Pampered Little Snake, Give Me a Kiss - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Competing for Favor

Qianqian’s injuries were recovering very well. Song Keling decided that once she was fully healed, she would send her back to Xuetai over the weekend.

Yes, Xuetai. The geographical environment and climate of Xuetai were incomparable to those of Xincheng. If she simply released the snake on a nearby mountain, the unsuitable environment would be tantamount to murdering the little white snake. Since she had committed to saving her at the start, she would see it through. She would let the little snake return “home” healthy and safe.

Song Keling was very busy over the next few days. Like a robot, she moved in a straight line between the classroom and the laboratory all day long. Only in those few minutes before sleep could she fully relax and engage in brief, friendly (one-sided) interactions with the snake.

Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it was Thursday. Song Keling didn’t feel right about releasing Qianqian back into the forest on an empty stomach. Moving from a captive box back to the wild, the little snake would need time to adapt; she might not be able to catch food for a long time.

There was another reason. Song Keling hadn’t seen how Qianqian hunted last time, and she wanted to feed her once more. She wanted to see if this beautiful little “child” was actually venomous or not. So, Song Keling took another healthy mouse pup from the laboratory.

She recorded the entire feeding process on her phone. Today’s mouse was much more active than the previous one. As soon as it entered the box, it started sniffing around, and moments later, it “invaded” Qianqian’s territory. Midway through, perhaps sensing a dangerous aura, the mouse suddenly pricked its ears and froze.

Qianqian didn’t seem hungry. Of course, she might have been gauging the “invader’s” combat power. Regardless, she didn’t attack immediately. She just stayed huddled in the corner of the box, occasionally flicking her thin black tongue.

Minutes passed. The little mouse, feeling the crisis had passed, continued sniffing its way toward the white snake. Qianqian’s sutured wounds were healed, and her movement was unhindered, but her actions remained slow. For every bit of space the mouse invaded, she conceded a bit with a “Zen-like” retreat.

Doesn’t she want to eat? Song Keling thought, but she remained patient.

This “cat-and-mouse” plot lasted for several minutes until finally, it reached the “no escape” stage. Seeing the little mouse getting bolder—practically about to climb onto her body—the white snake finally lost her patience, turned her head, and bit the mouse’s head in one go!

The movement was incredibly fast. Song Keling’s heart leaped with a mix of surprise and excitement. Injecting venom? Qianqian really was a beautiful little venomous snake!

The mouse, once bitten, struggled violently. Qianqian quickly let go and backed away. Song Keling brought her phone closer to keep recording. The mouse had been bitten on the head; it seemed to have escaped, but it was actually in its death throes. It panicked and dashed around blindly—a sign of being poisoned.

But just as Song Keling was trying to infer whether it was hemotoxic or neurotoxic from the mouse’s reaction, the mouse stopped twitching or bleeding. Instead, it gradually returned to normal.

Song Keling: “?”

She froze, then thought: A dry bite?

Venomous snake bites fall into two categories: envenomation or dry bites. The second occurs either because the attack was merely a warning, the bite duration was too short to successfully inject venom, or the venom glands were empty. Could it be because the interval since the last meal was too short, and Qianqian was too small to replenish her venom quickly?

Song Keling was silent for a moment, then asked the little creature, who had retreated to the side of the box but was unconsciously leaning toward her: “If you didn’t inject venom, are you still going to eat it?”

Although the white snake had retreated to the side, she wasn’t facing Song Keling directly; her crimson pupils were still warily watching the offending intruder. After a long stalemate, once she was certain the other party had no further intention of intruding, she regained her composure. Despite losing half her territory, she looked quite content. She was a little snake with a lot of “Ah Q” spirit.

Seeing that Qianqian didn’t intend to eat, Song Keling’s scientific stubbornness kicked in. She put down her phone, opened the lid, and used the long tweezers to pull out the bitten mouse. She didn’t believe there was zero toxin involved. She wanted to test it.

The commotion caused by this made the “Zen” white snake retreat into the corner again. Seeing her food taken away, she raised her neck, but halfway through, she shrank back without throwing a tantrum. She flicked her long black tongue at Song Keling, coiled herself up loop by loop, and finally tucked in her thin tail.

