Beauty and the Beasts

As the sand was too soft and powdery, when one tried to dig deeper into the hole, sand would move in to fill it.

Bai Qingqing didn’t complain of fatigue as she huffed and puffed and dug for more ten minutes. Seeing that her progress was too slow, she asked her males for help. “Help me dig a hole.”

Parker said darkly, “Help you dig a hole so you can bury us?”

“No, I’m planning to bury myself,” explained Bai Qingqing.

Parker cast a meaningful glance beside her.

Following his gaze, Bai Qingqing saw the three little heads of the cubs in the sand, making her turn away sheepishly. She then looked towards Curtis. “Curtis…”

“Okay.”

“Eh?” Bai Qingqing’s eyes lit up. He agreed so readily?

Curtis revealed an ambiguous smile, before extending his tail to Bai Qingqing’s feet. With a light press, the sand was instantly squeezed away. Bai Qingqing let out a shriek as she fell into it.

By the time she recovered from her trance, she was already buried up to her waist, while her chest was exposed above the sand.

Thankfully, she wasn’t in as sorry a state as the cubs, for she still had a pair of hands outside.

Bai Qingqing propped her hands against the sand and struggled. As the sand was heavy, her body, firmly enveloped by the sand, couldn’t budge an inch.

“Curtis!” Bai Qingqing furiously shouted.

Curtis replied calmly, “The hole you asked for.”

Parker burst out laughing, and the three cubs cheered at the plight of their common “enemy.”

“You scoundrels!” Bai Qingqing scolded with a smile. She started clawing at the sand resignedly while tossing out a threat. “Just wait till I come out. I’ll show you guys what I’m capable of!”

Curtis smiled.

Their voices added much joy to this monotonous desert.

Suddenly, other voices could be heard in the desert.

Swoosh swoosh—

Parker’s ears shook, and he ran to a higher spot to peer around. “Mm. Curtis, did you hear an abnormal sound?”

Curtis, whose snake tail was pressed against the sand, peered into the depths of the desert, before extending his tail towards Bai Qingqing.

“Eh, don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” Bai Qingqing cried out anxiously. But the next instant, she was yanked out from the sand.

She threw a punch on Curtis’s snake tail defeatedly. “I wanted to crawl out by myself. My efforts were in vain!”

“Shh~” Curtis made a motion for her to keep quiet. He then scooped the cubs out with his snake tail as well.

Bai Qingqing’s countenance turned serious. She picked up the animal skin bag and placed the cubs into them. “Are there other beastmen around?”

Her words confirmed to those beastmen that they had been discovered. They stopped hiding and from the sand came a group of gigantic scorpions.

Bai Qingqing nearly choked on her saliva. She anxiously ran towards her spouses, and, in her franticness, stumbled over her own feet. Loudly gasping, she fell into a cold, soft, and incredibly steady embrace.

“Be careful.” Curtis helped her up and handed her to Parker. “Protect her. Leave those scorpion beastmen to me.”

Parker retreated with Bai Qingqing in his arms.

Bai Qingqing grew even more nervous and felt her heart rising to her throat, even though she could no longer see that group of scorpion beastmen now that she was being held in Parker’s arms.

“I shouldn’t have come out,” Bai Qingqing said softly.

Parker planted a reassuring kiss on her forehead. “Silly, you’re free to go anywhere you please. Curtis will take care of those feral beasts.”

From behind came the sounds of fighting.

Bai Qingqing had wanted to turn her head to look, but Parker blocked her vision. She had no choice but to nod lightly. “Mm.”

There were more than twenty scorpion beastmen, and they were spread out in the desert. No matter how formidable Curtis was, he couldn’t very well block all of them.

Some of the scorpion beastmen escaped and ran into Parker. Those horrifying gigantic insect-like creatures made Bai Qingqing feel like she had mistakenly entered a gory European horror movie.