Wumu fished up a rotten wooden raft from the sea. The raft looked a bit rough, but it was made big and sturdy, bound round and round with vines, and even after sinking in the sea for so long, it still hadn’t completely rotted away.

It was lying on the seabed some distance from the shore. When Wumu went diving for underwater salvaging, he accidentally dragged it up with his trawl net.

Song Xu liked to rummage through the net whenever Wumu dragged it ashore. She had an unparalleled enthusiasm for this treasure-hunting activity, something clearly reflected in how she kept proactively weaving larger fishing nets to upgrade Wumu’s equipment.

Regarding today’s strange find, Song Xu poked at the rotten wood and suspected it might be a raft someone had made in order to cross the sea. As for this suspicious someone, Song Xu looked toward the big tiger sunbathing and dozing on the reef.

Without a doubt, it had to be something Heisen made. There were no other beastmen here besides her.

“Judging from where this raft sank, it probably went down before it even made it a thousand meters from the surface. Was the wood too heavy, or was the big tiger too heavy? And judging from the size of the raft, the big tiger probably wasn’t as big back then as she is now.”

Song Xu had already confirmed with Wumu that Heisen hadn’t had such an exaggerated physique in the past. Her current size was purely the result of eating hormones (primitive beasts).

Aside from this raft, Wumu had also found other traces left behind from the big tiger’s attempts to go out to sea.

In order to catch more fish to feed the tiger, he had voluntarily gone into deeper waters farther from the coast. If Wumu hadn’t mentioned it, Song Xu wouldn’t have noticed. It was precisely in those deeper areas that Wumu hauled up a skeletal boat trapped in the silt.

Even with Wumu’s astonishing strength, it still took him a very long time to drag it out of the mud and bring it all the way to shore.

Those arched frames were tightly bound together, forming the shape of a boat. The bones arranged on both sides looked like the ribs of the vessel.

Song Xu lifted a bone at the shore and exclaimed, “This bone is so light!”

Clearly almost two meters long and about the width of her palm, yet she could lift it with one hand. The weight was unbelievably light. The entire irregularly shaped hull of the boat was composed of this kind of bone.

“This was probably made by Heisen too, right? Looks like she really did try hard to go out to sea… Where did she want to go?” Song Xu asked aloud, but she already had a guess in her heart.

Heisen had come here in search of something that could allow half-beastmen to become fully beastmen. She probably wanted to go out to sea for that reason as well. It just seemed that she had suffered a crushing defeat in this stretch of ocean, even losing herself in the process, becoming what she was now.

The big tiger walked over and saw them fiddling with the bones. With a great sense of ceremony, Song Xu stuck all the scattered bones into the sand, as if arranging some kind of art installation.

At noon, the big tiger came back with a primitive beast corpse in her mouth. She hadn’t brought back primitive beast corpses for quite some time. With the efforts of Wumu and Song Xu, she had gone out to eat primitive beasts much less often. Over the past few days, Song Xu hadn’t seen her take the initiative to eat primitive beasts at all. Why had she started again now?

Song Xu was grilling fish by the fire, pondering how to make an automatic fish-grilling machine, when she saw the primitive beast corpse in front of her. She paused for a moment, then firmly shook her head. “No, oh my god, primitive beasts can’t be eaten even if they’re cooked. And besides, our shop doesn’t accept customers bringing their own ingredients!”

The big tiger let out a low growl and ferociously tore open the primitive beast, pressing a paw on its belly. She ripped out a curved bone from its chest and tossed it in front of Song Xu.

Facing the blood-soaked bone on the ground, Song Xu said solemnly, “Making bone soup is also not okay!”

The big tiger fell silent, then swished her tail and turned to leave. Song Xu always felt that the look Mom gave her before leaving was like she was looking at a foolish child. Such a very human-like gaze.

Bone soup and such was of course just a joke. Habitually being a little mischievous, Song Xu reached out and moved that large bone over, finding its shape somewhat familiar. Once she lifted it, she immediately understood why. It was exactly the same as the bones Wumu had hauled up for that assembled bone boat, and was even lighter than the ones sunk in the sea.

Had Tiger Mom seen her playing with those bones, and so found her a new toy?

Taking a closer look at the primitive beast that had contributed the bone: it had long legs and a long neck, somewhat like an ostrich, but much larger, with a long, flat beak, and saw-like sharp teeth inside the beak. Song Xu often saw this kind of dinosaur running in the forest. Their bodies were huge, yet they ran very lightly—presumably because their bones were light.

Because their bodies were covered with feathers, Song Xu had once suspected they weren’t primitive beasts. Later, she discovered that quite a few types of primitive beasts here had feathers on their bodies.

This also incidentally answered some of her doubts—such as when she and Wumu encountered this kind of primitive beast while out, they were always extremely fierce, but when following Tiger Mom out, these primitive beasts often fled at the first sight of danger.

This might be related to how many of their companions had been caught by the big tiger in the past and used to make boats. If they can communicate with each other, then in their online language, Tiger Mom would be a murderous maniac.

Too brutal! So, should she also try making a boat?

Before hauling up the remains of the boat, Song Xu had already been discussing with Wumu whether they should leave.

