Bái shé

白蛇

The story of the Snake Sisters

My favorite tale from China is that of the White Snake and her flirtatious sister, the Green Snake.

Here is the beginning of my modernized version.

Chapter 1

Evil can have a good heart

China

A thousand years before today

Thunder shook the ground as pale white knees trembling from fear intensified the little girl's shivering. The earth looked as if the cavernous mouth of a crocodile poised to devour the child. Her slight frame frozen in the lakebed. A gust of wind from the three mystical combatants dueling in the skies above, oblivious of the child below caused this upheaval of nature's elements. The mighty roar of the gale blew on the once passive surface until all that lay visible on the muddied bottom were squiggling fish, and a scared child with twirling hip length braids fluttering in the whirlwind.

"You must return to your slimy life," the orange-robed man extended a rolled up fist in the direction of the two young women. A lightning bolt zoomed from his knuckles toward the pair. \

"Sister!" The younger of the two called for help. The force from the monk's blast sent her tumbling backward into a fluffy soft cloud.

"Lu!" The older of the two supernatural figures called to her younger sister. "Hide in the cloud. I will punish this busy-body." With the end of her sentence, the woman covered only in a white shawl hovered in the air. The monk's eyes widened as he clasped his hands.

"Now, holy man, you will pay for hunting us as if we were thieves on the run." The woman began to shake her long flowing black hair. It grew past its original length and with the slithering movement of her hips the enraged woman's legs joined her black as night mane.

The priest remained airborne, begging Buddha for guidance and deliverance.

"By all that is good and holy in nature," he stiffened his body. "Buddha give me the strength."

"I will…" The larger of the two shapeshifters forced out the words. Her once long and shapely legs now joined to form a monstrous white-scaled tail. "Destroy…." Coiling her changing bottom, she sneered prepared to slice the monk in half, her ears quivering smacked with the screams from the ground.

"Gege! Gege!" Squeaking the title reserved for one's older brother, the little girl repeated it again toward the shoreline with a voice hoarse from her howls. The soaked child sunk deeper into the muck.

As the wind changed course, the surging deluge that filled the void caused by this unnatural battle covered her waist. "Gege," a last cry to her older brother broke as she faltered.

"Lu," the angry half human woman called to her wounded sister hiding in the cloud. "The little girl, the little girl!"

A thunderbolt hit the transforming figure of woman to reptile sending her past the position of her concealed maimed sister. She floated in the air, doubled in pain.

"Rong Rong!" The running boy screeched toward the overflowing lakebed. He bellowed the name of his drowning sister, "Rong Rong!"

The young girl thrown into the speeding current, able to gurgle one last word, "Kai hui." Hearing his name caused the boy to scream, "my Mei Mei. Using the term used to signify a younger sister.

The boy, not yet a teen jumped into the erupting surface.

Both children looked in horror as a twisted and fierce grotesque tidal wave of destruction zoomed in their direction.

A crack of thunder brought the vision of the young boy to the skies above.

"Help us!" Help…" A rising wave carried Kai hui toward his sister. "Almighty spirits," his words silenced by the whipping of the wave. "Demons or gods," spitting a mouthful of water into the gale. "Help us."

The surge took both children to the crashing rocks of the waterfall and cliff.

"Please, one of you help us!" Tiny arms drew strength from the love he possessed for his sister; each powerful attempt to submerge him met with furious blows from his weakening hands. He would not surrender her to the current.

Above his head the battle continued.

"You will be destroyed." The monk flew as he spoke and recited incantations at the intertwined and injured immortals.

The two supposed demons flew to each other hoping to unite their power in an attempt to dwarf the religious spells.

The monk's forceful voice filled the clear sky.

"Evil must perish." He bellowed as he sprung into the air, the shaved head glistened from the spattered rays of a bright sun mixed with a gust of wind saturated with water. With his orange robe clinging to a dampened body, he called out.

"Demons, back to the slime of your existence."

Long fingers spread from calloused hands pointing at the twirling adversaries. He called on his magical power. The incantations filled the heavens.

"Buddha, I implore you." He continued with murmured words from a language lost long ago.

"Leave us be, monk" The older of the two spat out as a split tongue from the immense white serpent's head whipped the flying monk in the face. He plummeted to the ground. Taking time to check her lower half, a cry of sorrow filled the heavens as white colored scales began replacing the silk like skin of her human form.

"Again, there will be no peace," a deep breath and calls to Buddha gave him strength to continue the battle. "Foul devils!" Dodging a thrashing tale from the younger sister, still in possession of a beautiful face and delicate cream-like skin, he persisted with the incantation.

"Bai…help." The call signaled a surrendering to fate. Lu spun in the air. Her green shawl clung to her drenched breasts. She not only acted the younger sister, but also the weaker. She did not take polishing her powers as serious as the older, and more mature, Bai. Her human appearance wavered in its losing battle with the advancing green scales running up her spine.

