“Wumu, tell me, what kind of egg do you think this is?”

“…………”

“Turtle egg? Crocodile egg? Lizard egg? Snake egg? Or some kind of bird egg?”

Compared to the animals of her original world, the animals in this world were both familiar and unfamiliar, and the sizes of various animals were not absolute. The range of her guesses was therefore quite broad, but as she kept guessing, it started to go off track. She joked, “It can’t possibly be a squirrel egg… hahaha, squirrels don’t lay eggs!”

“…Hiss.”

“But no matter what kind of egg it is, it should be ripe now. Let’s eat.” Song Xu picked up a tree branch and poked out the eggs buried in the firepit. Even though they had been buried in soil, the fire had been too strong and cracked the shells, but it didn’t affect eating.

Ever since becoming a squirrel beastman, the number of times Song Xu ate cooked food had grown fewer and fewer. This was both adapting to the needs of this body, and also indulging a lazy person who didn’t like starting a fire to cook.

By now, Song Xu only occasionally lit a fire either to keep warm or to boil water. If the water source she found along the road was too dirty, she couldn’t drink it—she had to boil it first. Squirrels might not need to eat cooked food, but they absolutely had to drink boiled water!

The reason Song Xu was in the mood to slowly roast eggs and eat here was entirely because the visible greenery ahead was almost gone. The days with abundant food coming up were probably not many, so she especially wanted to cherish every meal she managed to find.

Song Xu peeled an egg and ate slowly, while Snake-Snake beside her swallowed the eggs whole. He wasn’t used to chewing, and didn’t even peel the shells. His powerful digestive ability allowed him to digest even bones, let alone tiny eggshells.

“Well, eating the shells too counts as calcium supplementation.” Seeing him tilt his head back and have three eggs disappear into his mouth, Song Xu muttered while peeling her first egg.

After finishing this small snack, Song Xu pushed apart the remaining embers and poured water over them, confirming that not even smoke was coming out anymore before considering it finished.

The weather was still very hot. Song Xu looked at the exposed rocks in the distance, her listless tail dragging along the ground, sweeping just like Snake-Snake’s tail. The reason she had turned into beast form to travel was to reduce the area exposed to the sun, and also because running on four paws in beast form was easier than walking in human form.

The result, however, was not what she had imagined—this way felt even hotter, and her body felt heavier.

There were no large thickets nearby to provide shade. The plants growing along the roadside were sparse, with thick stems and thin leaves, unsuitable for blocking the sun. And in this place, water sources were truly hard to find.

The squirrel swayed unsteadily, as if she might fall over at any moment—though it wasn’t that the situation was truly so dire, it was just that the sun was too strong, she was too hot, and she didn’t want to walk.

The moment she collapsed, Wumu noticed. His snake tail coiled around her, lifting her from the ground and placing her onto his body.

The squirrel lay draped over the smooth snake body like a furry shawl. The cool snake body, after being exposed to the sun for a long time, had also warmed up. Song Xu scooped up her own tail, flicked off the dust, and covered it over her face to block the sun. But after a short while she took it off again—having something so furry over her head was just too hot to endure.

With an extra squirrel passenger on his body, Snake-Snake still moved forward at the same speed. Her weight was basically nothing to him, which often resulted in passengers accidentally falling off without him noticing. Fortunately, on this stretch of road, the squirrel held on and did not slip down.

When they reached a tree, the two stopped to rest. Song Xu could still grab a few leaves to chew and relieve her thirst, but Wumu could only endure it.

“How about we travel at night instead?” Song Xu asked.

The advantage of traveling at night was that it wasn’t as hot as during the day; the disadvantage was that you couldn’t see the road.

Song Xu walked close to Wumu’s head, or behind him, gripping the tip of a section of his tail as she walked.

Wumu’s body stayed pressed close to the ground. He could sense ground vibrations from very far away, and could also feel the presence of flowing water. Relying on this impressive ability, Wumu found a water source, and together with the squirrel they drank their fill at the riverside.

