Song Xu personally witnessed Wumu and Heisen fighting once.
Because the big tiger had guarded her for an entire day and was finally hungry, she decided to go look for food, but she brought Song Xu along with her. Wumu naturally followed behind—he wanted to take advantage of the moment when the big tiger was busy fighting to roll up the squirrel and run away, but he was discovered on the spot.
The big tiger was like a parent who had discovered her daughter being seduced by a wild boy, abandoning the fight halfway and suddenly pouncing back.
Wumu had just reached Song Xu’s side, heard her call out “Wumu,” and before he could even respond, he heard Heisen’s roar. He immediately became furious as well, dodging nothing and coiling up to meet her.
The long snake wrapped around the big tiger like a rope, restricting her movements. The stifled big tiger rolled around on the ground, kicking up sand everywhere.
After struggling for a while, the big snake couldn’t truly use deadly force to strangle her—besides, he couldn’t strangle something this large anyway—so he gradually fell into the disadvantage. By the end, he had clearly become a broken snake, being pinned under the big tiger’s paw and smacked.
The reason Song Xu could still stand by and watch instead of rushing over to stop them was, first, with her size she simply couldn’t participate in a fight between two gigantic creatures—if she got close, she would probably be accidentally flattened. Second, although the big tiger looked fierce, she didn’t seem to be using much strength.
The big tiger truly lived up to being a feline. When she used her fleshy paw pads to smack the snake, it was just like a tabby cat playing with a rope, or a stick. Judging from Wumu’s current state, “stick” was more fitting.
And as she kept hitting him, the big tiger seemed to gradually find a sense of familiarity in it. She revealed a puzzled look, pawed at the snake a couple of times, and even leaned in to sniff his scent.
Song Xu thought, could it be that she finally recognized him? But soon the big tiger lost interest in the snake, turned her head, walked back, and bit Song Xu, changing to another place to hunt.
She hastily found a not-very-large herbivorous primitive beast and ate it. After eating more than half, she used a paw to shove Song Xu, who was watching from the side, toward the corpse of the primitive beast, and roared at her—clearly urging her to eat.
The mother in Song Xu’s memories was someone who wouldn’t even speak a harsh word and had passed away early due to illness. She had never experienced such heavy maternal love, and she couldn’t bring herself to bite into the bloody, mangled corpse.
It could only be said that a tiger mom truly was a tiger mom. Seeing that Song Xu still wouldn’t eat, after urging her with several “aowu aowu” sounds, she directly slapped Song Xu onto the chunk of meat.
Song Xu took the opportunity to lie on the meat and play dead—no matter what, she wasn’t eating. Two fools were already enough; if she became a fool too, wouldn’t that make them the “Three Auspicious Fools,” truly a happy family.
The big tiger paced around, irritably tore off a small piece of meat, and tossed it onto Song Xu’s head.
“Aowu!”
What was it like to feed a child who didn’t want to eat? Tiger mom was experiencing it now. She regretted not having hands to directly stuff the meat in, but the cub was too tiny—one paw would completely cover her. How was she supposed to feed her! It must be because she didn’t eat that she had grown so small.
Wumu followed over and, upon seeing Song Xu lying on the primitive beast’s corpse with a piece of meat still covering her head, unhappily hissed at the big tiger.
“Sss… ha!”
The big tiger chased the big snake off to fight again. Song Xu seized the chance to climb up, went into the nearby bushes, pulled leaves, picked fruits, and dug up grass roots to eat, racing against time to fill herself up.
When the big tiger came back, she no longer tried to make Song Xu eat the primitive beast. Carrying her in her mouth, she jumped a few times and returned to her usual spot to nest.
Song Xu was gathered between the two big tiger paws and got licked once more. She had already accepted the setting that she had been mistaken for a tiger cub, and, filled with guilt and tender affection toward snake-snake, she stroked the tiger’s fur.
Felines all groom themselves and pay a lot of attention to their appearance; the big tiger was no exception. She spent a great deal of time cleaning her fur. After layer upon layer of thick fur was licked and combed, it became fluffy and soft.
The abundant amount of fur made the big tiger proud, but she felt that this little cub she had found was somewhat worrying. The fur on her body was sparse and thin—one lick was enough, and she didn’t even know where to start cleaning. On top of that, she didn’t eat meat. How could such a cub ever grow big?
While licking her own fur, the big tiger suddenly saw the big snake appear not far away again.
After fighting with him several times, a doubt had grown heavier and heavier in her not-very-useful brain. Why did that snake over there also smell strangely familiar?
At night, Song Xu slept sprawled out, covered with tiger fur. Suddenly, she felt a chill on her body. Opening her eyes, she saw that the big tiger, who had been acting as her blanket, had stood up. For some reason, she hadn’t gone to sleep and had quietly gone to the place where Wumu was staying not far away, sniffing him again and again in confusion.
Song Xu calmly observed the situation and soon discovered that the big tiger came back again, lying there looking especially conflicted.
She had left when Wumu was on the eve of adulthood, and after reaching adulthood, Wumu’s scent had changed somewhat. She found parts of Wumu’s aura familiar, yet felt that this bare, naked body also carried an unfamiliar dangerous scent.
