The speed at which spring arrives in the forest is just as fast as the speed at which the snow melts. Almost as soon as there is still a thin layer of snow left on the ground, tender sprouts grow out from beneath it.
After eating nuts all winter, Song Xu finally saw some tender shoots and couldn’t wait to start eating grass. The crisp, tender blades wrapped in melted snow juice were fresh, sweet, and crunchy. One bite was enough to tell that the seasons had changed.
Compared to the squirrel, who finds everything delicious, the snake’s eating situation was not very optimistic. After waking up midway through hibernation, he had never fallen asleep again and had been maintaining his beast form the entire time. Song Xu tried bringing him all kinds of food, but the snake never started eating.
Seeing that spring was about to arrive and the temperature was starting to rise, by normal timing the snake should also be coming out of hibernation. Generally speaking, snakes shed their skin when they come out of hibernation, but the snake in her family never did anything according to what was normal.
Seeing that Wumu could not turn into a half-beast within the expected time, Song Xu decided to leave this place early with him, to avoid being cleared out by the beastmen of the fierce beast tribe.
What she had been busy with lately was preparing for travel. Although she did not have many belongings, they were all things she had accumulated bit by bit. The little clay figures she pinched, the strange vine-woven spinning-top toys made from small stones she picked up, and so on—these definitely could not be brought along, but they still needed to be properly stored.
Song Xu dug a pit inside the stone cave and buried both her and Wumu’s “treasures” in it, so that leaving them outside for too long would not result in wild animals damaging them.
What needed to be brought were a flint, a large block of salt, a beast-tooth dagger, and the horn knife she had ground herself, the ropes she had twisted, and other such items. All of these were stuffed into a self-made animal-hide bag, filling one bag until it was bulging.
After packing everything, only two matters remained. One: how to make the snake understand that they were leaving home so he would obediently follow her out. The other: choosing a good day suitable for travel.
For the former problem, she explained to Wumu four times a day, every day, why they had to leave, like a repeater. She even stood on the big stone in front of the snake and delivered to him a summary of the past year, an analysis of the current situation, and an outlook on the future.
For the latter problem, Song Xu felt that family matters should be decided jointly with the participation of all family members, so she handed the decision of the departure date over to Wumu.
Five stones of different shapes and colors were placed in front of the snake. Song Xu pointed at the stones. “If you choose this stone, we leave tomorrow. If you choose the second stone, we leave the day after tomorrow…”
And so on. She explained the departure date represented by each stone one by one.
According to Wumu’s Uncle thinking, the current Wumu might not necessarily be able to understand her meaning, but Song Xu still explained every single thing she did to Wumu clearly, even more clearly than when he used to be able to communicate and speak in his half-beast form.
The snake’s gaze followed her moving hand. After his head followed her around in circles a few times, Song Xu suddenly raised all five fingers and took on the stance of playing a rhythm game, hopping across the five stones. Her fingers moving so fast they were almost afterimages successfully made the snake dizzy, and the snake lowered his head and flopped down.
Song Xu: “Hey, don’t, don’t lie down. Hurry up and get up and pick one.”
In this position, as his tongue flicked in and out, it accidentally touched the middle stone. Song Xu picked up that red stone and placed it on the snake’s flattened head, clapping twice as she announced, “Alright, then we leave in two days!”
She climbed up and continued preparing things. The snake slithered forward a little, resting his head at the edge of the mattress and looking at her. At this moment, no one could understand what a big snake was thinking in his heart.
Early on the morning of the third day, Song Xu had packed up everything else inside the stone cave, leaving only the bed beneath Wumu.
The mattress that had been slept on all winter was no longer as soft as it had been at the beginning, and the fragrance of wood shavings and dried moss had long since dissipated, leaving only a not very pleasant smell.
Song Xu felt out the tiger-fang necklace from under the snake’s chin and said to him, “Your neck and body are about the same thickness. You can’t really wear this necklace anyway. I’ll keep it for you first, okay?”
She put the snake’s precious necklace into her animal-hide bag, grabbed the bear-skin mattress with both hands, and yanked it off. The big snake that had been lying on the bear-skin mattress was dragged onto the ground along with it.
Deliberately, Song Xu said, “Hahahaha!”
The big snake lifted his head to look at her, then smoothly slithered off the mattress, letting Song Xu roll it up and hide it in the small hole he used to use for hiding.
“Alright, let’s go.” Song Xu walked in front and opened the small door of the stone cave. The weather outside was not good. A fine drizzle was falling, and the raindrops drifting onto her face felt cool.
But since they had already chosen a day, they had to leave today. Rain or not, they were leaving. Song Xu bent down and called the snake, “Wumu, come out quickly!”
She had already made up her mind that if the snake refused to come out, she would drag him out. Who knew she would not need to use her strength—at her call, the snake quickly slithered out.
He circled around the stone cave where he had lived for several years, then identified a direction and slithered toward it.
Song Xu felt that what he had just done was like saying goodbye. Including now—when he turned his head to look back at her, the movement carried a sense of humanity. She followed after him. “Wumu, do you understand what I’m saying, or do you not understand what I’m saying?”
“Do you know where we’re going now?”
“Do you remember what my name is, do you remember what our relationship is?”
“Have you remembered what happened before, that primitive beast, and your uncle.”
