After breaking free from the binding of the snake’s tail, Song Xu immediately went to add firewood to the campfire.

In order to create a good hibernation environment for Snake Snake, the campfire could not be allowed to go out. Although the possibility of Wumu freezing to death because winter was too cold was close to infinitely small, a snake keeper could not be careless!

After adding firewood, she cleaned the small fish she had caught, cooked a pot of fish soup to satisfy her craving, and after eating and drinking her fill, it was already dark outside.

Wind blew in through the gaps of the wooden door she had made. Song Xu wrapped herself in wolf hide and lay in the grass nest near the campfire, and suddenly felt that it was too quiet, so she turned her head to look at the big snake hibernating in the corner.

Usually Snake Snake was also very quiet. Aside from being able to squeeze out a few extra words when he was flustered, he normally did not like to speak, and preferred to use his tail to express emotions.

Likewise, when sleeping and not speaking, today’s stone cave felt much quieter than usual.

Maybe it was because she knew in her heart that once Snake Snake fell asleep this time, he would only wake up in spring, and that was a very long period of time.

The squirrel who had only recently gone through great effort to escape from the snake’s tail, before going to sleep at night, did not hear Snake Snake’s routine hissing, and felt somewhat unable to fall asleep. In the end, she gloomily draped herself in wolf hide and silently returned to the pile of snake tails, covering herself together with the snake tail beside her under the wolf hide.

Tossing and turning and unable to sleep, she crawled up cravingly to gnaw on nuts. The ka-ka-ka sounds rang out for quite a while, yet there was not a single Snake Snake awakened to share a midnight snack with her.

Lying back down again, she still could not sleep, and began to scratch and touch the scales beside her. The diamond-shaped snake scales lay flat against the body, and the area near the belly scales, where she was leaning, had even become warm.

In the past, when Snake Snake was awake, Song Xu’s little movements would disturb him. If he was unhappy, the tip of his snake tail would droop outside and slap the ground, making pa-pa light sounds. When he was especially unhappy, the snake tail would twist entirely, very intimidating.

But now he had no reaction at all.

Since there was no reaction, didn’t that mean she could do whatever she wanted?

Song Xu giggled, and crawled out from under the wolf hide blanket. Wumu was lying in a half-beastman form. Song Xu lifted his head onto her lap, and used a fishbone comb to straighten out his hair that had been tangled into thread-like clumps.

This fishbone comb had been taken apart from a big fish Snake Snake had caught for her last time, replacing the crude wooden comb she had made herself.

After combing his hair until it was smooth, she neatly placed it to one side, and arranged his hands overlapping on his abdomen. Song Xu examined his appearance, then picked up a piece of black charcoal that she usually used for scribbling, and directly pressed it against Wumu’s eyebrows, drawing two thick, heavy eyebrows for him.

“Hahahahahaha!” Song Xu laughed to herself for a while, then ran to the cabinet where she stored food and found a kind of fruit that would ooze red juice after being peeled. She peeled half of it, carefully dripped the red juice sticking to it onto Wumu’s mouth, and gave him a blood-basin mouth.

The blood-basin mouth gave off a sweet fruity fragrance. Song Xu looked at him, then gnawed on the remaining half of the fruit, biting out a matching big red mouth. Soon, Wumu’s cheeks had two more big red patches, and his brow center had one more red dot.

After messing around for a while, Snake Snake still had no reaction. Song Xu began to feel it was boring, and only then yawned and obediently wrapped herself in wolf hide to sleep. She lay sleeping on Wumu’s chest, and the squirrel’s fluffy tail just happened to cover his neck, occasionally unconsciously brushing across his face.

Winter was truly dull. Snake Snake kept sleeping, and even going out to play felt meaningless to Song Xu. In the past, when she was alone, she could amuse herself with anything. Now that there was one less Snake Snake by her side, she felt uncomfortable everywhere.

