Beauty and the Beasts

“Let’s set off now,” Winston said sternly. With that, he tore off his skirt and transformed into a tiger, before leading the twenty elites and sprinting off to the sea.

The remaining beastmen stayed and helped out, and Parker was in charge of sieving the starch noodles. By the end of the day, all the stone fruits were turned into starch noodles.

After drying in the wind for two to three days, the solidified starch noodles were bundled up. There was enough to last Bai Qingqing for a year.

…

On Winston’s side, having traveled day and night without resting, they reached their destination—which would otherwise have taken five days—in four days.

After resting for a night at the seaside, the beastmen gathered, feeling energetic and ready for action.

“Your Majesty, what should we do?”

As they knew they were going to start a fire, the tiger beastmen had remained in their human forms. Of course, with no females around, they couldn’t be bothered to put on any clothes.

The same went for Winston. He climbed to the top of a slim and tall tree and got a bird’s eye view, then came down and said, “You guys go look for rocks and make 21 large vessels. The rest of you, follow me.”

Winston didn’t dig for salt pits along the sea as Bai Qingqing had suggested.

With three moons here, the magnitude of the tides wasn’t anything like what one would witness on Earth, and the intervals were also different.

If the high tide was to arise, this beach would become completely submerged in water.

Hence, Winston prepared to evaporate the salt in an absolutely safe place. Since the salt was to be consumed, it had to be clean. He was even prepared to lay a stone slab in the hole.

He chose an empty plot of land that was windy and enjoyed bountiful sunshine, and got the beastmen to start digging.

Hard manual labor wasn’t at all a problem for strong and muscular beastmen. It took the twenty males less than a morning to finish making the preparations to evaporate the salt pits.

Even though the pits weren’t perfectly smooth, the rocks were quite even, and there were also rocks blocking on the four sides. Only then did Winston call for his men to transport seawater over.

The fire used for cooking the salt was right beside the sea. In order to conserve manpower, no one was sent to keep watch over the fire. However, the fire burned brightly on its own.

When the beastmen passing by saw that the fire had gone down a little, they would toss some firewood into it in passing. When the seawater nearly dried from the cooking, they would add seawater into the mix.

After busying themselves for the entire afternoon, the salt pits were finally filled with water.

Exhausted to the max, the males slept soundly on their bellies beside the waterhole, snoring so loudly that no birds in the vicinity dared to come near.

However, Winston had no intention of sleeping. He couldn’t, for someone had to keep vigil during the night.

Seated next to the waterhole, he looked up at the largest moon in the night sky.

What was Qingqing doing at this moment?

…

In the tiger village similarly shrouded by the moonlight.

Today, Ford specially came to look for Parker to borrow white cotton. Upon asking, Bai Qingqing found out that Becky had gone into heat.

The peak season for reproduction had arrived again.

Bai Qingqing sat at the entrance of the tree hole and laid out her palms to catch the moonlight.

“You’re not coming to sleep?” Parker asked as he laid in bed.

“I’m wondering why my period has yet to come. I mean, going into heat.” Bai Qingqing propped up her chin with a hand and counted on her fingers. “It’s been nearly a month since I stopped breastfeeding. It ought to be here soon.”

Had she yet to recover from her endocrine disorders?

Without a calendar, she had lost track of dates. Bai Qingqing resolved once more to start marking starting tomorrow, carving a mark on a wooden block for each passing day.

As Parker listened, an intense glow exploded in his eyes. In the pitch-dark tree hole, a pair of beast eyes glistened with a green glow.

Bai Qingqing felt the hairs on her back stand for no reason. She turned her head and asked, “What?”

“You’re going into heat soon and won’t be able to mate with me at will in the future. Let’s mate tonight.” Parker pounced on her like a tiger hungry for food as he spoke.

Alas, he vanished from the tree hole the next moment as he was sent flying outwards. Actually, he could have grabbed hold of the edge of the tree hole, but then he was smacked in the back by a vigorous force once more, and thus still ended up flying out of the tree hole.