Beauty and the Beasts

41-50

Chapter 41 - Present from the Snake Beastman

Curtis weaved through the mountains with Bai Qingqing in his arms. Seeing Bai Qingqing devoid of all strength, he asked worriedly, "Are you hungry?"

Bai Qingqing rolled her eyes and shot Curtis a look that implied he was asking the obvious. It was noon and she hadn't yet eaten a meal. How could she not feel hungry?

Curtis jolted Bai Qingqing upwards and placed the sack of rice on Bai Qingqing's body. "Then eat this."

Bai Qingqing stared at Curtis with dull and lifeless eyes. "Are you trying to be funny?"

Curtis said, clearly shocked, "Don't tell me rice needs to be roasted as well?"

The speechless Bai Qingqing suddenly felt that the beastmen's village was highly civilized and advanced.

"Do you have a flint?" Bai Qingqing asked.

Curtis answered, "I have one wrapped in my snakeskin."

Ok, there's a source of fire. But without a pot, how are we going to cook?

Gazing around at the leaves of the plants surrounding them, Bai Qingqing was wondering if she could fold the large tree leaves into a pot to cook porridge in it. Then, she suddenly caught sight of several large bamboos.

"Ay! That can be used!" Bai Qingqing excitedly exclaimed as she pointed at the bamboos. "We can cook rice in bamboo!"

"Rice in bamboo?" Although Curtis didn't understand what that was, he slithered towards where Bai Qingqing was pointing.

The bamboos were sparsely grown, but every single one of them was thick as the surface of a bowl, making them highly suitable for cooking rice in bamboo. Bai Qingqing asked Curtis to set her down, and she then tried to break the large bamboos.

"Find me a sharp rock. I'm going to break the bamboo."

Curtis laughed. "Breaking them is a simple feat."

He placed his hands on the bamboo, his transparent nails indistinctly reflecting a sharp glow. When he gently sliced the bamboo with his fingernail, a large opening appeared in the bamboo, and it then lost balance and fell to one side.

Because the bamboo wasn't completely cut, during the process of falling, the root of the bamboo split into several pieces. Thankfully, though, the bamboo on top was still complete.

The dumbfounded Bai Qingqing stared fixedly at Curtis's fingernails. Are his fingernails knife blades?

Bai Qingqing's "admiring" gaze worked very well on Curtis. He shook his tail and said, "You like it? I'll give you a piece then."

When Bai Qingqing heard this, her heart quivered. Was she about to witness a bloody scene?

However, Curtis didn't proceed to pry out his fingernail. Instead, he lowered his head and looked at his snake's tail. Then, after a careful selection, he pried out a black scale from his stomach the size of a chicken's egg.

"Be careful, don't hurt yourself." Curtis handed his scale to Bai Qingqing with a faint smile.

Bai Qingqing received it, still dazed. She tried the sharpness of the scale's edge with her hand, and right away, she felt a piercing pain from her finger as a bloody slit formed.