The Primitive Adventures of a Chipmunk 1

Chapter 1

“Quick, run, faster!”

“Brother, sob sob sob, brother, wake up…”

“Help, save me—ahhhh!”

“Don’t just stand there, run!”

Who… who’s speaking?

The sound of his parents’ crying gradually faded, and the scent of disinfectant lingering in his nostrils was replaced by a thick, earthy smell. The sounds of wind and rain, a child’s sobs, and desperate cries mingled together, slowly becoming clear.

A sharp pain shot through his temples. Hua Shi’an’s fading consciousness felt as if it had been seized by something, slowly returning. His chest felt terribly stuffy. He opened his mouth to breathe in fresh air, but unexpectedly choked on a mouthful of water.

“Cough, cough cough!”

He was wide awake now. Lying flat on the ground, Hua Shi’an abruptly shot up into a sitting position and coughed out the salty, foul mud from his mouth.

Swoosh—

A whistling wind blew past his ear. As Hua Shi’an regained his senses, he looked up to see an enormous, fearsome goshawk swooping down. Its sharp talons were like the Grim Reaper’s scythe, swiftly seizing a squirrel and, in an instant, soaring high with a beat of its wings.

The entire process took less than two seconds. The squirrel, carried into the air by the goshawk, struggled desperately, crying out in despair, “Ahhhh, s-save me!”

Boom, rumble—

Streaks of lightning illuminated the night sky. A torrential downpour swept through, the rain, thick with mud and sand, like a savage beast, ravaging the mountain forest, devouring the plants, and transforming into rushing torrents.

Mountains collapsed and trees fell. The squirrels living in the forest panicked and scattered in all directions. Those too slow were swallowed by the mudslide, not even having time to cry for help, while those who ran fast enough to reach a safe area, thinking they had escaped, were snatched up the next second by the vigilant goshawks.

Natural disaster, goshawks hunting squirrels—it was a spectacular nature documentary.

But why were the squirrels speaking human language? Why were the goshawks so enormous?

Why did a rain-soaked squirrel suddenly transform into a tall, thin young man as it ran?

And also, Hua Shi’an slapped his forehead. “Why am I here at the scene?”

Swoosh!

The goshawk, circling at a low altitude, spotted its prey and swooped down abruptly.

Meeting the hawk’s sharp, torch-like eyes in the darkness, Hua Shi’an finally realized the highly unscientific fact that he had very likely become a squirrel.

With no time to think, Hua Shi’an scrambled to his feet, but having been bedridden for years, he had almost forgotten how to walk. The moment he took a step, his left foot tripped his right, and he stumbled and fell to the ground.

He had cheated death by a fluke, only to find he couldn’t escape it after all. The sound of the wind grew closer. Hua Shi’an wanted to struggle one last time, but in the next instant, as if he had stepped off a cliff, his body was suddenly suspended in the air.

The weightlessness brought on a strong sense of vertigo. Hua Shi’an’s vision went black, and his pupils began to dilate. Before he lost consciousness completely, he realized he wasn’t in the goshawk’s talons, but in a man’s hands.

His body had reached its limit. Hua Shi’an’s eyes closed uncontrollably, but his mind was exceptionally clear. Another sharp pain shot through his temples, and then, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to him rushed into his mind.

A mysterious, ancient primeval forest, a beastman tribe living in nests and caves…

Hua Shi’an, who had been pronounced dead by doctors after failed resuscitation, had transmigrated. He had gone from a technologically advanced modern society to a primitive one where food was scarce.

It was mostly consistent with Hua Shi’an’s understanding of primitive society; the tribes lived in nests and caves, surviving by hunting and gathering. The only difference was that the people in his memories were not just human; they could freely switch between human and beast forms. In short, they were beastmen.

The original owner of this body was named An, the same age as Hua Shi’an, seventeen this year.

He came from the Chipmunk Tribe and was a—sub-beastman.

That’s right, the genders in this world were not just male and female; there was also a distinction between sub-beastmen and beastmen. To put it simply, aside from being able to shapeshift, sub-beastmen were not much different from ordinary humans. Beastmen, on the other hand, retained more of their wild nature, were generally stronger, and had greater combat prowess.

A man could be a sub-beastman, and a woman could be a beastman. None of that mattered. What mattered was—sub-beastmen could give birth. As in, have babies!

