Chapter 4

Song Xu felt that when he spoke, he seemed a bit dumb and not very smart. However, seeing his eyes up close, the slit-like vertical pupils in the light added a dangerous aura, highlighting a cold distance that made people hesitant to joke with him lightly.

“My beast form is very small, not even enough to be a snack for you. Squirrels don’t taste good either,” Song Xu carefully diverted the dangerous topic away from herself. “You usually eat larger animals like deer and wild boars, right?”

Wu Mu didn’t respond again, resting his head on his arm, occasionally flicking his tongue out. Snakes flick their tongues to capture external information, so his tongue flicking was probably his unique way of responding.

Song Xu noticed a cute detail: this snake-like half-beastman’s upper lip was M-shaped, with a slightly upturned lip bead. His upper and lower lips didn’t completely close, leaving a small gap through which his tongue flicked out.… just like in his snake form, where there was a small gap for the tongue to flick out.

Song Xu: So cute, this little gap!

Wu Mu didn’t seem very interested in communicating and soon turned his back to her. Song Xu felt regretful; she hadn’t said enough yet. In such a large place, having someone to talk to was rare.

Unfortunately, Wu Mu had no intention of paying her any more attention. Song Xu quietly moved to the edge of his tail, carefully placing her hand on it and squeezing it.

This tail was ridiculously thick and very intimidating, coiled into a continuous S-shape. She roughly estimated its length to be at least ten meters. The texture of the thicker part of the tail below the waist differed significantly from the tip. She had only touched it twice when the tail started to roll, the muscles undulating under the soft-scaled skin, and she could clearly feel the movement with her palm. His long tail was like a large bundle of ropes, rolling and rubbing on the stone. The speed wasn’t fast, but he twisted and turned, almost occupying the entire stone.

Song Xu had to jump off the stone to make room for him because she had nowhere to stand, and his tail almost crushed her.

Snakes also need the sun. Song Xu realized he was probably enjoying the morning sunbath and thought that the big snake couldn’t escape the cave. She decided to go have breakfast first.
She ate a mix of various plant fruits, needing at least two meals a day. Otherwise, she would feel starving. Compared to snakes, she was envious. Snakes could eat one meal and digest it for several days, some even for ten days or half a month, which was very convenient.

Finding food here wasn’t as easy as shopping in a supermarket in her world. Finding something with a slightly better taste took a lot of effort. In the past, the small tribe of dozens of members was busy collecting food from morning till night. Now, Song Xu wasn’t as hungry as before, so she became picky about food.

It seemed to be the transition between spring and summer, with ripe fruits being scarce. She climbed up the tree trunk and found only flowers and newly budding green fruits. Eating this for one or two meals was fine, but by the third meal, it became unbearable. Eating this every day was unbearable for someone from a gourmet country. The tender shoots had a green taste, some even bitter.

The variety of food on the treetops was limited, but occasionally, mushrooms could be found at the base of the trees, growing in the moist, decaying roots. Their colors didn’t look very safe.

Even with the original body’s memories, Song Xu had to figure out how to survive in this unfamiliar environment on her own. On the ground, besides the more commonly known mushrooms, there were more types of moss. Some moss felt slippery to the touch and grew in large patches. It had a slimy, unpleasant texture when chewed and no taste. Another type of moss was greener, with small but thick leaves. It had a crunchy texture, but its juice was very bitter, leaving her tongue slightly numb after tasting it.

Song Xu spat out the saliva in her mouth, suspecting it was poisonous. There was also moss growing on the tree trunks, shaped like coral branches and colored purple-brown. It had a slightly spicy taste. After eating a piece, Song Xu noticed several ants scurrying underneath it. Upon closer inspection, she realized the moss was like a door to an ant nest in the tree trunk, and now the entrance was exposed.

Song Xu: “Sorry for eating your door.”

In addition to these types of moss, there were also liverworts, which covered large areas wherever they could grow, like a carpet underfoot. Despite their abundance, they were mostly inedible. The darker parts of the forest were almost entirely dominated by moss and liverworts. Apart from these, there were also ferns on the ground, which were more friendly to her because she could eat many of their tender stems and leaves! Their leaves usually grew symmetrically and gracefully spread out, with the newly sprouted buds curled up. The tasty part was just this bit.

Song Xu slowly chewed on the slightly sweet fern shoots, internally longing for a hot pot… At this moment, even the food from the cafeteria seemed enticing in her memory.

