At 1:00 AM, in Room 202, the snake resting on the pillow suddenly opened her vertical pupils. A burning sensation in her lower abdomen and tail made her uncomfortable. She had been woken up by hunger.
Her mother did not like to keep food in the room, so there wasn’t much to eat. The little snake crawled under the bed, trying to find a mouse in the corner, but after searching for a long time, she found nothing.
The little snake bumped into an iron cage, knocking herself dizzy. Sensing danger, she immediately coiled herself up like a mosquito coil.
She flicked her tongue, hissing at the air above, below, and on both sides. When she moved her tail forward, she bumped into something again, making her dizzy once more.
This time, the little snake smelled the scent of food. Her nearsightedness was too severe for her to see how big the prey was; just as she brought her head close to the iron cage, she was startled by some soft, furry down.
Oh, it’s a rabbit.
The little snake used her sense of smell to identify what creature the prey was. The gaps in the iron cage were not very wide, and the little snake was glad that her tail was thin and long. She slipped into the cage and coiled herself obediently in front of the rabbit, looking exactly like a weasel paying a New Year’s call to a chicken—with no good intentions at all.
She was afraid that the noise the rabbit might make while struggling would wake up Yu Ying from her sleep. She did not want her mother to know that she was a “bad snake.”
She was feeling melancholic about whether or not she should bite the rabbit to death, as the burning sensation in her abdomen and her reason were at war with each other. At the same time, she was thinking about how to kill the rabbit with a single strike.
With hunting skills innate in her genes, the little snake should have coiled around the rabbit’s neck, strangling the prey with her tail, and then feasted on the rabbit’s carcass.
But she could not bring herself to kill the prey in such a bloody and cruel manner. Moreover, this was a rabbit her mother kept. Thinking of her mother, the little snake’s reason slowly returned. She retreated from the iron cage to look for other food.
If she couldn’t eat meat, eating vegetables would be fine, right?
The little snake crawled onto the balcony and fixed her vertical pupils on the bean sprouts her mother was growing. The hydroponic bean sprouts were growing well. The little snake took a bite, only to remember that her mother had said bean sprouts shouldn’t be eaten raw. She quickly spat out the sprout and returned to the room, wagging her tail in frustration.
She was so hungry; she urgently needed some kind of food to fill her stomach. The little snake crawled back to her mother’s side and smelled a sweet, pleasant scent. This scent emanated from her mother’s body.
The little snake coiled around her mother’s wrist and licked the back of her hand. This sweet scent was the best “food” she had ever eaten; it was more effective at suppressing her hunger than any other food.
Tonight, Yu Ying’s sleep quality was not very good. Half-asleep, she felt something licking her, and when she lifted her wrist, she saw the little snake coiled around it.
The little snake was licking with great enthusiasm, and the burning sensation in her abdomen disappeared. The little snake stiffened, turned her head to meet her mother’s eyes for a moment, and then whoosh—she dove into the quilt, only to be grabbed by her tail by Yu Ying.
Yu Ying pressed the back of her hand against the little snake’s tail. The temperature of the tail was shockingly hot, and she woke up instantly, thinking the little snake was suffering from heat stress.
“Baby, are you not feeling well?”
She knew the little snake could understand her.
The little snake shook her head. Her body condition didn’t look like she was suffering from heat stress; her tail nimbly coiled around her mother’s finger, and she could understand her mother’s instructions.
Was the room too hot? Yu Ying grabbed the little snake and walked into the bathroom, filled the bathtub with warm water, and sprinkled flower petals into it. The little snake loved flower petals.
The little snake was the first to spring from Yu Ying’s wrist into the bathtub, splashing water and wetting Yu Ying’s pajamas. The little snake had a rose petal on top of her head, gazing up at her mother blankly.
Yu Ying took off her robe and unclasped her bra, stepping into the bathtub with her long legs. The little snake, only one meter long, wrapped her thin, cool tail around her mother’s ankle and slowly crawled upward, climbing onto her mother’s thigh. Her tail and head touched each other, clasping around her mother’s thigh.
