through the blockade of the realgar wine. He secretly exclaimed: "Are they really here to find their companions? Or are these snakes much smarter than I thought?"

He squatted down and gently touched the marks left by the snakes with his fingers. An indescribable complex emotion surged in his heart. He didn't expect that he would have a silent battle with creatures like snakes just for farming. He thought that this courtyard was his territory, but now it seems that he is just a tenant of this land, and this land has its own residents and order.

In the following days, Li Xiangqian became more vigilant. He would patrol the vegetable garden every morning and evening to check for new signs of crawling, and occasionally add some realgar wine to ensure that the smell was pungent enough. He even inserted a few bamboo poles around the vegetable garden and hung wind chimes on them, using the sound of the wind chimes to drive away the snakes.

However, he still couldn't completely get rid of that taboo feeling. Whenever night fell, he always felt an inexplicable sense of oppression, as if some unknown creature was lurking in the quiet night and could appear at any time. He didn't dare to be careless and remained highly alert every night. Even the slightest movement outside the window would wake him up suddenly.

One night, Li Xiangqian was lying in bed when he heard a rustling sound in the yard, as if something was slowly approaching the vegetable field. He sat up suddenly, his heart pounding, and couldn't help muttering to himself: "Is it coming again?" He put on his shoes carefully, walked to the window, and stared at the direction of the vegetable field.

The snake's shadow was seen swimming in the moonlight, as if it was interested in the realgar wine he had prepared. The snake's body was gently circling, its head was slowly raised, and its cold eyes were shining faintly in the dark night. Li Xiangqian held his breath, his fingers tightly grasping the window frame, with an inexplicable taboo and doubt in his eyes.

Li Xiangqian has been getting more and more anxious recently, especially on those nights when snakes are seen floating around the vegetable garden and the grass leaves are rustling, which makes him even more nervous. He saw the snakes lingering outside the realgar circle that day, which made him even more suspicious. Since then, every time he thought about the possibility that these snakes might be lurking around the vegetable garden in groups, waiting for an opportunity to climb over his "defense line", the uneasiness in his heart was like a stone pressing on his heart, which was difficult to resolve.

However, there was more to bother him. Recently, He Yuzhu seemed to have developed a great interest in his land, and he would come to help him every few days, either suggesting turning the land or accompanying him to apply fertilizer. It was a good thing to have a helper, but when Li Xiangqian thought about the days when he was fighting wits and courage with the snake, he became afraid and didn't want to involve others in these things.

That day, He Yuzhu came again, holding a hoe and shouting, "Go forward! The weather is good today, why don't we go to the fields together and turn the soil! Look, it's time to fertilize those vegetables." He patted the hoe in his hand, looking very excited.