Beauty and the Beasts

“Why is she still crying?” Bai Qingqing was baffled. Clearly, her leopard cubs would become obedient after drinking their fills. Was An’an feeling unwell?

Just as she was pondering the possible reasons, Bai Qingqing heard Parker wrinkling his nose, then suddenly enlarged his eyes.

“Could An’an be…”

Parker had already reached out to remove the animal skin wrapped around An’an, revealing a bruised and tiny body.

Shockingly, the umbilical cord was still coiled on her round tummy. After the course of a night, it had already shriveled up.

Bai Qingqing was dumbfounded. Is it okay to leave this thing on her tummy? She had an urge to cut off one section!

An’an straightened her legs, and an awful stench floated into their senses.

Indeed, she was pooping.

Bai Qingqing gazed at Parker, then at Curtis, not knowing what to do. Should she throw away this animal skin, or wash it and continue to use it? This was something worthy of deeper consideration, for this was only the beginning of a not-so-short period.

She suddenly felt that it was better to give birth to males, for they would defecate in the soil and bury their poop themselves. Though they would still frequently do it in their grass nest and bury it with the grass, and Parker would wallop them because of this.

“Why don’t… we wait for Winston to come back and handle this? Change a fresh piece of animal skin for An’an first,” Bai Qingqing said meekly.

Parker paused for a moment, then wiped An’an’s little buttocks without a change in his countenance using the clean side of the stained animal skin. After which, he folded it and set it aside.

“No need, I can take care of her.” Parker placed An’an on the blanket and revealed a happy smile. “An’an is our family’s female, not just Winston’s alone.”

With that, he got up to look for clean animal skin.

Still, Bai Qingqing felt bad about letting Parker do this. Even she couldn’t quite bear to handle these chores, yet she was asking someone who wasn’t related by blood to An’an to do it.

“Ah~ Ah~” An’an let out two one-syllable sounds with her eyes shut, attracting Bai Qingqing’s attention.

After making all that noise, it was apparent An’an had woken, but her eyes were closed throughout.

“Why isn’t An’an opening her eyes?”

Bai An’an couldn’t help reaching out to try and open her eyelids. However, An’an’s eyelids seemed glued. Fearing she would hurt the baby, Bai Qingqing didn’t dare to exert too much force, and, after An’an struggled a few times, she let go.

Parker came back and wrapped An’an in a fresh piece of animal skin. “I think she’s dozed off again.”

“Mm.” Bai Qingqing didn’t put too much thought into it and merely placed An’an inside the blanket, and the mother-and-daughter duo fell asleep with their heads leaning against each other.

The odor of baby poop permeated throughout the tree hole. Unable to tolerate it any longer, Curtis chased Parker out of the tree hole.

Things revolved around An’an in the time that followed. After washing the animal skin, Parker had just returned to the tree hole when An’an got hungry again.

They didn’t wake Bai Qingqing. Curtis was in charge of helping An’an drink the milk, and after she drank her fill, she peed again.

Parker ran out to wash the animal skin again. And when he returned, An’an was asking for food once more. After which, she pooped with great regularity.

Rinse and repeat endlessly.

Curtis and Parker were speechless.

Parker had just gone out to check the fire under the smoked meat, and when he returned, he found himself faced with four to five soiled diapers. Sighing, he helplessly carried the animal skins to wash at the waterhole.

The water at the waterhole was clear and blue, but as the animal skin was washed in the water, a light yellow color started spreading out.

Pinching his nose, Bluepool went far away. In a low muffled voice, he said, “Hey! What’s your problem!? Why do you keep pouring feces into my water! Don’t pollute my water source! Now the water smells heavily of poop!”

As though he didn’t hear him, Parker continued scrubbing the animal skins. When he finally could be bothered to look towards him, he said, “Weren’t you eager to see the female baby? Here, this is the female baby’s poop. Look at it all you want.”