“Your uncle said your mother went west to look for the moon. We don’t have a destination either, so we might as well head west. Maybe we’ll run into her.”
“Oh right, do you know what uncle means? Let me tell you…”
The snake flicked his tongue, gathering information from the surroundings, making faint hissing sounds. Amid Song Xu’s nonstop talking, his slithering speed seemed to increase.
The two walked through the forest. The spread-out tree canopies above blocked the fine drizzle, so the rain didn’t fall on them, making it feel rather leisurely.
Song Xu was someone who couldn’t focus single-mindedly on traveling. Everything around her easily caught her attention.
They passed by a big tree and saw a cluster of white flowers growing out from beneath the withered leaves at its roots. Song Xu, who had been walking beside the snake’s head, stopped and carefully examined the flowers.
The long snake body passed by the squatting Song Xu with its middle section, then its back section also passed by her, and even its tail was about to pass her. Song Xu still hadn’t finished looking. She reached out and grabbed the tip of the snake’s tail, stopping him from moving forward, her eyes still fixed on the flowers.
Song Xu: “It’s a flower I’ve never seen before. Can it be eaten?”
The snake, whose tail was firmly grabbed: “…Hiss.”
After setting off again, she was holding a small half-clump of flowers in her hand, carefully tasting their flavor.
They passed another big tree. Red moss grew all over its trunk, and coincidentally, its outline looked like a bird with its wings spread.
Song Xu stopped and even turned the big snake’s head around, hugging his head and looking at the moss together. “Look, doesn’t it look like a bird!”
They walked for a bit and saw a hole on the side. Song Xu leaned over to take a look and asked Wumu, “Guess what’s inside that hole?”
There were simply too many holes like this in the forest. But Song Xu remembered and said mysteriously, “There’s a lazy mouse living inside. It hadn’t prepared food for winter, so I helped it pick up lots of stored supplies!”
They passed an open patch under the trees. Leaves were piled into a small hill, and she didn’t know what animal had made it.
“Wow!” Song Xu instantly ditched the snake and ran over to watch, pondering what could be hidden inside such a big pile of fallen leaves. She turned her head to look at the snake who was hesitatingly watching her, then suddenly took a running start and dove into the leaf pile.
Not long after, they heard her let out a shout from inside the pile.
The snake slithered over and also drilled into the leaf pile. The pile rustled with chaotic sounds, and only Song Xu’s giggling laughter could be heard. A moment later, the leaf hill collapsed, and a squirrel covered in leaves and grass bits crawled out from the other side.
The snake followed right after her and also came out. Because he was too long, his head had emerged, but his tail was still on the other side, not yet out of the leaf pile.
Song Xu: “Hahahaha, you look so funny like this!”
But very quickly, she scratched her arm in confusion and muttered to herself, “Why is it a little itchy?”
She dug out two ants from the itchy spot.
Song Xu: “…………” Ah, so was there an ant nest inside?
Having also dived into the ant nest, the snake rolled around on the ground twice and was fine. But the furry squirrel screamed and jumped around, tossing and turning for a long time before finally shaking all the ants off her body.
The naughty child had learned her lesson and no longer dared to randomly dive into leaf piles. She scratched her arm somewhat aggrievedly and said to the snake, “I’ve never seen this kind of ant nest before. It’s hidden in a leaf pile—who could tell? And why do these ants even bite people, wuwuwu.”
She cried wuwu the whole way. The snake lifted his snout and bumped her waist. Song Xu swayed unsteadily and realized her legs were being coiled around. Then her entire body was wrapped up. The snake’s tail tightened and twisted, and Song Xu, bundled into a ball, experienced what it felt like to be the snake’s prey, getting squeezed by the snake’s constriction technique until she almost couldn’t breathe.
After finally being released, she gasped for air, waving her hand in surrender. “O-Okay! Stop, stop! I won’t wuwu anymore, I’m not uncomfortable anymore!”
The snake’s way of showing concern and comfort really put too much pressure on people. With this, who would dare to randomly wuwu next time.
They walked for an entire day. Song Xu’s energy was already used up, and she stopped beneath a dead, withered tree.
All the other trees had started growing leaves, but this one was still completely bare, not a hint of green to be seen. Its branches and trunk carried a stiff, cold, gray decay of death. It was estimated that before long, once a strong wind came, it would completely fall over.
Song Xu climbed up the tree, grabbed one trunk, stomped hard with her foot to snap another trunk, then quickly jumped onto the neighboring trunk and continued stomping. One after another, cracking sounds of branches breaking rang out, along with the sound of dry branches falling to the ground.
Feeling that the branches on the ground were about enough, Song Xu nimbly climbed back down and started arranging the firewood. Nothing else to say—after going through a whole winter, she was now a small expert at stacking wood. Adding firewood to a bonfire was her specialty.
The snake had been waiting beside her for her to finish playing and continue forward. Who knew that after a while, she had already lit a fire and was sitting beside it, looking like she had no intention of moving on.
The snake had no choice but to slither back, circling around the fire once.
Song Xu was habitually encircled within the snake ring. Going along with it, she used his body as a backrest and leaned against him.
“We already walked a lot today, we should rest,” Song Xu said with full justification. “The true essence of traveling is wasting time! If you rush too much, it doesn’t feel like traveling anymore!”
At this moment, she had already forgotten that the reason they came out was to seek refuge, not to actually go traveling.
