The trees in the forest gradually began to change color. During the day, when Song Xu climbed to the treetops, she could see in the distance a gorgeous blend of gold and red.
She was picking fruit from the trees when she saw, from far away, a tree that looked completely red, and immediately became interested, pulling Wumu along with her to look for that red-leaved tree in the distance. Only when they reached the base of the tree did they discover that it was actually only the treetop that was red; below were still many green leaves—it had not yet fully finished “dyeing” itself.
She picked up a fallen red leaf from the ground. The leaf was not the five-pointed maple leaf she was familiar with, but an oval shape, symmetrically growing on a single stem.
“Look, such a red leaf.”
Wumu’s gaze fell on the red leaf in her hand. The ground was covered with fallen leaves of the same kind, and he couldn’t see what was different about it.
“If it were before, I’d use it as a bookmark.” Song Xu muttered to herself.
There were especially many beautiful leaves in the forest, particularly in autumn. Just walking through the forest, one could often see green mixed with yellow, red mixed with yellow, or leaves of pure color—bright red, dark red, brilliant gold. Their shapes were also all different: perfectly round, oval, pointed, three-forked, palm-shaped… all kinds.
As Song Xu walked, she frequently stopped to pick up a leaf, commenting on the autumn light filtering through the gaps between the trees: “This leaf is evenly dyed, and its shape is very proper. No wonder bugs like it too—there are several holes bitten by insects.”
“This leaf’s shape isn’t very good, but the traces of bugs crawling on it are very abstract. Art, art!”
“This leaf’s yellow diffusion looks like watercolor. Pretty.”
She covered half-gold, half-green leaves over her face and took a deep breath: “This is the smell of autumn.”
She was interested in even the most ordinary things in the forest.
Wumu’s face was also covered with a large fallen leaf. Song Xu asked, “You smell it—what does it smell like?”
Wumu stared at the leaf, unable to understand something as abstract as the smell of autumn. His tongue flicked out, and under Song Xu’s expectant gaze, he spat out two words: “Burrow… rabbit.”
Song Xu: “Burrow rabbit?”
She reacted: “Ah! You mean there’s the scent left by burrow rabbits passing over it?”
She sniffed again—seemed like that really was the case. That meant there must definitely be a whole nest of burrow rabbits nearby. Song Xu switched from artsy mode to survival mode: “We’ve almost stocked enough nuts anyway. How about we change our taste and get some meat to eat?”
Although not very tasty, eating it once in a while was still fine.
Following the scent left on the leaf, and with the help of the snake-snake, she searched out that nest of burrow rabbits and caught them all.
The meat was simply made into dried roasted meat. What truly made Song Xu spend a lot of effort was processing the rabbit fur.
Once autumn arrived, winter was not far behind. What needed to be prepared was not only food, but also various items to resist the cold. The “clothes” she usually had on her body were her naturally grown squirrel fur. It was soft but not thick, able to freely cover the main part of her torso, and she could also retract part of it, but it could not cover her entire body.
In beastman form, her feet and hands would have a layer of membrane, used to protect them from injury while walking or climbing tree branches, but no fur could grow on top of it. When winter came, it would be cold.
Thinking back to how the original body often shivered from cold during winter last year in her hometown forest, Song Xu decided to make herself some gloves and shoes to protect her hands and feet, and preferably also get something big to serve as a sweater, so that going out in winter would not be so cold.
For processing hides, she used the commonly used methods of beastman tribes: scraping off the fat, soaking in plant ash, then rubbing and kneading. Fur processed with this simple method usually wouldn’t stay warm for more than two years, but in the poor little tribe of the original body, being able to have a single large animal hide for warmth was already something only “wealthy households” had.
Song Xu actually knew better tanning methods, but unfortunately had no medicines or tools, so she could only make do.
While scraping fat from the rabbit fur by the water, Song Xu began to think about the snake-snake’s hibernation. Although Wumu was a beastman, snake beastmen, like ordinary snakes, should also have a hibernation period, right?
Hibernating snake-snakes would find a place sheltered from wind and rain to sleep, not eating or drinking in between. As long as no one disturbed them, they could directly sleep through the entire winter.
If Wumu was also like this, then while making her own preparations for winter, Song Xu felt she should also do her best to create a good hibernation environment for the snake-snake at home. This was her bounden duty.
First, she had to fix up the stone cave that leaked wind everywhere, using mud to paste over the cracks and small holes where air seeped in.
Half-processed rabbit hides were thrown into the water to soak, and Song Xu squatted by the water, kneading mud with her bare hands. The soft mud here, frequently trampled by wild boars, antelopes, and deer, was most suitable for filling stone cracks—fine and soft, with fairly good adhesion.
Wumu dragged a piece of prey over and found Song Xu playing with mud by the water. His snake tail loosened, and a strangled animal dropped heavily in front of her.
The two of them had different diets. Their food basically did not overlap. Only Song Xu would unilaterally invite Wumu to try her food; Wumu never let her try his prey… because every time, he swallowed it whole.
So when Wumu suddenly placed the prey he had caught in front of her, Song Xu was a little confused.
Seeing that she didn’t move, Wumu nudged the gray-black furred prey with his snake tail. “For you.”
