A fluffy ball of squirrel jumped at her chest, like a warm and lively heart.

Song Xu finally recovered her normal speaking function, chattering nonstop.

“Wumu, why couldn’t you change back before, was it because you hibernated too long and forgot how to change?”

“You don’t have to go through this every hibernation, right?”

“Do you remember why we left home? That’s right, it was for traveling. I asked you before but you couldn’t answer me, do you have any opinion about our travel destination?”

“Oh right, do you remember that tiger beastman who came when you were hibernating, his name is Weishan, the tiger fang necklace he sent you is still in the bag.”

“You haven’t had a full meal for several months, are you super hungry now? Do you want to eat something? Is it because you don’t have strength that this molting looks so difficult?”

“You’ve changed back to this form now, can you continue to maintain it later?”

“The stone cave you chose turned into a mud cave after one rain, are you planning to move here to live long-term or leave very soon, tell me what you’re thinking?”

“Mm, why aren’t you talking again?”

She spoke too fast, a half-mute snake couldn’t find a gap to interject. Only when Song Xu stopped in confusion did Wumu begin answering the first question: “Don’t… know.”

“…Don’t know.”

“Know.”

“…Don’t… know.”

Listening to his identical answers like an echo, Song Xu was puzzled: “Which question are you answering?”

Wumu looked a little troubled, hesitating as he covered her mouth.

Song Xu pulled his hand down. “Even if I die and get nailed into a coffin, I still have to shout loudly: I don’t want to live in this mud cave!”

She had been too excited earlier to notice, but now when the cool wind blew over her, she shivered, her speech trembling. A furry squirrel is not like a furless snake—once it gets wet, it’s doubly cold.

Luckily, the heavy rain from earlier had already stopped, so the situation did not get worse.

Wumu held the squirrel and swam into the forest, found a wind-sheltered spot at the roots of a tree, and let Song Xu start a fire. The half-wet leaves under the tree gave off thick smoke. The squirrel covered her nose with her tail and added firewood on top.

In the dense forest, even after a sudden downpour, the very bottom layer near the tree roots would not be completely soaked. After the thick smoke passed, the flames fully caught, the smoke was not as choking, and Song Xu stopped shivering.

She had countless things she wanted to say. Even though the snake’s answers were like copy and paste, it did not dampen her enthusiasm. But after being busy for most of the night, with dawn approaching, Song Xu—who had not slept all night—only said a few more sentences before drowsiness surged over her. Unable to hold on, she fell asleep beside the fire.

Wumu curled around her. He reached into the animal-skin bag she was carrying and felt around a bit, then took out a string of tiger fangs.

He lowered his head, extended his tongue, and sensed the scent on it—it was a long-lost smell. The colorful little stones and tiger fangs made soft clinking sounds in his hand.

Holding the necklace, he hung it around Song Xu’s neck.

Song Xu suddenly sprang up from the ground. The brilliant sunlight filtering through the forest made her squint. The first thing she did was look for Wumu.

Seeing that he was still in half-beastman form, she immediately praised him repeatedly. “That’s great, Wumu, you’re amazing! I thought after one sleep you would change back again! Weishan even said that once you maintain beast form for a long time, it becomes very hard to change back into half-beastman form. You really did it—this is simply a miracle!”

Song Xu, who couldn’t help praising whenever she was in a good mood, finished her compliments first, and only then realized that her head felt heavy. She lowered her head and saw a string of tiger fangs hanging on her chest.

She weighed the necklace in her hand, guessing whether she had sleepwalked and put it on herself last night, or if Wumu had put it on her.

Wumu said: “This is… her ‘courage’, ‘luck’, give you, wear.”

Song Xu once again used her full-score Chinese reading comprehension ability and interpreted: “You mean, this necklace represents your mother’s courage, or in other words, wearing this will give courage and luck, and you want to give this to me?”

Wumu: “Yes.”

Song Xu understood. “So it turns out this is a family heirloom necklace passed down through generations!”

Wumu’s intention was touching, but this thing was really too heavy—after hanging it on her neck for a while, her neck already felt sore. For the sake of her cervical spine, Song Xu still took the necklace off and tied it around her waist.

They continued forward, not staying here for long. Ahead was still an expanse of vast fresh green, leading toward the unknown. Song Xu walked happily beside the half-beastman snake, with no intention of turning back.

The route they traveled was not straight, often becoming crooked and winding. Because sometimes Song Xu was the one leading the way—when she saw something interesting, she would veer off the route to take a look. Wumu couldn’t stop her and could only follow along.

When the direction became skewed to a certain extent, the one leading would become Wumu, who would bring the deviated squirrel back to the correct direction.

But sometimes, Wumu would also deviate from the route. In such cases, it was usually because he sensed some kind of smell—avoiding large animals he didn’t want to eat, or actively seeking large prey he did want to eat. At those times, Song Xu could only follow him as well.

He finally began to eat. When people say “so hungry you could eat a whole cow,” it’s an exaggeration. With Wumu, it was a realistic description.

