Qiao Erniang was eight years old when she became an orphan. The year she came of age, she rescued a little snake. It was a snowy day, and a black snake lay limp in the snow beside a fallen branch. If not for the pungent smell of blood, Qiao Erniang wouldn't even have recognized it as a snake.
Qiao Erniang had never been to school and knew nothing of the farmer and the snake. She only knew that if she didn't save it, the snake wouldn't survive until the next day.
She brought the little black snake back to a small thatched hut in the village. The hut was tiny, but at least it was clean. The little black snake felt the warmth of the charcoal fire and made itself at home.
Once its body had healed, Qiao Erniang expected it to leave, but it showed no sign of going anywhere. It wasn't her snake, after all, so she took it back to the mountains. But before nightfall, it was back in her bed. After it happened again and again, Qiao Erniang gave up and let it stay.
The snake grew longer and thicker, yet it was always clinging to her. It clung to her when she went out to work in the fields and when she slept. And as it kept clinging to her, its cold tail slipped inside her clothes.
