Song Xu is not a good teacher. If she were a teacher, she would definitely mislead students. Fortunately, she only has one student right now, so if she misleads anyone, it is only this one.
When teaching Wumu, she combined the inherited memories of the original body with her own memories, synthesizing the customs and habits of the two worlds, and poured everything into the sole student in one go.
“When greeting people, the first sentence should be ‘Hello, have you eaten?’ Or you can say, ‘The weather’s really nice today, where are you going?’ Come, repeat after me.”
Wumu thought about it. It seemed that during the time he had lived in the tribe before, there had been no such habits or ways of speaking. Everyone did not greet him.
He looked at Song Xu with suspicion as she put on a very serious expression. To appear more like an old teacher, she even pretended and picked up a charred black branch to draw on the ground.
Song Xu: “Why aren’t you repeating? Is it too long? Fine, then we’ll start with the shortest. First say ‘hello.’ The pronunciation after that curls the tongue… ah!”
At this point, Song Xu suddenly remembered that Wumu’s tongue was like a snake’s tongue—long, with the front split in two. She suddenly realized, “Do you often not speak because your tongue structure is different and inconvenient? Let me take a look!”
She tossed away the wooden stick in her hand and took two steps forward to check Wumu’s tongue. When Wumu saw her coming to pry open his mouth, he immediately raised his body to block in front of her.
A perfectly good teaching session ended in eagle-catching-chicks–style horseplay. In the first class, Wumu did not learn anything at all, and a huge question mark appeared in Song Xu’s mind. Once she thought about the tongue issue, she became extremely curious about whether snake snake could normally pronounce all tones.
After that, teaching happened whenever there was an opening—at any moment, any place.
“When you meet a stranger, say, ‘Hey, let’s get to know each other, what’s your name?’ When addressing others, you must be polite, and you have to praise them, for example, ‘beauty,’ ‘handsome guy.’” Song Xu taught confidently.
Wumu stared at her without making a sound. He had only forgotten how to say some words; it wasn’t that he understood nothing. He knew that praising others meant wanting to become partners with them—it was not something you could say to just anyone.
The student’s constant lack of cooperation made the unreliable teacher even more convinced that his reluctance to speak was due to his tongue.
“Let me see your tongue.”
Wumu pressed his lips tightly together.
Words could not move him, so Song Xu could only suddenly rush at him when he wasn’t paying attention. However, every time before she could get close, she would be blocked by a thick, sturdy snake tail, slapping into it with a pa-ji sound.
Wumu’s upper body leaned against the rock, unmoving as a mountain, while his snake tail blocked her approach from all directions.
Song Xu was so tired she was panting, thinking that she could only outwit him now.
When the big snake went out to feed, burying his head in the water and gulping water with gurgling sounds, Song Xu looked at the bulging cheeks of the big snake and was overjoyed. This was the long-awaited perfect opportunity!
She turned into her small squirrel beast form and quietly slipped into the river, arriving beneath the big snake’s head, where she could see his tongue sticking out.
Song Xu: “Hehe.” Now she could finally take a good look.
The big snake was drinking water in big mouthfuls when he suddenly felt something in the water touch his snout. He opened his mouth and sucked, instinctively swallowing that thing into his mouth. Only after swallowing did he catch whose aura it was.
Wumu: “……”
“Pfft.”
The soaking-wet squirrel was spat out. It rolled in the river water, a squirrel head popping up. She spat out some water, wiped her ears, and said calmly, “Misjudged.” She had gotten too close and hadn’t expected to be sucked straight in.
But snake snake drinking water really is super cute.
In the middle of the night, the stone cave was at its quietest. The fluffy squirrel that should have been fast asleep climbed up, clumsily walking to the sleeping big snake’s side. She was so sleepy she was swaying, yet stubbornly forced herself to stay awake and reached out to touch the big snake’s mouth.
Facing that beautiful face no different from a human’s, she suddenly felt a bit unable to bring herself to do it. If it were a big snake head, her action of prying open the mouth might have been smoother.
What she wanted to do still made her overcome that small hurdle. Song Xu pinched Wumu’s cheeks and stuck her finger inside, wanting to pinch his tongue out to take a look. She was a person with standards—she had even specially washed her hands before coming.
Her finger had just touched something soft and slippery, when suddenly, pain shot through it.
She was bitten! Song Xu quickly withdrew her hand, looked at the tiny wound on her finger where a bead of blood was emerging, then looked at Wumu’s suddenly opened, terrifying dark-red eyes. She staggered and collapsed on the spot, her voice faint and weak: “I—I’m poisoned. I’m going to die… Before I die, let me see what your tongue actually looks like. That’s not too much to ask, right…”
Wumu: “……” But he hadn’t injected any venom at all.
There was a trace of her blood’s taste at the corner of his lips. Wumu subconsciously flicked his snake tongue, then, under Song Xu’s fixed stare, drew it back again.
During this period, Song Xu had been far too capable of causing trouble. Wumu was often disturbed by her antics, one after another, to the point that his tail would knot up. Unable to hold back his anger, he had just now bitten her.
But after biting her, there was also a little bit of… He slowly and hesitantly moved his tail, not knowing how to describe this feeling.
Song Xu lay there waiting for a while, not waiting for any sensation of poison taking effect, then sat up and wiped the wound on her hand.