She raised her rounded head, her vertical pupils red and bright. If she could speak, she would probably say: Do you know who you’ve offended? You’ve offended a loser.

Because of this interlude, Song Keling’s plan to go to bed early was ruined. However, it wasn’t a total loss. In the tissue of the mouse bitten by Qianqian, Song Keling discovered a toxin she had never seen before.

If Qianqian was a type of viper, she should have hemotoxic venom like the Five-pacers she was studying. Hemotoxins primarily affect the circulatory system; procoagulants cause blood clots, while anticoagulants cause wounds to bleed uncontrollably, leading to internal bleeding and organ failure. If it was the highly venomous albino Krait mentioned by her teacher earlier, it should be a neurotoxin, which paralyzes the nerves and heart, leading to respiratory failure. This is why the Many-banded Krait is often called the “Number One” in the country; being bitten by one feels almost painless, and people often die in their sleep once paralysis sets in.

Of course, besides these, venom contains dozens of enzymes like proteolytic enzymes, phospholipase A2, and hyaluronidase. The toxin cells Song Keling found today, however, were none of these known types.

Song Keling recorded all the data and made a special trip to the electronic library to download every thesis related to snake toxins available to the university.

It was very late by the time she returned to the dorm. She didn’t shower or greet the white snake. Instead, she went straight to her computer, copied the files from her USB drive, and transferred them to her tablet to read.

Missing the daily pleasantries, the little white snake in the box slowly emerged. She coiled her long body into a white heap, revealing only her beautiful red vertical pupils, and pressed her small head tightly against the box. The beautiful scales on her head were slightly distorted by the pressure. Despite this, the human who had always been patient and friendly ignored her, focusing intently on the glowing screen.

The little snake waited, then flicked her tail unhappily.

The tail?! Right!!

A snake’s skeletal structure gives it incredible core strength. Soon, she pressed the part of her tail that had been operated on and sutured against the transparent box. It seemed she was trying to make the human—who was focused on other things and neglecting her—see the stitches.

However, it was to no avail. The movement was too small. Song Keling merely shifted her posture, resting her chin on her hand, her gaze still fixed on the data on the tablet.

Need to make some noise? That’s not hard!

The little snake seemed to have become stubborn; her “Zen” attitude vanished as she began to toss and turn.

The literature was extensive. Song Keling was practically scanning it. Since the power and internet had been cut, she only had a small “tap” lamp on. The room was silent, save for her breathing and the nearly inaudible ticking of the alarm clock.

Suddenly, a faint sound of escaping gas reached her ears. Song Keling’s ears twitched. She was too familiar with this sound. People often use “hissing” to describe a snake flicking its tongue, but in reality, flicking a tongue is for gathering scents and makes no audible sound. Small sounds usually come from a snake’s breathing.

But a louder sound comes from a snake rubbing its own scales together. Some vipers are famous for this—the Saw-scaled Viper is a classic example. And Qianqian… Song Keling had already judged her to be some type of viper.

Song Keling immediately looked up from the screen full of English literature and saw the beautiful white snake in the box tightly coiling her body into several S-curves. Her head and neck were arched tight and raised slightly, her red vertical pupils staring right at her. Every time she moved, her pure white scales rubbed together rapidly, producing that subtle “gas leak” hissing sound.

This complete reversal of her usual idle, Zen-like demeanor made Song Keling’s fingers tighten on the tablet. A snake’s long body coiling into S-curves allows it to maximize its leverage for hunting and attacking, providing the greatest burst of power and speed. Enemies often lose because they misjudge the attack distance and speed.

Although Qianqian couldn’t bite her through the box, she was right against the outer wall. The distance between the human and the snake was extremely close. The visual impact of that image was very strong!

Song Keling’s mind was finally pulled completely from the ocean of experimental data. Looking at the little white snake in this pose, she immediately fell into silent reflection: Where did I offend this little one tonight? Why is she so angry? Even with the mouse that had been “stepping on her nose” earlier that day, she hadn’t shown this state; she had merely given it a quick bite.

