Beauty and the Beasts

Losing Half of Their Short-Winged Birds

The gradual brightening of the sky and the thin fog in the air made the ice-covered world appear even more like a black-and-white ink wash painting. The ground was covered in a layer of snow and crunched when it was stepped on.

Bai Qingqing stood at the doorway and stretched. The fresh air she breathed into her lungs made the fatigue from the nightmare she experienced the night before go away.

The wooden pillar that Curtis had crushed last night had been set up again. It had clearly been replaced as the wood was very fresh. Parker and Curtis hadn’t paid any attention, so it must have been Winston who replaced the pillar.

Bai Qingqing looked at Winston and said, “Thank you, Winston.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Winston glanced at her. He grabbed the stone basin and walked to the side of the house, then picked out clean pieces of ice from the mountain of ice and put them in the basin.

Boiling water for the day before Bai Qingqing woke up was something he had to do every day. He hadn’t had the time to do it today since she woke up from her nightmare with a start.

Bai Qingqing walked to the bird’s shelter and panicked upon seeing the blood on the floor. “One, two, three… thirteen. Half of them have died.”

The remaining thirteen short-winged birds were extremely frightened. The moment they heard a noise, they stuck their heads in their nest. With their feathered butts in the air, they looked like bunches of yellowing wild grass in autumn.

Bai Qingqing looked up at Curtis and frowned. “Thank goodness you ate the dead birds. Otherwise, they’d feel distressed looking at them.”

Curtis urgently needed to eat after waking up from hibernation, and ten-odd birds and four wolf pups were just enough food for him to feel full. Upon hearing this, Curtis smiled slightly and replied, “I’ll go catch some more short-winged birds later.”

Bai Qingqing shook her head. “It’s okay. The cold season’s about to end. The eggs laid by the birds are enough. If we have too many birds around, it’ll be a waste of food. They’d be noisy too.”

Feeling sorry for the short-winged birds, Bai Qingqing said to Parker as he went to take out their eggs, “Let’s not scare them today. We’ll give them something nice to eat and take out their eggs the day after tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Parker left the yard and closed the door.

The short-winged birds continued pretending to be plants and didn’t move.

Although the thorny fruit plant at the doorway was an evergreen plant, it had hardened during the cold season. Since Bai Qingqing couldn’t find a better substitute for a toothbrush, she picked one of the thorny fruits and rubbed it against some animal skin before using it to gently brush her teeth.

It was really amazing that Bai Qingqing’s teeth hadn’t yellowed and even became whiter despite only using thorny fruits to brush her teeth these past few months. The thorny fruits were like the special teeth cleaners of the plant kingdom.

The main door was closed when the fire was made as the baby snakes liked to crawl about.

The baby snakes feared Curtis the most and didn’t dare to go near him. Hence, Bai Qingqing followed him closely, thinking that it was safest to remain by his side.

The baby snakes crawled about on the ground and licked and rubbed their bodies against various things they came across. The curious look in their eyes was no different from that of human babies. Bai Qingqing suddenly found them really adorable.

“Be good, baby. You’ll have food to eat soon,” Bai Qingqing smiled and said to a baby snake. She removed the lid of the pot and glanced inside. The steamed egg had just solidified.

Bai Qingqing said excitedly, “Winston, help me take out the steamed egg. Parker, bring the babies’ nest over and place them inside so I can feed them.”

Curtis’s tail swayed agitatedly as he asked with a cold look on his handsome face, “What about me?”

Wasn’t the steamed egg for him? This was his favorite dish. He’d just woken up from hibernation—didn’t she cook this just for him?

Bai Qingqing was stunned for a moment. She then replied smoothly and with the inherent politeness of a Chinese, “You’ll get to eat the steamed egg too. Everyone will. No one ate it a few days ago, so there’s a lot left over.”