Pampered Little Snake, Give Me a Kiss - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Picky Eater?

After resolving her “emotional” issues, Song Keling quickly dove into the busy final stages of her research project.

As it turned out, she was indeed better suited for freedom. Dating was a form of socializing; while she didn’t reject or resist it, it certainly wasted time and energy. For her, the cons far outweighed the pros.

Meanwhile, after applying some filters, Xu Xinlei updated her social media feed with high-definition photos of the little snake. Although she had successfully recorded a video, Song Keling’s restrictions meant it was only a few seconds long. Even with mirrored angles and repetitive editing, it barely reached ten seconds—not enough for a proper video. To maintain the hype from before, she posted the photos first.

After classes ended in the afternoon, Song Keling went to the cafeteria to order a portion of tofu rice cakes to go. This was one of the perks of saving time on “socializing.” She could take her dinner back to the dorm and eat while looking after the little snake, rather than spending a long time sitting in the cafeteria answering trivial, insignificant questions.

While waiting for her food at the Second Cafeteria, she happened to run into Zhu Caixia. It was a true coincidence; since it was an elective class afternoon, they had different schedules, and with several cafeterias on campus, meeting at the same one was pure luck.

Zhu Caixia immediately asked if she had seen the group assignment she sent. Song Keling remembered that by the time she finished lab work the previous night, it was very late; she had planned to reply today but got busy and forgot.

“I’ll do it as soon as I get back,” Song Keling said.

“No rush, I just worried you hadn’t seen it.” Zhu Caixia laughed, but her eyes were drawn to something moving. She looked at Song Keling, who held a textbook in one hand and a phone in the other, while her jacket pocket was twitching.

Zhu Caixia asked curiously, “Keling, what’s moving in your pocket?”

Song Keling glanced down and replied, “A mouse.”

“A mouse?!” Zhu Caixia immediately shuddered and took a half-step back, her skin crawling. “You… you put a mouse in your pocket?”

“It’s inside a bag.” Song Keling didn’t explain further. The fewer people who knew about her keeping the rescued snake in the dorm, the better.

Her tofu rice cakes were ready. She took the bag, swiped her campus card, and said to Zhu Caixia, “I’ll send the assignment tonight once it’s done.”

“Great, great! Bye~”

“Bye.”

Back at the dorm, Song Keling placed her dinner on the desk and washed her hands. After drying them, she brought out Qianqian’s dinner: a small plastic bag containing a pinky mouse. The little mouse was bright red, its fur not yet grown.

Hearing the commotion, Qianqian had already slithered over. Song Keling opened the enclosure and used long tweezers to place the pinky on Qianqian’s path. Yesterday, while she was eating dinner, Qianqian had pressed against the glass and stared for a long time. Song Keling figured she must be hungry. She had promised the snake a reward earlier when giving the medicine, so she had made a special trip to the lab after school to grab a feeder mouse.

Qianqian flicked her thin black tongue. Feeling an “obstacle” ahead, she swerved around it and continued slithering toward Song Keling’s position until, finally, she pressed her little head firmly against the glass.

She wanted to see what the human was eating today. It smelled sour.

Qianqian tilted her head to study it but couldn’t understand. She looked up at the human: Why are you eating spoiled things? Can’t you find any other food?

Snakes need a sense of security to eat. Song Keling set the tweezers down, sat a bit to the side with her tofu rice cakes, and opened her laptop to download files from WeChat. She looked over the materials collected by her teammates; they weren’t very comprehensive.

Song Keling logged into a video site and found a science blogger. She set the educational video to 2x speed, taking notes on keywords as she watched.

Hearing the sounds coming from the laptop, Qianqian wriggled to the corner of the enclosure nearest the noise, leaning in curiously. Due to her posture, the two cute golden horn scales were pressed lightly against her forehead. She watched the screen where a narrator was talking about insects and leaves.

Qianqian felt this was a good time to study the human language. She adjusted her long body and tail, coiling up comfortably while tilting her head up to watch the video intently.

Song Keling finished her notes and started eating the now-cooled rice cakes, not forgetting to check the enclosure. To her surprise, the pinky mouse was nonchalantly grooming its paws in one corner, while the snake and mouse occupied opposite ends of a diagonal line, living in “peaceful coexistence.”

Having seen similar scenes many times before, Song Keling wasn’t shocked. However, unlike before, Qianqian—who usually stared at her—was now focused on the glowing laptop screen.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Song Keling poked the enclosure, making a soft sound.

The little creature looked back alertly, her red vertical pupils bright and sharp, her horn scales instantly snapping back to an upright position. Song Keling didn’t know if it was just because she’d been keeping her for a while or if the snake was getting healthier, but the initial sense of “stunning mystery” had lessened, replaced by a sense of refined, adorable beauty.

“Are you still not hungry?” Song Keling guessed. “Or is it because you attacked someone earlier and your venom hasn’t replenished, so you’re worried you can’t kill the mouse?”

Qianqian didn’t understand the long string of words, but she recognized the word “hungry” (è). She realized her attention had been hijacked by the glowing screen and she’d forgotten what she was supposed to do.

What was I doing? She looked at the human eating, turned her body with a burst of speed, and used her tail to tightly constrict the pinky mouse in the corner. She then slithered to the front of the enclosure and dropped it before Song Keling.

Song Keling: “?”

