Beauty and the Beasts

As the rain was too heavy, Parker placed a stone basin outside, and shortly after it was half-filled with water. Bai Qingqing used rainwater to wash up this morning.

Parker crouched next to Bai Qingqing watching her brush her teeth. Seeing her mouth full of foam, he smudged some of it onto his finger.

“What are you doing?” Bai Qingqing asked incoherently as she raised her head.

Parker placed the foam into his mouth, then spat out his saliva.

“Tastes horrid.”

Bai Qingqing clenched her teeth on her toothbrush and quickly finished brushing her teeth and rinsing her mouth, before washing her face.

This toothbrush had been used for two to three months now. According to Bai Qingqing’s habits, it was time for her to change to a new toothbrush. She could settle for this toothbrush for now, but it was a matter of time before she had to discard it.

She filled a cup of water using the cup made out of bamboo and handed it to Parker. “Here, rinse your mouth. It’s unhygienic.”

Parker felt that the taste of the foam was still lingering in his mouth, and the minute he took the cup from her, he gulped it down in one shot.

“Parker, your teeth are so white, what do you use to clean it?” Bai Qingqing asked, curious.

Parker licked his teeth, joy evident in his golden eyes. Heh, Qingqing liked his teeth.

“Us beastmen have two forms. When we’re in our beast form our teeth are big, and in human form our teeth are small. If we wish to clean our teeth, we just need to change form several times, and the residue on our teeth will drop off,” Parker said, revealing his extremely white teeth.

“Ah, I see.” Bai Qingqing stared at Parker’s teeth in astonishment. It was indeed much smaller than when he was in his beast form. So it turned out that changing forms had so many effects.

“What about females? How do they clean their teeth?” Bai Qingqing remembered that the older females’ teeth were all… terrible. Back then she had thought that it was because females had no competition, so they were laxer in terms of hygiene as compared to the males. Now, from the way it sounded, it was because they were unable to transform into beast form?

“Oh, no.” Bai Qingqing thought to herself.

That’s right. Bai Qingqing guessed that the females here didn’t have beast forms. That bonfire banquet was the best proof. Beastmen only had human forms when they came of age. Yet, there were several little girls at the bonfire banquet.

Parker scratched his head. “I’m not sure, either. My mom uses a kind of thorny fruit to cleanse her teeth. But there’s no thorny fruit around here. The ones we had at home, my father had brought them back from a faraway village back for my mom.”

“Thorny fruit?”

Parker stared at his female’s clean and flawless face. He had originally thought that his fondness for her had nothing to do with her beauty, yet right now his heart was beating furiously.

His eyes lingered on Bai Qingqing’s face with a besotted look on his face. On the spur of the moment, he promised her. “I’ll go back to my father’s home and pluck one for you.”

There are so many thorny fruits on the tree, and I’m plucking only one. Surely Dad wouldn’t notice?

Parker remembered stealing several thorny fruits with his brothers when he was little. His father had taken a few bites at them and, as a form of punishment, disallowed them from eating for two days. That incident left him with a painful memory.

Bai Qingqing smiled and nodded. “Mm.”

Looking at Bai Qingqing’s vibrant smiling face, Parker felt that even if his father was to bite him again, it would all be worth it.

As Cortis was still sleeping, and Bai Qingqing didn’t dare catch a chill during her period again, the task of cooking fell upon Parker.

Parker picked up a bamboo pole and walked to the bag of rice.

Seeing that full bag of white rice, Parker grabbed a handful with his hand and let it slowly seep from his hand. As the mild fragrance of rice entered his senses, Parker spotted a light-yellow grain of rice with its hull intact.

Before Parker’s brain managed to respond, he felt excitement in his heart.

With the seed, he could now go and plant rice, and when it was harvested, Qingqing would get to eat the rice planted by him.

This thought made Parker’s heart start to beat faster. He quickly picked out that seed.