Chapter 21

The trees in the forest began to change color. During the day, Song Xu climbed the treetops and saw the beautiful mix of gold and red in the distance. She was picking fruits from the trees when she spotted a tree with red leaves and excitedly dragged Wu Mu to find it. Upon reaching the tree, they discovered that only the treetop was red, while many green leaves remained below. Picking up a fallen red leaf, she noticed it wasn’t the familiar five-pointed maple leaf but an oval shape, symmetrically growing on a stem.

“Look, such a red leaf,” she said. Wu Mu glanced at the leaf in her hand, seeing nothing special about it.

“If it were before, I would have used it as a bookmark,” Song Xu murmured.

The forest was full of beautiful leaves, especially in autumn. Walking through the forest, one could often see a mix of green and yellow, red and yellow, or pure colors like bright red, dark red, and golden leaves. The shapes varied too: round, oval, pointed, three-pronged, hand-shaped, and more.

As Song Xu walked, she frequently stopped to pick up a leaf and comment on it in the autumn light filtering through the trees: “This leaf is even-colored and perfect-shaped. No wonder bugs like it; there are several holes bitten by bugs.”

“This leaf’s shape isn’t great, but the bug trails on it are quite abstract. Artistic!”

“The yellow spreading effect on this leaf looks like watercolor, beautiful.”

Covering her face with a half-golden, half-green leaf, she took a deep breath: “This is the smell of autumn.” She was interested in the most ordinary things in the forest.

Wu Mu’s face was also covered with a large fallen leaf. Song Xu asked, “What do you smell?”

Wu Mu stared at the leaf, unable to understand the abstract smell of autumn, flicked his tongue and said, “Burrow… rabbit.”

“Burrow rabbit?” Song Xu reacted, “Ah! You mean there’s a burrow rabbit’s scent on this leaf?” Smelling it again, it seemed true. This meant there was a burrow rabbit nest nearby. Switching from an artistic to a practical mindset, she said, “We’ve stored enough nuts. Maybe we should catch some meat for a change?”

Although not tasty, an occasional meal would be fine. Following the scent on the leaves and with the help of the snake, they found the burrow rabbit nest and caught all the rabbits. The meat was casually made into jerky, but Song Xu spent a lot of effort processing the rabbit fur.

With autumn here, winter wasn’t far behind. She needed to prepare food and various items to keep warm. Her usual “clothes” were the soft squirrel fur she naturally had, which wasn’t thick and could cover the main body but not the whole body. In her beast form, her palms and soles had a membrane to protect them while walking or climbing, but they couldn’t be covered with fur, making them cold in winter. Recalling how the original body shivered in the forest last winter, she decided to make some gloves and shoes to protect her hands and feet, and maybe even a big fur coat, so she wouldn’t be so cold when going out in winter.

The method used to process the fur was common in the orc tribe: scraping off the fat, soaking it in plant ash, and kneading it. This simple method usually caused the fur to lose its warmth within two years, but in the poor little tribe from which the original body came, having a large piece of fur for warmth was already considered a luxury.

Song Xu knew a better method for tanning fur, but unfortunately, she didn’t have the necessary medicines and tools, so she had to make do. While scraping the fat off the rabbit fur by the water, Song Xu thought about the snake’s hibernation. Although Wu Mu was an orc, snake orcs, like ordinary snakes, should have a hibernation period, right?

Hibernating snakes would find a sheltered place to sleep, not eating or drinking in the meantime, and as long as they weren’t disturbed, they could sleep through the entire winter.

If Wu Mu was like this, Song Xu felt that while preparing for winter, she was also responsible for creating a good hibernation environment for the snake at home.

First, she had to repair the stone cave, which leaked air everywhere. She used mud to seal the gaps and small holes. She threw the half-processed rabbit fur into the water to soak and started kneading the mud by the water. The soft mud by the water, often trampled by wild boars and deer, was perfect for sealing stone gaps—fine, soft, and with good adhesion.

Wu Mu dragged a prey and found Song Xu playing with mud by the water. His snake tail loosened, and a strangled animal fell heavily in front of her. Their diets were different, and their food was generally not interchangeable. Only Song Xu occasionally invited Wu Mu to try her food, but Wu Mu never let her try his prey… because he always swallowed it whole.

So when Wu Mu suddenly placed his prey in front of her, Song Xu was a bit confused. Seeing her not moving, Wu Mu pushed the gray-black furred prey with his snake tail: “For you.”