Resting her head against the small squirrel filled with Wumu’s scent, Heisen had a dream and recalled a tiny fragment.
In a wintertime tribe, a cold little snake was curled beneath a tiger. That tiger used her thick fur to warm the little snake. When spring arrived, the little snake woke up, but was still silly and couldn’t quite recognize people. When the tiger needed to go out, she would straighten the little snake who had been coiled into a ball, wrap him around her neck, hide him within her warm fur, and take him out together with her.
Because of a dream that the present her couldn’t really understand, the big tiger developed inexplicable emotions, and that was why she had suddenly gotten up in the middle of the night to go look at the big snake. Perhaps even she herself didn’t know what she was thinking, just like she didn’t understand why she stubbornly stayed by the seaside without leaving, and kept gazing toward the distant small island.
Song Xu couldn’t fall asleep anymore. Leaning against the big tiger’s head, she said, “Heisen, you still haven’t remembered who Wumu is?”
“He’s your child. Look, your names are even from the same series—black forest, black wood. Why would you give him that name?”
In the beastman world, beastmen were very casual when naming things, but giving one’s own child a name similar to one’s own should mean great affection.
“Wumu has been waiting for you in the forest outside the tribe. You’ve been gone for too long.”
“When we heard news about you on the road, he listened especially carefully. When he saw that you were still alive, he was so happy.”
Although right now, he didn’t look very happy.
“Hurry and remember. At least… before he also completely loses his rationality, recognize him.”
Song Xu tugged at the tiger’s whiskers.
When she woke up, Song Xu discovered that the situation had once again turned into something she couldn’t understand.
Previously, whenever snake-snake tried to get close, he would be driven away by the big tiger. Possibly because a mother tiger with a cub was relatively fierce, worried that other dangerous animals getting close would bring danger to her child, so Wumu could only keep a certain distance and watch them.
Now, the big tiger still wouldn’t allow him to get too close, but at the same time, she also wouldn’t allow him to leave too far.
Snake-snake kept getting caught by the big tiger and dragged into fights, expending quite a bit of stamina. Unable to hold out, and remembering Song Xu’s words about not eating primitive beasts, he could only dive into the sea to catch fish.
The big tiger lay by the seaside and, upon realizing that snake-snake had left her field of vision and submerged into the sea, became anxious. She stood up and roared toward the sea surface.
Wumu had just eaten two fish. Hearing the tiger roar like this, he thought something had happened and surfaced from the water. However, the moment he popped his head out, he was directly bitten on the head by the big tiger.
Enjoying the same “teeth-clamped-on-the-neck” treatment as Song Xu, the big snake was dragged back to shore by the big tiger who had charged into the sea.
Half her body was soaked by seawater, and her fur became heavy. The big tiger disliked this feeling very much and quickly shook the seawater off her body, shaking while roaring at the big snake.
The big snake couldn’t understand. He was still hungry. Seeing that the little squirrel on the shore was still lying on a large leaf sleeping, completely fine, he wanted to go back into the sea to catch fish to eat, and then got dragged back again by the big tiger.
The big tiger seemed to finally acknowledge that this hairless, naked guy was also her child, and dragged him over, dripping wet, to the side of her sand nest.
Wumu originally wanted to struggle free, but seeing that Song Xu was right beside him, he stopped resisting. He transformed into his half-beastman form and reached out with a stiff hand to push Song Xu.
Song Xu woke up and saw him beside her, then saw the big tiger squatting to one side. She happily revealed a big, bright smile at him and reached out with both hands to give him a hug.
“Congratulations! Your relationship has improved again!”
“So, did Heisen recognize you?”
Wumu wasn’t sure either. “No. Recognize, maybe?”
Song Xu said, “Don’t overthink it. Anyway, it’s moving in a good direction. Maybe she’ll remember tomorrow.”
After being manually isolated for so long, Wumu now clung to Song Xu without letting go. Song Xu lay on the snake’s body, cold and cool, and sighed, “Ah, comfortable.”
Fur is great, but at this temperature, it’s really hot—especially when the sun is big during the day.
Seeing the two completely different little cubs staying together so intimately, the big tiger stood up and left, quickly dragging back a primitive beast and thump throwing it in front of them.
Song Xu’s smiling face instantly collapsed. She hid herself beneath snake-snake’s body and pushed him forward to deal with it.
The big tiger was annoyed to no end by two little cubs who refused to eat meat, feeling that her tiger life had suddenly gained many more troubles.
The big one refused to eat and tied himself into a knot—she couldn’t even pull out his head. The small one was even more outrageous, wrapped up by the big one so tightly that she couldn’t even touch her tail.
Wanting to clean them a bit, she went to lick them, but the big one hid the small one away, leaving her with no choice but to lick the big one instead. That texture felt just like licking a tree trunk—completely boring. The big one also kept dodging, yet after licking a few more times, the big tiger instead felt a strange sense of familiarity.
So she had another dream. In the dream, it was also winter. The tiger lay on a mat sleeping, lazily licking her cub. Who would have thought that after licking for a long time, when she opened her eyes, she would discover she had been licking a wooden stick. Her little cub was coiled around another wooden stick, and upon seeing her wake up, even used its tail to push that wooden stick toward her head.
The furless little cub had never liked being licked, from childhood to adulthood.
