(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-09 09:35

Last Sunday evening, Liu, a resident of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, was sleeping soundly when she was awakened by a strange noise.

Turning on the light, she found a 1.5 m long sugar-cane-thick snake that was preying on a rat. She was so frightened that she fled her home and called police.

Police found the snake coiled in a hole in a corner of her bedroom, but they did not know how to capture it. Chen Feng, a chef living next door to Liu volunteered to help, saying he was good at catching snakes as a child.

Chen used a lighter to burn the snake's tail, forcing it to leave the hole. He then pressed on the snake's head. He said the snake was not that poisonous.

In the wee hours of the next day, police drove the snake to Zijinshan Mountain to set it free.

(Nanjing Morning Post)