Chapter 20

A rhythmic crunching sound awakened Wu Mu. In the dim light, he saw the door of Song Xu’s food storage cabinet wide open, with a furry figure half-buried inside. The crunching sound was the sound of nutshells being cracked open.

Song Xu was having a midnight snack. It wasn’t the first time she had woken up in the middle of the night to eat. A few days ago, when Wu Mu was awakened by her munching, Song Xu had earnestly told him that she was still growing and needed to eat when she got hungry at night. In fact, she had just recently become an adult, and being small and thin, she indeed needed to eat more.

Wu Mu quietly closed his eyes again, pretending he hadn’t woken up, but it was too late; Song Xu seemed to have noticed he was awake.

“Wu Mu, you’re awake. Want to join me for a midnight snack?” Her voice rang out.

This familiar voice was the reason Wu Mu had gained weight recently. Despite being an adult for several years and having a stable body shape, he had started to grow again.

“How can you get through winter without putting on some weight in autumn?” Song Xu had been thrilled lately because she could finally eat her fill every day.

Previously, although she didn’t starve, she often went hungry. She only occasionally found abundant food and ate to her heart’s content. Usually, the food she found was tender leaves, flowers, and grass stems, which weren’t very filling. While searching for food, she would quickly digest what she ate and soon feel hungry again. Before finding storable, long-lasting food, she would wake up hungry every morning because there was no ready breakfast. Especially at night, waking up in the middle of the night made her hungry. Now that she had finally achieved food freedom, she naturally added a midnight snack. But food tastes better when shared.

As a beastman, Wu Mu could eat other things besides meat. Since that was the case, she couldn’t ignore him and eat alone. Thinking his teeth weren’t suitable for cracking nuts, Song Xu thoughtfully helped him crack the shells. As for the bit of saliva that accidentally got on them, Wu Mu probably didn’t mind such a small issue.

Under his partner’s enthusiastic recommendation, Wu Mu would try a little bit of her food, really just a little. After eating a bit, he refused Song Xu’s feeding and let her eat herself, but he still gained noticeable weight.

Surprised, Song Xu measured his length with her hand, “You’ve grown over a meter longer.”

“A balanced diet is indeed important. Eating some fruits and nuts to supplement nutrition is necessary; just eating meat isn’t enough. But our size difference is getting bigger.” She didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried.

Putting aside the issue of gaining weight in autumn, Song Xu realized something was wrong with Wu Mu when she touched his tail one day.

It was her routine playtime. Petting a snake meant touching it. Not only her, but Wu Mu was also used to her brushing his tail with moss, animal skin, or her hand. Recently, she had been busy collecting fruit pits and hadn’t touched him for several days. That day, after finally filling the stone cave with stored food, Song Xu had some free time and resumed her daily snake-petting activity. But this time, as she touched his tail, it started twitching.

It twitched and tightened. Song Xu looked at Wu Mu in surprise, seeing him also looking at her.

In the silence, a thought suddenly popped into Song Xu’s mind. This reaction could be the natural response of animals during their breeding season. She tried touching his tail again and saw it twitch slightly.

Song Xu had seen videos of pet snakes in heat, and it looked like this, like a glitch. Snakes generally enter their mating season after hibernation in spring, but only sometimes. Some snakes experience this in autumn, after the summer heat.

Song Xu held her hand up, not daring to touch further. She didn’t want to provoke him at this moment.

Male snakes are usually more aggressive during the breeding season. A snake-keeping blogger she followed often got bitten by his snakes during their mating season.

Song Xu cautiously called out, “Ebony.”

Wu Mu didn’t seem irritable or aggressive; as usual, he leaned against the rock, his hands hanging down by his sides. If it weren’t for the tip of his tail still twitching slightly, she wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual about him.

Song Xu squatted beside him, looking very strange. Her mood could be described as both curious and fearful. The curiosity needed no explanation, but the fear, which was a rare emotion for her, mainly stemmed from her remembering that the snake had a groove hook shape with two small chrysanthemum-like patterns.

Watching pet snake videos, she still could laugh and call them cute little babies, but now, as the legal partner of a snake beastman, she could only smile and face life. Although deep down, she was screaming in terror and begging for help, the more she was scared, the more her curiosity grew.

Song Xu’s gaze unconsciously drifted to Wu Mu’s snake tail. The knowledge in her mind told her that the location was probably behind the cloaca, and she immediately found the place, so those few scales were really intriguing.

