Beauty and the Beasts

“Parker!”

Bai Qingqing ran towards the leopard as she laughed. With the unbearably scorching sand underneath her feet, Bai Qingqing ran really fast.

“Are you alright?”

Thankfully, the tree wasn’t high, so Parker wasn’t injured from the fall. As he crawled out from the sand, his fur was visibly stained with bits of sand, glistening under the bright sun.

Unable to hold back her laughter, Bai Qingqing chortled even harder.

“Hahahaha!!!”

Parker let out an angry roar and ran to Bai Qingqing’s side to rub against her waist.

The ground underneath was so scorching that Bai Qingqing kept jumping up and down. When Parker came, she crawled onto his back.

“Quick, go into the lake. You’re so dirty. I’ll help you scratch your fur.” Bai Qingqing rubbed the leopard on his head. Her mood had never been as good as today.

Parker licked his dry mouth and sprinted towards the lake.

With his extraordinary speed, Bai Qingqing nearly flew off his back. She hurriedly circled her arms around the leopard’s neck.

Parker ran all the way into the lake. The lakewater went over his back, and Bai Qingqing swam away by herself.

“Hey! Curtis, why did you hit me?” Parker transformed into a human and demanded to know as he glared at Curtis.

Under the glaring sun, the golden-haired youth appeared invigorated with two navy animal stripes on each side of his face extending from his cheeks all the way to his hairline. The stripes were clean and sharp, not at all affecting his handsome face, and even added a hint of wild allure.

Bai Qingqing was suddenly so mesmerized by him that she froze for a good while, before saying with a smile, “Congrats, Parker.”

“What?” Parker was confused. As he was too soundly unconscious, he didn’t recall what happened before he fell unconscious, only that his nerves were a tad tense.

And now, it all came back to him. He seemed to have bitten Lion Head to death?

Bai Qingqing’s body swayed in the water as she went to Parker’s side. She indicated for him to look at the water surface below. “Look at your own face.”

Parker’s breathing halted, and his golden pupils rapidly enlarged. He paused for a moment, then lowered his gaze towards the water surface.

After which, he froze for a long long time.

Bai Qingqing merely smiled with her lips pursed and didn’t bother him.

It took a long time before Parker finally regained control of his body and raised a hand to touch his own face.

“I leveled up…”

Although he had all along desired to become more powerful, never once had he imagined that it would happen at such a young age. A 21-year-old four-striped beastman was something unheard of even in the legends.

How was that possible?

He knew very well that his powers as a three-striped beastman had only stabilized recently, and that the power in his body couldn’t possibly give him the breakthrough to earn him his fourth stripe.

He could sense that the energy in his body was much more vigorous than before. Additionally, he knew that this wasn’t even his peak, that there could be a void, that very likely he hadn’t even reached the level of a least formidable four-striped beastman.

The powers of a four-striped beastman were incredible!

So much so Parker worried that he wouldn’t be able to control it.

“That beastman who saved me previously helped you. He lent us a lot of transparent crystals. I didn’t count, but I think there were about a hundred of them.”

As Bai Qingqing spoke, she cast an embarrassed glance at Parker and said, “I told him you would return him double in the future… He saved your life. Or else, you would have died there and then. So now, you’ve got to return him an additional 100 transparent crystals. It’s okay, right?…”

Recalling that simply one transparent crystal was sufficient to buy an entire village’s rice—which was only inferior in value to salt—Bai Qingqing felt sheepish.

Had she sold Parker? How many years would it take for him to collect 200 transparent crystals?

Seemingly in thought, Parker pulled Bai Qingqing into his embrace and rubbed her wet head.

“Not expensive. I will return him in double.”

As Parker spoke, he looked up at Curtis with a complicated expression in his eyes.