While the snake and the squirrel were chatting as if no one else existed, the big tiger had already disembarked and was lying on a reef nearby, basking in the sun.
After confirming that her cub was already fine and in excellent condition, the irritable tiger instantly turned into a lazy big cat.
She and the big killer whale in the water beside her curiously watched the snake and the squirrel. As for that jellyfish, he was still persistently declaring his courtship to the tiger, but was being ignored. The tiger no longer beat him, but couldn’t be bothered to pay attention either.
After glancing at the big tiger, Wumu shifted his gaze back to the squirrel and asked, “Drink water?”
Song Xu: “Wuwu, you talk so smoothly now, you’re not lagging anymore! Oh, I’m not drinking water.”
Wumu had no way of switching tones as freely as the squirrel within a single sentence. He was still in the middle of a full recovery. Actually, he was already very tired. Ever since going out to sea, he hadn’t properly rested even for a moment, and had also experienced an intense molting process. Now, he just wanted to coil around his squirrel pillow and sleep well.
The squirrel timely suggested, “You swam for a long time to find this place, right? Are you tired? How about we rest here for a bit?”
Although he was very tired, Wumu didn’t immediately agree to this suggestion. The poisonous jellyfish beastman over there made him somewhat wary. Why was he constantly provoking Heisen?
Everyone here knew what was going on, except for the newly arrived big snake.
The relationship between parents and children in beastman tribes wasn’t like what Song Xu imagined. Children and parents generally went their separate ways after adulthood and rarely interacted again, and they certainly wouldn’t interfere with each other’s choice of partner.
Song Xu quietly said, “That jellyfish wants to pursue our mom.”
Understanding that the jellyfish was courting, and seeing that Heisen didn’t have an intense reaction, Wumu calmly nodded. Song Xu jumped off the boat and reached out to him. “Come on, let’s get down and rest!”
Wumu lifted his foot, and unsurprisingly tripped again, pressing the squirrel underneath him until she squeaked.
After struggling free from the heavy weight on her body, the squirrel’s first reaction was to laugh wildly. “Hahahaha, babe, can’t you walk? Hahahaha!”
The big snake frowned, unhappily glaring at her exaggerated laughter, and instantly turned into a big snake coiled around her.
The heavy pressure made the squirrel immediately change her expression. “I’m sorry, I was wrong, I shouldn’t have laughed. You just got legs and don’t know how to use them yet, that’s totally normal. If it were me, I wouldn’t know how to use them either, really. I’ll teach you how to walk right now. Thirty days guaranteed to master it, no tuition. If I can’t teach you, I’ll carry you around, I swear!”
Of course, she wouldn’t say that the way Snake-Snake got angry and then turned into a snake to wrap around her was really, really cute, hehehe!
Wumu didn’t want to enter the interior of the tribe, so he coiled on the outer reef beach. But he didn’t manage to stay coiled for long, because his sleep companion, the little squirrel, didn’t want to sleep at this moment. She wanted to go talk to the big killer whale grandma by the water, and also wanted to go watch the big tiger mom and her suitor. Snake-Snake also didn’t want to let go of her, so in the end they compromised: he turned into his beast form, with his tail wrapped around Song Xu’s hand, dragging out a long trail across the reef beach.
The big killer whale grandma decided to return to her own tribe. Song Xu said goodbye to her and watched her head back to the neighboring island. Then she looked over at the big jellyfish, who was still courting, repeating the same few sentences over and over, not knowing how to say something nice at all. No wonder the big tiger had a completely indifferent expression.
“I’ve prepared a partner ceremony. If you agree, we can hold it immediately. I’ve also prepared beautiful ornaments for you. You can wear them at the ceremony…”
Hearing the big jellyfish’s words, Song Xu sighed with emotion. She didn’t expect him to be quite ceremonial. But speaking of ornaments, Song Xu leaned over and took off the tiger-tooth necklace hanging at her waist, returning it to its owner. “Heisen, this is your necklace. I’m giving it back to you. Now you can wear it.”