Wu Mu didn’t know what the cute little squirrel was thinking about; he had already gotten used to this feeling. Since leaving the tribe as an adult, there had been this period every year, and it was best to sleep through it. He usually sleeps close to his partner, but Song Xu occasionally glances down. His tail curled up right at her feet.

Song Xu recklessly stretched out her leg and stepped on it; the place she was stepping on twisted, and Song Xu immediately retracted her foot and pretended to be asleep, her heart racing with excitement. Although she still wanted to push the boundaries of death, she faintly sensed a pressure, as if doing anything more would lead to being locked away. So she calmed down, settled down, and fell asleep as if she were dead.

Song Xu’s eager attitude and last-minute escape strategy made Wu Mu suffer greatly during this period. He couldn’t see the squirrel’s intentions in her casual touches and explorations because he attributed her various little actions to physical reasons. After all, the little squirrel was playful and mischievous, with no bad intentions.

Being wrapped up, Song Xu felt that Wu Mu was a bit restless and whispered, “Wu Mu, are you uncomfortable?”

“Hiss hiss.” Wu Mu didn’t like to talk but would hiss when he felt his partner needed a response.

“Baby, it’s not that I’m being harsh, but our size difference really doesn’t work. It could kill me.”

Wu Mu was feeling uncomfortable, didn’t hear what she said clearly, and made a sound of confusion, resting his head in front of her to listen.

Song Xu didn’t dare touch his snake tail. Seeing his head in front of her, she reached out to touch his black head. The smooth feeling of his hair was not much different from that of his snake tail; it could be a substitute.

Noticing she was touching his head, Wu Mu lifted his head from in front of her. From Song Xu’s angle, she was directly struck by his beauty—what a beautiful girlfriend’s perspective.

Suddenly, she changed her mind in a daze and said, “Ah, of course. If you insist, it’s not impossible; just please be very careful.”

Wu Mu didn’t move, quietly wrapping her tightly like a tree branch.
Wu Mu wouldn’t do anything no matter what this half-beast person said. In the beastman tribe, beastmen of different forms could reproduce because they all had beastman forms. Half-beast people were different; they generally didn’t have partners, and even if they did, they could easily kill their partners, especially when driven by instinct to possess the other; it was hazardous. He didn’t want Song Xu to die. Before he completely turned into a beast, he wanted her to live happily in his forest.

Song Xu pondered over the smooth hair, wondering if Wu Mu didn’t understand, couldn’t do it, or wasn’t capable. But her interest was just temporary. Once Wu Mu’s tail-twitching reaction subsided and the food stored in the stone cave was consumed, she threw herself into the joyful activity of stockpiling food.

Every day, she was busy picking ripe fruits, collecting fallen nuts, and developing a series of new ways to eat food. After peeling off the outer skin and flesh, the fruits she picked could be dried for storage, roasted in a fire, boiled with water, or fried. The last method was particularly noisy. When heated, the shelled fruits would burst open in the pot, like firing bullets or slingshotting stones. The hard-shelled fruits would jump out of the pot and hit the surroundings, or the fruit inside would pop out from the middle.

Song Xu, who was originally by the pot, screamed and hid in Wu Mu’s corner with a homemade wooden spatula, watching the fruit kernels fly and hit the surrounding stone walls with a thud.

Wu Mu was also startled by the explosion, thinking she was scared because she was close; he wrapped her tightly with his snake tail, just like on thunderstorm nights.

But even though Song Xu was screaming, she wasn’t really scared.

After a while, she peeked out from behind her “fortress” and laughed, “It’s so funny, the pot looks like it’s throwing up, haha!”

After laughing, she said in distress, “The pot threw out all my fruits, and now they’re all over the cave. I’ll have to pick them up later.”

She quickly found a new perspective to comfort herself, “But if you think about it, many of the shells have already cracked, saving me the trouble of peeling them, hehe.”

The sound of fruit shells hitting the stone walls outside stopped.

Song Xu climbed over the snake tail “wall” and picked up the scattered fruits in the cave. Many had fallen near Wu Mu’s tail. He moved his tail and was about to swim away when Song Xu quickly pressed him back, pleading, “Don’t move yet. Let me pick them up first. If you move, I won’t be able to see where the fruits roll to.”

Wu Mu had to wait in place. His tail tip moved slightly, gently pushing the fruits near his tail to Song Xu’s hand.

Song Xu gave him a big smile, “Thanks, baby.”

After that, fruits kept rolling to her hand one after another. Song Xu picked up the fruits and praised, “Your tail is so flexible. It’s perfect for spinning tops. Do you want to play with a top? I can make one for you.”