"The children." Bai's words were split as if they were an echo, a product of her transformation.

"Look, your evil has done this." The nameless monk spoke in uncompromising and direct tones.

Throwing himself into the air, the holy man that trailed the sisters for months zoomed with the speed of an arrow to save the drowning children.

"Sister, hold on…must stop the current." Bai's shouts of encouragement to her Mei Mei fortified the fading soul of the younger sister. To hear the affectionate title from her senior flushed her spirit with strength.

"I will do my best, my Jie Jie." LU answered. She knew of her older sister's love for human children.

The remaining flesh of the white snake submitted to the monk's prays for transformation as the rolling body straightened its massive trunk until the entire frame transformed to that of a snake.

"Bai, I will help." Crawling along the shoreline, the weakened younger sister stopped her battle to remain a human woman, slipping into the rushing water. Green scales cut through the rough surface, only the jade-colored garment floated on the twirling sea.

"Help us. Help..." The boy could no longer call for assistance. Holding his sister of eight years, the strain of the fight to survive looked as if nearing an end. Violent splashes flooded the boy's mouth as he fought to keep the little girl above the brutal blows of the surging water. He thrust her into the air over his battered head.

"Buddha that swallows our sorrow and pain let me save the young ones." The monk's words were drowned by the crashing waves from the nearing waterfall. Touching the surface, the monk extended a hand. His feet rode the streaking tide as one would a raft. "Let me…" The boulder, hidden beneath the surface knocked the monk into a summersault. The holy man fell onto the flat rock striking his head.

"Lu, the monk." Bai cried as she circled the children using the power of her tail to lift them into the air.

"Mei Mei." She called. "Little sister, save the monk. Then assist me." The giant mouth of the white snake bellowed in pain as a tree branch the size of a full-grown pine struck her in the mouth. It did not lessen the determination to defend the children from Nature's anger.

Bai formed a U shape in the midst of the surge. Their bodies tucked snuggly in the coil of her mighty tale.

"I am here to save you, holy man that hates us." Lu's voice showed her smug and sarcastic disposition. The monk looked in horror at his savior shaking more from fear of the reptile than the icy chill of the water.

"You are e…vil. You are…" The pommeled man could no longer speak. His head and hands trembled. Breathing became irregular. His gasps earned him the contempt of his rescuer.

"You are a fool." The younger demon whipped her bottom half into the air.

The monk cringed from terror at the crack of her lashing tail.

The green-scaled figure's evaporating human smile would be the last remnant of her human form. This attempt to invade the world of love and passion, as the sisters christened the human kingdom, another failure.

"You are stupid." She spat out her words as the transformation completed. The younger sister continued. "You are a holy man?" A mocking laugh from the green jaws, "you are an overgrown boy." Coiling her tail around his quivering shape, she placed the wounded and dazed monk on the soft mire of the shoreline. "How old are you?" A giggle left the large serpent's mouth.

"I am old enough to know it is evil for nature to be so disrespected. You and all your kind cannot be human. You are evil and a curse and horrid blasphemies of," his harsh indictment halted seeing the brother and sister safe and crying at the edge of the now calm lake. The giant white snake let them rest their bodies on her head. Bai's beaten and bruised form lay curled in the soft sand.

"Sister, you saved the children without my help." The green snake's voice gained power from the joyous scene at the bank.

"They are safe." The monk spoke direct and with a thankful tone. "I was helpless and incompetent."

"You're only human." Lu's own words brought a hysterical outburst from her throat, a wagging tongue showed her delight. "Don't be so hard on yourself." Giant lids and the soft words from the colossal reptile brought a rush of color to the cheeks of the embarrassed and thrashed monk.

Bai squirmed toward the amicable pair nestled in the mud. The children were on their way home and would tell all of the bravery and kindness of the despised reptiles that wished to become human.

The green snake saw her sister's black pupils split in half, a sign of anger.

"My older sister, no you must not." She begged. The younger of the two spread her rounded form in front of the monk.

"Do not protect him, my na?ve one. He is the evil one." The white snake bellowed. She reared upward, an enormous head opened ready to bite the shaking holy man in two.

"No! Sister, please." Lu curled around Bai's pulsating scaled skin. Her anger multiplied with her every breath. Lu se, her correct name, hoped to remind the wiser of the two about the hundreds of years they played nestling as such to keep warm.

"Remember sister, we would be as we are now, and whisper as only sisters could." The younger one's words sounded soft and soothing.

"I remember. Oh, little sister," the two behemoths coiled tighter as they cuddled and shimmied into an almost standing position.

"Yes, I remember. My dear sister, we would talk of being women and having men and all their faults and imperfections." The young snake's tongue whipped out after her last word.

The monk's eyes hypnotized by Lu's form.

