Early in the morning, the heavy snow that had fallen all night finally stopped.
Song Xu stacked some hard, long-burning tree roots into the bonfire, then sat beside it and tightly wrapped her hands and legs with small pieces of fur she had cut earlier. Various small odds and ends were hung on a homemade belt around her waist. Finally, she draped a smaller bear hide over herself, pushed open the wooden door, and walked out of the stone cave.
This forest was Wumu’s territory. He would occasionally wander along the edges, and by following beside him, Song Xu had more or less figured out the boundaries of his domain.
After autumn arrived, Snake almost never left the vicinity of the stone cave, and of course had not gone to the edge of the territory for a long time.
Going out today, Song Xu was preparing to go take a look at the territory’s edge.
Snake’s worry for her was like a parent’s excessive concern for a child. The sentiment was touching, but there was no need to obediently follow all of his words.
Song Xu always remembered what Wumu had said: that beastmen from the Fierce Beast Tribe would pass through here and hunt primitive beasts nearby.
This place was not only Wumu’s territory, it was now also her home. Since she knew that many strangers would come into her home, there was no way she could simply hide in the stone cave and wait for them to leave without doing anything.
She had to know how many people had come here, when these people would arrive, and where they would carry out their hunting activities. Only when she had a clear picture in her mind could she feel at ease.
Snake basically did not wake up in winter, and his combat strength was greatly reduced. His situation was actually very dangerous. Snake felt that those beastmen from the Fierce Beast Tribe would not harm him, but Song Xu thought of the inspector who had come earlier to probe for information, and she did not dare to believe that.
She wanted to go and take a look. Since she was living here, she had her own way of exploring and judging this world.
Of course, there was also an element of wanting to watch the excitement. After all, people, from ancient times to the present, have always loved to watch lively scenes.
After putting on the thick bear hide, Song Xu looked like a bear walking through the forest, causing some small animals to look out from afar and flee.
After walking for a while, Song Xu would stop to play with the snow. There was really no helping it, the snow-covered forest was simply too beautiful. Everywhere were thick quilt-like layers of snow, without a single trace on them. The snowfield was so white and so smooth, wasn’t it just waiting for her to step on it and play?
Because of this, Song Xu, who greatly slowed her progress, went out continuously for three days before she finished inspecting the edges of the territory, and she did not find any traces of beastmen passing through.
She went two more times to the water’s edge she had visited before, and also did not see any primitive beasts. Everything was very peaceful. Each time she returned shivering from the cold, she had to warm herself by the fire for a long time before she could recover.
The bear-hide coat hanging to the side was being roasted and dripped water downward.
Song Xu rubbed her hands and could not help thinking that maybe Wumu had fooled her, just to scare her so she would not run around everywhere in winter.
But when she thought of Wumu’s innocent and simple appearance, Song Xu felt that he was not the same kind of person as herself. He did not look like someone who had learned such an advanced operation as lying.
Rubbing her reddened hands and cheeks, Song Xu could only accept her fate with a small whimper, and go out to take a look every once in a while.
She maintained a rhythm of going out once, then resting for several days. During these days of rest, Song Xu would not go far, and would only play in the snow near the stone cave.
She used snow to build a big snake. The snake’s body coiled around the entire stone cave, its head facing the cave entrance, biting its own tail. The snake’s body was one meter high, and Song Xu carefully drew scales all over it. If snow covered the scales, she would redraw them again.
It was just a pity that Wumu could not see her shocking masterpiece.
Seeing that more than two months had passed without anything happening, Song Xu also no longer had the diligence she had at the beginning of winter to go around investigating. Every day she stayed by the fire roasting nuts.
Just as she was roasting nuts, down at the foot of Marshland Mountain, the Fierce Beast Tribe assembled a group of dozens of fully armed members, leaving the tribe and heading toward the Dark Forest.
After entering winter for two months, it was the migration period of a certain group of primitive beasts. In previous years, the midway resting point of this group of primitive beasts had been Xiangyuan Forest, which was closer to the tribe. But in a certain year, after a mountain fire occurred in Xiangyuan Forest, that group of primitive beasts changed their midway resting point to the great river in the Dark Forest.
The Fierce Beast Tribe had grown strong by relying on hunting primitive beasts every year, so they could only chase after the footprints of the primitive beasts.
Leading this hunting team was Weishan. His beast form was a tiger, and he was the largest male tiger in the tribe. He was no longer young, his temperament steady. The twenty-plus beastman warriors walking behind him were all personally trained by him, companions who worked together with tacit understanding. But at the very back of the team, there were also more than ten young men who had only come of age one or two years ago.
These young beastmen were also called warriors, and in their usual hunts they performed bravely, but they had not yet participated in hunting primitive beasts. Weishan always felt that these little fellows were still too immature. Only if they survived this operation to hunt primitive beasts would they grow into true warriors.
“Primitive beasts aren’t anything scary. This time, I’m going to hunt a primitive beast by myself,” Shiyou said, walking at the back of the team, joking and laughing as he spoke to the companions beside him. His hair was like a lion’s mane, imposing and awe-inspiring.
“Shiyou, you really know how to brag. Even the captain can’t hunt a primitive beast alone, do you think you can do it?”