The tiger reached out with her paw and flicked it aside, not taking it. “I don’t want it anymore. You keep it. It’s already yours.”
Her beast form had become too large. Although she was currently recovering, transforming into a beastman form was still not as comfortable as her beast form, and wearing a small beast-tooth necklace was inconvenient.
After the two of them finished speaking, the big jellyfish started repeating again. “Hold the partner ceremony today…”
“Jellyfish.” Song Xu interrupted. “Heisen doesn’t agree. A forced melon isn’t sweet, so don’t push it. Otherwise Heisen can tear you apart so badly you won’t even be able to piece yourself back together. See that newly arrived snake over there? His poison is no worse than yours. We’re leaving. You can’t stop us.”
The jellyfish was unconvinced. “I can—”
“But!” Song Xu made a turn. “Since the partner ceremony preparations are already done, it’d be a waste to not use them.”
The big tiger glanced at her. Song Xu tugged at the snake tail clinging to her wrist and loudly said, “Since a partner ceremony must be held today, then let me and my Snake-Snake do it!”
Jellyfish: “?”
° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
Wumu didn’t understand. Why had he only taken a short nap, yet suddenly been dragged into this tribe? Why were a group of unfamiliar beastmen crawling out from various ditches and suddenly starting to sing and dance around them?
“Are we going to join this tribe?” Wumu, who had missed important developments, was confused. In his memory, only by joining a tribe would one sing, dance, and share food together with that tribe’s beastmen.
Song Xu: “Oh my god, babe, you can say long sentences without inversion now! Oh, of course we’re not joining this tribe, we’re just attending a partner ceremony.”
Wumu looked over at Heisen, who was eating fish in big mouthfuls, and the jellyfish following beside her. “Heisen’s?”
Song Xu: “Ours, hahahaha!”
Wumu: “?”
Song Xu: “That’s right, starting today, we are partners!”
Wumu: “Weren’t we already partners?”
Song Xu: “Eh? Is that so? Why can’t I remember…”
The snake’s dark red pupils dangerously narrowed. “Hiss!”
Song Xu changed her words. “I remember, I remember. Then today is our one-year anniversary, um, two-year anniversary! Anyway, hurry and put this on and try it. It’s pearls, they’re really pretty!”
The jellyfish truly lived up to being a beastman from an island. He had collected quite a few pearls, and used coral, shells, and pearls to make an ornamental head crown. It had originally been prepared for Heisen, but now it was worn on… Wumu’s head.
There was no helping it, it was too big. Song Xu refused righteously, because it was too heavy and pressed on her neck!
Wumu hadn’t sorted out the current situation. Song Xu mischievously jammed the heavy head crown onto his head. He remembered that in the past, Song Xu also liked to place the wildflower wreaths she wove onto his head. But he didn’t like this one, and raised his hand to take it off.
“You don’t like it either? Too heavy, right?” Song Xu took it and casually put it on the head of a tribe child who ran past, letting her wear the pretty big hat and go play with her little companions.
The unfamiliar beastmen on Jellyfish Island looked quite happy. A bunch of shells acted as the atmosphere team, clapping their shells to play music. Starfish beastmen lay all over the ground, and many beastmen were lying on the ground in beast form, making it impossible for Song Xu to tell whether they were fish that had been caught and could be eaten, or nearby beastmen—only after they were put on the grill could one tell.
Everyone was very happy, except for the jellyfish clan leader, whose partner ceremony had inexplicably become one prepared for someone else. Although he hadn’t managed to hold a ceremony with the partner he wanted, he had participated in a partner ceremony.
Song Xu taught everyone a popular square-dance song, then, after her mission was accomplished, took Wumu to find a quiet corner to rest.
“This place is good, it’s flat. Come on, you change into beastman form, I’ll teach you how to walk.” The squirrel coaxed Snake-Snake.