The little snake loved baths because she could have intimate contact with her mother. She stretched out her bright red tongue to lick the water droplets on her mother’s body.
“Don’t lick.” Yu Ying reached out her hand, and the little snake obediently let go of her thigh, crawled onto her wrist, and poked out a bit of her tongue again, wanting to lick the water droplets on her mother’s web of her hand (between thumb and index finger).
Yu Ying pinched the little snake’s tongue with her slender fingers. “Be a good girl, no licking.”
The little snake nodded obediently and retracted her tongue; Yu Ying released the little snake. The little snake fell back into the water, crawled onto her mother’s back, and used her tail to pick up a bath sponge to help her mother scrub her back.
She liked helping her mother scrub her back, but her technique wasn’t very good; she always ended up covered in foam, and sometimes she would slide off her mother’s back.
Yu Ying noticed that the little snake had been very fond of licking her lately. She stood up and turned on the showerhead to rinse the foam off her body. The little snake coiled around her wrist, secretly observing her mother with her vertical pupils, and learned to lift her head just like her mother.
Yu Ying wiped the water droplets off her body with a bath towel and instructed the little snake, “Lick it clean.”
The little snake was excited by her mother’s command and wagged her tail. Her bifurcated tongue licked away the water droplets on her mother’s body. The sweet scent made the little snake feel like she had drunk a jar of fruit wine; her head became dizzy, and her body grew soft, wanting to coil around her mother’s leg.
The lower abdomen of her tail pressed tightly against the skin of her mother’s thigh, and the scorching heat was transferred to the little snake. She was like a block of ice, gradually being warmed and melted by her mother’s body temperature…
Yu Ying changed into clean silk pajamas and dried her long hair. Her fingers lifted the little snake, who hung on her fingers, limp like a ribbon.
“I still need to give you a bath.”
Yu Ying took out a small bath bucket, and the little snake crawled into it. Yu Ying pressed and massaged the lower abdomen of the little snake’s tail.
Every summer, the skin of a female snake would secrete a layer of mucus; if it wasn’t cleaned properly, the snake would feel very uncomfortable when shedding.
The little snake’s tail was being touched all over by her mother. The scorching temperature of the human palm made her sensitive. She quietly stretched the tip of her tail out of the bucket to lower its temperature.
“Has it been a long time since you cleaned it? Why is there so much?” Worried about the little snake getting hurt, Yu Ying gently rubbed the little snake’s tail to bathe her, her slender fingers coated in shower gel foam.
The little snake’s tail trembled, and she rested her head on her mother’s palm. Her mother was cleaning her tail—only mates helped each other clean their tails.
Does Mother want to be my mate? The little snake leaned against her mother’s palm, her vertical pupils turning deep pink as she looked at her mother. She couldn’t help but wonder: could a human tongue help her with that?
Yu Ying used a cotton swab to gently approach the little snake’s abdomen until the swab no longer picked up any water droplets. She held the soft-bodied snake. “You need to have a bath like this every so often.”
Upon hearing her mother’s words, the little snake’s tail became even softer. How could her mother say something so shy so casually? She rubbed her tail against her mother’s palm and let out a hissing sound.
Okay, let’s mate every so often then.
Yu Ying didn’t know what the snake was thinking. As usual, she placed the little snake on the pillow.
The little snake, not fearing the heat, crawled into Yu Ying’s embrace. She tucked her tail into her mother’s bosom; that softness enveloped her tail. The human temperature made her shiver, and a wave of heat surged to her cloaca. She quickly pulled her tail back and crawled back to her own spot.
Yu Ying stroked the little snake’s head with her fingertips. “Why are you so clingy today? I like you being clingy.”
The little snake rubbed against her mother’s finger and let out a hissing sound in response to Yu Ying.
A human is cleaning the snake’s cloaca; the human is good. The human even wants to be the snake’s wife; the human is even better! The snake also wants to be the human’s wife! The snake is also good!