After he left, Irina went back to look for Damien.

“One… another one…” Damien squatted down by the rice sack, rummaging through it. There were three to four yellowish-orange grains.

Hearing the sound of Irina’s footsteps, Damien quickly hid the grains under the sack. He stood up and said, smiling, “Irina.”

“Where are the baby snakes?” Irina took a quick look around and found the traces of quite a number of them in a corner.

They liked to go to the corners, and with 19 baby snakes scattered around in the room, it was hard to find all of them with one glance.

Irina was afraid that she would get...