Chapter 27

The beastmen quickly left, and the cold of the snow and forest covered the chaotic scents. Only Song Xu and Wu Mu remained on the messy pile of rubble, along with the primitive beast’s gradually stiffening and cold corpse.

The snake seemed to relax a bit, constantly flicking its tongue to capture information from the outside.

Song Xu took the opportunity to get closer again: “Hey, baby…”

The snake’s hissing at this moment was clearly threatening, different from its usual casual hissing. Song Xu could tell, so she kept her distance obediently. She hadn’t seen the snake open his eyes for more than two months. When he finally woke up, he seemed to have turned into a dumb snake, not recognizing her and hissing at her, which was really heartbreaking. However, she could tell he was not in his right mind from his hissing at her.

Was it woken up in the middle of hibernation and not fully awake, or was it affected by the blood and flesh of the primitive beast?

When Song Xu pulled it out of the primitive beast’s belly, she noticed blood and flesh hanging from his mouth, so he must have been confused and gnawed on the beast.

As the sky gradually darkened, Song Xu squatted in the snow, feeling almost frozen, and the snake was no better off, stiff and motionless.

Seeing more fine snowflakes falling, Song Xu decided not to wait any longer. She approached the big snake, ignoring his weakening hissing, took off her wolf skin, and wrapped his large mouth, trying to pull it off the rocks.

Such a big snake struggling was very dangerous. His head, wrapped in wolf skin, thrashed wildly, and Song Xu couldn’t hold it down, being directly thrown into the air. She transformed mid-air, landing lightly as a small squirrel. She picked up the wolf skin that had fallen aside and transformed back into human form, rushing from behind to cover the snake’s head again.

Straddling the cold snake’s body, Song Xu felt that he was colder than the snow. He seemed to act on instinct, thrashing wildly due to the attack. His tail slapped the rocks, sweeping the frozen primitive beast’s corpse to the ground and sending some stones flying.

Song Xu believed that he would have had more strength if he hadn’t been frozen for so long. She could feel the snake’s mouth trying to open under the wolf’s skin, but she pressed it down hard.
She didn’t care about anything, letting the almost frozen snake thrash around, just holding it down. Gradually, the snake’s struggles became smaller and smaller, finally stopping completely, faster than Song Xu had expected.

Song Xu thought the snake had exhausted all his strength and fallen back into a coma due to the cold. She quietly lifted a corner of the wolf’s skin and saw the snake’s blood-red eyes moving towards her.

The big snake hadn’t fainted; he just remembered the familiar scent of the wolf skin and her, so he stopped struggling.

Song Xu wasn’t sure, so she covered the wolf’s skin back and didn’t relax her grip on the snake’s head. If the big snake bit her now, they would both die here, so it was better to be cautious. They were now on a sloping rock face, almost falling to the bottom due to the snake’s earlier struggles. Song Xu had observed below and saw an opening leading into a cave.

Unfortunately, the previously spacious cave had partially collapsed due to the primitive beast’s actions.

Holding the snake’s head and part of his body, Song Xu rolled down with him. The snake’s length and weight made it difficult for her to move it, so rolling down was easier.

Rolling into the cave, the snake suddenly startled and began to thrash again. Song Xu quickly calmed him down, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay!” She quickly grabbed a grass stem rope woven in autumn, wrapped it around the wolf’s skin, and securely tied the snake’s head.

Releasing the big snake with the wolf skin “headgear,” Song Xu crouched and entered the stone cave. She quickly cleared the rubble on the ground, pushed aside the scattered stored nuts with her foot, and checked the nest she had made for the snake.

The nest was intact, but a large stone was missing from the upper side, letting in wind and snow. The hole was too big to block with stones she could move, and other materials would take too long to gather. Then she remembered the primitive beast’s corpse!

Carefully avoiding the coiled, motionless snake, Song Xu grabbed a beast tooth knife and cut off the beast’s two membrane-covered wings from the roots. The wings were lighter than expected. She dragged one wing to the hole and covered it, perfectly blocking the large opening, then secured it with stones to prevent it from being blown away at night.

After fixing the biggest draft, Song Xu picked up her makeshift door from the rubble, blocked another hole, and then returned to the dim, narrow, collapsed cave.

The previous campfire had long been extinguished, with the ashes pressed under a large stone. Song Xu found a dry spot in the cave, gathered dry wood and rekindled the fire.