After finishing her breakfast, Song Xu made herself a tree hole.
The snake’s den was large, but now that she had seen the snake-like half-beastman and confirmed he was male, she felt it wasn’t appropriate to keep sharing his space.

Unable to find a ready-made tree hole, Song Xu chose a large tree near the boulder and prepared to dig a hole in it. She had tried this tree’s bark yesterday and found it tough; her claws couldn’t dig through it, but humans were good at using tools. The sharp stone struck the tree trunk repeatedly, making a knocking sound that caught the attention of the sunbathing snake nearby.

Wu Mu saw a squirrel hanging on the tree trunk, knocking on the bark with a stone. It was a fluffy ball, its tail puffed up and twitching with the movement.

Having a harmless beastman nearby, Wu Mu was curious but not overly so. After a couple of glances, he felt he had enough sun for the day and returned to the cave along the boulder.

Initially, Song Xu planned to dig a large tree hole, preferably with a living room and a bedroom, as the tree was very big. But as she dug, her expectations lowered.

Exhausted, Song Xu thought, “Why dig so big? One room is enough.”

Then, looking at the broken stones and her scratched claws, she decisively decided to dig a hole just big enough for her beast form to squeeze into.

Even with her lowered expectations, it took Song Xu several days to finish digging the tree hole. That night, she eagerly moved from the corner of the stone cave to her new home. She collected thick moss from the ground and placed it in the tree hole, as well as laying down leaves. She lay in the high tree hole admiring the far-off, colorful clouds as the night chased and engulfed them. The wood shavings in the tree hole emitted a fresh, woody fragrance, unlike the faint fishy smell in the stone cave. Once she squeezed in, the small space of the tree hole filled, and by blocking the entrance with moss, branches, and leaves, it became warm and less drafty than the stone cave.

Song Xu tossed and turned in the narrow tree hole, sleeping sprawled and rolling around. Her claws accidentally scraped off some wood shavings.

Being a beastman, her claws were sharper than an ordinary squirrel’s, which helped a lot in digging the tree hole.

Young people tend to sleep deeply, and Song Xu was no exception. However, no matter how deeply she slept, she would wake up if something knocked on the door in the middle of the night. A pair of bright eyes at the entrance startled her as she groggily poked her squirrel head out of the tree hole. The midnight knocker was a woodpecker—probably. It was too dark for Song Xu to see clearly; she only saw the eyes.

The bird pecking at the tree trunk at night was also startled by her, flapping its wings and flying away quickly. Song Xu cursed at its retreating figure, “Have some decency, knocking on doors in the middle of the night!”

The forest echoed with a few bird calls. There was no moon tonight, and the trees outside looked eerie, shrouded in mist.

Song Xu reluctantly pulled her head back in and continued to sleep. Despite the unexpected nighttime visitor, Song Xu was satisfied with her new home. She planned some improvements to make it more comfortable. Drying the soft moss before laying it down would make it fluffier, and she also needed to make a door.

Looking at the pink dawn, Song Xu was enthusiastic about building her home!

Then, in the middle of the night, a torrential downpour poured into her tree hole, forming a shallow puddle and soaking her freshly dried moss bed. Outside, lightning occasionally lit up the dark sky, and thunder that seemed to crack the earth made the tall trees in the forest tremble.

Song Xu curled up in the tree hole, covering her ears tightly. She had rarely been afraid of anything since childhood but was very afraid of thunder.

The sound of trees breaking nearby was the branches being snapped by the storm and wind. Listening to the sounds outside, Song Xu’s entire squirrel body trembled like a motor. She realized staying in such a high tree hole during a thunderstorm was unsafe. After another round of thunder, she shakily crawled out of the tree hole into the pouring rain, fleeing towards the stable and secure stone mountain amidst the lightning and thunder.

Rushing into the dry cave, Song Xu’s fur was completely soaked. Ignoring her disheveled state, she ran straight to the corner of the cave, jumped into the coil of the snake’s tail, and covered herself with it. She was terrified and didn’t care about anything else; she just wanted to find a safe place to hide.

The slight movement awakened Wu Mu. His pupils dilated in the darkness, allowing him to see everything clearly. He saw a wet squirrel’s tail draped over his own. The patterned long tail was uncoiled, revealing the shivering squirrel underneath, covering her ears. Realizing the cover was gone, the squirrel didn’t even lift her head; she just burrowed under his unmoved tail again, hiding herself again.