A Snake's Guide to Raising Humans

1.

Yu Ning took a bus to the zoo, but being hopeless with directions, he got on the wrong bus and drowsily rode it all the way to the last stop.

As soon as he got off, the bus zipped out of sight.

With nothing but wilderness around and no one else in sight, Yu Ning had no choice but to look for the return bus stop himself.

But no matter which way he went, he found himself completely lost.

At last, Yu Ning found a pharmacy by the roadside. Holding his completely dead phone, he quietly asked the owner if he could charge it.

The owner raised an eyebrow and stared at him for a long while, then turned away and called someone, muttering in a language Yu Ning couldn't understand.

Yu Ning sat helplessly on a chair in the pharmacy, staring into space.

Before long, a pair of military boots appeared in his line of sight. When he looked up, he saw a tall, aloof man in uniform standing before him, holding up his ID as he said:

"Lu Rao, head of the Third Military District. Come with us."

2.

Yu Ning realized he seemed to have wandered into some isolated paradise. He couldn't understand the local dialect, but the man in uniform could speak Mandarin.

He didn't know the area, his phone had no signal, and the local network couldn't connect to anywhere outside. Yu Ning couldn't even explain where his home was, so he could only stay at Lu Rao's house and wait for him to come home and feed him every day.

Lu Rao was very good at looking after people. In the morning, he reminded Yu Ning to drink warm water, took him for a walk in the park before work, and prepared books for him when he got home.

After finishing work at midday, Lu Rao hung his uniform on the coat rack, put on an apron, and stood in the kitchen reading and pondering.

"Feeding guide by growth stage: the staple diet for an adult human should be..."

3.

Yu Ning was very grateful to Lu Rao, but sometimes he was troubled, too.

He kept thinking something in Lu Rao's house wasn't right. Otherwise, why did he always feel as if something thick and cold were wrapped around him when he slept at night? It gave him nightmares over and over, in which a giant snake swallowed him whole.

And lately, Lu Rao... seemed a little restless, too.

"Lu Rao..." Yu Ning saw his figure again in the dark garage. "Why aren't you coming home again? Are you drunk again?"

He walked into the darkness, intending to carry the drunk man home as he had before.

It wasn't until he reached Lu Rao that he realized the man wasn't drunk at all. His pupils glimmered faintly, narrow as a snake's, as he watched Yu Ning with greedy, clear-eyed intent.

Yu Ning instinctively took a step back, but something tripped him, and he fell to the ground.

A snake's tail coiled around him. Lu Rao squeezed his "prey" tight, but held himself back with remarkable restraint.

"Can I kiss you?" Lu Rao asked softly. "It's all right if I can't."

"I started liking you the moment I saw you."

"You're the most beautiful human I've ever seen, and the human I like best."

Older, fatherly black python top × cute, charming human bottom

Reading guide:

1. Both are each other's first and only love

2. Snakes rule the world

3. The top has everything a snake has

4. A little story of two people speaking at cross-purposes

Theme: Live well and love your work