After the squirrel finished drinking, she saw that Snake-Snake was still drinking. His body was especially long, so the amount of water he needed was also large, and he still had to drink for a while. His head was buried in the water, his cheeks rhythmically puffing, and Song Xu mischievously reached out to pinch those bulging cheeks.

The snake, disturbed while drinking, slightly shook his head to shake off her hand. Song Xu chased after him and kept pinching. No matter how many times she saw it, Snake-Snake drinking water was always so cute—especially when he was extremely thirsty and gulping down big mouthfuls. The rise and fall of his cheeks and the swallowing movements were especially obvious.

Snake-Snake’s drinking movements paused for a moment, probably thinking about which was worse: stopping her from playing around, or continuing to drink while having his cheeks pinched. After thinking it over, he decisively chose to ignore her meddling hand.

After they had drunk their fill, they waded across the river and went to the other side.

There were quite a lot of rocks here, and growing among them were trees with especially thick trunks, and these trees had thorns. In the pitch-black night, Song Xu felt her way to the side of a tree and wanted to pick some leaves to taste, but ended up getting her hand pricked by the thorns.

The squirrel whimpered, licking the little blood spot on her finger. The anti-theft system on this tree was way too good.

Snake-Snake leaned over to her hand and flicked his tongue to check. Finding nothing wrong, he chose another direction to detour, since there were too many thorny trees around.

By the latter half of the night, Song Xu, who hadn’t adjusted her sleep schedule yet, started to feel sleepy. She yawned one after another, then changed her mind: “Let’s find a place to sleep. We’ll continue tomorrow morning.”

Wumu still had no particular opinion, because for him it made no difference.

There were many stone cracks and rock caves nearby, sheltering from wind and rain, very suitable as temporary nests. Seeing these stone caves, Song Xu couldn’t help thinking of Snake-Snake’s stone cave, though the rocks were different and the colors were different.

“How about we rest in this stone crack? Do you like this one or the one next to it?” Song Xu fully respected Snake-Snake’s right to choose. When his coiled tail moved toward one of them, she happily announced, “Then this one!”

She was walking about one step ahead of Snake-Snake, and it was precisely this one-step difference that made her crash into a spider web before him.

This huge spider web was located in the middle section of the stone crack, almost sealing off the entire passage from the center. The spider silk was completely invisible in the darkness, as if it had stealth mode on, so Song Xu only discovered it existed after she rammed straight into it.

Previously, when Song Xu had passed through mountain streams, in that green tunnel where many snakes appeared, there were also spiders. Thumb-sized ones, with eight hair-thin legs propping up their bodies as they lay on the water surface, eating mosquitoes and small insects.

Or black-and-gray spiders, weaving square-meter-wide webs on branches and long-stemmed wild grasses by the water. The fine threads, beaded with dew in the early morning or after rain, became sparkling, hung with countless tiny crystal-like droplets, beautiful and fun.

But this spider web now. Song Xu touched the sticky liquid on the web, her feelings complicated. Other spider webs were woven from fine threads—this one was practically woven from yarn. How could it be this thick!

And the “yarn” was even coated with “glue,” all sticking to her head and body, impossible to tear off.

When she used force, it even pulled off the fur on her head. Anyone with a bit of life experience knew that foam glue stuck on hands was very hard to remove. At this moment, Song Xu thought of the feeling from long ago when she had gotten foam glue all over her hands while doing crafts—so similar.

Seeing her covered in spider web, Wumu wanted to come over to help, but Song Xu stopped him: “Don’t! You stay right there. Otherwise, after I finish tearing myself free, I’ll have to tear you free too!”

While Song Xu was busy dealing with the web on her body, Wumu was the first to notice an unusual disturbance. A spider dragging a huge abdomen emerged from the darkness and crawled down along the web. A spider capable of weaving such thick webs was of course not small—this one was over a meter long, with several long legs that were even more exaggerated.