Looking at the white snake in a full attack posture, Song Keling felt like someone who had raised a kitten for a long time—clearly very intimate—only to be suddenly swiped at one day. Under the shock, she felt inevitably a bit sad.

She suppressed the unfamiliar emotion. She speculated that perhaps because she had taken the food away earlier, the snake was now hungry and needed to eat.

“I’ll feed you tomorrow, okay?” Song Keling lowered her head slightly, looking at the cute little forehead and red pupils even in an attack stance. She negotiated: “You can’t expect me to go to the lab now, can you? The dorm auntie has locked the doors; it would take forever to go and come back.”

The little snake faced Song Keling, maintaining its coiled S-shape without moving. But as she spoke more, it gradually relaxed its beautiful, slender body, swaying its head as its posture became idle again, slowly climbing the sides of the box.

Before that, as if showing off, it flicked its thin black tongue and glanced at the glowing object on the desk. Success in competing for favor; it was quite proud.

Song Keling didn’t see anything specific in its irregular behavior; she only thought it was indeed hungry and had intended to “ambush” her when she wasn’t looking. Now that she had discovered it, it was playing innocent and cute. It was like a big cat—when your back is turned, its eyes are fierce and it crouches ready to pounce, but as soon as you turn around, it pretends to be relaxed, lifting a paw to lick itself with a face full of honesty.

Song Keling looked at the snake, weighed her options, and compromised: “Fine.”

She had classes all day tomorrow. If she waited until she got back in the evening, this little thing might lose patience and “hunt” her again. Plus, they were going to Xuetai the day after tomorrow. If it ate tomorrow night, the few hours on the bullet train might make it anxious enough to regurgitate. Better to make the trip tonight.

Should she go to the lab to get a mouse? Or take Qianqian along?

…Take her along. Let her choose for herself. There was no other way; she had saved the snake herself, so she had to spoil it herself.

Xu Xinlei had just finished washing up. Hearing that Song Keling had seemingly just returned and was already opening the door to leave again, she came out puzzled. “Keling? You’re going out this late at night?”

Song Keling, holding the box covered with a T-shirt, responded without looking back. The dorm auntie was relatively easy to talk to, and the rules weren’t as strict for sophomores. Song Keling successfully left the dormitory building.

She scanned a shared bike, held the box in one hand, and rode all the way to the lab with one hand on the handlebars. She unlocked the lab door, weighed out several mouse pups on the electronic scale, arranged them in adjacent transparent cages, and then brought out the box from under the T-shirt.

As for the white snake, Qianqian? Although Song Keling had held her relatively steadily, she still felt the bumps and sways of the journey. The last time she came here, she was heavily injured and unconscious, so she hadn’t felt much. Today, when she saw the light again, she was practically dizzy.

Therefore, she didn’t even look at the mice Song Keling had carefully selected. She turned two circles in the newspaper uneasily, her heart still fluttering from the terrifying nightmare she had just experienced. Once she was sure the nightmare was over, she flicked her long black tongue and completely stretched out her body, which had instinctively coiled during the bumps. Soon, following her tongue, she found Song Keling’s finger moving outside.

Security! Security!

Song Keling was signaling for her to choose tonight’s food. Snakes don’t have human nature, but they are sensitive to sounds. After she tapped the box, she wasn’t surprised to see the snake slither over.

“Do you want this one?” Song Keling pointed to the mouse pup on the far right that had a bit of fur growing. The little snake moved to the far right.

“Or this one? This one is good too, looks very healthy.” Song Keling tapped the second pup; this one was a newborn, but its weight was no less than the others, and the tender meat would surely be easy to digest. The snake followed her to the second position.

Song Keling saw this: “?”

She felt something was wrong, so she tapped the third one. Sure enough, the white snake moved her body and slowly stopped in front of the third one.

No—not in front of the third mouse pup. She stopped in front of her finger.

Song Keling couldn’t quite bring herself to smile anymore. Staring at the beautiful white snake, she frowned, somewhat puzzled. “What, do you want the food, or do you want me?”

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