Beauty and the Beasts

Bai Qingqing picked up a clean willow branch and smiled at Parker with her brow raised. “I naturally have my use for it. Come and give me a hand.”

She placed the willow branch into the trough, then asked the dazed Parker to place the round stone onto it.

The heavy stone instantly flattened the firewood and a green-colored oil was forced out of it, wetting wood trough.

Parker widened his leopard eyes.

Bai Qingqing was overjoyed. “Ah! I’ve succeeded!”

She had come up with this idea by referencing a sugarcane juice machine. Before she completed it, she couldn’t be certain it would work either. After all, the sugar cane had much higher water content than tree branches, and it was also much less tough. Hence, she didn’t know if she could squeeze the liquid out of the tree branches.

Thankfully, the stone was heavy enough and managed to flatten the tree branches.

The two of them excitedly rolled the round stone to crush the tree branch. The oil slowly dripped out of the tree branches through the trough and finally into the stone basin.

When Cortis returned, the two of them had already extracted a basin full of oil. There was much less firewood in the house now. Instead, there was now a pile of firewood residue outside.

He glanced at Bai Qingqing in surprise, then set down the firewood and went out again.

There was a high level of water content in this oil. Given time to settle down, the oil would be separated from the water; as oil was lighter than water, there was now a thick layer of green oil on top.

Bai Qingqing scooped out the oil using a stone bowl. When she was done scooping out the oil, the stone basin was more than half-filled with green-colored water.

With so much water in this, it was little wonder that every time it was dripped into the pot, it resulted in splattering.

The more Parker looked, the more impressed he felt. He poured the pure oil into a piece bamboo and sealed it, a look of disbelief in his eyes. He said with a sigh, “Ape beastmen are indeed intelligent.”

“Hur hur…” Bai Qingqing was embarrassed by the compliment. She shrugged her shoulders and said with a smile, “Because I’m a foodie.”

Most importantly, she came from the modern age and had more knowledge.

After Parker learned how to do it, he refused to let Bai Qingqing do it herself. He and Cortis were kept busy for half a day before they managed to fill it with firewood and extract several buckets of oil. That was enough oil to use for quite a while.

As the temperature dropped, fog started appearing in the skies. Bai Qingqing started to feel hungry. It was then that she recalled that Parker hadn’t yet hunted today.

“Hungry?” Cortis circled his arms around her waist, laying his hands over her petite hand that was placed over her tummy. The warm temperature made him sigh affectionately.

As his lips were pressed against Bai Qingqing’s ear, a cool breath floated into Bai Qingqing’s ear alongside his voice. “I’ll go and cook rice.”

Bai Qingqing shrunk her neck uneasily and didn’t reply. She then heard Parker say, “No need. There’s a bonfire banquet tonight. Let’s go and eat free food.”

Bonfire banquet?

“We can join in as well?” Bai Qingqing recalled the ape king extending an invitation to the white tiger. But the three of them were just ordinary people—would they be allowed to join in too?

Parker said, “All females are allowed to join in. As your mates, we certainly would accompany you.”

“What about single males?” Bai Qingqing felt that they probably wouldn’t be allowed to, else the ape king wouldn’t have specially invited the white tiger.

“The royalty can. Males invited by females can as well.” A disgusted look flashed across Parker’s face as the tiger female Rosa came to mind.

Bai Qingqing noticed Parker’s quick change in expression. Recalling that Parker had been framed at a gathering once, she understood why he looked this way.

“Don’t be mad. It’s not worth ruining your health from being angry at her,” Bai Qingqing said as she patted Parker on the shoulder.

“If we go, we’re going to bump into her again.” Parker sounded irritated, but the annoyance greatly dissipated after Bai Qingqing consoled him. “It’s about time, let’s go.”

Parker pulled Bai Qingqing with him and Cortis followed.