Beauty and the Beasts

This time, without the animal skin enveloping her, Bai Qingqing clearly saw just how densely clustered the insects in the outside world were—it made a locust invasion look like nothing in comparison.

She shivered, and a subconscious urge to wrap the animal skin around her body came at her. When she heard Parker’s excited roars, her mood brightened.

“Parker!” Bai Qingqing greeted with a smile.

Parker’s heart was completely put to ease, and the trio speedily returned to the stone castle.

The scorpion tribe’s search had brought armored grasshoppers into their bedroom. Parker dashed into the house and wiped out all of them, and only after cleaning up the place did he let Bai Qingqing enter.

Quite a lot of insects had flown into the leopard cubs’ room as well, and those insects were bitten to death by the cubs. Though this unforeseen event had been perilous, everyone in the family luckily emerged unscathed.

All the families in the village were also settled down. No females had gotten injured, and they merely suffered a fright. But as quite a few females had gone into heat during last year’s heavy rainy season, there were quite a few young beastmen this year, so it was inevitable that there were some injuries among them.

Worried that the young ones would be attacked by the little insects, Winston decisively ordered his tribesmen to send the little beastmen to the stone castle and let Harvey tend to them altogether.

After all the arrangements were put in place, Winston returned to the bedroom. Seeing his unscathed spouse and her young ones, he revealed a heartened smile.

Bai Qingqing had asked Parker to fetch her a basin of water and was in the midst of helping the leopard cubs wipe away the filth on their mouths with a piece of animal skin when she heard the footsteps. She looked up and saw Winston.

“You’re back. Are the females in the village well?” Bai Qingqing asked worriedly.

Winston walked over with steady footsteps and replied, “The females are well. It’s just that a few young beastmen have gotten injured, so I brought them back to the stone castle.”

Winston’s words carried a hint of inquiry. Bai Qingqing paused for a moment, then remembered that she seemed to be the head of the household. As such, such matters seemed to require her consent, so she hurriedly nodded.

“Okay, it was my fault for bringing this upon everyone. It’s good that you brought them back. We’ll take good care of them and send them back only after they’ve fully recuperated,” Bai Qingqing said with a guilty expression, and feelings of dejectedness set in. She turned her head away and continued wiping her children’s fur.

Parker asked with a baffled expression, “What has this got to do with you?”

“The insect tide happened shortly after the scorpion tribe arrived, and the scorpion tribe then made use of this insect tide to invade the village. I don’t believe it has nothing to do with them.” Although she didn’t have any proof, Bai Qingqing was, after all, of an intelligent species, and her brain was much more flexible than that of beastmen’s. After learning this was a commonly occurring natural disaster, she was sure of it.

Since everyone knew the origin of an insect tide, that was an excellent tactic to use against the enemy. The scorpion tribe lived in the desert, so the destruction of the forest wouldn’t affect them. Insects even featured in the diets of the scorpion tribe. Thus, these armored grasshoppers were also food in their eyes. With the deployment of this tactic, they had everything to gain and nothing to lose. So long as this method occurred to Saint Zachary, it was impossible for him not to take action.

It was just that this time, Saint Zachary seemed to act in a different style from before, going about twists and turns as one would expect of a vile character. She truly found it off-putting.

Bai Qingqing had originally quite admired Saint Zachary, for she felt that he was quite similar to Curtis, and he was only doing all this in the name of love. But the recent turn of events completely crushed whatever tiny speck of fondness she had for him.

Bai Qingqing had a feeling something was off.

Speaking of which, could a beastman’s brain be this flexible? If it weren’t for the fact that the ape king was now dead, she would have suspected that it was a joint effort between him and Saint Zachary.

Beastmen weren’t stupid, either. It was just that they had strong capabilities and straightforward personalities. After hearing Bai Qingqing’s reminder, like Curtis, Parker and Winston fell into deep thought for a moment and very quickly believed it.

“How dare he use my forest as his chip in his quest for victory. I won’t let him off! All the beastmen of the forest won’t let him off, either!” Winston was enraged.