My best mate’s a snake: Chinese man's massages and regular strolls with South King the python

Pythons usually generate fear, but a man from southern China says he has been best friends with one for six years, a newspaper reported.

The man said he adopted his pet when he saw it barely alive at a fishmonger’s stall after it had been caught in a fishing net, the Hainan Daily reported.

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He took it home and called it South King.

Since then the snake has been at the side of the man, who was named only as Uncle Min, like “a gentle child”, the report said.