Song Xu squatted there, both hands parting the grass, remaining completely motionless for quite a while.

She was observing a snake—not Wumu, but an ordinary wild flower snake, sharp-headed, black and white patterned, about two meters long.

This was not the first time Song Xu had seen snakes around here. Each time, she would observe from a certain distance; only after the snake was startled and slithered away would she reluctantly pat her hands and leave.

As a reptile-and-snake enthusiast, of course she found snakes adorable, but untrained wild venomous snakes were not comparable to tamed non-venomous or mildly venomous pet snakes, nor to intelligent snake beastmen who could communicate. If she got too close and was mistaken for a threat, she would be attacked.

For the sake of both sides’ safety, maintaining this distance to watch was good for them both.

After finishing looking at the snake outside, Song Xu decided to go back and cuddle with the pretty big snake at home. Although it was a pity that she couldn’t get hands-on with the little cuties outside, she could touch the one at home!

The big snake at home was a TOP-tier snake who had bewitched her at first sight, making her lose her mind, forget the danger, and become possessed enough to reach out and touch him directly. Of course, the main reason she dared to touch him again and again back then was that she sensed he was a beastman and not hostile toward her, which was why she dared to be so bold.

“Hehe, Wumu.”

“Hiss.”

As long as it wasn’t basking in the sun, a snake’s tail in summer was cool, smooth, and soft. Once Song Xu placed her hand on it, she didn’t want to take it away. As she kept touching it, she ended up lying on it entirely… in squirrel form, because that way the contact area for rolling around became even larger.

Squirrel fur in summer was really hot. Song Xu also loved to move around, often going out for a run and coming back drenched in sweat. At times like this, the snake tail was like a bamboo mat that could cool her down. She would spread her limbs and press them against the snake tail; when one spot got warmed by her, she would roll over and change position to sleep, always staying at a comfortable temperature.

The only bad thing was that while sleeping, the snake would sometimes shift around. If she wasn’t careful, she would roll off the snake tail, and in the middle of the night she would often groggily rub her eyes and climb back onto her “bed.”

Most snakes enter hibernation in low temperatures, but they also don’t like temperatures that are too high. After the outside temperature became excessively hot, Wumu was no longer very willing to go out. He preferred staying for long periods in the cool shade of the stone cave, and the times he was willing to leave the cave became concentrated in the slightly cooler early mornings and evenings.

Going out at night to swim, or climbing to high treetops to look at the moon and enjoy the cool air, were habits Song Xu had brought to him.

Now that the weather had finally become slightly cooler, the snake’s activity had returned to being frequent. However, before that, he had shed his skin once again.

This shedding was different from the previous one. Last time, the two of them had only just met, and Song Xu had approached him tentatively. The snake had still treated her as a human-shaped tree branch. Now, the two of them were already “partners,” and Song Xu quite naturally stayed close by his side, watching his entire shedding process clearly and carefully from the very beginning.

Thinking about how difficult the last shedding had been for the snake, Song Xu had prepared all kinds of things this time as well—warm water, damp moss, and so on. She had even specifically rolled back a large stone with a rough outer surface for the snake to rub against while shedding. The stone walls inside the cave had been rubbed so much by the snake that they had become smooth and weren’t very useful anymore.

This shedding was a bit smoother than the previous one, and it also took less time, but Wumu still looked somewhat pained and irritable. His snake tail kept slapping against the ground with pa pa sounds, looking fierce.

Once he started shedding, he was no longer in his half-beastman form. The ferocious snake head was raised high, the snake tongue trembling, continuously making an air-vibrating sound that made one’s scalp go numb.

The large stone that Song Xu had pushed back was slowly tightened around by the snake tail. His strength was too great, and perhaps the stone itself was a bit brittle, because it was directly crushed and split apart by him. The cracking ka-ka sounds of the stone were also teeth-aching. Song Xu tried to push the stone, which had split into two halves and become obstructive, out of the stone cave, but her foot was tripped by the snake tail.

“This stone is already cracked, it’s useless. Do you still want to keep it in the stone cave?” Song Xu asked, one foot unable to lift.

The big snake raised his head and nodded in a very human-like way.

“Alright then, if you like it, we’ll keep it.” Song Xu sat down and patted her thigh. “Look, knee pillow, come lie down!”

The big snake placed his head on the moss, his tail rubbing against the grass mat that was about to fall apart. He only looked at her and didn’t go over.

Song Xu waited for a while, then took the initiative to go over, forcibly pressing his big head onto her legs and stroking him.

“Alright, alright, it’ll be over soon. Don’t be anxious. This is just like giving birth, you can’t rush it.”

The snake’s snout rubbed lightly against her knee.

“Is your mouth itchy? Is it starting?” Song Xu asked, lightly scratching under the big snake’s chin with one hand.

Wumu’s eyes were fixed tightly on her. Although at this time he actually couldn’t see very clearly, he still stared intently at this blurry figure. She bent down patiently to talk to him, unlike usual when she would deliberately mess with him, tease him, jump around, and make a racket.

His head climbed along her arm up to her shoulder. The heavy snake body made Song Xu feel a bit strained. Wumu slowly looped around her once, from her back to her other arm, then slid down again.

Bent over from the weight, Song Xu couldn’t help but sigh, “Snake, chubby!”

The new snake skin split open from the tip of the snout, but Wumu didn’t go look for a place to hang the shedding skin. Instead, he stayed wrapped around Song Xu and refused to let go. Carrying this heavy affection, Song Xu watched him laboriously rub and, once again unable to hold back, reached out to press on the shedding skin. “Here, I’ll hold it down for you. You slowly shed.”

