In the vast uninhabited areas of the beastman world, this journey of Song Xu and Wumu had basically been a matter of jumping trees when they saw mountains, and using snakes as bridges when they saw water. They had hardly seen any proper paths that were walked out by beastmen.
Under such circumstances, it was only natural that there were no road markers along the way. If they kept moving forward, it was still fine, but if they wanted to return, they would face a huge problem—forgetting the way.
Especially when there were seasonal changes. Plant growth never looked the same, and the environment changed so drastically that it became impossible to recognize.
So when Song Xu saw the green grassy plains in front of her, she instantly suspected that she might have climbed the wrong cliff. Her imagination even went as far as “one day in the mountains, a thousand years in the human world,” opening up a ridiculous thought that they had crossed the sea for several months, and many years had already passed outside.
Heisen was also a little confused. When she had come here, it was not like this either. But she was experienced and seasoned, and did not care about such a small issue. If she could not remember the road, she would just keep moving forward—sooner or later she would see a familiar place. So she calmly continued to lead the way ahead.
The hungry tiger sniffed the traces left by prey, passed through the now greatly changed wasteland, and arrived at a sparse forest.
By the time they reached here, they were already very far from Huhu’s cliff tribe. Huhu could no longer follow them forward. In the end, he rubbed against the big tiger and the squirrel, reluctant to part, then took flight. After circling them twice in the air, he flew back.
There were only three left on the road again. The big tiger focused on tracking the prey’s trail, impatiently chasing after it. She smelled that a herd of wild deer lived near this forest. The hungry big tiger began her first hunt since returning.
Wumu was the same. This mother and son, whose appearances and even species were different, simultaneously set their sights on that herd of deer. They each confirmed their own target, then started hunting separately.
After a while, the big tiger returned with a deer in her mouth, coming back to the little squirrel under the tree. She easily ripped the deer open, burying her face in the prey’s abdomen and eating wildly. She was already too hungry to bother waiting to make a fire and cook. The big snake was the same. With his convenient and efficient way of eating, it did not take long before he came back with a round, bulging belly.
The three finished eating and rested. The big tiger was no longer as anxious as before, lazily cleaning the bloodstains off her face.
Song Xu sat on a tree branch, gnawing on the tender buds at the tip of the branch, observing the surroundings—the trees, flowers, and grass—trying to find places she recognized. This patch of forest also did not exist in Song Xu’s memory. She remembered that near the wasteland there had been Gobi, and after that was desert. But now, here was a sparse forest.
While the tiger and snake were eating and resting, Song Xu jumped down from the tree and wandered around.
They did not rest for long before the tiger stood up, shook her fur, and demanded that they continue on their journey.
Traveling together with the big tiger was very convenient when it came to finding prey. She was experienced, and could always sense which direction good food was in. She was also very good at finding places to rest, and when resting she would be responsible for keeping watch for danger. Slightly larger predators would be scared away before they could even get close.
However, there were also aspects that were hard to adapt to. Heisen had a fiery, impatient personality and did everything in a hurry. Wumu was slow, and Song Xu was even more brimming with curiosity. As they walked, the two of them greatly slowed down Heisen’s traveling speed, which made the tiger mommy very dissatisfied.
Finally, after the three of them traveled together for several days, Heisen could not take it anymore. She let out a bout of roaring at the two of them, then licked each of them twice. After that, she gracefully got up and ran off, not looking back at all, and quickly disappeared.
Left standing there, Song Xu asked Wumu, “Were those two licks just now her way of saying goodbye to us?”
Wumu was already used to Heisen’s behavior of leaving whenever she wanted. “Yes. She’s going back to her tribe to take a look.”
Song Xu felt that Heisen was truly a magical tiger mother. She could travel across mountains and rivers and endure hardships in order to find a way to help her child, and she could also, after discovering that her child was safe, decisively and directly leave the person behind.
This was probably the typical beastman-world mother who was “there to back you up when something happens, and doesn’t bother you when nothing happens.”
Suddenly being left to fend for herself did not make Song Xu feel sad. Instead, she stood up and shouted, “I’m free!”
Wumu: “?”
After saying that, Song Xu suddenly looked at him, giggled twice, and said, “Wumu, it’s just the two of us left now. How about you change into beastman form, and we…”
“…we learn how to walk!”
Snake learning to walk was finally put on the agenda. Since they were going to learn, they learned immediately. Under Song Xu’s urging, Wumu transformed a pair of legs, and she forcefully pulled him up from the ground.
Song Xu stood in front, walking backward, holding both of Wumu’s hands and swaying them. She suddenly thought of two phrases: babbling in infancy, and toddling while learning to walk.
Isn’t this extremely suitable for the current snake-snake—learning to speak, and also learning to walk.
Wumu did not understand why the little squirrel holding his hands was smiling so hard that her eyes were nearly squinting shut.
Feeling his hand being tugged, Song Xu cleared her throat, still smiling on her face: “Quick, quick, lift your foot, lift the left one!”
“Your foot can’t drag on the ground, this is different from a tail, it has to leave the ground.”
“When you walk you can’t twist… no, you can twist, you can twist, twist hard! Twisting very well, make the movement bigger! Loosen up a bit more!” Song Xu vigorously praised snake-snake’s incorrect way of walking.
Wumu felt something was wrong: “But you, don’t walk, like this.”
