Chapter 39: The Snake Cave Walking through the cobblestone riverbed, you will see a blank white snow, surrounded by a large number of shrubs about one meter high, but in front of the half-meter thick snow, the one-meter-high bushes look very pitiful.
After patrolling around the bushes, Ye Qingshan, who didn't find anything unusual, shook his head and continued to explore.
Hibernating snakes prefer shrubs, especially those that are close to streams but dry on the surface.
The main reason is that these places are the favorite places for rats and rabbits to burrow, and snakes, like brown bears, do not build nests themselves, so every time they hibernat, they will take the fruits of other animals' labor.
However, snakes are often more vicious and excessive than brown bears who take possession of the house after driving the original owner of the house away, and they will not only drive away the original owner of the house, but even kill the original owner of the house.
Ye Qingshan originally wanted to see if there were any tree holes around the bushes, or holes in the ground or something.
Maybe he could find a few snakes to satisfy his hunger, but looking at the density of the bushes and the snow that was half a meter thick, Ye Qingshan gave up.
This kind of environment is not suitable for rabbits to survive, nor for rats to burrow, besides, there are so many snakes around, whose stupid rabbit will build a house here?
So Ye Qingshan planned to explore deeper, but as soon as he walked for a while, it was less than a hundred meters away, Ye Qingshan suddenly stopped, turned his head to look at the footprints behind him, and a trace of surprise flashed between his eyebrows.
The thick bear paw waved twice on the ground, revealing the fertile black soil, Ye Qingshan's palm pressed the ground, although it was a little laborious, but Ye Qingshan's clear handprints were still left on the ground, the soil can be pinched, and the soil under his feet is soft!
Subconsciously thought of a possibility, and a trace of shock flashed in Ye Qingshan's eyes!
This is very unusual, you must know that not far away, in the primeval forest where I don't know how many ancient pines have grown, the same snow is half a meter thick, but the ground there has long been frozen and has become harder than stones, but only less than a thousand meters away, the soil is actually soft!
Why is the soil soft in winter?
There are many possibilities, but the most likely is that there is geothermal heat, and even considering the proximity to the river, there is a good chance that there will be hot springs here!
Terrestrial heat?
Snakes?
Suspicious hot springs?
These words were associated together, and a flash of lightning flashed through Ye Qingshan's mind in an instant, and he finally knew why a large number of snakes had gathered here, and even formed such a terrifying snake nest.
Because there are hot springs, because the soil is warm, because this is the only place that is not threatened by the cold winter of the Northland.
Although snakes that live in the Northland have the same hibernation as bears, snakes are different from bears, bears have thick fur to withstand the cold winter, but what does a snake have?
What kind of thermal insulation effect can a layer of scale armor have?
This is not the south, this is the north, twelve months a year, nearly half of the time is ruled by the cold winter, the temperature here in winter is normally below minus 20 degrees, two or three meters below the ground can freeze you through, only a snake with thin scales, why live here?
And there are so many?
Hundreds of thousands of snakes appearing together?
So a hot spring, and a rather large hot spring cave, became a shelter for these snakes.
As for why caves?
Instead of an open-air hot spring?
That's because open-air baths don't keep warm, but caves don't.
In addition, if it is an open-air hot spring, hundreds of thousands of snakes gather together and the target is too big, it is impossible to avoid the eyes of the natural enemies of snakes, in fact, it is not only the natural enemies of snakes, such as eagles, in fact, if there are hundreds of thousands of snakes around an open-air hot spring, it will not take a few years for all of these snakes to be eaten by wolves or brown bears.
So there must be a cave here, and it's quite a hot spring cave.
Sure enough, as Ye Qingshan continued to go deeper, the temperature on the ground began to rise gradually, and after walking for about two or three miles, there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground around him, and it was a little muddy when he stepped on it.
From the beginning of half a meter of snow, now it has become less than ten centimeters of snow, and it seems that this ten centimeters of snow is about to melt, and Ye Qingshan's gaze has finally been frozen.
This is the bottom of a cliff of a majestic mountain peak, and on the cliff wall, which is nearly 90 degrees vertical by a knife and axe, seven or eight strong pines are rooted in the hard stone.
At the bottom of the cliff is a flowing stream, and surrounded by a piece of green bamboo next to the stream, a raised grotto appeared in Ye Qingshan's sight.
The stone cave is very wide, the entrance has seventy or eighty square meters, on the smooth stone wall, there is a dark green withered vine that Ye Qingshan can't name, under the withered vine, it is a hot spring that does not seem to be very high, the gurgling spring water beats the ice chips, stirs up layers of translucent pale green ice around the spring, and a wisp of looming white mist rises, so that there is an indescribable fairy spirit here.
Around the hot springs, there are more than a dozen stones scattered around, the largest is even bigger than Ye Qingshan, the smallest is only the size of a human head, each stone is entrenched in several colorful snakes, the big one is seven or eight meters, the thickness of a big arm, the small one is one or two meters, one finger wide and two fingers thick are these snakes.
It is certain that these snakes are highly venomous, and it can be seen from the colorful scales on each other's bodies how terrible the poison in these snakes is!
Does a bite kill a person?
Can Ye Qingshan, who has a physique that is more than three times that of a normal human, resist the toxin of poisonous snakes?
Ye Qingshan didn't know, and he didn't want to try!
But these are not the most important, the important thing is that under these poisonous snakes entrenched on the stones, there are a large number of snakes entrenched on the ground of the cave with seventy or eighty square meters at the entrance of this level.
Looking around, the frozen snakes, you press me, I press you, in the seventy or eighty square meters of the hole, there are at least a thousand snakes, and this is just the entrance of the cave, looking inward through the entrance of the cave, everywhere you look, there are snakes entrenched together, these snakes lie there motionless, and the stiff body is like a dead corpse.
Although it doesn't give people a creepy feeling when you look at it up close, after watching it for a long time, you will involuntarily feel panicked in the bottom of your heart.
Especially as you look into the deepest part of the cave, all you can see is pitch black, and you don't know how many snakes are sleeping at the bottom of the cave, and you don't even know how many snakes are hovering in the depths of the cave, spitting out forked snake hyacinths.