Once the tail released it, the un-strangled mouse tried to stand and run. But it didn’t get far. A ruthless sweep of the white snake’s tail swiped it back into the corner closest to Song Keling.

Song Keling slowed her eating, wondering what this behavior meant. Is she a picky eater? Doesn’t like it? Qianqian wasn’t showing any defensive posture, which meant she felt safe enough to hunt. Could it be like the Senior joked—the little lady is too shy to swallow food in front of me?

With this thought, Song Keling turned her back to Qianqian to finish her meal. After a few bites, she looked back and saw Qianqian still nearby, looking up at her. Seeing the human look, Qianqian immediately bit the mouse she held with her tail, then let go.

The venom worked fast—even faster than before, as she’d injected a larger dose. The mouse stopped struggling in no time.

Qianqian pushed the dead mouse toward the human, nudging it with her head into the corner right in front of her. Her meaning was clear: Eat this. Stop eating that spoiled food.

Finally, Song Keling deciphered a similar meaning from those beautiful red eyes. Qianqian was offering it to her. But Song Keling interpreted it as: Alright, it’s bitten and dead. You can take it for your research now.

After all, Song Keling had taken mice from the snake’s mouth before—though back then she’d been unlucky enough to hit the snake’s “sensitive period” and got threatened. Now that their relationship had improved, Qianqian likely thought she threw the mouse in just for her to bite.

Is she trying to please me? Song Keling felt somewhat flattered. She finished her meal quickly, put on gloves, and placed the envenomated mouse into a sealed bag to take to the lab for analysis. As for the snake not eating—no matter, she could try a different food.

The lab was brightly lit that night. Despite being busy with her project, Song Keling found time to extract and isolate the unknown toxins. This time, because Qianqian had injected a high dose, the mouse died in just two or three seconds. This proved the snake was indeed highly toxic; its $LD_{50}$ might be below $0.3text{ mg/kg}$ (the lower the value, the stronger the toxicity).

Besides the strange toxins, the venom was a cocktail, similar to that of a Cobra or King Cobra. Song Keling suddenly remembered when Qianqian was pinned by the rock and couldn’t move; when she lifted her head, her neck had flattened slightly, just like a cobra. But isn’t she a type of viper?

To really study the toxins, extracting from a dead mouse was inefficient and imprecise. It would be better to extract the venom directly from the snake for purification.

Time flew by. Song Keling returned to the dorm at 10:30 PM. She checked on the “little friend” in the enclosure and saw her curled up in the hide. From her hoodie pocket, she pulled out a small plastic box containing cotton and two grey-and-white speckled quail eggs.

She had asked a senior from the neighboring lab for these. If Qianqian wouldn’t eat mice, she’d try eggs; living in the forest, she likely would. If not, she’d ask for a baby quail… or maybe find some fish or frogs in the woods behind the school. After all, if the kid is a picky eater, that’s the kid’s business—but letting her go hungry would be the parent’s fault.

Song Keling placed the eggs in the grooves of the hide and turned on a small desk lamp, then went to shower.

By the time she finished, the main lights were off. Song Keling sat at her desk in her pajamas. Qianqian had climbed to the top of the hide, her elegant white body stretched out, flicking her tongue curiously as she circled the eggs.

Song Keling smiled and didn’t disturb her. she opened her laptop, connected to her phone’s hotspot, and started her group work. Since her headphones were broken, she played the audio through the speakers at a low volume. She was writing a report, so the video was just playing in a background tab.

Qianqian, however, heard the noise and excitedly climbed down. She didn’t want two boring eggs; she wanted her “human language lesson”! Earlier that evening, she’d discovered that the moving pictures made things much easier. She liked matching the sounds to the movements; it made her feel like she was finally cracking the code of human speech.

But no matter how she adjusted her angle, she couldn’t see any pictures on that glowing screen. Who is talking?

Qianqian looked at the human typing away, then at the screen, then back at the human. Her crimson eyes were overflowing with confusion. Finally, she lifted her thin tail and tapped the box, making a rustling sound.

Song Keling was rarely distracted, except by movements in the enclosure. She turned her head while her fingers continued to touch-type, meeting Qianqian’s searching gaze.

Song Keling smiled. Seeing nothing was wrong, she was about to turn back when she remembered the quail eggs. They were still sitting there, untouched.

“You don’t like eggs either?” Song Keling murmured to herself. “Fine, I’ll ride my bike out tomorrow and look for a frog.”

Frog?

Qianqian excitedly twitched her tail. She knew that word! She’d seen them in cartoons—green or grey things with four legs that hopped. She used to eat them in one gulp! But she didn’t want one now. Gross… slimy and ugly.

She wanted to eat the “red” thing now—the white-and-black thing from before had smelled so sweet and fragrant. It must be delicious.

Qianqian looked around the desk but couldn’t find the “delicious thing” (the cotton-swab she likely meant). She wasn’t that hungry anyway, so she looked back at the screen. The voice was there, but no picture.

Qianqian got a bit impatient and aggressive. She opened her mouth wide at Song Keling, signaling her to fix the screen.

But to a human, when a little snake opens its mouth outside of feeding, it just looks like a yawn. Pure white, round-headed, red-eyed, with two little golden horns—that yawn was “deadly” cute.

Song Keling couldn’t help but laugh and lean in to “talk” to her, but stopped halfway. She finally understood the phrase “indulgence destroys ambition.” Looking after a beautiful little snake was really a major distraction to work and study.

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