Having done all this, she returned to the snake, carefully holding his head and dragging him to the bear skin nest. It was very heavy, and Song Xu broke into a sweat before successfully dragging most of his body onto the bear’s skin. The snake remained motionless during this process, like a heavy log or a bundle of water-soaked rope.

Song Xu manually coiled the remaining half of his tail around his body, covering it with another bear skin pulled from under a stone. The snake didn’t struggle or try to bite her, making Song Xu worry it might be frozen. She touched and squeezed the snake’s body to check if it was frozen stiff, but it didn’t seem to be. She carefully untied the grass rope and removed the wolf skin from the snake’s head.

In his beast form, the snake didn’t have eyelids like humans, just a transparent scale protecting his eyes. So, Song Xu couldn’t tell if it was asleep or awake.

“Hey, Wu Mu, are you okay?”

“Wu Mu, are you asleep?”

With the draft blocked and the fire rekindled, the cave’s temperature rose, and Song Xu finally felt her body warming up. She lay near the snake, gradually getting closer.

Suddenly, the snake flicked its tongue. Seeing he no longer hissed aggressively, Song Xu realized he was waking up and tentatively reached out her hand. As she got closer, the snake hissed shortly.

Song Xu withdrew her hand, noticing the blood from cutting the beast’s wings still on it. She understood and washed her hands with snow before trying to communicate with the confused snake again.

This time, she extended her hand to the snake’s mouth, and he didn’t hiss but repeatedly flicked its tongue, seemingly confirming her scent.

Looking at the snake’s face, Song Xu felt it seemed puzzled, wondering who she was or why her scent was familiar.

Song Xu had heard from snake-keeping friends that their dumb snakes sometimes forgot their owners after hibernation and needed to reacquaint themselves. She hadn’t expected this to happen with her snake beastman partner.

The snake’s tongue brushed her palm, and Song Xu suddenly grabbed it, startling the snake, who quickly retracted his tongue and observed her silently.

Song Xu didn’t know if the snake remembered their identities, but her courage grew when she confirmed it wasn’t in attack mode. She rolled into her squirrel form and rolled to the snake’s side.

She lay sprawled out, legs on the snake, pulling a corner of the bear skin over herself, and sighed tiredly, “So exhausted.”

The big snake lifted his head to look at the squirrel beside him. The fire crackled twice, and he lowered his head, tentatively resting it on the squirrel.

Warm and soft, the furry belly rose and fell under his head.

Song Xu poked the snake’s snout, “Baby, do you remember who I am?”

The red-eyed snake didn’t respond.

“Disaster strikes! The young husband becomes a vegetable and sleeps for two months! Adding insult to injury! Attacked again, brain damaged, becomes mentally impaired! The wife stays by his side, enduring the cold cave for eighteen years!” The squirrel tugged at his ears.

“Still no reaction, oh no, he doesn’t understand me anymore!”

“Are you asleep again or what?”

Song Xu talked to the snake for most of the night until she couldn’t stay awake and fell asleep. The snake was still the same when she woke up, not transforming into its half-beastman form.

If not for the snake flicking his tongue when she got up, Song Xu would have thought he had fallen asleep again.

Generally, if the environment is suitable, it would continue to sleep. Is it unable to sleep?

Looking at the confused snake and the disaster-stricken home, Song Xu got up unsteadily.

Yesterday, she only did a simple cleanup. Today, she needed to rescue some tools trapped under the stones, reorganize the scattered food, and replace the emergency primitive beast wings with a wooden plank.

While busy tidying up, Song Xu found the tiger tooth necklace she had thrown aside in a hurry yesterday and remembered it. She wiped the necklace with snow and brought it back to the cave to show Wu Mu.

“Wu Mu, look, what is this?”

She had been outside for half a day. When she approached Wu Mu again, he hissed aggressively, as if to say, “Don’t come closer.”

Song Xu: “…”

She stopped and slowly approached, “Wu Mu? Don’t tell me you forgot me again?”

It seemed he really did. His memory had deteriorated. After a few minutes, the snake flicked his tongue enough to sense her scent and seemed to remember she was familiar. The hissing stopped, and he cutely curled his tongue towards her.

Song Xu gave him a firm rub and dangled the tiger tooth necklace in front of his eyes. Colorful small stones were strung together as decoration, separating two large and two small tiger teeth.

Wu Mu didn’t react.

“This is your mother’s tooth. Stick out your tongue and smell it. Isn’t this the scent?” Song Xu put down the necklace.

The snake slowly flicked his tongue, sensing for a while. After a long time, he suddenly seemed to understand and rested his head on the necklace.