The forest in early winter was very quiet. Compared to autumn, when one could see all kinds of busy figures, it was like a classroom after vacation, so desolate. She wore simple shoes made from cave rabbit fur, and deliberately stepped on the fallen leaves on the ground. All around, one could only hear the crunch-crunch sounds of her stepping on leaves.

The fresh tender flowers and grass leaves that could be casually picked were all gone. On the ground, however, there were still various plant fruits and seeds left over from autumn. These were rations that small animals coming out to forage in winter could use to fill their stomachs.

She picked up a black-gray fruit pit from the ground and knocked down the last leaf on a tree branch, then used a small branch broken off casually to whip the tree trunk beside her.

The small stream had dried up. The stones that used to look colorful in the water, without the soaking of water, had become gray and dull. Song Xu also lost interest in picking up small stones to play with.

She was so bored that she squatted on the ground to watch a little insect crawl on leaves, crawling from one leaf to another, and finally climbing onto a tree trunk. Song Xu seemed to have witnessed a challenge, and praised it: “You succeeded, you crawled so far!”

The startled little insect instantly fluttered its wings and flew away.

Song Xu: “…Since you can fly, why were you crawling just now?!” It was probably as bored as she was.

Looking around in the forest that had lost much vitality, she discovered a mouse that was busy transporting seeds. It had big ears and a short tail, and maybe it was not a mouse.

But Song Xu did not know many kinds of animals. All gray-black, tailed, squeaking ones she collectively called mice, just like how she called all horned ones cows, all long-eared hopping ones rabbits, and all four-hoofed, patterned ones deer. Whatever made her happy.

This mouse probably slacked off in autumn, resulting in other mice all having stored grain and hidden away for winter, while it was still busy here.

Song Xu was so bored that she helped this unfamiliar little animal pick up fruits for a long time, piling them up like a small hill at the entrance of its burrow, and even stuffed several fruits into its hole.

“Giving them to you, no need to thank me.”

She walked around outside several times and did not even see a slightly larger animal, let alone the danger Wumu had mentioned. No fierce beast tribe beastmen, no primitive beasts—she did not even see a shadow of them.

Returning to the stone cave, Song Xu lifted Wumu’s snake tail, wrapped it around herself once, and lay down beside him. “I’m so bored ao!”

Snake Snake slept for several days, and Song Xu complained about being bored for several days. In the end, she set her sights on the trees outside the stone cave that were standing there to dry. She climbed up and down, little by little breaking off branches, arranging them against the stone cave, shaving the tree trunks, shaving out a pile of wood shavings—at least passing a few days’ time.

During the day she sorted firewood, at night she ground horns. The horns Wumu gave her—she did not know if they were ox horns or some other kind—some big, some small, pitch-black and hard. She did not plan to make anything, just ground them for fun.

Boring days passed slowly. Song Xu thought a long time had already gone by. She ran to the stone wall where time was recorded to take a look, and it turned out only half a month had passed.

She lay beside Snake Snake and rolled around, one leg propped up on the snake tail and lifted. She had already tested it during this period—this kind of small movement was absolutely impossible to wake Snake Snake. He was now a stone snake sealed in place, no different from her bedside bolster.

Suddenly, while she was muttering “so bored” several times, her bedside bolster suddenly moved.

Song Xu: “!”

An arm stretched over and rested on her body.

Song Xu abruptly sat up and saw Snake Snake’s dark red eyes opened. He had actually woken up! During hibernation, Snake Snake normally would not wake up midway, right? Or was it that snake-type beastmen were different from ordinary snakes, and would wake up midway?

In any case, it definitely was not awakened by her small movements.

Song Xu let out an “ao” and grabbed Wumu’s big hand, happily kicking her legs wildly. “You woke up you woke up you woke up!”

Wumu indeed was not awakened by her noise. This year’s hibernation environment was very good, better than any year before. Song Xu’s care for him was more meticulous than anything he had felt even when he was a cub.