Being bitten once didn’t really bother her. It was like people who keep cats often having their arms and the backs of their hands scratched into lines, or people who keep snakes occasionally being bitten by a small snake—basic operations.
She sensed that snake snake had been angry earlier, and also reflected on her own behavior. In the middle of the night she had suddenly reached over to pry someone’s mouth open to look at their snake tongue—this really was courting death. It was all because the big snake had been too easy to bully lately, making her get carried away. No wonder Wumu even wanted to open his mouth and say she was bad.
“Fine then, if you won’t let me see, forget it.” Song Xu drooped her head dejectedly, licked her injured finger, and under Wumu’s expressionless gaze, left the stone cave.
Outside was pitch-black, and the night wind still had a bit of chill.
She didn’t go far, just to the tree hollow nest she had newly made. The previous tree hollow had been occupied by an owl. The new tree hollow she dug later was spacious and blocked the wind. After digging it, she had kept it ventilated and drying, and stuffed in lots of moss, wood shavings, and grass fluff as padding.
Occasionally, when she got sleepy at noon, she would take a short nap in that tree hollow. At night, she was still used to resting in the stone cave.
Song Xu felt that she was now a bit like someone who had quarreled with their partner in the middle of the night and could only run off to sleep in the guest room. She transformed into her squirrel beast form, lifted the shed snake skin used to cover the entrance, drilled into the tree hollow, and lay down in the soft nest.
The nest, which she hadn’t slept in many times, was fluffy and soft—actually quite comfortable. Song Xu waved her hand to air out the wound, quickly fell asleep again, and even started making small snores.
But Wumu was unable to fall asleep at all.
He felt that the scent of Song Xu’s blood lingered around him, constantly being caught by the snake tongue he kept flicking out.
Compared to his enormous body, Song Xu only occupied a tiny piece of space, yet her sense of presence was huge. When she wasn’t there, the stone cave felt much emptier— even emptier than before she had appeared.
Summer night insects chirped, day after day noisy, yet inside the stone cave it was very quiet.
Wumu rested his head on thick moss, then remembered that Song Xu had padded it for him, and lifted his head again.
He swam into the small upper cave used for hiding, concealing his upper body, but his snake tail hung below, sweeping back and forth, stirring up a patch of dust on the ground, looking restless and uneasy.
The fire burning in the cave had not been fed with more wood. A log was about to burn out, breaking into two pieces and falling into the ash pile, splashing a few sparks. Hearing the faint crackling sound, Wumu poked his head out from the small cave. He still couldn’t fall asleep.
Outside it was dark. He listened carefully—there was no cry of Song Xu encountering danger. Even when she didn’t encounter danger, she often cried out like that, just wanting to call him over.
In the end, Wumu still took the initiative to swim out of the cave.
Song Xu woke up once, dazedly looked toward the entrance, and found that outside was still dark. The tree hollow was dim; it wasn’t daylight yet. She changed her position, her little feet stepping on the edge of the tree hollow, and fell asleep again. But when she woke up the second time, outside was still dark.
Was the night really this long? Song Xu touched her already-flat-from-hunger belly and felt something was off.
She went to the tree hollow entrance to take a proper look. When she got closer, she realized it wasn’t that it was dark outside—something was blocking her entrance.
She touched it. The thing blocking her door was cool and slippery, felt very nice, and very familiar.
It was snake snake’s tail.
After being touched by her twice, the big snake’s tail moved, sliding forward and away. In an instant, brilliant, intense sunlight shone into the hollow—clearly, it was already not early.
Sticking her head out to look, Song Xu saw snake snake coiled on her tree, slowly climbing down, heading toward the stone cave.
When Song Xu woke up from sleep, she had already long forgotten that little incident from last night. As usual, she said to Wumu, “The weather’s so nice, let’s go to the waterside to look for food!”
Wumu turned his head to look at her. Song Xu’s steps were light as she quickly caught up to him, saying, “Let’s go, let’s go, you also need to eat!”
She had already noticed—this snake snake would not actively look for food unless he was starving. Originally, he ate once every half a month. Ever since she had forcibly dragged him to the waterside to play, the frequency of his feeding had become higher than before.
Song Xu strongly suspected that he used to always sleep and have no energy to pay attention to people because he was hungry. Look at how energetic he was now after eating—he would even actively come out and coil around trees.
Arriving at the waterside, Song Xu squatted down and cupped water to wash her face. The wound on her hand soaked in the cool water, producing a stinging sensation.
“Sss!” Only then did Song Xu remember that her hand was injured. She looked at the wound and sighed inwardly—commemorating snake snake’s first time biting her. And if she looked carefully, this wound was just a small little hole. What part did snake snake use to bite her? Which tooth had bitten her?
Oh no. Now she not only wanted to carefully look at snake snake’s tongue, she also wanted to look at his teeth.
Wumu was hanging from the tree above her head. Hearing the pained hissing sound she made, he saw that the wound on her hand had a faint trace of red again.
Suddenly, a white arm dropped into her view—long and large, cool and pale. That hand, for the first time, proactively took hold of her hand and pulled it upward. Song Xu looked up in confusion. Wumu lowered his head, and without much expression, lowered his head and held her finger in his mouth.