A laugh snorted out of Lu. "Look at him, Bai." She giggled through the words. "His lustful tones make me feel sorry for this celebrate human." She giggled. "It shows how pathetic these unfit holy men are."

"I am in control." The monk pushed from his lips.

"And you," Bai snapped at the quiet young holy man. "You see what you think is flirtation from us and now want to look the part of a lover."

The monk opened his mouth, hoping to reply and explain.

Bai's gazed at the crotch as his robe rose.

"Your lustful desires stick as a thorn outward." Bai hissed after her statement.

The monk bowed, remaining silent.

"You fool; your anger and stupid power brought our quiet pond the atmosphere of death and destruction." The white snake's tongue whipped the air after her words. 'For two innocents."

The young snake interrupted, "the children are safe my sister." Moving a wily tale to slither between the still rattled monk and an irate Bai, she giggled hoping to disarm her enraged sister.

"Lady Snake, I wish to apologize." Taking time to stand, the past events were still affecting his strength. "You see," eyes widened as he spoke. He wiped a sheet of moisture from his baldhead. "When the Great Monk sensed the existence of two shape-shifters," the holy man blinked several times seeing the stern face of the white snake.

"The balance of nature was threatened." He whispered.

A high-pitched snarl from Bai caused the monk to look to the ground.

"Balance!" Her trumpeted reply rivaled the elephants of the western provinces. "Tell your Abbot to pray for the people that worship and pay homage to Buddha."

A snort sent mucous flying from the massive size nostrils of Bai. The velocity of the white snake's grunt knocked the monk to the ground. "Forgive me; it is the remnants of the streaking tide."

"Great snake, it is I that must beg forgiveness. This substance," looking at a palm covered with the foul liquid, "a reminder of your unquestioned valor and bravery." Wiping the goo from his soaked orange robe, the monk cringed while his fingers ran along his slimy scalp. "When I return to the monastery, I will tell them of your valor and, and, ah…ah." The monk began to stutter.

The white snake spread her throat muscles until they flattened, resembling a bat's wing. Pupils the color of a moonless sky rolled as Bai tasted the air surrounding the monk with her forked tongue.

"Say it, or are you too proud to say it?" The colossal serpent shouted. "A Buddhist monk with pride. This is not a true believer." The giant snake's expression bore a smirk. "Pride! Too proud to admit you and all your brethren are wrong?" Another snort from disgust left her nostrils. "What is the name of this laughable holy man?"

"I will tell them the truth." He said, standing straight with a newfound energy infused from this epiphany. The monk looked at the gargantuan snake hoping his words would placate her fury. "First, my name is Fahai." He bowed.

The white snake no longer showed an angry sneer as she batted large eyes that began to well with liquid.

"Is it a lark? He asked. Standing to shake himself as a dog after a plunge, he grinned out his words. "Is this something to amuse yourself while you live the dull life of a serpent?"

"Lark? Amuse myself?" She cried the words as if a question for the heavens.

"Great White Snake you are so powerful, and now I know so heroic. What could you lack?"

"You are truly blind, my holy man." Bai turned from the perplexed looking monk.

"Come sister, we are done here." Giggled the green snake as she slid alongside Bai hoping the elder's sorrow over the monk's ignorance would stop soon. "He is a brainless human. They will never see. We seek," Lu's words were interrupted by her sister.

"This supposed holy man seeks the truth." The white snake chuckled. "Go, my sweet Mei Mei ask him what is his truth?"

"And what is the truth, my lacking of humility, Fahai?" Her green eyes sparkled from the noon day sun. "Or, maybe the truth, your truth is you are as human as the children? Only their desires are for sweets and cakes, while you hunger for a different taste."

Her massive green head turned to lick her lips. She winked at the still bewildered young monk. "You cute little holy man." Green eyes split down the middle, looking as if two sparkling emeralds were in each socket. Though split pupils signaled anger in Bai, for this young reptile it would mean something quite different.

"Evil," he paused to inhale strength. "Evil is not in you two."

Bai could only reply. "Can you not see what we need? What we lack?" She spoke in a calm, confident manner.

"Love, only love." Whispered by the mighty serpent as a tear the size of a melon hit the ground.

"Great snake, you can cry? Indeed, this day is full of mystery," shouted from the animated man.

"Yes, and from this day I will never so do. For mankind has decided tears are not for those of a wicked and evil nature." Her head snapped upward. "A snake can never love. Or be loved."

"What are you saying, sister?" Asked her Mei Mei.

"Maybe only through magic can we have such folly. The folly of human love." Bai's tone subdued. Her body expanded as if her breath might explode the scaled skin. "We are evil."

Standing straight and sporting an innocent smile, the young monk spoke.

"I am not so sure." With head bowed, he called out to the sky.

"For now, I know. Evil can have a good heart."