Beauty and the Beasts

“Qingqing, I went to catch some worms.” Alva quickly took out a wrapper made with tree leaves, opening it up. Big and chubby worms could be seen inside, squeezed together as they wriggled away. Their two rows of feet were like black sesame on their white bodies, flailing away.

Bai Qingqing shuddered and said in despise, “Ew— Take them away. They’re so disgusting.”

“How are they disgusting?” Alva couldn’t understand. When he saw that the cubs had been fed, he felt a little disappointed. He picked up the worms and stuffed them into his mouth.

Seeing half a worm wriggling intensely by Alva’s mouth, Bai Qingqing’s eyes opened wide, her expression shattering.

Although Alva couldn’t understand Bai Qingqing’s abhorrence toward worms, he knew that it wasn’t appropriate for him to eat something she was disgusted by in front of her. He swallowed, then wiped his mouth and stopped eating.

“Qingqing is going to rest now,” Muir said, hinting to him.

Alva was thinking of turning his back to Bai Qingqing to eat the worms. He continued Muir’s topic and said, “Then, I’ll be heading back. Qingqing, have a good rest.” After he left, Bai Qingqing still felt a little shocked. She asked, “Muir, you’re also a flying beastman. Do you eat worms like that as well?”

Muir raised his brows as he looked at Bai Qingqing with his long and narrow eyes with a faint smile. “My food is more monotonous.”

Monotonous… This meant that he only ate raw meat. His food preference wasn’t a light one either. Bai Qingqing chose to shut up.

Muir brought the leopard down and tied it to the tree with vines. The cubs had slept a lot in the day, and now that they had energy, they started going around in the room.

Muir came up once again, and the cubs walked shakily to him, using their small paws to step on the back of Muir’s feet that were hard as stone.

Muir’s heart felt as if they had softened from their little feet. He bent over and picked one up.

Bai Qingqing sat on the animal skin bedsheets, leaning against the wooden wall. She looked at Muir and asked, “Do you remember the order in which they were born?”

She recalled Parker mentioning that before children reached maturity, their names would be the order of their birth. They’d only give themselves a name after they had reached maturity.

Names held an extraordinary meaning to beastmen. Bai Qingqing went along with how things worked here and decided to let them pick their own names in the future.

Muir said, “Of course I do. The smallest one here is the third one.”

He used his foot to nudge a cub on the ground, causing him to let out a cry.

“This one here is the eldest. That one with his ears upright one is the second one.”

Bai Qingqing nodded and noted their characteristics.

As they were talking, Muir felt something hot in his palm. Something sticky fell onto his hand. He picked up the cub and took a look. As expected, he had pooped.

A gust of wind blew in from the door, and Bai Qingqing’s nose twitched. “What’s that smell?”Muir put down the cub and said, “It seems that we’ll need to ready a basin of sand in the house.”

Bai Qingqing immediately understood. Seeing Muir putting out his hand that wasn’t holding anything, she let out a cry, “He pooped on your hand? Ah, so sorry, so sorry. Quickly give him to me.”

“It’s fine.” Muir put down Third, then picked up Second and Eldest. “Let them poop on my hands first. I’ll go get a sand basin later.”

Bai Qingqing’s heart skipped a beat. Muir wasn’t the cubs’ father, but he was treating them so well. He didn’t even mind their poop and was even catching it with his hands…

“I’m really… grateful to you.”

“I’m willing to do this.”

Muir put his hands together. When Eldest and Second smelled the excretion from Third, they also bent their hind legs and pooped on Muir’s palms.

Only then did Muir put them down, then headed down the tree to wash his hands.