A giant snake that could swallow water buffalo and wild boar would of course not be unable to swallow a stone. It was only that he had been caught off guard and failed to react in time—after all, swallowing something on one’s own initiative and having someone forcibly stuff something into your mouth were not the same thing.

With his brain reduced to a single thread, the irritable giant snake focused entirely on the opponent provoking him, failing to notice the great green shark’s sneak attack from behind. By the time he realized it, and wanted to turn around to counterattack, it was already too late.

The stone that had entered his body began to take effect. Just like the speed at which it dissipated after leaving the sinkhole, once it entered the half-beastman’s body, the faint fluorescence that had originally flickered on the stone continuously separated out and fell into the giant snake’s body—like the bubbles in an opened bottle of soda, rapidly dispersing.

The giant snake’s thick, long body twisted by the riverbank. The older great green shark watched for a moment, confirmed that he was undergoing metamorphosis, and did not bother with him further. He called to his daughter to leave, of course not forgetting to take along that great white shark who seemed poisoned and not quite right in the head.

Only the giant snake remained at the bottom of the pit. From his previous half-beastman form, two eyes had still not been completely covered by scales; now that tiny, precarious last stand was entirely overrun by the scales growing with overwhelming force, and he completely became a giant snake form.

The giant snake’s body had a dark red base color with black patterns. During this journey, and throughout his gradual transformation, the colors on his body had become less vivid, the whole of him covered in a layer of grayish gloom. That layer of gloom now rapidly lifted from his body, wrinkled, then became dry, and quickly cracked apart.

This was a scene that looked like a snake shedding its skin, yet was also somewhat different from ordinary molting.

In this short span of time, the giant snake had already shed his skin three times. His body bulged, rising and falling like a breathing heart, and every bulge would cause the skin on his body to rupture.

Eating the stones here would allow one to metamorphose—this sounded simple enough. However, for half-beastmen, the most agonizing part was what came after swallowing the stone.

For a half-beastman to metamorphose into a beastman was not a light or easy matter. It was several times more difficult than a giant snake shedding its skin.

The giant snake rubbed against the rough rocks, scraping his freshly molted snake body into countless bloody gashes. Yet even this was far from comparable to the pain of the changes happening inside his body. Gradually, he lost strength and stopped moving, with only the transformation of his body still continuing.

Some beastmen from the shark tribe passed by and craned their heads to look. “Eh, there’s a half-beastman undergoing metamorphosis here?”

“It started a long time ago. I saw it when I passed by earlier. It still isn’t finished.”

“Still a long way to go. At the very least, it won’t be done until tomorrow morning.”

A few people casually chatted as they passed by the sinkhole. At the bottom of the sinkhole, outside sounds had difficulty reaching this place. For the giant snake, the surroundings were exceptionally quiet. He could even hear the sound of his own body splitting open, the gurgling of blood flowing out from inside. For a moment he thought it might be his illusion, that this sound was actually the nearby flow of lake water.

“Plop.” He slid into the water.

In an instant, a blood-red color spread across the clear surface of the water.

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Song Xu sat on the reef at the outer edge of the small island, gazing at the distant small island, pondering whether the giant snake and the tiger might be over there.

Suddenly, a killer whale surfaced from the water. This killer whale was very large. She opened her mouth toward Song Xu, revealing a mouthful of fish and seaweed and sea vegetables hanging to the side.

Song Xu came back to her senses and said with a smile, “Wow, it’s seaweed and sea vegetables! I really love eating seaweed! Thank you, Grandma, you’re amazing—catching fish so fast, so well, and so many!”

At that time, she had been hungry and also wanted to ask Xi Ni for more information, so she thick-skinnedly went over to mooch a meal. Originally, she thought eating anything casually would be fine. Dried fish, salted fish—she didn’t mind. Anyway, she couldn’t eat very much. Who would have thought that after she expressed this meaning, the fierce-looking grandma would, without a word, take her outside the small island.

Song Xu thought to herself that maybe her intention to freeload had made the whale angry, and in a fit of rage she was going to drive her away. Who knew that once they reached the water’s edge, slow-walking Xi Ni instantly turned into a big killer whale, left behind the sentence, “I’ll go catch some fresh fish,” and then whoosh, swam off.

Song Xu was deeply moved by this fastidious way of treating a guest. She obediently helped hold a huge clump of seaweed and sea vegetables as big as herself, following behind Grandma Xi Ni, who was carrying fish, as they walked back.

Most large beastmen were valiant and fierce. Even an elderly killer whale like Xi Ni, once she transformed into beastman form on land, could carry several hundred jin of fish without even panting. Meanwhile, the squirrel carrying less than a hundred jin of seaweed and sea vegetables was still being looked after by the elder: “If you can’t carry it, give it to me.”

“People who eat and drink for free should do what they can, that’s the rule. I understand!”

They returned to Xi Ni’s house.

This was still the first time Song Xu had looked so carefully at a house belonging to beastmen. The original body had previously lived in a small mixed small-beastman tribe. Everyone was accustomed to living in tree hollows, and even when they built houses, they were more like large birdcages. Wumu went without saying—he lived in a simple stone cave. And the larger beastman tribes they passed on the road would not let them approach because of Wumu. So the housing of this killer whale tribe in front of her was the closest to the “house” form within the squirrel’s understanding of architecture.