Shiyou, being questioned by his companion, was full of anger and roared at him, “Just wait and see!”
The young beastman did not back down and provocatively replied, “Then we’ll be waiting!”
To enter the primitive beast hunting team, one had to prove oneself. Shiyou and the dozen-plus young beastmen had each defeated several opponents before being selected. Precisely because of this, the young beastmen were high-spirited, none willing to submit to another, and a few sentences were enough for them to start arguing.
The older beastmen at the front heard the young ones behind boasting and quarrelling, and all revealed expectant smiles. They were truly looking forward to these little brats who did not know the immensity of heaven and earth suffering a big loss at the hands of primitive beasts.
Some older beastmen could not help but think of their own youth, feeling that they had been the same back then, and sighed, “Hunting a primitive beast alone—I also thought that way back then. Unfortunately, it’s too hard. I remember the last one who could do it was Heisen, right?”
When Heisen was mentioned, the older beastmen were all familiar with her. She had once been the most formidable female beastman in their tribe. Her beast form was a tiger. Back then, no one knew how many young men wanted to pursue her, yet all had their teeth knocked out by her. The fierce and brutal warrior had earned the worship and respect of the entire tribe.
Unfortunately, a few years ago, she suddenly left the tribe and never returned.
When Heisen was mentioned, the beastmen would also think of Heisen’s only child, Wumu, who lived in the Dark Forest. What Wumu inherited was likely the bloodline from his father’s side. After reaching adulthood, he was even stronger than his mother, but unfortunately, he was a half-beastman.
A half-beastman destined to lose rationality would not bring benefit to the tribe, only threat.
These past few years, every time they passed through the Dark Forest, they would deliberately stay far away from the territory where Wumu lived. If a snake-type beastman sensed danger and awakened during hibernation, their aggressiveness would be extremely strong. If they truly woke him, it would not be a good thing for either side.
During the journey, a group of beastmen hurriedly caught several hungry wild beasts that had come out to forage and ate them raw. They believed that drinking steaming hot beast blood would make them more valiant in the upcoming battle.
Two days later, the group of beastmen entered the Dark Forest.
Song Xu, who had come to the edge as usual to patrol, saw the messy footprints in the snow. Her expression brightened, and she quickly ran over to the traces to examine them carefully, sniffing the beastman scent lingering in the air.
The scent was very chaotic, and not much remained. They had probably passed through here last night.
Song Xu took off her shoes and gloves and hung them at her waist, moved her hands and feet a bit, then nimbly climbed up a tree and looked in the direction they had left for a while, soon following after these traces.
She would chase for a bit, then stop to sense things, making sure there was a safe distance between herself and them, not so close that she would be discovered. Simply put, she just wanted to observe in secret.
As a beastman with a weak beast form, she also possessed advantages that fierce beasts did not have. Her scent was not as obvious as that of fierce beastmen, and she was too harmless, generally not drawing attention.
When she was about to get close to that group of beastmen, Song Xu took off the bear-hide coat on her body, turned into a squirrel, and climbed onto a high tree branch to observe.
Silently counting the number of those beastmen, there were actually as many as seventy-three. A small to medium-sized tribe would only have this many people in total. That fierce beast tribe sending out so many people at once to hunt meant their total population was probably quite large.
Song Xu curiously observed each beastman, and unexpectedly discovered that one of them looked somewhat familiar. The one with hair and beard like a lion’s mane—wasn’t he the lion beastman who had chased her frantically when she had first arrived?
After looking at them, Song Xu quietly left again, not attracting anyone’s attention.
She discovered that their route was toward the rarely visited northern part of the forest, far bypassing Wumu’s stone cave. This made Song Xu feel slightly relieved, but over the next two days she still could not help paying attention to their movements.
She was bored by herself anyway, so she spent a relatively long time observing this group of beastmen. After doing it many times, it was inevitable that she would be noticed by comparatively sharp beastmen.
The leader of this group, Weishan, noticed her, and several experienced older beastmen also sensed something, but none of them spoke about it.
When Song Xu saw that they were getting farther and farther from the stone cave, leaving along the river she had swum in during summer, she finally felt completely at ease and no longer secretly followed them. Only then did an older beastman can’t help but say to Weishan, “That female little beastman who’s been watching us didn’t come today.”
A smile appeared on Weishan’s rough, coarse face, and he let out a hoarse laugh. “Probably because we walked too far, so she got lazy and stopped following.”
“Is that really Wumu’s mate?”
“Probably. She carries Wumu’s scent.”
“Didn’t expect that kid to have a mate.” An older beastman sighed. He still remembered when Wumu was little—other small beastmen gathered together all day to tussle and play, but he did not even like to talk, instead coiling around the door pillar of Heisen’s home. Whoever tried to tease him would get bitten.
Weishan also had not expected it. When Xuan Jiao came back last time and said Wumu had found a mate, he had even thought she was lying.
These past two days, he had quietly approached that squirrel beastman to observe her, and saw that she had Wumu’s shed snake skin tied at her waist.
Weishan felt somewhat relieved. Since Wumu had found a mate, it meant he had not completely lost his rationality. Perhaps his current situation was better than Weishan had imagined.
The reason he felt this relieved was because he and Heisen were siblings from the same litter, tiger cubs who had grown up together.
