Chapter 29

Spring arrived in the forest as fast as the melting snow. Almost as soon as a thin layer of snow was left on the ground, new buds began to sprout from it.

Song Xu, who had been eating nuts all winter, eagerly started eating the fresh grass as soon as she saw it. The tender grass leaves, wrapped in melted snow, tasted fresh and sweet, signaling the change of seasons.

Unlike the squirrel, who enjoyed everything she ate, the snake’s eating situation was not as optimistic. He hadn’t slept again since waking up midway through hibernation and remained in his beast form.

Song Xu tried various foods, but the snake didn’t start eating. With spring approaching and temperatures rising, Song Xu realized that the snake should have come out of hibernation and shed his skin by now, but her snake never followed the usual patterns.

Seeing that Wu Mu couldn’t turn into a half-beast within the deadline, Song Xu decided to leave early with him to avoid being cleared out by the beastmen of the fierce beast tribe. She had been busy preparing for the trip recently. Although she didn’t have much, everything she had was accumulated bit by bit. She couldn’t take her clay figurines, collected stones, and strange vine-woven spinning tops, but she had to store them properly.

Song Xu dug a pit in the stone cave to bury her and Wu Mu’s “treasures” to prevent wild animals from damaging them over time. She packed essentials like flint, large salt blocks, a beast-tooth dagger, and her own ground horn knife and twisted ropes into a self-made animal skin bag, stuffing it until it bulged.

With everything packed, only two tasks remained: explaining to the snake why they had to leave home and choosing a good day for the trip.

For the first task, she explained to Wu Mu four times a day, like a repeating machine, why they had to leave. She even stood on a big rock before the snake, summarizing the past year, analyzing the current situation, and looking forward to the future.

For the second task, Song Xu believed that family matters should involve all family members, so she let Wu Mu decide the departure date. She placed five stones of different shapes and colors in front of the snake and explained, “If you choose this stone, we’ll leave tomorrow. If you choose the second stone, we’ll leave the day after tomorrow.”

She explained the departure date represented by each stone. According to Uncle Wei Shan, Wu Mu might not understand her now, but Song Xu still explained everything she did to him even more clearly than when he was in his half-beast form.

The snake’s eyes followed her moving hand, his head circling a few times. Suddenly, Song Xu used all five fingers, moving them quickly over the stones like playing a rhythm game, successfully confusing the snake. The snake lay down, dizzy.

Song Xu: “No, don’t lie down, get up and choose one.”

In that position, the snake accidentally touched the middle stone with his tongue. Song Xu picked up the red stone and placed it on the snake’s flat head, clapping and announcing, “Alright, we’ll leave in two days!”

She got up to continue preparing while the snake moved forward a bit, resting its head on the edge of the mattress and watching her. At that moment, no one could understand what a big snake was thinking.

Early on the third day, Song Xu had packed everything in the stone cave except for the bed under Wu Mu. The mattress, which had been slept on all winter, was no longer as soft as it initially was. The scent of wood chips and dried moss had long dissipated, leaving an unpleasant smell.

Song Xu took out the tiger tooth necklace from under the snake’s chin and said, “Your neck and body are the same thickness, so you can’t wear this necklace. I’ll keep it for you.”

She put the snake’s precious necklace into her animal skin bag, grabbed the bearskin mat with both hands, and pulled it down. The big snake lying on the mat was dragged to the ground along with it.

The intentional Song Xu: “Hahaha!”

The big snake lifted his head to look at her, then smoothly slithered out of the mat, allowing Song Xu to roll it up and hide it in the small hiding hole he used to use.

“Alright, let’s go.” Song Xu walked ahead and opened the small door of the stone cave. The weather outside wasn’t good, with a light drizzle falling and the rain feeling cool on her face.

But since they had chosen the day, they had to leave today, whether it was raining or not. Song Xu bent down and called to the snake, “Wu Mu, come out quickly!”

She had decided that if the snake didn’t come out, she would drag him out. But to her surprise, the snake quickly slithered out at her call. He circled around the stone cave where he had lived for years, then identified a direction and started moving.

Song Xu felt that his behavior just now seemed like a farewell, and even now, how he looked back at her seemed very human-like. She followed him and asked, “Wu Mu, do you understand what I mean?”

“Do you know where we’re going now?”

“Do you remember my name and what our relationship is?”

“Do you remember what happened before, the primitive beast and your uncle?”

“Your uncle said your mother went west to find the moon. We don’t have a destination, so why don’t we go west? Maybe we’ll meet her.”

