Song Xu froze on the spot. She suddenly realized a problem—a problem that was obvious, yet one she had never paid attention to: Snake-snake was a male, and they were both beastmen. Among beastmen, no matter what their original forms were, as long as they had beastman forms, there was no reproductive isolation between them.
And half-beastmen… the original body had seen too little and had no related knowledge, only vaguely remembering that there had once been legends of beastmen taking half-beastmen as partners.
Song Xu sucked in a sharp breath: Snake-snake, he wouldn’t… be treating her as a female partner, right?!
Before, she had changed Snake-snake’s bedding, helped him shed, fed him, and played with him, and she had never felt that anything was wrong, because those were all things one could do with a pet snake. But now, no pet snake would hold a human’s finger in its mouth and suck on a wound.
Feeling the moist, soft sensation wrapped around the wound on her finger, the snake tongue she wanted to see was probably now coiled around her finger. Song Xu’s whole person went dumb.
Wumu released her finger and lay on the tree branch to rest. His long hair draped down, his face quiet and beautiful. For the first time, Song Xu focused on the first two characters of the title “beautiful man snake,” instead of the last one.
Song Xu looked at her finger, coated with a layer of saliva, glistening with moisture, and recalled the good deeds she had once done to Snake-snake.
If she had viewed Snake-snake as a male being of the same kind, she definitely would not have done something like sneaking over in the middle of the night to pry open someone’s mouth.
If she jumped out of the circle of “keeping Snake-snake” and looked at it, she was a purebred hooligan.
Staggering, Song Xu held up her finger and walked to the water’s edge. When she reached the water and saw her own distorted face, she hurriedly turned into a squirrel—good thing, good thing, a squirrel’s face is cute no matter what expression it has.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Song Xu’s sudden scream startled Wumu. He lifted his head and saw the squirrel suddenly running wildly and screaming in the grass. He didn’t know what she had encountered again, frightening the flying insects in the grass into chaotic flight.
After looking around and finding no danger, Wumu observed Song Xu for a while, still unable to figure out the reason for her screaming today, so he could only, with his habitual confusion, bury his head again.
With a plop, Song Xu stiffly fell over into the grass, her belly rising and falling, staring straight at the blue sky.
When the squirrel screamed loudly and ran around, Wumu would be startled, but when she abnormally lay there quietly without moving, Wumu felt it was strange again. He suspected she might have been bitten by a poisonous insect or had eaten something strange and passed out.
He slithered down from the shade of the tree and into the grass. The snake body parted a winding little path through the vast patch of wild grass. Circling once around the squirrel lying on her back and not moving, he enclosed her in a circle, and Wumu pawed at her.
Song Xu weakly: “Ying.”
She was so strange.
Wumu propped her up and had her lean against his snake body. Song Xu slowly slid down again, impossible to prop up.
Wumu thought she might be acting strange because she was injured, but her wound was very small. Wumu lifted her paw and took a look—there was no more bleeding, yet she was still lying there not moving.
She had previously had times when she lay on the ground and stubbornly refused to get up. At those times, she would also roll around and be accompanied by shouting; it was not like this.
After recalling Song Xu’s previous behavior for a moment, Wumu suddenly changed into beast form. A huge snake head thrust in front of Song Xu like an intimidation, and it even abruptly opened a bloody mouth big enough to eat ten squirrels, as if it were about to swallow her in one bite.
But Song Xu immediately understood Snake-snake’s meaning. He was satisfying her previous request, letting her freely look at the structure inside his mouth.
Showing her this would wake her right up! Song Xu rolled over and climbed up from the grass, not even brushing off the grass bits on her body, and stood in front of that bloody mouth, peering inside.
Wow, these teeth, this inward-hooking sharpness, this tongue… the more she looked, the more her entire squirrel head drilled into the snake’s mouth, leaving only a fluffy tail swaying outside.
Seeing the tail swaying in front of his eyes, the big snake instinctively wanted to bite down, then held back.
After looking enough, Song Xu retreated from the big mouth, with a bit of regret in her heart.
She actually also wanted to see how the oral structure differed in the half-beastman form, but now she had already reflected on herself and learned to be polite and courteous, and it was not good to make such excessive requests of an ordinary roommate anymore.
After withdrawing from the snake’s mouth, Song Xu politely said thank you to the big snake.
On the way back, Song Xu did not shout about wanting to sit on the snake’s body and have him carry her anymore, but honestly walked behind Wumu.
He slithered through the grass, leaving behind a winding snake trail. Song Xu watched the tip of his tail, restraining the hand that wanted to randomly touch, lowering her head and stepping on the fallen blades of grass as she moved forward.
He slithered through a moss-covered wetland, pressing the moss into flat marks. The bit of dust and mud on his smooth snake body was all wiped clean by the moss, making his tail even more glossy and beautiful, looking like it would feel great to the touch. But she couldn’t touch it.
Reminding herself to keep her distance, she didn’t touch his tail again for the entire day, and the evening’s reserved program—KTV night chats—was also canceled.
Once she regarded Snake-snake as an untouchable being of the same kind, instead of treating him as her precious Snake-snake, by modern moral standards and social etiquette, Song Xu discovered that she couldn’t do anything at all.
