Beauty and the Beasts

Though Winston said nothing, he couldn’t stop his lips from curling upwards at the edges.

Seeing Bai Qingqing having such a difficult time sewing, Curtis took the needle and thread from her hands and started sewing in a breezy and speedy manner.

Very soon, an animal skin sleeve was completed. With the fur facing inwards and the smooth skin facing outwards, once the water jar was placed inside and the rope tightened at the mouth, it simply had to be hung at one’s waist.

The fully geared Winston cast a longing look at Bai Qingqing, before looking towards Curtis and Parker.

“Parker, I’ll leave you to handle the iron weapons,” instructed Winston.

Parker scoffed. “Do I need you to tell me that?”

Winston then looked towards Curtis and said pleadingly, “Please keep an eye on the village’s safety.”

Curtis swept a cold sideways glance at him. Bai Qingqing glared at him, and then he flicked out his tongue in a lackadaisical manner, which one could interpret as him agreeing to it.

Finally, Winston gazed towards Bai Qingqing, the reluctance to part written clearly in his eyes.

He took in a breath but said nothing and merely cast one final deep gaze at her. This gaze was as though he wanted to engrave that face in his vision into the depths of his heart.

With the luggage on his back, Winston turned around and left.

“Be careful!” Bai Qingqing jogged as she called after him.

“Mm!” Winston responded without turning his head. He picked up his pace, fearing he would drown in the warmth of home if he hesitated slightly.

Bai Qingqing chased him to the door and watched as Winston walked into the distance, then let out a deep sigh.

Roar!

Shortly after, a series of tiger roars rang from outside the village.

Bai Qingqing raised her head and said loudly to her two mates in the house, “Seems like something’s happened in the village. Let’s go over and take a look!”

Howl~

Parker came out with the three leopard cubs very quickly.

The center of the village right now was an empty plot of land outside the stone castle. Upon hearing the signals, the tiger beastmen of the village rushed over, and, in no time, several hundreds of beastmen had gathered on that plot of empty land.

Bai Qingqing crawled onto Parker’s back and searched for Winston’s fur color in the crowd. Regrettably, it seemed he didn’t come back.

“What happened this time?”

Bai Qingqing asked the tiger tribe’s tribal head when she found him.

The tribal head replied with a beam, “There’s a batch of young males outside that wishes to join our village.”

Bai Qingqing was delighted to hear this. “That’s great. Where’s Winston?”

“His Majesty has given me a signal to let them in. He’s leaving me in charge of this matter,” said the tribal head.

“He didn’t come back?” Bai Qingqing was disappointed to hear this.

After some time, those aforementioned males entered. Clearly, they came in groups from the neighboring villages. There were three species—lion beastmen, wolf beastmen, and leopard beastmen.

There were fifty plus of them in total, and all were young and vigorous beastmen.

When Bai Qingqing caught sight of ten-odd leopards with elegant and gorgeous physiques, she grabbed Parker’s hand and said with a thrilled expression, “Hey, look. There are leopard beastmen among them. You have company from now.”

Parker, too, was rather glad to see his fellow leopard beastmen. Suddenly, he spotted several familiar figures, making him let out a threatening low growl from his throat.

“Ooh ooh~”

Hmm?

Bai Qingqing cast a strange look at him. “You know them?”

When Bai Qingqing was sizing up the newcomers, she saw that those males were excitedly searching for a target to woo.

With her fair skin and exquisite beauty, Bai Qingqing appeared particularly striking among the tanned beastmen. It took no time for the male beastmen to take notice of her.

Their excitement grew. But amongst them, three leopards froze for a moment, before directly dashing towards them.

Howl~

Parker immediately pulled Bai Qingqing behind him and launched into an attacking stance facing the leopard beastmen coming at them.

Bai Qingqing didn’t sense any malicious intent from the three of them.