“By the way, do you know what ‘uncle’ means? Let me tell you…”

The snake flicked his tongue to gather information from his surroundings, making a faint hissing sound. As Song Xu continued to chatter, the snake seemed to move faster. They walked through the forest, with the canopy above shielding them from the fine rain, making it feel quite leisurely.

Song Xu couldn’t focus solely on traveling; everything around her easily caught her attention. They passed a big tree and saw a cluster of white flowers growing under the roots and dead leaves. Song Xu, who had been walking beside the snake’s head, stopped to examine the flowers. The long snake body passed by her crouching figure, and as the tail was about to pass her, Song Xu hadn’t finished looking. She grabbed the tip of the snake’s tail, stopping it from moving forward, her eyes still on the flowers.

Song Xu: “I’ve never seen these flowers before. Can they be eaten?”

The snake, whose tail was firmly held: “…Hiss.”

After resuming their journey, she held a small bunch of flowers in her hand, carefully tasting them. They passed another big tree, its trunk covered with red moss that coincidentally looked like a bird with outstretched wings.

Song Xu stopped and turned the snake’s head, holding him to look at the moss together: “Look, doesn’t it look like a bird!”

After walking a bit further, they saw a hole beside them. Song Xu peeked inside and asked Wu Mu, “Can you guess what’s in that hole?”

There were many such holes in the forest. But Song Xu remembered and said mysteriously, “A lazy mouse lives in there. It didn’t prepare food for winter, so I helped it gather a lot of supplies!”

Passing by a clearing under the trees, they saw a pile of leaves stacked into a small hill, not knowing which animal had made it.

“Wow!” Song Xu immediately left the snake and ran over to investigate, wondering what could be hidden in such a large pile of leaves. She glanced back at the hesitant snake, then suddenly took a running start and dove into the pile of leaves. Soon, she let out a scream from inside the leaf pile. The snake slithered over and also dove into the leaf pile. The leaves rustled and rustled, and all that could be heard was Song Xu’s giggling. Moments later, the leaf hill collapsed, and a squirrel with her head covered in leaves and grass crawled out from the other side.

The snake followed her out, but because he was so long, his head emerged while his tail was still on the other side, not yet in the leaf pile.

Song Xu: “Hahaha, you look so funny like this!” But soon, she scratched her arm in confusion and muttered to herself, “Why does it itch?”

She found two ants in the itchy spot.

Song Xu: “…” Ah, so there was an ant nest in there?

Having also dived into the ant nest, the snake rolled on the ground several times and was fine, while the furry squirrel jumped and scrambled for a long time to shake off all the ants.

The naughty child learned her lesson and no longer dared to dive into leaf piles. She scratched her arm with some grievance and said to the snake, “I’ve never seen an ant nest like this, hidden in a leaf pile. Who could tell? And these ants bite, boohoo.”

She whimpered all the way, and the snake lifted his snout to nudge her waist. Song Xu wobbled unsteadily and found her legs wrapped up. Then her whole body was wrapped up, the snake’s tail tightening and twisting, giving Song Xu a taste of being the snake’s prey, almost suffocating her with its constriction. Finally released, she gasped for breath and waved her hand in surrender: “Okay, okay! Stop, stop! I won’t whimper anymore, and I don’t feel bad anymore!”

The snake’s way of showing care and comfort was really too much pressure. With this, who would dare to whimper next time?

They walked for a day, and Song Xu’s energy was spent. They stopped under a dead tree. While other trees had started to grow leaves, this tree was still bare, showing no signs of green. Its branches and trunk were cold and gray with death, likely to fall completely with the next strong wind.

Song Xu climbed the tree, grabbed a branch, and stomped hard, breaking another branch. She quickly jumped to another branch and continued stomping. The sound of breaking branches and falling dry twigs echoed repeatedly.

Feeling that there were enough branches on the ground, Song Xu nimbly climbed down and gathered the branches. After a winter, she had become quite skilled at gathering firewood and building campfires. The snake waited nearby for her to finish playing and continue on, but soon, she had a fire going and sat beside it, looking like she wasn’t planning to move. The snake had no choice but to slither and circle around the fire.

Song Xu, as usual, was encircled by the snake and leaned against his body as a backrest. “We’ve walked a lot today; we should rest,” Song Xu said confidently. “The true essence of traveling is to waste time! It won’t feel like a trip if we rush too much!”

At this point, she had already forgotten that they left to escape danger, not for a real trip.