The big snake refused, burying his head beneath his coiled body. Song Xu used force to pull the big snake’s head up and untie him. “Don’t avoid walking. Hurry, hurry, you have to learn eventually!”
In the end, things went as she wished. A long-legged man sat on the beach. He might have felt that beastman form, like beast form, felt strange without wrapping himself in more scales, or that beastman skin seemed a bit fragile, so even his upper body was wrapped, not as casual as when he was half-beast.
When transforming, beastmen could control their own “clothes.” Like Song Xu’s little fur sweater—when it was hot, she exposed more, and when it was cold, she wished she could cover her entire body. Wumu’s snake-scale outfit made him look like some kind of aloof male agent, and also a bit like a racing driver’s suit. In short, Wumu sometimes didn’t understand her, but in terms of her XP1XP: Internet slang derived from “experience points,” used to refer to one’s personal preferences, tastes, or sexual/aesthetic interests, often in a humorous or self-aware way. system, he was a different kind of pure, natural understanding.
Adult dirty fantasies kept squirming out when Song Xu saw Wumu support himself on a reef rock and stand up. Song Xu reached out and suddenly pushed him over, and the big snake instantly sat back down.
He was angry. “I just stood up.”
Song Xu, lying on top of him, whimpered. “I stood up too!”
Wumu held her with one arm, puzzled. “You didn’t stand up?”
Song Xu quietly glanced around, then poked at Snake-Snake’s waist and whispered, “Wumu, how about we go…”
As she spoke, she met the big snake’s innocent eyes.
Song Xu choked. “We go… we go, um, catch jellyfish!”
After saying that, she covered her forehead and fell to the side. Damn it, why did Snake-Snake look so innocent even though he had already been an adult for so long!
Snake-Snake didn’t understand why she wanted to go catch jellyfish, but still took her along. Before going, he asked clearly, “Catch the jellyfish clan leader?”
Song Xu waved her hand. “Not catching him. We won’t even be able to find him tonight.”
After painfully catching jellyfish for half the night, by dawn the island had quieted down and the beastmen were all sound asleep. Song Xu checked the sky, went to the island’s sinkhole to fill some freshwater, and announced, “Alright, let’s go!”
“What about Tiger Mommy?”
Just as she mentioned Tiger Mommy, she jumped out from behind a large reef, flicking her tail as she strolled out gracefully.
“Done?” Song Xu giggled and blinked. The big tiger twitched her ears in response.
“Alright then, let’s hurry and go.”
At daybreak, a boat was pushed into the sea. Just like when they came, they boarded the boat and sailed toward the coast.
“If I get the chance in the future, I definitely want to make a bigger boat and go to farther seas.” Song Xu lay at the side of the boat, looking at the island growing farther and farther away.
As the sun had just appeared above the sea surface, the head of a big killer whale also surfaced.
“Grandma?” Song Xu exclaimed in delight.
“Are you going back?” The big killer whale nudged the wooden boat with her head.
“Yes, Grandma!”
“I’ll escort you for a bit.”
“Okay! How did Grandma know I was leaving?”
“I was hunting nearby and smelled your scent.”
Big Killer Whale Grandma escorted the squirrel for an entire day, even taking over catching fish, and even specially prepared delicious deep-sea fish for Song Xu. When they reached the nearshore, Song Xu persuaded her to return.
“Didn’t you say that near the shore there are many flying primitive beasts who like to hunt marine beastmen? You’re not safe alone, so you should go back. I’ll definitely come visit you again in the future.”
She had heard similar words when she sent off her mother and younger sister, but she knew they would never come back, because from the land where they lived to the sea, that was too distant a journey.
The big killer whale called out once, stayed in place, and watched the waving squirrel drift farther and farther away.
The last time she swam here to see someone off, she had still been an underage little killer whale.
Footnotes
1
XP: Internet slang derived from “experience points,” used to refer to one’s personal preferences, tastes, or sexual/aesthetic interests, often in a humorous or self-aware way.