But in such a comfortable environment, he still could not fall into deep sleep.

When he slept, his bodily functions dropped to the lowest level, but he could still vaguely sense the outside world. He could hear all kinds of small movements Song Xu made, knew that she was crawling around on him, and whenever she left the stone cave to go out, he would have a tendency to wake from sleep.

Perhaps because he was worried that she might encounter danger.

“Bao, you slept for so long, I really missed you!” Song Xu was still excited, and sweet words slipped out without any thought.

She said it casually, but when Wumu heard her words, he froze for a moment. His slightly sluggish head from just waking up tilted.

Song Xu: “Since you’re awake, then accompany me to play!”

Wumu suddenly repeated what she had just said: “I missed you.”

Song Xu: “……”

After Wumu finished describing his feelings, that was that. He still had not learned to use sweet words to confuse people in order to achieve his own goals. Imitating Song Xu’s speech was also not a first or second time, so he was especially straightforward and magnanimous.

Song Xu was inadvertently hit back by her own words, her gaze going a little blank. “Ah, we… we can play spinning top?”

Previously, Song Xu had specially made a spinning top for Snake Snake as a toy, but Snake Snake did not really like toys, so she ended up playing with it more herself.

It was just that her interest in finding amusement came quickly and went quickly. That spinning top, after being played with only a few times, had soon been tossed into a corner, and this time she took it out again.

Snake Snake, who had just awakened, was still in the drowsy period of hibernation, lazily not fond of moving, even more sluggish than usual. Song Xu placed the spinning top beside his tail, and he only gave it a perfunctory pat. Snake Snake would not do things he did not like to do. 

Even this perfunctory pat already counted as especially giving Song Xu face.

“Alright, if you don’t want to play, then I’ll play for you to watch.”

Perhaps because there truly was nothing fun to do in winter, this time Song Xu actually developed a bit of interest in playing with the spinning top. There was just one more audience member, yet she felt even more energetic while playing.

However, at the temperature when snakes were supposed to hibernate, it really was not a good thing for Wumu to keep staying awake. He had been awake for an entire day, neither speaking nor moving, only staring at her and occasionally flicking out his tongue, making people worry whether he would get frozen silly.

Song Xu tossed aside the spinning top she had been playing with all afternoon, and patted Wumu’s snake tail. “You should hurry up and sleep, look how sleepy you are.”

“Good night, Makabaka¹Makabaka (玛卡巴卡): A playful nonsense phrase commonly associated with the children’s show In the Night Garden, often used jokingly as a cute way to say good night or comfort someone.!”

Wumu, whose eyes were covered, coiled around her leg and fell asleep again. After he fell asleep, Song Xu skillfully freed herself from the snake tail.

The bored and low mood only lasted until before the first snowfall arrived.

As the temperature dropped, snow fell in the forest. Song Xu was like she had returned to her happy hometown, turning back into a happy little squirrel. Wearing wolf-hide clothes, and putting on her self-made gloves and shoes, she pounced into the snowy world outside and went crazy playing.

The city she had lived in for eighteen years had a warm climate and never snowed. Such heavy snow in the forest simply mobilized every excited cell in her body. Even the effects of the cold temperature on her body could not hinder her determination to play in the snow.

Instinct told her: Little squirrel, you should go back to the cave and rest now. And her heart replied: Sleep for what, keep the music going, keep playing!

First, a layer of fine sand-like snow grains spread to fill the open spaces of the forest and the treetops. Then came large swaths of light, airy snowflakes, falling day and night.

How would a southern child ever have seen such a sight. Even late at night, Song Xu forced her eyelids open and refused to sleep, insisting on opening the wooden door and sitting at the edge of the stone cave, watching the heavy snow outside by the campfire.

Footnotes

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  Makabaka (玛卡巴卡): A playful nonsense phrase commonly associated with the children’s show In the Night Garden, often used jokingly as a cute way to say good night or comfort someone.