This was a spider beastman. And a female spider beastman who urgently needed to replenish nutrients after mating. Her recent mating partner—and food reserve—male spider had not died as expected, and had even managed to escape, leaving her nutritionally deficient.

Generally speaking, beastmen did not eat their own kind, but there were exceptions. The spider beastman in front of them was one such exception. In nature, many creatures cannibalize their own species by instinct, and even after becoming beastmen, this did not change.

A meal delivered to her doorstep— even with a half-beastman who looked hard to deal with beside it, the starving giant spider did not easily give up.

The spider beastman tried to use silk to bind the squirrel caught in the web, planning to grab her and quickly flee.

The moment she revealed this intention, the giant snake suddenly charged onto the web, turning her entire big web into a tangled mess. Ignoring the silk sticking to his body, he cut off her path forward and bound her up.

This spider carried poison. Because of this poison, she had lived here for many years without ever encountering an opponent. As long as prey fell into her web, it would soon be paralyzed by the toxin on it and lose the ability to resist.

Now, suddenly slammed to the ground, she instinctively tried to bite the snake, using poison to save herself. Unfortunately, before she could pierce that tough snake skin, her slender legs and body were crushed together.

This life-and-death battle ended extremely quickly. From the moment Song Xu saw the giant spider appear to the moment it was gone, she only had time to exclaim, “Such a big spider.”

“Why does my body feel a little itchy?” Song Xu sensed something wrong. She scratched her arms and face, quickly becoming dizzy. Before passing out, she realized the reason and said resentfully, “How come even the spider web slime is poisonous? I’ve never heard of this kind of spider before!”

Dizziness, nausea, and the areas of her body that had touched the slime became red, swollen, and stinging. Song Xu did not stay unconscious for long before being woken by pain. Her body swayed unsteadily, as if she were being held in someone’s arms while moving.

Song Xu squinted her eyes to look—it was Wumu in a half-beastman form she hadn’t seen in a long time.

He was different from the last time she had seen his half-beastman form. His upper body still maintained a human shape, but his torso was already completely covered in snake scales. The chest she was leaning against was a thin layer of cool snake scales.

Those dark-red scales with black patterns spread up to his chin and mouth. At first glance, it looked as if he were wearing a black mask, or as if he had on a high-collared sweater.

Perhaps some people would find this form terrifying, like a monster that failed to transform properly, but Song Xu thought it was especially handsome. Because her face had swollen after her head was the first to hit the spider web, she could only look through a narrow slit of her eyes, yet she still let out a whistle.

Wumu lowered his head to look at her. Possibly unable to tell whether her eyes were open beneath those swollen eyelids, he gave her a small shake.

“I’m awake, stop shaking me. Where are we going?” Song Xu saw that most of the spider web on her body had been torn off, though there were still some bits stuck that couldn’t be removed. That hateful, uncleanable foam glue!

“Water… wash,” Wumu said.

“To wash this off by the water?” Even though her body felt uncomfortable, Song Xu still spoke more fluently than the snake. She couldn’t let this go. “Why is there poison even on the spider web!”

Wumu couldn’t tell her the answer, because this was also the first time he had encountered this kind of beastman.

Song Xu actually often had various small problems, like swollen lips, swollen or numb hands, or a hoarse voice—usually from accidentally eating poisonous plants—but they would all recover quickly. Wumu had never seen her suddenly faint before, and it truly scared him.

So scared that his hands grew out.

Arms covered in a layer of scales, at a glance they almost looked like he was wearing tight-fitting clothes. After washing the spider silk slime stuck on them clean in the water, he started rubbing those scaled arms against Song Xu’s body. The slightly anxious movements made the squirrel feel touched, but also made her feel like her heart was about to be pressed out—his strength was really too great.

“I—I’ll do it myself!” Song Xu struggled to sit up from the water, then urged Wumu, “Don’t just stand there, hurry and tear off the spider silk on your own tail too.”

There was no less spider silk on his body than on hers, stuck all over and forming crack-like traces.