Hua Shi’an panicked a little. So he had transmigrated into a boy who was also a girl? He carefully searched through the memories and found that his external anatomy was unchanged, which brought him a small measure of relief.

After half a month of torrential rain, the Squirrel Tribe where the original An lived, which was backed by a large mountain, was devastated by a flash flood and mudslide. The sudden disaster destroyed their home. The original An and his companions had reacted quickly, all transforming into their beast forms to race against the mudslide, luckily escaping the forest.

But before the little squirrels who had escaped the mudslide could even breathe a sigh of relief, their ever-watchful natural enemies—the Goshawk Tribe—took advantage of their plight and launched a sudden attack.

With danger before and behind them, the squirrels, having lost the protection of the forest, were like fish out of water. Powerless to resist, they were easily captured by the goshawks and had their lives taken.

One after another, his companions were snatched away, and the original An’s throat was also seized by a hawk’s talons.

It was hard to say whether he was lucky or not. The one that caught him was a young hawk with little hunting experience. It failed to tighten its grip upon takeoff, and the original An was fortunate enough to fall from its claws, crashing back to the ground.

But it was that very fall that led to Hua Shi’an opening his eyes in this body.

Seventeen years of memories were like a tangled mess of thread that couldn’t be cut or sorted. Hua Shi’an was forced to accept this life that wasn’t his, feeling a mix of emotions. He felt sorrow for the original An who had fought so hard to live, and relief for himself, who had been given a new life after death.

“Waaaah, my father, my father is gone!”

“Is my leg broken? It hurts so much.”

“Mother, I’m so cold, I’m so hungry.”

“Just bear with it, just a little longer.”

…

Hua Shi’an was woken by the noise. He groggily opened his eyes and found himself lying in a pitch-black cave, on a small bed made of two leaves pieced together.

As expected, he had indeed become a chipmunk. His vision had improved dramatically. Despite the dim light, he could clearly see the small paws where his hands should have been and his brown fur, stained with muddy water.

He had no time to study his new furry body. The smell of rotting wood and a musty odor drifted past his nose. Hua Shi’an struggled to sit up and looked around.

The dark, damp cave was not a mountain cavern or a rock grotto; the surrounding walls were made of wood covered in mildew. The ground was muddy, and the ceiling above let in a little light and rain. If he wasn’t mistaken, this place was likely a tree hollow.

For a tree hollow, the cave was exceptionally large. The squirrel beastmen who had fled here were huddled together, at least forty or fifty of them. In an empty space nearby, several leaf-beds were laid out, where four or five grimy little squirrels were lying. Only Hua Shi’an was awake.

At the entrance of the tree hollow, which was nearly two meters high, five or six tall, sturdy men sat side-by-side, using their bodies to form a solid wall, blocking the wind from the dawning mountain forest and the rain that it carried inside.

The sky was already beginning to lighten. The beastmen were battered and exhausted, yet none of them closed their eyes to rest.

The shadow of death hung over them. Sobs and wails echoed through the tree hollow. There was no joy of survival, only hunger, cold, despair, and oppression.

The Squirrel Tribe was not a single, independent tribe. It was more like a large clan, composed of five smaller tribes: the Red Pine Tribe, the Giant Rat Tribe, the Rock River Tribe, the Long Forest Tribe, and the original An’s own Chipmunk Tribe.

Although they all belonged to the Squirrel Tribe, the smaller tribes rarely interacted. The chiefs and warriors of the hunting parties might have had some contact during joint hunts and knew each other, but a sub-beastman like Hua Shi’an, who rarely left his own tribe, didn’t recognize anyone besides the chipmunks from his own group.

There were about forty or fifty people scattered around the tree hollow, but Hua Shi’an, having inherited the original An’s memories, didn’t see a single familiar face. He feared that the original An’s Chipmunk Tribe members were…

“Hey!”

The tree hollow was as noisy as a marketplace. Clearly annoyed by the racket, the man sitting at the far right of the entrance let out a long sigh, his tone impatient. “I say, it’s been a whole night. Can you all stop the noise and be quiet for a bit?”

He spoke with great authority. The moment he finished, the noisy tree hollow immediately fell silent, with only a child who was halfway through a cry managing a suppressed whimper.

