Chapter 9: Collecting Firewood
“I want to go to the open space by the riverside.”
Su Ran said, lifting her finger to point at the river beach.
The werewolf watched her action, his two eyebrows raising, tilting his head.
“Wu~”
“Riverside,” seeing that the werewolf didn’t understand her meaning, Su Ran continued to point in the direction of the river beach, then pointed at the white-headed sheep in his hand: “The place where we just washed the meat.”
“Ao wu~”
The werewolf glanced in the direction she pointed, flicked his tail, but still looked at Su Ran with a face full of doubt. He even couldn’t wait any longer, reaching out to grab Su Ran’s wrist, wanting to pull her into his embrace and fly back to the bird’s nest.
Su Ran hurriedly resisted and took a small step back upon seeing this, but she didn’t dare to make too big a movement. After all, she was still on the tree at this time, and one careless step would cause her to slip and fall.
With no other choice, seeing that the werewolf still didn’t understand her meaning, Su Ran had to pull the werewolf’s arm again, this time her finger pointing at the ground: “I want to go down.”
As she spoke, her body leaned against the tree trunk as she carefully squatted down, making a motion as if wanting to climb down.
At this point, the werewolf finally understood her meaning.
So he held her with one arm, and in the blink of an eye, Su Ran’s feet were on the ground.
After landing, Su Ran grabbed the werewolf’s wrist and turned toward the river beach.
She wanted to try making fire over there on the river beach to roast some food. Moreover, the water in her thermos was already gone, and she needed to boil some drinking water.
In the current situation, any minor illness could cost her life, and she didn’t want to take chances.
Moreover, she wanted to see the werewolf’s acceptance level toward fire.
Fire was an indispensable element in her life, and if she had to live with these beastmen in the future, she needed to get them familiar with this novel thing as soon as possible.
After all, up to now, Su Ran hadn’t discovered any signs of these beastmen using fire.
They soon returned to the river beach side, and before coming back, Su Ran gestured for a while, having the werewolf help pick a few more sweet leaf vein tree leaves.
At this time, only three beastmen remained by the river beach, far away and unclear what beast types they were, but they could be seen to be male beastmen.
Seeing Su Ran and the werewolf here, the three beastmen curiously glanced over a few times but had no intention of coming over.
Su Ran discovered that the male beastmen here, when facing a female beastman who had a male beastman by her side, seemed to keep some distance from the female beastman.
This surprised Su Ran greatly.
This indicated that the unions between these females and male beastmen here were probably very solemn matters in their own eyes.
So female beastmen who already had companions, other male beastmen would consciously keep their distance from them.
Of course, there might also be unruly beastmen, like the male fox-type beastman who wanted to touch her yesterday and the tiger-type beastman today.
However, Su Ran felt that those two beastmen’s behavior was more due to suddenly seeing her dressed in such an unusual way, out of excessive curiosity, rather than any malice.
The werewolf was very puzzled about what Su Ran wanted to do returning to the river beach.
He followed by Su Ran’s side, his light green eyes watching Su Ran, continuously making soft “wu~ wu~” sounds from his throat.
At the same time, there were bursts of “gurgle gurgle” rumbling sounds from the werewolf’s belly.
When Su Ran rejected the werewolf’s attempt to pick her up for the third time, she finally stopped.
The place they were at this time was slightly below the river beach directly leading from the small path extending from the living area.
There were two patches of wild grass with slender leaves by the riverside, Su Ran looked upstream and discovered that the three beastmen from earlier had left.
Now she was completely relieved.
Between letting other beastmen see “fire” first or letting the werewolf see “fire” first, Su Ran of course wanted to choose the werewolf.
After all, since the werewolf brought her back, if they couldn’t accept fire, the werewolf’s tolerance for her should be a bit higher than other beastmen.
After selecting the place for making fire, Su Ran first laid two of the largest sweet leaf vein tree leaves side by side on the ground, then went to tug at one leg of the white-headed sheep that the werewolf was holding, which had already been skinned, making a motion to put it on the leaves.
This time the werewolf quickly understood Su Ran’s meaning and let go of his hand, placing the body of the white-headed sheep on the leaves.
However, while placing it, the gurgling sounds from the werewolf’s belly grew even louder continuously.
Su Ran found it a bit funny listening to it, but also a bit embarrassed.
Because if it weren’t for her, he might have eaten half full by now.
So before going to find firewood, she first took out the folding tactical knife always hanging from her waist, mumbling to the werewolf: “I’ll cut off a leg, okay.” while making a cut on the body of the white-headed sheep.
The tactical knife was also from the tool kit, with a very sharp blade, easily cutting a deep gash on the white-headed sheep’s thigh.
Only at the bone joint did it take Su Ran some effort.
Su Ran put the removed leg meat aside, then cut a meat strip from the white-headed sheep’s body and handed it to the werewolf’s mouth.
The werewolf was full of doubt but still opened his mouth and took a big bite, while his eyes curiously glanced at the tactical knife in her hand.
The werewolf’s gaze on the tactical knife made Su Ran a bit nervous, but fortunately, he just looked once and didn’t ask Su Ran for it.
Su Ran thought perhaps the beastmen’s bloodline memories still retained territory consciousness, even though different beastmen could live together now, the instincts in their blood still made them subconsciously avoid crossing into other beastmen’s personal domains and items.
So although the werewolf was now curious about the things on her and in her bag, he could refrain from asking.
After eating a bite of the meat strip Su Ran handed over, the werewolf no longer waited for Su Ran to indicate anything and proactively sat on the ground to start eating, while pulling Su Ran, wanting her to sit on the ground too.
It seemed the werewolf misunderstood that she wanted to eat outside.
But it was indeed so, just that the ultimate purpose outside was to make fire.
Su Ran pulled her hand out from the werewolf’s palm, then looked around.
The woods were only about twenty meters away from the river beach, she looked at the werewolf seriously eating with his head down, then turned and walked toward the woods.
What she didn’t see was that after she turned and walked a few steps, the werewolf who was eating suddenly stopped his action, his fluffy big tail gradually erecting behind him, a pair of light green eyes tightly staring at her increasingly distant back, even the green in his eyes seeming to deepen faintly.
Until he saw her stop at the edge of the woods, he lightly let out a purring sound from his throat.
Su Ran stopped at the edge of the woods.
First, the timber here was really too easy to obtain, no need to go deep into the woods, and second, she didn’t dare to rashly disappear from the werewolf’s sight, in case it misunderstood and got angry it would be bad.
The trees here were mostly the giant trees that the beastmen used to build bird’s nests (Su Ran decided to just call them bird’s nest trees).
Besides the bird’s nest trees, there was a kind of tree like a willow tree. But strangely, the leaves of this tree grew into slender branch-like strips, somewhat like a willow tree with all its leaves removed, leaving only the branches.
