The delicious taste was secondary, the most important thing was that it filled up one’s stomach, and there was plenty of fish in the rivers. This could totally serve as a reliable source of food during the cold season.
As they entered the cold season, so long as they had sufficient fishballs stored up, no beastmen would ever have to starve to death again.
This was what Winston thought.
Bai Qingqing ate seven to eight at one go, and only stopped when she was filled to the max. Patting her oily hands, she said, “I’ll go out and play now?”
“You just ate. Aren’t you taking a nap?” asked Parker.
Bai Qingqing chuckled and retrieved two bamboos from the tree hole. “I want to give some to Becky and Molly.”
“Come back early.” Parker reminded her as he filled up the bamboos with fishballs.
Bai Qingqing went to visit Becky first. When she got there, Becky was leaning against Ford under the tree. From the looks of her tummy, she was five to six months pregnant, and she seemed a fair bit plumper than before.
She was slightly taken aback to see Bai Qingqing’s flat stomach.
“Your… stomach…” Becky’s eyes lit up. “Female baby?”
“Seems like it.” Bai Qingqing raised the bamboo in her hands. “I brought you food.”
Ford said, “We’d long sniffed the fragrance while you were cooking. But Becky clings to me and refuses to let me leave her side. Else I’d long have gone to learn how to cook the dish from you.”
Ford shifted as he spoke. Indeed, Becky tightened her hold around his arm. But Ford didn’t at all look impatient; in contrast, he appeared to enjoy it, simply patting Becky gently on the back. “I’m not leaving. I won’t go anywhere other than hunting.”
“Mm.” Becky nodded.
Bai Qingqing knew that Becky was behaving in this manner because she felt insecure. Although it was tiring for Ford to take care of her, the happiness he felt was perhaps proportionate to the tiredness.
Bai Qingqing handed the fishballs to Becky and bade her farewell. She washed her hands at the waterhole, then went to the tribal head’s tree and called out, “Molly!”
Having not gotten a response after calling out to her several times, Bai Qingqing sighed.
Molly was indeed mad at her.
She was just about to turn around and leave when she felt a hard something smack against her back. Bai Qingqing let out a cry, then turned around with a hand stroking her back.
“Molly?”
Molly glided down the tree hole hugging a tree vine.
“That’s a horned melon. For you,” Molly said as she gazed at a plant nearby.
Only then that Bai Qingqing realize that the thing that hit her back was a red fruit. She bent over to pick it up and found, to her astonishment, that there was a light red glow over the surface of this fruit, as though it was enveloped in a ball of fire.
She waved her hands, and the “fire” also indistinctly shook.
“This is the horned melon you mentioned?” Bai Qingqing dug with her fingernails and found that it was hard as a rock. “Have you eaten it?”
“No.” Molly’s voice sounded cold and aloof.
Bai Qingqing looked up and walked over to nudge her shoulder against Molly. “Are you angry?”
Molly turned her head away and feigned nonchalance. “It’s merely a male. There are quite a few two-striped beastmen pursuing me. I don’t care about him.”
“Really?” Bai Qingqing sat down cross-legged under a tree. The two males that Molly took a fancy to were in love with her. She felt that she had to salvage the situation a little.
“Actually, you have no cause to be angry. Back then, when I was in the peacock village, when I was pregnant with the leopard cubs, I was pinned into the water by Alva. He doesn’t like me. It’s only when I washed my face subsequently that he ran after me here.”
“What?”
Molly was shocked by the revelation. “He pinned you into the water? Furthermore, when you were pregnant?” Anger surged within Molly as she spoke, and even her breathing started getting heavier.
“He went overboard! I’ve never seen such a male before!”
Tossing the half-filled bag of horned melons to her, Molly said, “I’ll take all his horned melons and share half with you. I’ll go and claim back justice for you!”