The last trace of light over the sea had already disappeared. The clouds in the sky were heavy, and a slight sea breeze stirred small waves across the surface. In such an atmosphere, the sudden sound of an unfamiliar voice frightened the squirrel so badly that her fur exploded, and she instinctively hugged the big snake’s head tightly. Then she reacted, violently turning her head to look at the big tiger filling the groove.

The tiger was talking!

After climbing back up from the water, the big tiger had been very silent, tightly lying there. Song Xu had thought she was unhappy about falling into the water and needed some time to recover. Who would have thought that the tiger, who for several months had only communicated with them through roars, would suddenly open her mouth and speak.

Song Xu had a delayed reaction, then jumped up: “She spoke!”

The big snake swam over first, nudged under the big tiger’s chin, then circled around her body, implicitly expressing his joy.

The squirrel’s excitement was even more obvious: “Why can you suddenly talk, oh my god! Have you recovered? You’ve recovered, right!”

That face of the big tiger, in beast form, did not show very obvious changes in expression, only that there was a tiny bit of guilt in those big eyes.

Actually, before boarding the boat to go out to sea, she had basically been able to talk. It was just that at the time her mind was still not very clear. A pile of things she was slowly recalling were messily stacked in her mind, and her cognition also had a bit of a problem.

For example, she remembered that she had a cub, but when facing the two cubs in front of her, she could not tell at once which one it actually was. In her memories there was a little snake, but her experience told her that one with long fur was more reasonable, so she carefully observed them every day.

On the first day of going out to sea, seeing the boundless ocean, a strong sense of suffocation revived inside her body. She remembered several times she had nearly drowned in the sea, which stimulated her memories to become much clearer. Although parts of her memories were still somewhat blurry, important matters and enemies were more or less remembered.

She had remembered, but she had not found a suitable opportunity to speak.

She lay there pondering her own affairs, feeling a bit upset when she thought of how she had been foolish for so long. Seeing that the child who had been close to adulthood when they left still had not turned into a wild beast now also gave her some comfort.

Wumu had his partner perched on top of his head as he swam by the side of the boat. From time to time he dove into the water, caught small fish and threw them onto the boat for his partner to play with, then coiled into a circle and enclosed his partner in the middle to rest… Although from his appearance one could tell that he was already close to becoming a complete wild beast, he was very happy now.

As a mother, Heisen could of course tell when this child was happy. When he was little, Weishan had given him a bone knife made from beast bone. He had also looked like he had no reaction, and Weishan thought he did not like it, not seeing any happy expression on his face. Only Heisen knew that he actually liked it very much—every night he would coil around that little thing to sleep.

She quietly watched like this for two days, watching them sleep, eat, and play.

The small squirrel beastman would, after Wumu came up from the seawater, wipe the water off his body. When he pushed the boat, she would go down into the water to accompany him to play. When resting, she would tell him stories and sing songs.

Heisen also remembered the fragments she had seen over the past few months when her mind had been muddled, of the two getting along. Heisen had never seen companions who interacted like this.

Probably because he had such a companion by his side, Wumu had always maintained this thin thread of rationality, and no matter how painful it was, he refused to turn into a wild beast.

Also, that Wumu could actually find a companion surprised her. She had thought Wumu would only be able to cling to tree trunks for his whole life.

“Mom! You can finally talk. So, I have to ask, why are you so fixated on that island? Is it because there’s something on it that can make Wumu recover? What’s on the island?” The squirrel beastman jumped over without any reserve, asking in one breath the questions she was most curious about.

Song Xu had been curious about this question for far too long, she even dreamed about that island.

Unfortunately, Heisen could only answer her: “I don’t know what’s on the island.”

Toward this little beastman who had initially been mistaken for her cub, Heisen still held some warmth, and nudged her with her nose: “But there really is a way on it to make Wumu become a beastman.”

“It was Alugu who said it. When I was pregnant, Alugu told me that if the child born was a half-beastman, then go west to the Primitive Beast Sea, go to a small island, and it could make a half-beastman become a beastman… I only remember roughly what he said. It was a very long time ago.”

Back then, she had not thought that the child she gave birth to would truly be a half-beastman. After all, cases of half-beastmen did not appear often in their tribe. It was only later, as Wumu slowly grew up, that she realized he might truly be a half-beastman. Only then, on the eve of Wumu’s coming of age, did she set out to look for a solution.

She left the tribe, first wanting to find Alugu to ask clearly, but she did not know which tribe Alugu was a beastman from. Thinking about the circumstances under which they had met, he was more likely a wandering beastman without a tribe. She could only go to the place where they had first met and wait for a few days, but unfortunately did not manage to wait for him.

Moreover, she actually could not remember Alugu’s name very clearly, not sure whether it was really called that, which made him even harder to find.

With no other choice, she could only head west first to look for the Primitive Beast Forest, deciding to take a look and talk about it later. She kept walking west. The overly distant journey, and the animals and beastmen she had never seen before, as well as terrain and weather she could not adapt to, made her walk for a very long time before finally arriving here.

