When the Major General Omega Picked Up a Little Snake Alpha - Chapter 24

Luo Qi was dazed by this sudden “kiss.”

After licking his face, the creature moved down toward his neck, scratching the spot where his palm met his wrist.

“Don’t just lick everything,” Luo Qi said, turning his wrist over and giving its head a little pinch. Little Black pulled its head back and scrambled onto the back of that same hand.

Watching this, Fang Xi gritted his teeth. He was furious, but he remained calm. Even if he hadn’t understood the General’s words at the time, thinking back on them now made everything clear. The General’s stance was explicit: he wanted this snake.

The little snake’s “hands” twitched twice against his leg, as if it understood.

“Good. Very obedient.”

Luo Qi loosened his grip. Just as he started to withdraw his arm, that floral stamen proactively nudged closer again. The little snake seemed to be acting spoiled, stuffing the anther sac, covered in soft spines, back into his hand.

“Didn’t I just say not to use this part so casually…” Luo Qi helplessly gripped the wriggling tip of the stamen.

Two thinner vines also reached out, resting on Luo Qi’s legs like arms. The little snake’s “head” rested submissively on his knees. At a quick glance, it looked like a human figure crouching by his legs. It was a posture full of attachment, but it felt a bit strange. Perhaps because it looked so human.

Suppressing that odd feeling, Luo Qi used his right hand to soothe the snake’s stamen while his left fingers quietly peeled back the petals of a small red flower on his leg to study the soft spines inside. Strictly speaking, these spines were part of its reproductive organs, though they lacked the typical characteristics of stamens or pistils; their function had likely evolved. They had become sites for sucking blood and secreting mucus.

The little snake’s head slowly retracted into a ball. The fringe of whiskers on the petals felt fuzzy, like a giant black cat curled up on his lap, though the fur was a bit too sparse. Luo Qi couldn’t help but smile, stroking the fleshy petals of the black flower with his left hand as if petting a cat.

He didn’t notice that a vine had already snuck behind his waist and pulled out the new gun he was carrying today.

“Do you have any hobbies,” Luo Qi asked, still immersed in this “spiritual connection” with his pet, “other than eating people?”

With a click, the holster button popped open. Suddenly, the black flower lunged forward, “swallowing” the gun and wrapping it within its petals. With two quick swish sounds, the “little hand” he had been holding escaped, and the vine retracted the way it came.

 Luo Qi’s hand felt nothing but empty air, and the gun at his waist was gone.

He had been careless.

The tranquilizer gun had been stashed away by the little snake inside its canopy. Looking closely, three identical black guns were lined up on a branch, suspended by vines. Even the angle of the winding was nearly identical, looking like three “copy-pasted” hanging ornaments.

“Are you some kind of hoarder?” Luo Qi was so exasperated he wanted to laugh. “I really wasn’t going to use the gun on you.”

The little snake pretended not to hear. The vines in the room lay quietly against the walls, the small red flowers pulsing open and closed.

Looking at those little red hands, Luo Qi felt his mental stability, which had plummeted ten minutes ago, begin to recover significantly. As expected, this little snake was his treasure.

He returned to his terminal, clicked on his inbox again, bypassed his teacher’s mail, and opened a new page.

[Madame Chief, a new person arrived on the island today…]

Over the next few days, Luo Qi received no reply from the Chief. He stayed burrowed in the underground cultivation room, recording the progress of the “Pure Land Seed” project. Naturally, he didn’t forget to nurture his relationship with the little snake.

That fierce and brutal man-eating tree was as well-behaved as a clingy cat in Luo Qi’s hands.

During the day, while Luo Qi was underground, the little snake would stay still in the courtyard and sleep. At night, when Luo Qi went back to the second floor to rest, it would lurk by the window, tentatively trying to enter. Its vines would cover all four walls of the room, releasing a clear, sweet floral scent that helped him sleep.

The little snake had even learned boundaries; without Luo Qi’s permission, it never dared to crawl into the blankets again. Fortunately, it had finished releasing its spores, so that particular impulse had weakened significantly.

As for Luo Qi, he experienced the most comfortable days he’d had in over a year. No nightmares, no pain. He fell asleep promptly every day and woke up to the little snake accompanying him by the windowsill.

The only strange thing was that items kept mysteriously disappearing from the lounge. Luo Qi had already lost two sets of pajamas, a mechanical pencil, and a face towel. He often suspected the little snake was hiding his things. The evidence was his wardrobe, which had been turned into a complete mess.

“Did you steal my stuff?” Luo Qi demanded, questioning the large black flower outside the window.

The little snake gave no reaction.

