Beauty and the Beasts

Due to his rage, the scar on Winston’s face throbbed alongside his temples, making him a scary sight to behold.

Bai Qingqing, however, wasn’t the least bit scared of him. She placed a chilly hand on the back of Winston’s large one and lightly patted it twice. She said gently, “The wages of sin is death, and the heavens are looking. Even if we’re unable to deal with him, he won’t come to a good end.”

Despite clearly having won his spouse’s heart, Saint Zachary had brutally killed off all her other lovers. That he was in this state was his own doing. What was this if not karma?

Bai Qingqing was an atheist before all this, but for some reason, after arriving in this world, there was no longer anything she couldn’t accept.

After all, this was a world where fantasies lurked in every corner, to begin with—even animal bodies could transform into human bodies, much like the demons in mythology. If a batch of pure humans were placed here, wouldn’t that make the beastmen demons?

Now, she even learned that souls existed in this world. Even if an immortal or fairy were to appear or something, it wouldn’t surprise her anymore.

Bai Qingqing said remorsefully, “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t…” If I hadn’t gone to look for Winston none of this would have happened?

She froze mid-sentence. If she had to make a choice all over again, in exchange for news of Winston’s safety and An’an’s good health, she would still head to the desert in a heartbeat.

Seeing his mate in such a self-reproach, Curtis finally started feeling guilty. Snow must be frightened by what he said.

He extended his snake tail to coil around her body, attracting her gaze. He said in a nonchalant tone, “No need to be scared. Isn’t it just an insect tide? Insect tides go as quickly as they come. In another day or two, after they eat up all the animals, they will migrate to the surroundings and cease to affect us.”

It would just result in a scarcity of meat, that was all.

Bai Qingqing indeed heaved a sigh of relief, but very quickly, she furrowed her brows again. “It’s another two months till the heavy rainy season. I wonder how many more places will suffer this…”

She knew that these were the rules of nature. Since an insect tide would arise once every ten or twenty years, and the species in the forests had all along remained so varied, it went to show that this wasn’t a fatal disaster to nature, but just that it might eliminate the weaker species.

But how could one not feel sorrow when experiencing this for themselves?

Perhaps certain animal meats that she loved eating in the past, she would no longer be able to enjoy them anymore.

…

Elsewhere, when Saint Zachary returned to the rock forest, energy waves radiated from a black crystal left inside the cave, and a human figure appeared.

“Why did you retreat halfway during the fight? Your capabilities should be above that of Curtis’s and Muir’s,” the ape king asked furiously. After his death, although his mental power had weakened to 10% of its original state, it was still a breezy feat for him to view the rough silhouette of nearby ongoings.

Now reduced to a soul, his connection to his spouse had been severed, so he was unaware of Jean’s death. And ever since he saw the light of day again, all he wanted to do was to eliminate all perils that threatened Jean’s existence.

God only knows just how euphoric he was when he learned of this scorpion beastman’s powers and the fact that Curtis was his adversary. But what did he just see? The scorpion beastman could clearly have finished off Curtis, yet he suddenly let him go just like that.

The intensity of the ape king’s rage matched the depth of his disappointment after getting his hopes up so high.

Saint Zachary cast a cold glance at him. At the thought of the cleverness of this soul’s brain, he held back the urge to smash this soul to smithereens.

“I’ll kill Curtis sooner or later. Before that, I want to first find Bai Qingqing,” Saint Zachary said with his gaze upon the black crystal.

The ape king paused in surprise. “Are you also Bai Qingqing’s admirer?”

Saint Zachary neither admitted nor denied it, so the ape king took it as a silent admission. He gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that this could actually be a good thing.