Song Xu looked at the snake body stretched across in front of her, touched the big bulge on his belly after feeding, then looked at Wumu’s beast-form snake head while he was eating. She pondered: “Can you still change back into half-beastman form?”

The big snake did not make a sound.

After he digested for a while and the two could set off again, Wumu was still in big snake form. Song Xu understood.

She was not disappointed. Hugging that snake head, she comforted him: “I already guessed it. Your half-beastman state isn’t very stable, but you’re already amazing. Before, I even thought you couldn’t change back at all—who knew you’d change just like that, it even scared me. Don’t worry, I said it—there will definitely be opportunities to change again in the future.”

“Even if you really can’t change, it’s fine, as long as you still remember not to eat me!”

“We need to be a bit happier, emotions affect the body!” Song Xu rubbed both sides of the snake’s cheeks with her hands and also shared with him the tasty wild grass stems she had found.

Although she said that, Wumu seemed to think differently. At night when they rested, he lay to one side, storing up strength and trying to change form.

Song Xu witnessed Wumu’s struggle with her own eyes. Last time, when she discovered it, Wumu had already changed into half-beastman form. This time, she watched from beginning to end. The scene made one think of the demon transformations in Journey to the West seen in childhood, or The Legend of the White Snake—on the level where a child would be scared to cry, and Xu Xian would be scared to death.

But little Song Xu was fearless, and even cheered the snake on from the side.

Before, Wumu’s transformations had always been very fast. This was her first time watching the entire process so carefully. It was extremely wondrous.

Scales would stretch and turn into flesh, the dark red color would fade into pale skin, and then there was hair—it transformed from scales, overall glossy. No wonder that even when it was so long, it was hard for it to get messy, and it didn’t easily tangle or frizz. Unlike her—her hair was fluffy and frizzy, and once the sun hit it, it would fly up and even carry static.

If Wumu hadn’t been in so much pain, Song Xu would have been willing to watch a bit longer.

But even with such suffering, Wumu still did not succeed in the end. A big snake lay there quietly, as if all his strength had been used up. Even the tip of his tail did not move. The ground beside him was covered in traces of where he had rolled and struggled.

Song Xu lay down beside him and covered the big snake with her tail. “Alright, today’s effort has already exceeded the quota.”

Spring nightingales sang in the forest. Wumu had never heard this kind of birdcall—his forest did not have them. He curled up his body, wrapping the squirrel in the middle.

After the squirrel and the snake had already traveled for several chapters, the group from the Fierce Beast Tribe finally arrived near Wumu’s forest stone cave.

Urged on by Shiyou, some beastmen in the tribe who did not get along with Weishan also rushed over to watch the excitement. But upon arriving here, they discovered that the scent had already faded, clearly indicating that no one had lived here for some time. Even the bit of hide on the discarded primitive beast body at the side had almost completely rotted.

“They ran!” Shiyou was furious. “Weishan, it must have been you who notified them to escape!”

Seeing that there were no traces of Wumu around, Weishan relaxed completely. In a very good mood, he opened his mouth wide and revealed a rugged smile. “What do you want to do?”

Shiyou had been thinking that today he could personally hunt a berserk half-beastman. He hadn’t expected the person to be gone. During this period, it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about secretly bringing people over, but Weishan had been watching closely, leaving him no chance to sneak over.

“Have you forgotten the tribe’s rules?”

Hearing Shiyou cling to the rules, someone couldn’t stand it and snorted. “The rule is to kill when there’s a threat. Isn’t the person already gone? If they’re gone, what threat is there left?”

“Yeah, the person’s gone. Let’s go back, let’s go back!”

“No, maybe he hasn’t gone far. Let’s check the surroundings.” Shiyou suspected that Weishan had hidden them.

A group of people noisily walked through Wumu’s forest. The two groups searched while hurling insults at each other. By the end of the search, Shiyou had no choice but to admit that the person was truly gone, and probably had gone very far—there wasn’t even a faint scent nearby to track.

In this kind of situation, even the people on his side were unwilling to waste time tracking a half-beastman who had already left. What he had hoped for was destined to fall through. Shiyou unwillingly followed everyone back to the tribe, cursing nonstop.

Weishan led his people at the rear. He turned his head to look at the collapsed stone cave hidden by trees. On one section of the cave wall inside, he could still see many crooked snakes drawn by someone.

Ever since Wumu was driven out of the tribe right after coming of age, he had been living here. This forest was relatively close to the tribe’s forest. It wasn’t that no one in the tribe had suggested driving him to somewhere farther away, but Wumu had refused to leave.

If someone returned from the west and wanted to go back to the tribe, they would definitely pass by here. He knew that the child must have wanted to wait here for Heisen to come back.

When winter came, he had wanted to tell that squirrel beastman to have Wumu leave this place. Afraid that she would be unwilling, he ultimately didn’t say it.

He hadn’t expected that he would truly leave this place.