“Alugu?” Song Xu was puzzled, guessing, “Is he Wumu’s dad?”

At this point, the topic suddenly took a turn. Song Xu grew curious: “Then was he also a snake-type beastman?”

“Alugu’s beast form is a python, black base with yellow stripes, the same color scheme as mine, quite good-looking,” the big tiger answered.

Song Xu nodded repeatedly, then quietly said to Wumu: “I think dark red with black patterns looks the best!”

Even said quietly, Heisen still heard it. She pretended not to hear and scratched her claws, recalling: “When I met him, his size was about the same as Wumu is now. That was also the first opponent I couldn’t defeat after leaving the tribe to travel!” The big tiger became spirited as she spoke, as if returning to the past, her tiger claws tensing with surging battle intent.

“I couldn’t beat him, and I almost got strangled to death by him. I wasn’t convinced, so I followed him and provoked him several times, but in the end I still couldn’t beat him. Since I couldn’t beat him, I decided to have a child with him.”

Song Xu: This logic is really very beastman.

“What happened later? Then you two became companions?” Song Xu pressed.

“Of course not. I was traveling, I wouldn’t stay in one place.” The big tiger answered matter-of-factly. “I left after I got pregnant. I believed my child would definitely be stronger than him!”

Song Xu thought of the animal documentaries she had watched. Indeed, basically it is always the female who raises the young. Even for squirrels like her original form, when young they are with their mother, and once they reach adulthood they are driven out. Companions in the tribe are not fixed, and situations like Heisen’s are not uncommon.

“So you and Alugu never met again?”

“I had no business looking for him.” Heisen scratched her claws, somewhat troubled. “Later, when I wanted to look for him again, I couldn’t find him.”

Song Xu: After more than ten years, it would indeed be very hard to find him again.

“Why did that Alugu tell you right from the start about if the child was a half-beastman? Could it be that he himself used to be a half-beastman, and he had experienced it?”

The big tiger answered frankly: “Don’t know. I don’t care what he was like before, or what he experienced.” He was just one of the countless opponents she had encountered during her youthful travels, the only special point being that she couldn’t beat him, so she borrowed him to have a child.

“I remembered what he said and came over this way to take a look. On the way, I passed a small tribe. There was an old parrot beastman there, and he also mentioned this legend to me. At the edge of the forest where the primitive beasts live, there is a stretch of ocean. If you can reach the first small island in that ocean, you can make a half-beastman become a beastman.”

After hearing this, Song Xu could not help but sigh. Beastmen and half-beastmen are indeed different. Look at tiger mom—she had been foolish for so long, and once she stopped taking medicine, her language function recovered so well. Then look at Wumu. His innate language function is not good, and he has never spoken such a long stretch before.

With tiger mom able to speak, Song Xu simply wanted to pour out all her doubts and ask her: “That strange thing just now, was he also a beastman in the past?”

“That should have been a half-beastman. His degree of mutation was already severe, and after eating too many primitive beasts, he turned into a complete wild beast.”

Heisen’s voice was rough and low, a husky smoke-like voice. Her two paws overlapped. Even though the fur on her body had not completely dried, she still looked both wild and elegant.

Song Xu had known mom for several months. This was the first time she had seen her so dignified. She was no longer that big tiger who would chase her own tail to play, push reefs and flip shells, then vigorously fling the mud off her paws.

“In the past, there should have been quite a few half-beastmen who learned about the small island and came here. But not all half-beastmen can successfully reach the island. That one is an example of failure. He was relatively lucky—not dying in this ocean, and even living here for so long.”

Because they did not succeed, those who failed halfway were unwilling to accept it, and ended up becoming obstacles blocking others’ paths?

Song Xu tossed that already-sunk obstacle aside and continued to ask: “Then Wumu not being able to eat primitive beast meat, was that also told to you by Alugu?”

“That wasn’t it. An old person in our tribe said it—half-beastmen cannot eat primitive beast meat.”

“Then after you came here, did you know that primitive beast meat can’t be eaten too much?” Song Xu asked.

The big tiger fell silent for a moment, licked her paw to cover up her embarrassment: “I thought eating one or two wouldn’t be a problem.”

She had been too hungry and had no other food. She thought eating one or two wouldn’t matter. When she tried going out to sea, she had also gnawed on fish, but she was not good at catching fish. After several failed attempts to go out to sea, she stayed here for too long. Without realizing it, she ate too many primitive beasts, and then… became like this.

“Mom, don’t mind it. That’s all in the past. Look, Wumu is fine, and we’ve even made it here. Now the small island is right in front of us. Victory is right ahead. Our future is bright! My luck value is very high!”

Song Xu had not learned what was on the island from Heisen, but she was now even more expectant, wishing she could install a motor on the boat and immediately reach the island to take a look.

At this moment, a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky. The dark clouds that had been gathering since dusk had unknowingly grown heavy—there was going to be a torrential rain.

Song Xu: “…please show some mercy, waves, don’t get too big, I’m begging you.”