The world is so big. Song Xu had only wanted to bring the snake out to have a look around; she never expected that she would actually run into someone who seemed to know Wumu’s mother. This low-probability event was full of drama, giving Song Xu a very strange, wonderful feeling.
It was as if she heard a vague, illusory sound above her head—the sound effect in a game when you receive the main quest and the main storyline is activated.
She couldn’t help but look up, then instantly broke into a smile, and asked with great interest, “Really? You know the original owner of this necklace? When did you see her?”
The land tortoise beastman fit perfectly with ordinary people’s impression of turtles as creatures. After thinking for a long time, he slowly said, “It seems like… it was several years ago.”
“Then tell us in more detail, come, come, sit, sit, sit down.” Song Xu warmly urged.
“You two… what relationship do you have with that tiger-clan beastman?” The land tortoise beastman sat down with a face full of confusion.
“To be honest, that might be his mother, so we’d like to know a bit more about anything related to her.”
The land tortoise beastman nodded to show he understood, and said, “She looked like she came from a very faraway place. Back then she ran over to drink water nearby. Because she was too hungry, when she saw me sleeping by the water, she pounced on me and bit me.”
Song Xu, Wumu: “……”
The snake moved its tail slightly. Song Xu quietly took a step back.
At this point in his recollection, the land tortoise beastman turned sideways and showed a mark on the shell on his back. “This mark was left by her.”
Song Xu gave an awkward dry laugh, a little regretful that she had revealed their identity so early. “Well… calamity should not extend to family members.”
The land tortoise beastman laughed and shook his head. “She was so hungry she’d lost her senses. She didn’t recognize that I was a beastman. Later I woke up and said I didn’t taste very good, and then she stopped.”
Song Xu: ……Are you sure she stopped because she realized you were a beastman, and not because you said you didn’t taste good?
“Because of my own physique, my scent is relatively faint. By the river I’m often mistaken for a rock. It really isn’t easy to recognize me.” The land tortoise spoke like an old man. “Later she went to other places and hunted a wild ox, and gave me one hind leg. She stayed here for two or three days, and then she left.”
Hearing this, Song Xu hurriedly asked, “Then which direction did she go in?”
The land tortoise beastman thought again. After a long while, he pointed in one direction. “That way.”
Song Xu was a little doubtful. Because he was pointing south, but the primal beast who brought the necklace had come from the west. Who knows what Wumu’s tiger mother had experienced.
The land tortoise beastman didn’t know anything more. After saying this, he slowly ambled away.
Song Xu fiddled with the necklace at her waist and took Snake-snake to find another big rock by the river to rest. This time she also carefully checked whether this rock was another land tortoise. If it transformed in the middle of the night, she really would be scared to the point of crying.
Since arriving in this area, Song Xu’s types of food had decreased a lot. The aquatic plants weren’t lush, the wild grasses weren’t tender either. The monotonous food could only be eaten reluctantly. She held a plant tuber dug out from the soil in her hands and couldn’t even be bothered to wash it. Anyway, no pesticides had been used on it; she could just gnaw off the skin and eat the white flesh inside.
With her legs resting on one section of Wumu’s snake body and her head pillowed on another section, Song Xu hugged a snack as a late-night bite, eating absentmindedly, while also analyzing Wumu’s tiger mother’s possible destination with him and discussing whether they should change their travel objective.
They hadn’t had a direction to begin with. Adding in the news brought by his uncle, they had simply gone west. Now, it was rare to encounter someone who had seen the tiger mother. Being optimistic—if she wasn’t dead, and if they could find her, then the regrets in Wumu’s heart would be a little less.
Also, she wanted to pet a tiger. Big tigers were fluffy and very cute. Liking Snake-snake and wanting to pet a tiger did not conflict at all.
Wandering around was her own wish. If she could also fulfill Snake-snake’s wish at the same time, that would be even better.
If she hadn’t heard news about the tiger mother, Song Xu would probably want to stay here a few more days, look for chances to chat more with the beastmen in this tribe, or play with the little elephant. But since there was news, she couldn’t sit still, and decided to set off and leave the next day.
Early in the morning, Song Xu went to the river in a daze to wash her face. This river was the only water source nearby. Even though it wasn’t very clear, they could only make do with it.
In the wild, you can’t always find clean water sources. If it was drinking water, Song Xu would still bother to filter it with gravel, moss, and the like. But for washing her face, she was too lazy to fuss with it.
Just as she scooped up a handful of water and splashed it onto her face, at the moment her vision darkened, she heard a splash. Something surfaced from the water in front of her, and the water it churned up drenched her all over.
Splash—
“You’re the unfamiliar beastman who came to our tribe yesterday?”
“What kind of beastman are you? Why are you so small?”
“I’ve never seen such a small female beastman before. Pretty interesting.”
Three crocodiles poked their heads out of the water. The eyes growing on the tops of their heads, the scale-covered skin the same color as the muddy riverbank, and the big mouths full of sharp teeth all made it clear that they were not easy to deal with.
Song Xu didn’t say a word and immediately moved away from the riverbank. Being able to speak while in beast form meant the three of them were beastmen. Although she knew they wouldn’t bite her to death the moment they appeared, three crocodiles suddenly emerging while she was squatting by the water was still terrifying.
While backing up, she bumped into the giant snake that had silently swum over. He coiled his body around her in a circle, raised himself, and stared at the three crocodile beastmen in front of him, just like every time they encountered a threat.
