Beauty and the Beasts

There was a mountain forest on the other side of the small river with extremely lush greenery. Other than large trees, which already took up a significant part of the space in the forest, there was also an infinite number of small and thin trees in a corner of the forest. They wouldn’t have existed unless there were large trees that collapsed and only made the mountain forest crowded.

Bai Qingqing looked along the edge of the mountain forest for a long time. She then reached out to break a small tree branch. The branch was easily snapped in half, but the bark remained intact as it was too tough.

The branch finally broke off after Curtis reached out and sliced it with his fingernail.

“What are you doing?” Curtis asked.

Bai Qingqing smiled slyly as she bent down to peel off a piece of bark. She then got up and replied with a grin on her face, “I’ve found the material I need. Quickly help me break some more tree branches. I’m going to use the tree bark to weave a net.”

“A net?” Curtis asked. Winston also looked at Bai Qingqing in confusion.

“You guys will see later,” Bai Qingqing said as she peeled the bark off the branch. She had absolute confidence in weaving a net as she knew how to tie a Chinese knot. She instantly listed out feasible methods in her head as she thought about the net.

Curtis and Winston got to work without asking another question. Curtis cut small trees and peeled off the bark, while Winston tore the bark into thin strips and twisted them to make rope. Bai Qingqing sat on the ground and focused on weaving the net.

Two hundred pieces of rope were tied to a wooden rod. Bai Qingqing then tied adjacent pieces of rope into knots. After she’d finished tying the first layer of knots, she separated the knotted pieces of rope and continued to tie them to adjacent pieces of rope. She repeated this process to form layers of knots.

Although it wasn’t difficult, it was tedious and really was a test of her patience.

There was a gap of about three centimeters between each knot—enough to catch a bird as big as a sparrow. Although the pieces of rope were tied on a narrow rod, the net was almost two meters wide when pulled open.

Bai Qingqing’s neck felt stiff after weaving a net as wide as their field. They still needed three or four of the same nets to cover the whole field.

Bai Qingqing’s joints cracked as she stretched. She said to herself encouragingly, “Time to continue!”

Curtis looked up at the sun, which had now moved towards the right part of the sky. He strode over to Bai Qingqing and took away the rope made of tree bark in her hands. “You should eat.”

Bai Qingqing then realized that she was hungry and licked her lips. “We should have enough bark. Help get me some sweet potatoes. I want to quickly finish weaving this net.”

Curtis didn’t say a word. Instead, he bent down and picked her up, then walked towards the City of Beastmen.

“Hey, put me down!”

Curtis took off his animal skin skirt and his legs transformed into a snake’s tail. He then slithered quickly.

Winston smiled as he watched the two of them leave. He then picked up the rope on the ground and began weaving the net based on Bai Qingqing’s technique.

After planting the crops once, Bai Qingqing felt too embarrassed to eat rice. She wanted to cook porridge to save on rice, but Curtis didn’t let her do so, and they made bamboo rice as usual. When she’d eaten her fill and they returned to the land, Winston had already weaved a net that was half a meter long.

His knots weren’t as even as Bai Qingqing’s, but no fault could be found with them.

Bai Qingqing was rather surprised. She moved the already weaved pieces of rope to the field and the four of them began to weave the net together. They managed to finish weaving the net before nightfall and placed it over the field.

However, this net wasn’t really effective as there were little snakes waiting for birds in their field and birds naturally stayed away as a result.

At sunset, the beastmen who’d been farming handed over their work to the next shift of beastmen. As a result, the number of people in the fields quickly increased. Surprise was written all over their faces as they looked at the net on Bai Qingqing’s field.

“What’s this?”

“There’s such a strong plant smell. Is that fresh bark? Oh my god. How did the bark end up like that?”

The beastmen didn’t dare to go near the territory of a powerful beastman and instead observed the net-covered field from afar.