The wind carried fine grains of sand and pelted them against the body. One gust was particularly strong, so strong that it was impossible to even open one’s eyes.
The wilderness was different from the forest. In the forest, even in winter, no matter how strong the wind was, it was never very fierce—blocked by towering trees, there were only faint, whimpering wind sounds. When it grew cold, it would start to snow, layer after layer covering the entire forest, cold and damp, silent and desolate.
But this place was different. The temperature was already very low, yet on the ground one could only see white frost and not snow. Violent winds raged, wantonly scraping across the land. Most importantly, it was cold and dry here. After walking one round across the plain, even the skin on one’s face would be blown until it cracked. Every time Song Xu went out and came back, she would find that her lips were split open; licking them once would make blood seep out.
Song Xu ran every day, and each day she ran a little farther. She wanted to see whether there might be a place farther ahead that was more suitable for Wumu to hibernate.
When she traveled outside, she rarely saw living creatures. But this day, not long after she went out, she saw a black shadow circling in the sky. It was too far away to tell what kind of bird it was. She could only see it flapping its wings with effort in the wind, as if trying to fight against the wind, but because its wings were still somewhat immature, it was blown crooked and unsteady.
Song Xu watched for a while and felt that it looked like an eagle.
Was it trying to hunt? Thinking of how she had been mistaken for prey by eagles several times along the way, Song Xu picked up a few stones just in case. If it dared to fly down, she would smash it. Setting aside anything else, the ground here was covered in stones.
The eagle circled above Song Xu’s head, then suddenly beat its wings and dove down, its target clearly her. Song Xu raised the stone, and saw the eagle unsteadily pounce down into the distance, very disgracefully rolling on the ground once before climbing back up. At the moment it got up, those two wings folded away. Only then did Song Xu finally see clearly—it was a beastman.
Generally speaking, most beastmen did not eat beastmen. Song Xu put down the stone. But many of them loved to fight, so Song Xu, after lowering the stone, instead tightened her grip on the beast-tooth knife at her waist.
“Peh, peh peh peh!” The one who had rolled until her face was full of dirt was a female eagle beastman. Her half-long, half-short hair was mixed black and gray, the same color as the feathers on her back—a little black-and-white mottled eagle.
The beastman, wearing a feathered cloak, with two feather decorations inserted on the left and right sides of the top of her head, like owl ear tufts, waved toward Song Xu from afar. A fervent smile hung on her face, and her pair of golden eyes were simply as brilliant as the sun.
“Hi! Hi! I knew you were a beastman, hahaha. I thought you were a fox or a rabbit when I was in the sky just now. It wasn’t until I flew down a bit that I realized you’re a beastman. I haven’t seen you around here before. Did you just move here recently? I’m a beastman from the Cliff Tribe over there. My name is Huhu. You look so fluffy—what kind of beastman are you? I’ve never seen a beastman like you before!”
“My name is Song Xu. I’m a squirrel beastman.”
“Squirrel? That’s great, so fluffy.” As Huhu spoke, her gaze completely exposed her yearning for fluffiness.
Song Xu thought to herself, this eagle sister is definitely a fluff fanatic!
Tall, fit Huhu familiarly draped an arm over Song Xu’s shoulder. “Why are you here alone? At this time of year the wind is huge in this place. You’re so small, be careful you don’t get blown away.”
It had been a long time since Song Xu had met a beastman who was even more self-familiar and more talkative than herself.
“I didn’t come alone. I have companion waiting for me.” Song Xu did not dodge her hand, and instead curiously sized her up as well. “You just said you’re from the Cliff Tribe. There are cliffs nearby? How come I haven’t discovered them?”
“Hey, I can fly. For me it’s not far. You running on the ground would definitely feel like it’s far!” Huhu enthusiastically grabbed at the fluff on Song Xu’s body and issued an invitation. “Are you curious? Then come to my tribe and play! I just got assigned a new nest, the cave is very spacious! I can take you flying over—how about it, want to try going up into the sky?”
It was obvious that this enthusiastic big sister really wanted to show off her new home and her flying skills, to the point that she was recommending them so hard even to a stranger she had just caught.
“That won’t work. I still have companion. How about you point me in the direction and we’ll go over ourselves?” As soon as Song Xu heard “spacious cave,” her heart started to waver.
“What’s there to be afraid of? Are your companions also cute little squirrels like you? Even if there were ten more like you, I could grab all of you and fly you into the sky—very easily. Don’t look at me, I’ve only just reached adulthood not long ago, but my flying is already quite good in the tribe. In weather like this, many beastmen my age don’t even dare to fly over this way!” Huhu eyed Song Xu greedily, thinking that if they were all little squirrels like this, all squeezed into her cave, how soft and warm that would be.
Song Xu sighed regretfully. “That probably won’t work. My companion is a snake-type beastman. He’s relatively large.” Probably even ten Huhus lifting together would have trouble getting off the ground.
Huhu felt regretful. Huhu did not believe it. “A snake-type beastman? How big could he be.”
Song Xu: “Then how about you come back with me and take a look?”
Huhu agreed gladly.
Song Xu felt that many of the beastmen she encountered along the way—even those with very bad attitudes—basically had no scheming minds. Everything was very straightforward. Perhaps it was because their living environment was too simple. They spent their entire lives basically living within their tribe, and the number of tribe members was not large, so there was rarely any intrigue or internal strife.