The house as a whole was built from stacked stones—the most common block-shaped stones on the island. These stones, which had been washed by seawater into layered shapes, were piled together by fitting their gaps, stacked into neat square forms, leaving a doorway. Song Xu carefully observed the roof. It was paved with shells, and between the shells was a kind of gray substance used to bond them together.

Moreover, their roof only covered half of the house. The other half was left open, allowing rainwater to fall directly inside, and sunlight to shine straight in.

The interior was bright. In the part covered by the roof were piled various simple pieces of furniture with strong ocean characteristics. After Xi Ni walked into the house, she opened a large shell and took out a fire striker, went to the uncovered area above, struck fire, and lit a pile of grayish-white stones there.

After Xi Ni finished lighting the fire and stood up, Song Xu squatted down in her place and observed closely. These burnable chunks did not look much like coal—what were they?

Xi Ni carried over a chair and placed it behind Song Xu, casually explaining, “Those are dried droppings of white-headed seabirds. We use them to make fire.”

There were no trees growing on the island. Along the coasts where trees did grow lived several kinds of primitive beasts that were good at flying and catching fish, and that liked to eat marine beastmen, so they rarely approached the seashore. On the bare reef islands, materials that could be burned were scarce, and even this kind of dried seabird droppings was not easy to collect.

Song Xu’s attention was drawn to the chair Xi Ni had brought over. It was a coral chair, with a unique and cute shape. She tried sitting on it. The smooth branches naturally had a massaging effect, and the size was just right. As soon as she sat down, she fit perfectly into the empty space.

Seeing that she was seated, Xi Ni went to deal with the fish, preparing to make her a cooked meal. In beastman tribes, making cooked food for a guest was absolutely the highest level of courtesy. Song Xu did not really understand why she was receiving such good treatment.

She squeezed over beside Xi Ni to help wash the seaweed. As she washed, because she was too hungry, she casually ate a few pieces.

“My mother was also a half-beastman in the past. She came from the land, and was also a small-sized beast type. But she didn’t live here for very long, because there are no plants that can grow here. It wasn’t suitable for her and my younger sister to live, so in the end she took my younger sister back to the land, and I never saw her again.” The elderly woman’s tone was very calm. “On you, I can sense a similar bit of scent to ours.”

Song Xu, who had indirectly pried out this piece of information, took a second to react in her mind, then felt shocked. Grandma Xi Ni was saying that the two of them might have a blood relationship!

What a magical world this was. Because they could transform into beastmen, there was no reproductive isolation—so even a killer whale and a squirrel could have blood relatives!

“Seeing you, I know that after they returned to the land, they should have lived well, and also left descendants over there.” Xi Ni looked at the squirrel, who was so shocked that she was mechanically chewing seaweed, and there were some very gentle emotions in her eyes.

“Eat some fish. This fish is tasty.”

The squirrel mechanically gnawed on fish, digesting food while also digesting this piece of news. Very quickly, she became happy. Squirrels were best at climbing along a pole.

“Grandma!” The squirrel’s voice became enthusiastic and much sweeter. “Actually, I came here with my partner. He’s a half-beastman, and he might have drifted to another island now. I want to go find him. Could you send me to another island?”

“The neighboring island? That’s a mixed tribe, mainly living with jellyfish beastmen. They all carry poison, and there are also some squid and octopus beastmen who like to pollute the sea. We don’t often go there.” The big killer whale grandma sounded a bit disdainful as she spoke. As for the fact that there were also some shellfish, snail, and starfish beastmen on the island, because they were too weak and had no presence, she couldn’t even be bothered to mention them.

“Grandma doesn’t need to go ashore. Just send me nearby. I can use an empty fruit shell as a boat and paddle over!”

Xi Ni neither said yes nor no, only said, “The beastmen on that island aren’t very friendly. They’re all hard-to-communicate fellows. Compared to them, the sharks on the first island are easier to get along with.”

Song Xu finally realized something was wrong. “The first island… how many islands are there in total here?” Could it be that there weren’t only the two islands she had seen?

Xi Ni said, “There are three islands. This is the third one.”

Song Xu: “…………”

Song Xu still decided to go to the second island to take a look first. If she couldn’t find Snake and Tiger there, then she would go to the first island to look.

Early the next morning, the big killer whale took her out to sea. She was a steady grandma, unlike those young killer whales who liked to push balls, and from time to time also dive into the water to play. Grandma would carefully keep the squirrel supported on the surface of the water, so that seawater would not soak her fur.

When she herself was still a small killer whale, she had also carried her mother on the water like this. But back then she had been a bit mischievous, so after swimming a lap, all of her mother’s fur would be soaked.

The killer whale carried the squirrel as they swam on the sea surface. Inside the sinkhole on the first island, a person emerged from the shallow lake.

Wet black long hair clung to his body. His slender, smooth physique and two long legs were outlined clearly. He sat in the water for a while, raised his head to look at the sky, swayed as he stood up, and wanted to walk outward.

After taking just one step, he plopped and fell to the ground.