A Guide to - 12

Unedited chapter


12. Teaching the Huge Snake to Speak


Didn't know if it was a figment of Shu Shu's imagination or not, but after he infused his spiritual power into the huge snake's wounds, he largely felt that the huge snake's wounds seemed to be much better.

Spiritual power had effect on wounds? Shu Shu's face showed a pleasantly surprised expression. As a result . . . he was thinking of infusing a little bit more spiritual power into the huge snake, only to find that his sparse spiritual power had already been used up.
 
Shu Shu bitterly looked at his hands; he was extremely depressed. When he had been a hamster, he had had so much spiritual power. He had even been able to use a spell to play with the wind and so on to make himself feel nice and cool. Now it went as far as to become like this . . . .
 
Shu Shu sighed heavily. Then he sat down and began to cultivate.

He now had very little spiritual power, but he would recover a little bit of it after cultivating for a while. As soon as he recovered, he would again infused his spiritual power into the huge snake's body.     

So, after repeating the move several times, the wounds on the huge snake’s body immediately looked much better. Shu Shu felt that this was not cultivating; it was just helping the snake treat its wounds, and it was very boring. Thinking about it, he went into his self-dig “cellar” to find a thumb thick twig. After that, while he was infusing his spiritual power into the huge snake, he was also chewing.
 
When Shu Shu had gone out to find food, he had sniffed out this type of twig. At that time, he had gotten a whiff of this smell, and he felt that it had smelled extremely good. He had been unable to stop himself from taking a bite of the tender twig. Subsequently, he had discovered that this tender twig had indeed spurted out a sweet-tasting juice, and the taste had been very good.
 
After discovering this detail, Shu Shu had took home quite a lot of twigs. Some he had eaten directly, and some he had dried in the sun and then stored, keeping them for the sake of his molars in the future. Although he was a human now, but his teeth were still very good. There was no need to worry about idle chewing at all!

The sun-dried twigs’ flavor was by far not as good as the tender twigs, but after being chewed for a long time, they still carried a bit of sweetness. Being able to grind his teeth, Shu Shu chewed on happily. Afterwards, he chewed while he was treating the huge snake’s wounds nonstop and even while he was cultivating. His mouth moved unconsciously without stopping, and not long after, there was already a pile of chewed wood scraps around him.     

When Edgar opened his eyes, he happened to see Shu Shu “eating” a wooden stick.
 
He was somewhat bewildered and couldn't understand what the heck was going on with himself now. After a good while, he finally managed to get clear-headed. Immediately his mind came up with the length of time—the little sub-beastman was so hungry he ate wood?
 
Edgar came to this realization and felt extremely sorry for the little sub-beastman.
 
Sub-beastman’s body was totally couldn’t be compared to beastman’s. Therefore, from ancient times to the present time, the sub-beastmen had always been in the state of being protected by the beastmen. Even if today’s science and technology could already make many sub-beastmen not inferior to the beastmen, but the beastmen still continued the custom from ancient times to this day—protecting and taking care of the sub-beastmen, especially their own sub-beastman.
 
This was an innate tendency engraved in the beastmen’s bones. Even if Edgar had become a mere beast now, he still had that kind of innate tendency.
 
Of course, if there was a sub-beastman he was not familiar with before his eyes, he, under the circumstances, at most could only help him to the best of his ability. But now sitting beside him was a little sub-beastman whom he liked from the bottom of his heart.

In the midst of taking care of the little sub-beastman for several days, Edgar had finally understood one thing clearly; that was, he liked this little sub-beastman.
 
When Edgar had realized this point, at first he didn't understand why he could like this little sub-beastman, but then he carefully thought about it.  Afterwards, he felt that it was quite normal.
 
There was nothing about this little sub-beastman that he did not like.

The little sub-beastman was cute-looking, hard-working, not squeamish, easy to provide for, and pure-minded . . . .

Even the little sub-beastman’s appearance when he was afraid looked very good . . . . Unfortunately, the one the little sub-beastman was afraid of was him.
 
However, the little sub-beastman could not be blamed for this. Edgar’s appearance now was that of a scary huge snake; who might possibly not feel afraid of him? The little sub-beastman was only afraid of him, but he did not loathe him or turned his back on him. He was even willing to go against his fear to take care of him. So far, the little sub-beastman was great.
 
Edgar was just thinking about it when his eyes met with the little sub-beastman’s.
 
The little sub-beastman’s eyes were opened wide, and fear quickly arose on those eyes. However, in an unusually rare moment, he didn’t fled from him. The little sub-beastman just stared at him with wide eyes and said a bunch of words he couldn't understand until the little sub-beastman ran out of breath.
 
No, he wasn’t entirely unable to make sense of what he was hearing. Among the words spoken by the little sub-beastman, there was a particular word—“snake”. Make no mistake, the little sub-beastman was talking about him.
 
Edgar worried about scaring the little sub-beastman. Originally, he had thought that as soon as he woke up, he would leave immediately. Now that the little sub-beastman was speaking to him in a silvery, mellifluous voice, he was reluctant to leave.
     
The little sub-beastman was obviously very scared; he was tightly wound and tense from head to foot. Edgar had better not move randomly at this time, lest he scared the little sub-beastman again. Moreover, he was wounded quite heavily; he really couldn’t move anymore . . . . Giving himself an excuse, Edgar stayed and then stared at Shu Shu, watching him unblinkingly.
 