These three crocodile brothers usually loved playing and hunting in this river. The shallow stretch where they rolled about was full of mud. They had only just reached adulthood and were at the age where they wanted to find mates. Having long been used to seeing female beastmen in the tribe who were all taller and bigger than them, suddenly encountering a female beastman they had never seen before made them all feel curious.
The smallest crocodile beastman couldn’t help sizing Song Xu up. Ignoring Wumu, he directly shouted, “What’s the use of staying with a half-beastman? You might as well stay in our tribe and be my mate.”
The moment those words left his mouth, a snake tail lashed out like a rope and dragged him out of the river onto the shore. An enraged Snake-snake had extremely high lethality and action speed. He first released the signal that he was about to fight. The next second, the other two crocodile beastmen also rushed forward to help, launching an attack on the giant snake.
Because crocodile beastmen were powerful and had few natural enemies, growing up they had never been afraid of anyone except the elephant-clan beastman older sisters in their tribe. A foreign snake-type beastman—and a half-beastman at that—even if his body was thicker and longer, they didn’t take him seriously at all.
The crocodile that was pulled up first opened his big mouth, wanting to show off his powerful biting force. But the instant he opened it, his mouth was bound shut by a snake tail, and he was forced to keep it closed for the entire fight. The crocodiles couldn’t bite the snake, and their powerful tails stubbornly couldn’t hit the giant snake either. After all, when it came to tail length, no one could compare to a giant snake.
One giant snake versus three crocodiles—in the blink of an eye they were fighting on the riverbank, sand and dirt flying, bodies twisting, then from the shore into the water.
The crocodile beastmen who had been flung about on shore and were covered in dust thought that once they reached the water, their home field, they could turn the tables and regain their pride. Who knew that in the water, they would be churned around by the giant snake like three sticks inside a whirlpool.
In this situation, the crocodile beastmen still tried to bite the snake. For a moment, you could see crocodile scales and their flailing short claws on the surface of the water, and the next moment you could see coils of the snake’s body rolling up.
Song Xu had long anticipated this. She stood on a big rock by the river to keep watch for the giant snake. After all, they were beating people up on someone else’s territory—if anyone came, she could quickly signal Snake-snake to stop and leave.
At last, the fight came to an end. The giant snake swam to the shore, and the three crocodiles surfaced one after another as well.
They were extremely furious and transformed into human form. Sure enough, they were three burly men. Some were holding their mouths, some holding their waists, all shouting, “If you’ve got guts, don’t leave! Don’t think that just because you beat us you’re impressive!”
Wasn’t this just bullying the fact that half-beastmen couldn’t talk in beast form! Song Xu jumped out to handle the trash-talking phase. “That’s right, that’s right, you’re so weak. Of course Wumu, who beat you, isn’t impressive!”
The crocodile beastmen were so angry they sprayed water, baring their teeth. “Just you wait. The elephant-clan beastmen in our tribe can flatten you!”
Song Xu shouted at top volume, “Oh my god, no way, are you underage little beastmen? Three of you ganged up on one person outside and still couldn’t win, and now you want to cry and run home to call your moms to help you get revenge? That’s way too embarrassing. In the future, when you’re courting, if you can’t beat a female, are you also going to cry and run back to the tribe to ask your moms to help you?”
These words successfully dispelled the three of them’s intention to go back and call for reinforcements. However, the smallest crocodile beastman was actually made to cry on the spot. In his entire beast life, the first time he set his sights on a female beastman, not only did he fail to win in front of her and lose face, he even got mocked.
Hearing that sobbing sound, Song Xu was rendered speechless on the spot. How is it that you, a two-meter-tall burly man, start crying just like that? Do you have any respect for those gleaming sharp teeth you show when you cry?
This place was not suitable for staying long. Song Xu grabbed the giant snake and left. On the way, she said to Wumu, “We need to hurry and go, in case they turn back and bring people to surround us!”
And she complained, “These guys are such a waste of their big bodies, just like my former male classmates—childish! Sharp-tongued! Petty!”
As she spoke, she kept circling around Snake-snake’s long body from time to time, checking to see if he had any injuries.
She didn’t walk properly, hopping back and forth behind his tail. Occasionally, she would lift up spots that looked like they might be injured to take a look. Wumu couldn’t focus on traveling either. The tail that got lifted tried to coil around her. Probably because the intense fight just now had made him a bit excited and he hadn’t calmed down yet, his long, strip-like body kept curling up.
Song Xu was wrapped by the snake tail and couldn’t move. She used both hands to pull it down, smoothing it straight. “I’ve discovered, babe, you actually really like fighting.”
Just look at before—seeing that giant eagle he had a grudge against from far away, he immediately went over to fight; encountering a wolf pack, he got angry and opened his mouth with “die”; and now, one disagreement and he rushed in one-versus-three. Impossible to stop.
Only looking at Snake-snake’s beautiful face and his usual demeanor, you really wouldn’t be able to tell that he was quite belligerent.
After walking for half a day without seeing anyone chase after them, Song Xu relaxed again and ran to the roadside to dig holes.
Mainly to look for a kind of plant root that was crunchy when bitten. Ahead was a stretch of sandy ground where green was rarely seen, but beneath the yellow soil and gravel, more vitality was buried. Those plants that had already bloomed had withered branches, stems, and leaves, storing large amounts of water and nutrients in their roots, accumulating strength while waiting to bloom and grow again next year.
Ever since she had dug up roots once, yellow sandy soil had become the squirrel’s food treasury, and her favorite thing to do had become digging.
“Eh, what kind of eggs are these?” This time Song Xu didn’t dig up roots, but instead dug out a nest of eggs from the soil.
She scooped them all up and said to Snake-snake, “Six in total. Three for you, three for me.”