Song Xu thought he might have seen her catching rabbits and making jerky, thinking she wanted to eat meat, so he caught a big one for her?

Squatting down to examine the gift Wu Mu brought, Song Xu initially thought it was a dog. But thinking about it, there couldn’t be dogs here, so it must be a wolf, a dog’s relative.

Wu Mu said, “Fur, for winter, for you.”

Song Xu was shocked: What a treasure! You actually know to prepare fur for me for winter?! So why is your cave empty and clean?

Touched, she skinned the wolf, not knowing what kind it was. The remaining meat had a smell that made her show a troubled expression: “This meat probably doesn’t taste good.”

Wild game never tasted good; it always had a strong flavor. Glancing at the snake’s flat belly, Song Xu thought about letting the snake eat the remaining meat, but before she could speak, the snake had already turned and slithered away. He didn’t care for such small prey and went to find a bigger one.

Resigned, Song Xu processed the fur and meat, not joining the snake in his hunt. This time, his hunt took quite a while, and she couldn’t find him even after searching around. As it was getting dark, a menacing snake head finally appeared in Song Xu’s sight, with two dark red eyes reflecting a ghostly light like glass beads.

“You’re back. Let’s go home,” Song Xu called to him.

The snake slithered to her side, his body writhing, and a bulge moved from his body to his throat, finally being spat out and landing at her feet with a thud.

Song Xu: “???”

It was a large piece of fur, and upon lifting it with a stick, she found that the bones and meat inside were almost gone. She had seen videos of snakes swallowing eggs and then spitting out the shells, and she knew that the snake’s body structure made it easier to regurgitate what it had swallowed. However, she had never seen a snake eat the flesh and bones of prey and only spit out the fur!

Song Xu exclaimed, “Amazing!” The snake was like an automatic skinning machine!

Even more impressive, when she soaked the fur in water and later cleaned it, she realized it was from a bear, a very large one. The whole fur wrapped around her like a blanket.

After that day, Wu Mu would spit out the fur for her whenever he ate. Every time Song Xu saw this, she was amazed and grateful for Wu Mu’s help in preparing winter supplies. But as the number of furs increased, she had to discuss with Wu Mu: “Dear, it’s enough. I have enough clothes. You don’t need to eat more just to prepare fur coats for me.”

He had been eating much more frequently lately. Sometimes Song Xu thought the snake was silly, but other times, she realized he understood everything, suspecting he might be pretending to be dumb.

Without her asking, the snake proactively prepared fur for her and even gathered firewood for winter without her mentioning it. In a place far from the stone cave, where the trees by the water were not so thick, the snake could twist a tree trunk with his tail and drag it back. One tree was enough for Song Xu to burn for several days. He dragged dozens of trees back, leaving long marks on the path they frequently used.

With muddy hands, Song Xu was squatting above the stone cave, filling gaps. Seeing dust rising in the distance, she thought wild animals were fighting and wondered if she should watch. She realized what had happened when she saw Wu Mu dragging a tree back.

Song Xu spent two days using stones and mud to fill all the gaps, then worked on the trees Wu Mu had brought back, making two doors for the stone cave, one in front and one in back, to block the wind in winter and prevent other animals from entering.

This should have been done long ago, but Song Xu was lazy. She had to find food every day and play, so making two doors was too tiring. She wasn’t good at chopping trees either, so she had delayed it until autumn. Fortunately, Wu Mu brought back the materials, so she had no choice but to get to work.

The trees in the forest were losing their leaves day by day like a middle-aged man entering a period of hair loss. Every day, a new layer of fallen leaves covered the ground, enough to cover her ankles.

The wind was getting colder day by day, and the bonfire, abandoned in the summer due to the heat, was rekindled every night.

Song Xu finally installed two satisfactory doors in the stone cave.
The winter furs were also processed, spread out on the top of the stone cave and tree branches to dry during the day, and brought back inside at night.

Wu Mu dragged back many more trees, surrounding the stone cave. It was difficult for Song Xu to pass through the mess of dead trees, so she raised an objection to the snake preparing firewood.
“Dear, with the trees placed like this, I can’t get out. Can you leave a path for me?”

Wu Mu disagreed. He looked at the dead trees hiding the stone cave and said to Song Xu, “Winter, don’t go out.”

Song Xu replied, “I know, I know. You sleep in winter and don’t go out, but I must go out.”

Wu Mu said, “Don’t go out. It’s dangerous.”