Thus, there was a situation where an eagle beastman who invited a stranger to visit her home upon their first meeting, and who then followed a stranger to the other party’s home with absolutely no sense of danger—only to stick her head into the cave and, upon seeing the enormous snake body inside, instantly explode her feathers and hop backward several meters:
“So big of a snake!”
Wumu was watching the nest of little mice that had grown fur crawl around inside the cave. Suddenly, he saw an unfamiliar head glance into the cave entrance, and also heard Song Xu’s laughter. He immediately knew that she had probably brought another newly acquainted friend to come see him again. This kind of thing had happened many times before. She seemed to particularly enjoy introducing him to beastmen she met along the roadside.
Song Xu stood by the cave entrance and laughed. “See, I told you you couldn’t carry him.”
Huhu’s bristling feathers settled back down. “I… I really can’t carry him.”
“Then I’ll just fly above you and lead the way!” she added.
Song Xu thought about it. “Not today. We’ll wait until the wind isn’t this strong, preferably on a day with sun, when it’s a bit less cold.”
After this day, Huhu flew over every day and asked Song Xu, “Are you going over today?”
“In a couple of days. The wind is still very strong today.” When Song Xu said this, Huhu did not force it, and instead stayed here to play with her. She also brought Song Xu gifts—branches strung with clusters of fruit.
Song Xu, who had not eaten fresh fruit in a long time, looked at the string of orange-red fruits, moved and surprised. “At this temperature, fruit is still growing where you live?”
Huhu: “It grows under the cliff. The temperature there isn’t low. If you like it, I can bring you more tomorrow.”
Song Xu only heard the words “the temperature under the cliff isn’t low,” and her heart became even more stirred. She felt that Wumu’s hibernation problem could be solved, and happily threw an arm around Huhu.
“Friend, thank you!”
Huhu flew over on time every day to find her and play, repeatedly going through the process of circling in the sky a few times and then landing. She actually flew quite well—she just had some problems with landing. Song Xu, who couldn’t fly at all, stood to the side giving her guidance:
“When you land, your claws need to touch the ground first. You can’t land headfirst!”
Song Xu would occasionally shift into squirrel beast form to resist the cold wind. When Huhu saw her fluffy appearance, her hands would itch. While flying, she would suddenly descend and grab Song Xu, carrying her up into the sky.
Song Xu instinctively panicked for a moment, then quickly realized that Huhu had no intention of harming her and was simply playing. She also quickly found her rhythm and tried to open her eyes in midair.
One bird and one squirrel swayed in the raging wind. Huhu shouted excitedly, “I can fly even higher!”
Song Xu tightly grabbed Huhu’s bird claws and also shouted, “Higher!”
After flying to a certain height, Song Xu saw a line in the distance. It didn’t look like the horizon—more like a crack appearing in the ground. But the wind was too strong for her to see clearly, and Huhu couldn’t persist for too long either. Very soon, she brought Song Xu down together to the ground.
Song Xu covered her chest, soothing her heart that had been so stimulated it was about to jump out, and hurriedly asked, “I think I saw a crack in the ground in the distance?”
Huhu: “That’s not a crack. It’s the cliff where our tribe lives.”
Song Xu froze. “Isn’t a cliff something that’s on a high mountain?”
Huhu: “It is a cliff on a high mountain.”
Song Xu: “But over there it’s all flat ground. Where would a high mountain come from?”
Huhu: “This side is the high mountain.”
Huhu didn’t know how to explain it, and could only urge her, “Just hurry over and take a look, and you’ll know!”
Finally, on a day when the wind wasn’t strong and there was sun, Song Xu set out, dragging along the snake who had stubbornly refused to hibernate. Before leaving, she said to the nest of little mice inside the cave, “You’ve grown up. From now on, go find food for yourselves, okay?”
The ordinary little mice only knew how to squeak, watching them leave, and tentatively poked their heads out from the cave entrance.
They walked for two days before arriving at the cliff Huhu had mentioned.
Song Xu ran over quickly. After seeing the scene before her clearly, she was stunned on the spot. She had imagined what the cliff might look like, but no matter how she imagined it, she could never have guessed it would be like this.
The vast wilderness plain they had been walking across for so long came to an abrupt stop before their eyes, as if an axe had split the plain in two, then removed the other half, turning what had once been one into two severed worlds, one above and one below.
Standing at the edge of the knife-cut, axe-carved cliff and looking down, the cliff was so high that its bottom could not be seen. It was vertically steep, and all that could be seen below was a mass of swirling clouds and mist.
Beneath this swirling mist, the ground of an endless green jungle could be faintly seen. Below was another forest stretching beyond sight.
If one were to look upward from below, the place where they were now standing would be atop a towering mountain tens of thousands of zhang high.
Already long accustomed to this scenery, Huhu pointed below the cliff. “Our tribe is on the rock wall down there. I can take you to see my nest, but your companion definitely won’t be able to go down.”
Song Xu’s eyes lit up. “…Heavens, so amazing.”
A shadow fell from overhead. Song Xu lifted her head, and a group of winged pterosaurs flew past above them, gliding through layer after layer of clouds and mist, and dropping into that not-very-clear green forest.
Huhu: “Those are primal beasts. Those few kinds of primal beasts fly to other places every year, then fly back after a while. But they’re very dangerous. The elders in the tribe don’t allow us to go near and watch them.”