“Big . . . great . . . big snake, look at you . . . since you have saved my life, I'll accept you as my disciple and help you cultivate to become a human!” Shu Shu said. When he began to speak, he couldn’t restrain himself from shuddering; his speech came out in stammer. Slowly, he began to speak fluently: "You can rest assured that my red bead is very powerful. You certainly can cultivate to become a human!" 

After Shu Shu spoke, he also patted his own little chest.
 
Done with patting his own chest, Shu Shu found that the snake was staring at him, and there was no reaction at all.

The snake's eyes made Shu Shu a bit scared, but the huge snake was still motionless, at last allowing him to control his shivering legs without turning round and running away. Then he remembered one thing—the huge snake was a snake; even if it had developed intelligence, it maybe hadn’t learned human language yet. If that was the case . . . Didn’t it mean that the snake actually didn’t understand his words?

The reason why the huge snake was staring at him so indifferently was because it totally didn’t understand anything he had said?

Abruptly he came to realize that the snake in front of him was actually an illiterate snake that didn’t understand anything at all. Shu Shu's fear towards the snake lessened.
 
Humph, to think that this huge snake was very powerful, while in reality it couldn’t even understand human language! It was certainly more inferior than him!
 
Shu Shu once again was proud of himself, and the feeling of fear in his heart also dissipated a good deal. Pointing at the huge snake, he said, "Snake."
 
Then he pointed a finger at himself: "Shu Shu."
 
"Snake." "Shu Shu." "Snake." "Shu Shu." . . . .
 
Shu Shu very patiently repeated his action. As a hamster spirit who had muddled along the whole day, just eating and waiting to die without any accomplishment, he had plenty of patience.
 
Edgar: ". . ." I had learned it already. Anyway . . . the little sub-beastman was called Shu Shu? The name sounded really nice.
 
Shu Shu repeated his action ten times and felt a bit hungry. He opened his mouth and spat out a chestnut. Then he pointed at the chestnut and said, "Chestnut!"

"Chestnut. Chestnut. Chestnut." . . . Shu Shu repeated this word over and over again. Holding the chestnut, he peeled the shell off and took a bite and then said: “Shu Shu, eats, chestnut.”

He took another bite and said the words one more time without a pause: “Shu Shu eats chestnut.”
 
Edgar silently regarded the little sub-beastman in front of him.
 
The little sub-beastman was teaching him to speak?
 
Edgar was quite clear that the little sub-beastman truly didn’t know that he was a beastman. Most likely, he thought Edgar was a beast. And so, exactly because it was like this that he didn’t understand the current situation even more. He totally didn’t understand why this little sub-beastman would teach a beast to speak.
 
Could it be that this little sub-beastman thought that as long as he taught the beast many times then the beast could learn to speak? How simple was he?
 
Although in his mind he thought that the little sub-beastman was too simple, but at this moment, if he could make an expression, Edgar felt that he surely would not be able to stop himself from laughing.

The little sub-beastman has accepted him? Otherwise . . . why should he teach him to speak?
 
Shu Shu taught the huge snake while eating some chestnuts and a fruit. He also gnawed two of those twigs.
 
At this time, Edgar finally realized that the little sub-beastman gnawing at twigs was not because he was hungry, rather because the twigs were sweet.
 
So long as the sub-beastmen of Capital Star wished, ordering the very popular soft cakes was no trouble at all. But his family’s little sub-beastman could only gnaw at twigs . . . . The pain in Edgar's heart felt endless. He also felt quite ashamed and uneasy. 

He had thought that when he had a sub-beastman he liked, he had to make his sub-beastman the happiest sub-beastman. But now, the sub-beastman he liked couldn't even eat sugar . . . .
 
Shu Shu ate until he was full. It was only then he remembered that Edgar hadn't eaten yet.

For more than a month, Edgar had been giving him meat off and on. Shu Shu had made a lot of dried meat. Now he was worried that Edgar would be hungry. He took a piece of dried meat directly from his food pouch and then, advancing towards the huge snake in front of him, handed it over: “Eat. Snake eats meat. Snake, eats, meat.”

Shu Shu put a lot of food in the cellar, but he also put a lot of food in his food pouches. It was convenient for when he was hungry; he could eat at any time.
 
When he took the dried meat from his food pouch for Edgar, Shu Shu totally didn't think much about it. Edgar looked at the piece of dried meat, but he somewhat didn't dare to lower his mouth. This dried meat came out from the little sub-beastman’s mouth; if he ate it, was it an indirect kiss with the little sub-beastman?
 
Edgar was staring at that piece of meat, the emotion showing in his eyes was really too fervent. Shu Shu subconsciously flung out the dried meat and withdrew his hand, lest the snake bit his hand when eating the dried meat. Or it might take a fancy to his hand instead—he absolutely tasted much better than dried meat!
 
Edgar had lost the chance to be fed by the person he liked. He could only moved forward and ate the dried meat in silence.
 
However, him behaving like this, it actually made the little sub-beastman feel very relieved—this huge snake was willing to eat dried meat; it certainly would not eat him, ah!

Shu Shu’s face showed a smiling expression. After that, from a distance and on edge, he pointed at the wooden bucket he used to store water: "Wooden bucket, water." 

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