Although she couldn’t shed the snake’s skin for him, acting as a big rock to hold the shedding skin in place was still possible.

Last time he shed, he had crawled and twisted all over the stone cave. This time, throughout the entire process, he insisted on staying coiled around her, moving about beside her. Song Xu couldn’t take even a single step away.

When Wumu took a break midway, Song Xu even joked with him, “I’m your favorite tree branch right now, right? You just keep coiling around me.”

She felt like her legs were about to go numb from being pressed by the snake. Later on, she didn’t need to help hold the corner of the shedding skin anymore. Seeing that there were still some bits of loose skin stuck on Wumu’s body, she wanted to get warm water to wipe and soak him. But as soon as she stood up, she was tripped and fell face-down onto the grass mat. Her lower back was pressed down by the big snake’s head, and she couldn’t get up at all.

After flailing her limbs uselessly for a while, she fell asleep in that position. Staying up late to accompany the snake through shedding was really exhausting.

When she woke up, she discovered that the snake head she had draped over her back before sleeping was now pressed under her belly. The snake, done shedding, hid his head beneath her body and didn’t move at all.

“Alright, another brand-new snake.” Song Xu examined the snake’s body. “There’s still a tiny bit of loose skin. Come on, let’s go soak in the water.”

The river was no longer as turbulent as it had been some time ago. The water surface had become much calmer.

Already evolved into a little white streak that could dart through waves, Song Xu skillfully held onto the snake’s body and went into the water, swimming beside the big snake. He soaked in the water, his cheeks slightly puffed as he drank.

Song Xu sank down and pressed against his abdomen, watching up close the puffing of his cheeks and his swallowing movements as he drank. She placed her hand against him to feel the wriggling of his throat, then touched the small W-shaped slit on his snout.

Disturbed by her, Wumu couldn’t focus on drinking anymore. He stopped and used his head to push her back up to the water surface.

“Alright, alright, I won’t bother you anymore, I won’t bother you. You drink.” Song Xu said with a grin, grabbing a handful of soft aquatic plants and carefully wiping him all over.

The old shed skin had long since dried and turned brittle. Song Xu had gone some time without a raincoat, and now she had a new one again. When Wumu discovered that, just like last time, his shed skin had been collected by Song Xu and worn on her body, he no longer felt conflicted like before and accepted it very calmly. If she wanted his shed skin, then all his future shed skins would belong to her.

Once again discovering that the snake had squeezed into her grass nest to sleep, causing her constantly expanded and padded grass nest to be on the verge of collapse, Song Xu sighed, “You’ve been really clingy lately.”

A few days ago, she suddenly wanted to go sleep in her unused tree hollow. The snake followed her out as well. That tree hollow was too small to accommodate such a large snake, so he coiled his body around the tree and forcibly squeezed his head into the hollow.

Even though his actions were clingy, nothing could be seen from his expression when he was in half-beastman form. His expression was just as cold as his body temperature.

Occasionally, when he stared at her with that indifferent expression, it made one suspect that he was angry and wanted her to go farther away… if not for the fact that the tip of his tail was still firmly hooked around her, refusing to let go.

As the fruit trees Song Xu had marked earlier in summer gradually began to bear ripe fruit, Song Xu entered a busy harvest season and no longer had the spare energy to pay attention to Wumu’s recent clinginess.

This season was probably every animal’s favorite season in the forest. Food was abundant, and it wasn’t easy for anyone to go hungry. But at the same time, competition was also fierce. If you didn’t pick the nearly ripe fruits at the first opportunity, by the next day, the not-yet-fully-ripe fruits would be pecked away by the first wave of birds.

On a single fruit-bearing tree, several batches of customers—small birds, squirrels, monkeys, and others—would arrive at the same time, just like a supermarket during a big sale, full of people crowding and scrambling to buy.

To prepare for this harvest period, Song Xu had already prepared several storage cabinets in advance, all wooden cabinets. The cave that had been temporarily requisitioned from Wumu as a shelter had already been cleaned and returned to him, but Wumu rarely used it anymore. He now greatly favored her luxurious grass nest.

Batch after batch of sweet-with-a-hint-of-sour fruits were placed into the storage cabinets. Unfortunately, fruits couldn’t be stored for too long and still had to be eaten early.

The fruits on the branches began to ripen in large quantities. Those who could fly or climb trees couldn’t finish eating them all, and many fully ripe fruits fell from the branches and dropped to the ground, giving benefits to the small animals living on the ground.

Due to changes in her taste brought on by her body, Song Xu, besides the fruit flesh, liked the pits even more. Every day, she carried the true snake (shed) skin bag she had made herself and happily went to pick up fruit pits under various trees.

She no longer wandered around by the river. The grass stems in this season had already grown old and were no longer tasty. Various fruit pits were much more fragrant.

In the patch of woods right outside the cave entrance, a large area of fruits fell every day. Even inside the stone cave, one could often smell the faint sourness and fruitiness of rotting, fermenting fruit.

The squirrel’s hoarding habit was fully displayed in this season. The snake’s stone cave became more and more crowded by the day.

Song Xu, who ate a lot every day, didn’t look very different when in beastman form, but when she turned into a squirrel, it was obvious that she had gotten a whole circle fatter—her cheeks and belly puffed up, and the fur on her body became even denser.

Even the cohabiting snake seemed to have gotten fatter as well.