Beauty and the Beasts

They were already two years old now and weren’t as fragile as those newborn beastmen in the room.

Though Parker thought otherwise, he said nonetheless, “Got it.”

When they returned to their bedroom, Bai Qingqing’s face was terrifyingly pale, her mind filled with the image of insects crawling out from the little beastmen’s bodies. As she was the nearest to them, several of those little insects nearly collided with her face.

At this thought, Bai Qingqing instantly rubbed her face vigorously and shrieked. “I want to wash my face! I want to wash my face!”

As she shouted, her body, however, pressed tightly to Parker’s, not daring to move an inch away from him.

Curtis immediately turned around and went out, and very quickly returned with a basin of clear water. As the air was filled with armored grasshoppers, he even took special care to cover it with a leaf so that it wouldn’t be contaminated by them.

Having washed her face vigorously countless times, Bai Qingqing’s face had turned red from all that rubbing. No longer able to stand by and watch, Parker forcefully held down her hands, and only then did she stop in her maniacal actions.

“I told you not to go, but you wouldn’t listen.” Parker held her tightly, feeling the vigorous trembling of her body in his arms. Feeling heartache for her, he couldn’t help but reprimand her.

Parker’s warm body gave Bai Qingqing a great sense of reliance. She squeezed towards Parker, a look of terror still on her face. Yet, she said resolutely, “When they wake up, I’m still going to go take a look at them. They’re so pitiful. I wish to cheer them up.”

Feeling both anger and heartache, Parker couldn’t understand why she had to dote on them so much when they weren’t even her own kids. He felt that it would simply suffice for them to be taken care of. Indeed, females had an innate maternal instinct.

Curtis, too, furrowed his brows, very much in disagreement with her.

It took Bai Qingqing half a day to calm down. Another two little beastmen died one after the other in the room. As they were discovered early on, their corpses were taken care of before the insects devoured them completely.

The next day, Bai Qingqing ran to visit the little beastmen again and read quite a few stories to them. And by the third day, most of the little beastmen had recovered, and other than those three that died on the first day, the rest survived this ordeal.

The metamorphosed armored grasshoppers were also completely removed from this forest. Though the skies became clear once more, that rotting and bloody stench did not dispel for a long time to come.

Perhaps because the incessant buzzing had been going on for the past few days, right now the world had become abnormally quiet, with corpses strewn all over the wilderness and emitting a rotting stench. Yet, not even a fly could be seen.

Chip chip. All of a sudden, a clear and crisp sound rang in the forest. A furry animal head stuck out from a tree hole, its clear eyes rolling about nimbly. Seeing that there was no movement outside, it tentatively crawled out and sniffed over here and peered over there. It then edged towards a crisp bush and nibbled at a mouthful of fresh and tender grass. It was all so calm it was as though they had merely just experienced torrential rain.

Its appearance seemed to be a signal, then vibrant and live animals subsequently emerged from the forest.

Some squirmed out from the trees, some burrowed their way out from the soil, some which had spun a cocoon around themselves shakily broke out from the cocoons hanging on the trees in search of food.

Parker elegantly sprinted and leaped through the forest, startling the animals nearest to him and causing them to flee. He didn’t chase after them and continued running forward.

All the beastmen understood that one had to drain the pond to catch all the fish to be found there. These were the seeds of the forest, so they wouldn’t easily touch them. When the heavy rainy season arrived, there would be space for them to breathe.

Parker ran very far away to catch prey in places unaffected by the calamity. Though he had gone out early, he only returned when the sun was about to set.

In order to guard against the scorpion tribe, they had lost the opportunity to build up their stockpile of food in the early days of the insect tide. And in the two days that followed, they didn’t dare to hunt with abandon as well. As a result, families with few members suffered from a shortage of food supplies, including Bai Qingqing’s.