Luo Qi slammed the window shut and headed downstairs in a huff. To prevent further losses, he had to move his clothes and daily necessities into the underground lab. He even stopped using the bathroom on the second floor for showers, opting instead for the purified water in the lab. It was a luxury, and it pained him a little to be so wasteful.

Aside from his breaks, he often sat beneath the tree trunk, stroking the bark while chatting with the little snake. This helped cultivate its understanding of humanity, turning it into an even more obedient treasure.

“Do you know how to read?”

Luo Qi held a thin, black-covered book, pointing at a row of numbers.

“What unit is this?” He poked a “T” symbol with his index finger.

The large black flower hung over his shoulder while a vine rested on his leg, rubbing against the notebook and tracing out a letter.

“How exactly do you see?” Luo Qi pinched the tip of the vine, and the urge to snip it off stirred once more.

“Can you write ‘water’?”

The little snake went still, the vine drooping silently. It could recognize words but wouldn’t proactively write them. Perhaps it could only mimic patterns, or perhaps it was just lazy. Luo Qi pondered this while recording it in his observation diary.

After writing a few lines, Luo Qi tucked his pen into his pocket and looked around for the big dog.

“I have to go out and handle some business today.” He stroked the veins of the black petals before getting up to head to the basement.

Shi Yi was hiding in a corner of the main hall. It had suffered quite a bit of neglect lately; its master wasn’t paying it much attention, and every time it got near the tree, it was driven away by vines.

“Whimper, whimper.” It hid behind a tall cabinet, let out a pathetic little whine.

The basement door opened again, and its master emerged wearing a backpack. More importantly, he had a gun and a knife at his waist. This meant the master was taking it out for some fresh air!

The big dog lunged forward with a howl. Luo Qi stepped back two paces but still couldn’t dodge a face full of slobber.

“Don’t mess around.” He rubbed the dog’s head, pushing it down. “Go out through the back door.”

The “back door” was actually a rear window in the hall. To prevent the little snake from snatching a fourth gun, Luo Qi had dismantled the window frame entirely, leaving a large hole with two benches stacked up as a ladder.

“Let’s go.”

Carrying his toolbox, he led Shi Yi to the Beetle parked outside the main gate.

“We’re going to look for wolves today.” Luo Qi put on his helmet. Just as he was about to start the engine, a silver-black vine lowered itself from the courtyard wall.

When did the little snake’s vines get this long?

He shrank back warily, using his jacket to cover the holster at his waist.

“I’m going to find food for you,” he said, pressing the ignition button. “Wait for me at home like a good boy.”

He stepped on the gas, and the Beetle sped toward the north. The wind whistled past them, and Shi Yi clung to the back seat, howling.

“Awoo! Whimper!”

Shi Yi’s cries grew louder. It unnaturally pressed against Luo Qi’s shoulder, its voice not joyful at all, but terrified.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Luo Qi had to turn his head. Before his eyes were two rows of Shi Yi’s shiny canine teeth, and a small, dark red flower dangled from the dog’s ear.

The little snake’s “hand” had fallen off?

He slammed on the brakes. The big dog and a grey-black strip of material flew forward with the momentum. The strip traced an arc in the air before landing on the ground with a splat.

“Why did you break yourself off?”

Luo Qi stared in shock at the vine. It was wriggling on the ground, struggling to curl into a circle before falling still. The red flower was attached to the joint, looking rather shriveled.

Luo Qi leaned down to pick it up. The moment his hand touched the small flower, the vine ring zipped up his sleeve like a little snake.

“?”

He quickly grabbed the tip of the vine ring, pulling it outward. “Don’t just crawl everywhere!”

He couldn’t remember how many times he had repeated that phrase. It really was… far too disobedient.

The vine ring reluctantly slid down from his shoulder, finally settling on his wrist. It slowly wound around twice, hanging there like a bracelet.

“Just stay like that,” Luo Qi said, pointing at the red flower. “No more moving around.”

The little vine ring pressed quietly against his skin, camouflaging itself as an ordinary bracelet.

A chill climbed up his spine.

It was his Little Black, and yet it wasn’t.

He should have fired directly forward, but his fingers were like stone, frozen on the trigger. Only his left hand was reflexively pressing the switch of the searchlight.

The light suddenly flickered. It was like a malfunctioning circuit suddenly flashing back to life.

Luo Qi saw the creature in front of him. For just half a second, through his mottled goggles, he caught only a shadow. It was a person, tall and slender, with pale, damp skin as if they had just crawled out of a puddle.

The searchlight was pointed downward, so Luo Qi couldn’t see the person’s face. He only remembered something black coiled on the ground, connected to the person’s upper body.

The creature’s breath drew closer.