How could this be! Could it be that from now on she could never touch whenever she wanted anymore? Song Xu, who found it hard to go from luxury to frugality, depressedly kicked the stone wall in frustration.
Song Xu wasn’t used to it, and Wumu wasn’t used to it either.
In his eyes, Song Xu’s keeping her distance meant she had been frightened by being bitten by him and no longer wanted to get close.
She would soon leave this place. No beastman dared to accompany a dangerous half-beastman for long.
Half-beastmen who lost their rationality would kill and eat the people around them. That was why he lived alone in this quiet forest, hiding in the stone cave for long periods of time.
Aside from eating and shedding, Wumu didn’t like turning into full beast form. Most of the time he lived in half-beastman form, which could delay the time of complete beastification. But now, he felt as uncomfortable as if he were about to shed, and turned into beast form, crawling into the small hiding hole.
Song Xu spent a whole day being a moral person, and suffered insomnia for most of the night, officially admitting defeat at daybreak.
She went to the big snake’s side and called for him to go out for a walk and have breakfast, but the big snake ignored her. He had hidden himself in the small hiding hole again and refused to come out; even the tail hanging outside wouldn’t flick anymore.
Every time he hid in this small hiding hole, it was because she had annoyed him to no end. But she had been so quiet last night and hadn’t provoked him at all, why was he hiding?
When her calls received no response, Song Xu climbed up along his tail and forcibly squeezed into that tiny hiding cave.
The small cave was too cramped to move around. Inside, she bumped left and right, only feeling snake tails packed tightly together in all directions. Wumu was stirred out by her like this, flowing out of the hiding cave like water.
After dragging him out, Song Xu returned to beastman form, tidied the furry animal hide that had transformed into clothes on her body, and sat upright in front of Wumu, looking serious.
“We’ve been getting along for so long. I believe we’ve gained a certain understanding of each other. I want to ask you a question.”
Wumu sat on his own tail, the remaining portion of his snake tail coiled into a figure-eight shape, listening to her speak.
“I mean, how about you take me as your partner?”
Song Xu had sorted out the logic. Touching a roommate you have no relationship with is immoral and impolite, but if they were partners, then touching would be legal. No one could stop her from legally keeping a snake.
Wumu: “……”
Song Xu: “Come, repeat after me, ‘Okay.’”
Wumu: “……”
Song Xu: “Tsk, couldn’t trick you, huh!”
Not hearing an answer, Song Xu wasn’t discouraged. She moved a little closer and asked that old question: “You still don’t want to tell me your name?”
“Wu… mu.” It was still a halting voice, low, but he was willing to speak.
After asking countless times, Song Xu finally got an answer, feeling a sense of satisfaction like “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and pressed on while the iron was hot: “Then how about we become partners?”
Wumu hesitated. Song Xu saw his tail swaying back and forth, much more unsettled than his expression. Suddenly, a thought came to her. She stood up, walked to the entrance of the stone cave, and said to him, “As long as you walk out of this stone cave today, that means you agree!”
Wumu stared fixedly at the cave entrance. Brilliant sunlight shone there, the strip of light lengthening with time.
There was no movement outside. He slithered to the place where he usually lit a bonfire; the tail of sunlight lay right beside his own tail. Just as he was about to go out, Song Xu’s head appeared at the cave entrance, and Wumu shrank back again.
Song Xu saw his movement clearly and issued a warning: “I’m going to shout for help!”
Standing at the entrance of the stone cave, Song Xu cleared her throat and rubbed her face before shouting, “Ahhhhh help!”
Luring the snake out of the cave.
The hook may be straight, but it can still catch.
The big snake came out of the stone cave. Song Xu had already expected this and was waiting there. “You agreed! I’m legal now!”
Wumu turned his head back toward the stone cave. Song Xu hopped and chased after him, laughing loudly. “Too late, too late, you already agreed!”
Tripped by his snake tail, Song Xu fell onto Wumu and, using the momentum, pressed down on his back, saying, “Since we’re partners, then I can look at your mouth. Let me see!”
Wumu twisted his body. His snake tail slapped wildly inside the stone cave, striking the surrounding rock walls. Song Xu didn’t care at all—anyway, it wouldn’t hit her.
The flailing tail didn’t scare her. Wumu raised his arms to block his head and face, but it didn’t help much either. In the end, his cheek still got touched.
He looked like he wanted to spit out his snake tongue, but was afraid she’d seize the chance to grab it, so he tightly shut his mouth. With his hair in a mess, he looked rather aggrieved.
Song Xu was delighted. “I’m just looking, I definitely won’t put my hand inside!”
“You… lied to me.” Wumu broke a new record—he said four words today.
Seizing the moment he opened his mouth, Song Xu stuck at his mouth to look inside, and very quickly touched his snake fang that had become smaller in human form.
“See, I didn’t touch.” She wore an obedient, innocent expression as she teased him into talking.
Wumu indeed fell for it. He felt her little movement and retorted, “Touched…!” She touched!
Song Xu pretended not to understand. “What? You want me to touch? Then I’ll touch. Many thanks, many thanks.”
Wumu: “Ssss!”
Angering Snake-snake into hissing sounds, Song Xu gained a full measure of happiness.