Song Xu thought maybe he saw her catching rabbits and making dried meat, and assumed she wanted to eat meat, so he suddenly caught something big for her? Squatting down to carefully examine Wumu’s gift, Song Xu at first glance thought it was a dog. Then she thought, how could there be dogs in this place—must be a dog’s brother, a big wolf.
Wumu: “Fur. Winter. For you.”
Song Xu’s expression was shocked: What treasure—you actually know to proactively prepare winter fur for me?! Then why is your own cave basically clean and empty with nothing in it?!
Moved, she skinned what was probably a wolf, though she didn’t know what breed. The remaining meat had such a smell that she couldn’t help showing a gloomy expression: “This meat probably won’t taste good.”
What wild meat is ever tasty? It’s all gamey.
Glancing at the snake-snake’s flat belly, Song Xu thought maybe she should let snake-snake eat the remaining meat for a meal. Before she could say anything, the snake-snake had already turned his head and slithered away. He looked down on such a small prey and wanted to go find a big one.
Song Xu resigned herself to processing the hides and meat chunks, not following snake-snake to watch him hunt.
This time his hunt took quite a long time. She didn’t know where he ran off to. Partway through, Song Xu searched around but didn’t see him. When it was almost dark, a ferocious big snake head finally appeared in Song Xu’s field of vision, two dark-red eyes reflecting a faint, ghostly light like glass beads.
“You’re back. Let’s go, let’s head home.” Song Xu called to him.
The big snake slithered over to her. His body wriggled, and a bulging mass traveled up inside him to his throat, then was spat out, plopping at her feet.
Song Xu: “???”
It was a whole, large piece of fur. Using a branch to poke it open, she found that the bones and flesh inside were basically gone.
She had seen videos of snakes swallowing eggs whole and then spitting out the eggshells, and also knew that a snake’s body structure was special, making it relatively easy to regurgitate things they had swallowed, but… eating all the bones and flesh of prey and then spitting out just the fur—she had never seen that before!
Song Xu: “…Awesome!” Snake-snake is a fully automatic skinning machine!
Even more awesome was that she threw the fur into the water to soak, and later when she spread it out to wash, she discovered it seemed to be from a bear, the super huge kind. Wrapping that entire hide around herself would be like wearing a furry quilt.
From that day on, every time Wumu finished eating, he would spit out the fur and give it to her.
Every time Song Xu saw this, she would exclaim in amazement, and express her thanks for Wumu helping her prepare winter supplies. But after it happened many times, when she looked at the dozen-plus hides soaking in the pool that she hadn’t had time to process yet, she had to discuss it with Wumu: “Bao (Treasure), that’s enough. I have enough clothes. You don’t need to force yourself to eat just to help me prepare fur coats.”
His recent feeding frequency had increased a lot.
Sometimes Song Xu felt that snake-snake was a silly snake. Other times she discovered that he actually understood everything, and suspected that he might usually be pretending to be dumb.
Without her asking, snake-snake proactively prepared fur for her. And without her mentioning it, he also proactively prepared firewood for winter.
In areas farther away from the stone cave, the trees by the water were not as thick. Snake-snake used his tail to coil around the trunk and could twist a tree off, then drag it back. One tree was enough for Song Xu to burn for many days.
In one go, he dragged back dozens of trees, leaving long drag marks along the path they often used.
Song Xu, hands full of mud, was squatting above the stone cave patching up cracks. From far away, she saw dust rising everywhere and thought some large wild animals were fighting, and was even considering whether to go watch the excitement. Only when she saw Wumu dragging trees back did she understand what was going on.
Song Xu spent two days using stones and mud to patch up all the large and small cracks. Then she turned her attention to the trees Wumu had dragged back, taking some to make two doors for the stone cave, one in front and one in back—blocking the wind in winter, and also preventing other animals from barging in.
This was actually something that should have been done long ago, but wasn’t Song Xu lazy? Every day she had to look for food, and also play, and then making two doors on top of that was just too tiring. She wasn’t good at chopping trees either. So it dragged on until autumn. Now that Wumu had conveniently dragged materials back, she could no longer delay, and could only resign herself to working.
The trees in the forest grew sparser in branches and leaves with each passing day, like middle-aged men entering a period of hair loss. Every day, a new layer of fallen leaves would spread across the ground, thick enough to cover the entire ankle when stepped on.
The wind also grew colder day by day. The campfire pit that had been abandoned in summer because it was too hot was lit again every night.
Song Xu finally finished making two satisfactory doors and installed them on the stone cave.
All the fur for winter had also been processed. Every day, she spread them out to dry on top of the stone cave and on treetops, and at night collected them and stored them away.
Wumu dragged back many more trees and surrounded the stone cave with them. Song Xu had difficulty even walking through those messily placed dead trees, and raised an objection to the snake-snake who was preparing firewood.
“Bao, if you put them like this all messy, I can’t even get out. We don’t need them neatly arranged, can you at least leave me a path?”
Wumu did not agree. He looked at the dead trees that hid the stone cave and said to Song Xu, “Winter. Not go out.”
Song Xu: “I know, I know. In winter you sleep and don’t go out, but I need to go out.”