“Yong, what are you doing?” The man sitting next to him couldn’t stand it and nudged him with his elbow, his face etched with worry. “The forest is gone, our homes are gone, and our families are gone. Everyone’s heartbroken, so they have to bottle it up? They can’t even cry?”

The young man called Yong snorted coldly. “Crying? What’s the use of crying? Can crying fill your stomach? Don’t forget where we are now. If you have the energy to cry, you’d be better off thinking about how to survive!”

“You—”

“Yong is right.”

A voice came from inside the tree hollow. Hua Shi’an turned to see a thin, slightly weathered middle-aged man speaking.

He seemed to have caught a cold. The thin middle-aged man covered his mouth and gave a dry cough, his voice especially hoarse. “The mudslide destroyed our Clear Sky Forest, and the goshawks took our people. I know everyone is suffering, but now is really not the time to cry.”

The middle-aged man clearly held a certain status in the tribe. As soon as he spoke, the man who had been about to argue fell silent, while the other beastmen around them looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

“Where are we right now?” The middle-aged man raised a hand and patted the wooden wall of the hollow, answering his own question. “Where else would you find a tree hollow big enough to hold forty or fifty people? Some of you have probably already guessed. We’re on the other side of the Endless Prairie—in the Giant Tree Forest.”

The Giant Tree Forest, a mysterious and dangerous place on the Beast World Continent.

Legend had it that beasts as large as mountains lived within the forest, and anyone who entered would never leave. It was the nightmare of countless children and a forbidden zone for beastmen, a place they would rather starve than approach.

“The Giant Tree Forest? The one that eats people?”

“I was just focused on running last night, I-I didn’t notice. Are we really in the Giant Tree Forest?”

“I think so. Last night, I saw a lot of big trees, really, really big.”

“Then what do we do? What do we do now?”

“Let’s run. Is it too late to run now?”

“Waaaah, I’m sorry, Mother, don’t leave me in the Giant Tree Forest.”

…

The tree hollow instantly erupted. Their sorrow dissipated, replaced by an uncontrollable panic that spread like a plague.

“Quiet, quiet!”

The middle-aged man who had caused the panic frowned deeply, repeatedly waving his hands. As the chatter gradually subsided, he quickly tried to soothe them. “Don’t panic. We’ve been here a whole night, and we’re still alive and well, aren’t we? Perhaps the Giant Tree Forest isn’t as dangerous as they say, and maybe there are no giant beasts like the elders claimed.”

“But there are giant beasts, Chief Mu, there really are.” A woman sitting in the corner clenched her fists, trembling with nervousness. “I heard the old chief talk about it when I was little. Maybe… maybe we haven’t gone deep into the forest, and by staying hidden in this tree hollow, the giant beasts haven’t found us yet.”

“I’ve heard it too. My father told me himself. Two of his brothers wandered into the Giant Tree Forest and never came out,” another man added.

Chief Mu sighed. “The Clear Sky Forest is gone, and those vicious goshawks are still guarding the prairie. Our people are either injured or dead. We have nowhere else to go. So what if there are giant beasts? Do you think hiding in a tree hollow and wiping away tears will fill your stomachs?”

“Getting eaten by a giant beast will be over in an instant; it might not even hurt. But if you’re scared of this and scared of that, if you’re the kind of beastman who falls and can’t get back up, then freezing to death and starving to death will be your fate!”

“Either way, it’s death. Being eaten by a giant beast would be a quicker end.” Yong slapped his thigh and stood up. “You all can hide if you want, but I’m not hiding anymore. I’m going to find food and a new place to live.”

“I’ll go too!” The man who had argued with Yong earlier also stood up.

At such a life-or-death moment, the lead taken by the strong beastman warriors was more unifying than the chief’s words. As the two of them stood, the timid squirrel beastmen were galvanized. Women pulled their children along, and the injured supported themselves against the walls, struggling to their feet, afraid of being left behind.

Seeing this, Chief Mu, whose intention had been to rally everyone, waved his hand.

“Alright, the children, the elderly, and the injured, all of you sit down. The Great Chief is missing. As the chief of the Red Pine Tribe, I will do my best to lead the remaining survivors. We are one tribe, one group. We will not abandon anyone without reason, unless… they are lazy cowards who do nothing but eat and cry.”

With wolves behind them, tigers before them, and restless predators overhead, the only way for the weak squirrel beastmen to survive was to find a sliver of hope in this mysterious and dangerous forbidden zone.