Beauty and the Beasts

But since Parker had done the preparation, she felt embarrassed to ask him to put the clothes back. Hence, she could only brace herself to let him help her put on the clothes, piece by piece.

 During the rainy season, females usually wore three pieces of clothing—tube top, long pants, and jacket. When the cold season came, the females would usually give up the tube top and directly wrap themselves up with animal skin like a bear.

 After she was done putting on clothes, Bai Qingqing propped her hand against the pile of grass and attempted to get up. She exerted all her strength, but still, she wasn’t able to prop herself up. In the end, she only managed to get up with Parker’s help.

 “You want to relieve yourself?”

 “I just want to go out and take a walk,” Bai Qingqing said. Now that Parker reminded her, she did feel like going to the toilet now. But taking into consideration the condition of her body, she decided to hold it in first, for fear of things getting awkward.

 With Parker’s help, Bai Qingqing walked to the main room, her legs constantly trembling. If it weren’t for Parker holding her by the side, she would definitely have collapsed.

Outside the door, the river’s water had drowned half the land. The long and narrow river now became wide and large.

 “It’s only been a few days, and the water level has gone up by so much.” Bai Qingqing sighed. Noticing that the thorny fruit plant had been shifted beside the window, she couldn’t help worrying. “Will it flood to our house?”

 Parker replied immediately, “No, it won’t. I grew up here. Every time the rainy season comes, the river will rise, but it has never flooded the houses. Moreover, the terrain is very high over here. Even if it’s going to flood, it will flood other places first.”

 “Oh.” Bai Qingqing felt relieved.

 As the soup wasn’t very filling, after standing for a while, Bai Qingqing got hungry again. She looked at the fire which hadn’t been put out, then said with a hand over her stomach, “Can you steam an egg for me? I’m… hungry again.”

 “Sure, sit down next to me.” Parker lifted her and set her down next to the fire, before starting the fire.

 Shortly after, the steamed egg was ready. Bai Qingqing felt that steamed egg wouldn’t be filling as it had been mixed with water, so she asked Parker to cook two more sweet hard-boiled eggs. But unexpectedly, after finishing the bowl of steamed egg and two sweet hard-boiled eggs, she still felt hungry.

 She was so famished that she felt like she could finish an entire cow by herself.

 After troubling Parker several times, Bai Qingqing felt embarrassed to ask him to cook again. She was prepared to hold in the hunger when Curtis came back with a large prey—an adult hippopotamus.

 Parker glanced at the ridiculously large prey and asked, “Why did you catch something so big?”

 This wasn’t their family’s style of eating. Curtis couldn’t swallow such large prey, and he and Qingqing couldn’t eat that much either.

 Only families with more than four males would catch prey of this size. Especially hippopotamus—unlike animals like wolves, leopards, and tigers that exercised a lot and consisted mostly of bones, hippopotamus had a lot of meat, enough to fill up the stomachs of five to six male beastmen.

 Curtis ignored him. After skinning and cleaning the hippopotamus, he tore out several pieces.

 “Roast.” Curtis tossed to Parker a piece of meat that was neither too fatty nor too lean.

 Parker didn’t argue. He quickly and neatly marinated the meat before roasting it.

 Sitting beside the fire, Bai Qingqing started salivating as she watched the piece of meat roasting over the fire.

 Parker looked strangely at Bai Qingqing several times, then said, “Haven’t you just eaten?” Usually, that much food was enough to sustain Bai Qingqing for half a day.

 “Ah, I feel a little hungry again.” Bai Qingqing rubbed her tummy, feeling embarrassed. Her lower abdomen, which had been subject to excessive assault, was still giving her bouts of pain. She stopped rubbing her tummy and said with a pout, “I haven’t eaten anything over the last two days.”

 Parker quickly flashed her a smile. “It’s good that you’re eating a lot. I like it when you’re chubby.” As he spoke, he even looked at Bai Qingqing’s well-endowed chest.

 Bai Qingqing quickly grabbed the animal skin over her chest and scolded him silently. Pervert leopard.