“I don’t know if my mom wants to go back and take a look, but with the way she is now, not recognizing anyone, even if she went back she might still get driven away. Sigh, so troublesome.” Song Xu said.

In this two-person meeting, Wumu was only responsible for keeping his eyes open and looking at her, waiting for her to ask herself questions, answer them herself, and then make a decision.

As for her naturally saying the words “my mom,” Wumu had no reaction. After all, the big tiger seemed to acknowledge it that way as well.

“Recently my mom’s condition seems to have stabilized a lot. We can’t just stay here eating fish forever. We still have to leave, go to other places. As long as we leave here, we can eat meat. How about the three of us continue traveling together!”

After Song Xu happily announced this decision, she and Wumu tried to take the big tiger away, but failed.

This time, the big tiger—who had always been helpless toward their various antics yet ultimately went along with them—was unusually resolute. Whether Song Xu packed up all their things and pretended to run away from home, or Wumu used force in an attempt to drag her away, she remained unmoved, as if rooted to the seaside, insisting on not leaving.

Of course, she not only refused to leave herself, she also didn’t allow the two cubs to leave. The squirrel and the snake who pretended to pack their bags and run away were bitten by the neck by the big tiger and carried back before they even reached the edge of the forest.

With matters having reached this point, the only option was a stalemate. Then Wumu hauled up the boats Heisen had made in the past. Not just one or two—she had attempted to make at least four boats.

Song Xu occasionally played in the shallow waters. In the clear seawater like flowing glass, stepping on the sand, she could also find bones bound with vines and logs rotted down to only half remaining. Now they knew—these were all parts of the boats Heisen had made.

“Since my mom wants so badly to take a boat out to sea, then let’s make a boat and go out to sea together!” Song Xu announced her latest decision.

This hasty and bold decision, because among the three participants only the squirrel was clear-headed and sharp-tongued, ultimately passed with unanimous approval.

Song Xu was very particular about making a boat, unlike the big tiger’s simple and crude approach. Though inexperienced, the squirrel had forward-looking vision. She had Wumu twist-break trees in the forest and drag them to the seaside, then she processed them herself.

She deliberately cut sections from different kinds of trees and threw them into the sea, testing their buoyancy and how much water they absorbed after entering the water, and finally selected the most suitable wood.

Each log had holes dug into it, with wooden blocks inserted to form an initial connection, then peeled vines were used to wrap them together in an orderly pattern. At the bottom, those very light primitive beast bones were used to make a frame, propping it beneath the wooden raft to further stabilize it.

Considering the sizes of the big tiger and Wumu, this “boat” had to be extremely large. This massive project drained the little squirrel every day. She lay limp on the snake, eyes lifeless, and said, “How about we leave Heisen on the shore and not take her with us? The sea is so dangerous.”

Wumu looked up at her and said nothing.

The first time she said this, Wumu thought she was serious. He slowly considered it for an entire night and felt that what the squirrel said made sense. But the next day, it was as if she had never said such a thing at all. She was still thinking about how to make the hull big enough to fit the big tiger, and even came up with the idea of having Wumu coil around the mast to make room for the tiger.

Suddenly having no place to stand on the boat, Wumu thought that the squirrel must be just like him—sometimes forgetting what she had said or done.

To ensure the large boat’s load-bearing capacity, Song Xu also collected many fruit shells. Round fruits, like coconuts, whose tops would be pierced open by a primitive beast with a needle-like mouth after they ripened, allowing it to suck out the pulp inside.

Song Xu picked up these already-empty shells. She didn’t even need to drill holes herself. She strung them all together and tied them in strings around the big boat, increasing buoyancy. If the boat were overturned by waves at sea, they could also serve as lifebuoys.

There were no seasonal changes in this place. From when Song Xu and Wumu arrived here, several months had already passed, and the temperature still remained within a comfortable range. Fruits in the forest ripened batch after batch. Sometimes fruits were still hanging on one branch, while another branch was already in bloom.

If it weren’t for the fact that Wumu and Heisen had no other food here besides fish, Song Xu would have been very happy to live a bit longer in this place that was like a vacation beach.

After a long time, the Squirrel-class large ship was finally completed.

Lying on top of the big ship she had built herself, Song Xu cupped her face and screamed, “I really am a genius, right?!”

“Come on, let’s put it in the water and try it!” Song Xu pushed the big ship toward the sea, pushing hard… The big ship did not move at all.

“Wumu!” she shouted.

With the push of the snake’s tail, the boat entered the water little by little, steady and level, with not the slightest tendency to sink. During the construction process, Song Xu had already let the boat try entering the water several times. Any problems were corrected in time, so of course there was no way a tragic scenario of it suddenly sinking after completion would happen.

Song Xu was feeling proud, wishing she could get on the boat and set off right now. When you get a new toy, you have to play with it immediately to get the greatest happiness!

The big tiger paced to the seaside. At a distance where the water would barely wet her paws, she gave a light leap and jumped onto the big boat, filling a recessed spot that Song Xu had prepared for her.

She tucked away her claws, gazed at the sea as if waiting to depart. Seeing the two not moving, she even let out a low roar with a hint of urging.

Song Xu, covered in wood shavings: “Mom, come down first. We’re not ready yet.”