Song Xu seriously lied to the snake: “Because I’m a squirrel, you’re a snake, the way we walk is different. Look, snakes move by twisting, you also twist when you walk, there’s no problem with that, right.”
It sounded like there was no problem. Wumu believed it. But after he followed Song Xu’s guidance and walked a few steps, he saw that the strange smile on her face simply could not be controlled.
He stopped. “You’re lying to me.” The tone was not angry, just stating a fact, and there was also a bit of confusion about why he had been lied to.
Because she could not control her bizarre smile after seeing the pretty snake-snake walk like a model, Song Xu rubbed her face, forcibly making her expression return to normal.
“Baby, how could I lie to you! This walking posture is extremely suitable for you, it has snake-type beastman characteristics! Ultimate elegance!”
“You’re lying to me.” Snake-snake accurately bypassed her sweet talk and affirmed.
So he really had become smarter—she actually could not easily trick snake-snake anymore. Song Xu beat her chest in regret!
The walking teacher, whose belly was full of bad intentions, was forcibly emptied out, and she could only teach walking honestly. But as she taught, she developed bad thoughts again, deliberately tugging Wumu’s arm and pulling him down. Although most of the time she herself would also be pressed by the fallen snake-snake, she never got tired of it, just to see snake-snake’s expression when he fell unexpectedly, and the way he propped himself up to stand.
And also to see him glare at her a little angrily—so much feeling in that expression!
No matter how dumb snake-snake was, after a few times he also realized her deliberate actions. He stared at her without moving, refusing to stand up again.
Song Xu said with absolute certainty: “I’m training your walking balance ability!”
Wumu reminded her: “You can’t pull.”
Song Xu readily agreed: “Okay okay okay, I won’t pull you, I won’t pull you. I’ll let go, now you try walking by yourself!”
As she spoke, she put her hands behind her back and retreated to the side.
Without her messing around, Wumu walking by himself was still able to gradually get used to it. Seeing that he was walking more steadily, the squirrel who ranked first in causing trouble and last in teaching pounced from behind like a fierce squirrel attacking prey, landing on Wumu’s shoulder and pressing him down.
Wumu fell into the green grass and wild flowers, slowly turned his head to look at her. Song Xu sensed danger, immediately jumped up and wanted to escape, but it was already too late. The Wumu who had been pressed under her blinked and turned into a big snake. His snake tail flexibly blocked her escape route, and in order to tie her up, he did not hesitate to knot his own body.
The little squirrel was sentenced to half a day of punishment for doing bad things. No matter how much flowery language she used, Warden Big Snake refused to release this bad thing. When she was finally released after serving her sentence, Song Xu was much more honest. She deeply reflected on her behavior and stated that next time she would definitely teach walking seriously.
However, the repeat-offender little squirrel’s guarantee was useless. Next time she still dared.
So this stretch of their journey was extremely slow. From time to time, in the lush roadside grass, one could see a big snake tied in knots and a squirrel bound in the snake tail, boredly swinging her tail.
In the end, it developed into: as long as she was tied up by snake-snake, the squirrel would immediately tilt her head and start sleeping. After sleeping for a while, her sentence would be over and she would be released.
Snake-snake quickly learned how to walk. About this, Wumu felt a little strange. When he did not know how to walk, Song Xu urged him to learn to walk. Once he could walk, Song Xu suddenly did not want him to walk anymore.
“Quick, climb up, I want to try if I can carry you!” Wumu could not understand Song Xu’s request for him to ride on her back.
Why did she suddenly want to carry him? He was a big snake, and his squirrel partner was so petite. He would crush her flat.
Song Xu finally managed to coax Wumu into agreeing. But when Wumu lay down on her back, Song Xu could not lift him no matter what, because his legs were too long and were still propped on the ground, unable to leave it.
“Lift your feet, don’t support yourself on the ground.”
The little squirrel staggered as she carried her big snake-snake on her back, wobbling forward, and then the two of them plunged headfirst into the nearby pool.
“Hahahaha!”
Was plunging into water very fun? Wumu stood up, lifted the squirrel out of the water, and shook the water off her. Imitating what she had done earlier, he carried his strange little squirrel on his back.
He could now walk very steadily. Although his two feet were not as fast as a snake tail’s swimming motion, this was an entirely different feeling. They moved forward slowly across the grassland, the wind whooshing through the grass.
Wumu saw the squirrel on his back suddenly raise her hand and wave toward the distance.
“Who are you, waving to?” Wumu stopped and did not see anyone in the distance.
Song Xu hugged his neck and happily waved. “Waving to the trees over there. Look, don’t they look like they’re greeting us?”
A patch of forest in the distance swayed its branches in the wind.
“I’m getting down.” Song Xu kicked her legs.
Wumu did not put her down, and continued to carry her. Song Xu leaned back, swayed left and right, and tried hard to pull herself upward, but she still could not get out. She thought to herself that snakes really lived up to their reputation—top-tier at wrapping people up.
“Fiiine—then I’ll go to sleep!” Song Xu lay on his shoulder, then suddenly burrowed under his hair, lifting all of his hair and covering herself with it.
“It’s like wearing a layer of flowing water, all slippery!”
Wumu felt her fidgeting behind him, wriggling around for a while, before finally settling down. She had fallen asleep, still clutching his hair in her hand.
Once she fell asleep, the whole world fell asleep. Even the trees no longer waved at them.
