The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 379: sniff, sniff—would this taste nice?
Isabella stared as the women all brushed their hair with their hands, long fingers combing through the strands like it was the most natural thing in the world. She stayed half-submerged in the water, watching curiously as some of the elderly women came closer to her. One of them gently brushed through Isabella’s hair, while another scooped up a thick cream and began rubbing it across her scalp and down her locks.
Immediately, Isabella’s senses came alive.
That cream—oh my gosh.
The smell alone was enough to make her brain short-circuit. It wasn’t just pleasant; it was heavenly. Sweet, sharp, earthy, with some kind of floral undertone that clung to the air around her. She could’ve sworn she smelled like ten different goddesses at once.
And the color? Please. Whoever invented this stuff deserved an award. It wasn’t boring white like the shampoos back in her old world. No. This was purple. Not violet, not lavender, but a thick, glossy purple cream that shimmered faintly when the sunlight hit it.
Isabella blinked at it, eyes practically sparkling. Her hand moved on its own, reaching out like a little thief to scoop some onto her fingers. She brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply.
Wow. Just—wow.
It didn’t only smell good, it smelled delicious.
Her stomach actually gave a tiny flip. And that was when Isabella had to slam the brakes on her own thoughts.
Hold up.
Was she seriously about to imagine eating this hair cream?
Absolutely not. No way. This was a new low.
She immediately scolded herself in her head. Was she obsessed with food now? Since when did everything in her life start turning into a "sniff, sniff—would this taste nice?" moment?
The past Isabella never acted like this. The past Isabella was all about vegetables and fruits. Which, yes, was boring and strict and kind of gave off health-blogger energy, but at least that girl didn’t stare at random purple goo and think, mmm, dessert.
And the worst part? She kept doing this. Over and over. Ever since she arrived in this world, her brain just defaulted to food. Smell something nice? Must taste good. See something shiny? Maybe edible. Someone hands her a flower? Looks like candy.
Was this her new life now? Walking around wanting to lick everything like some deranged toddler?
She sighed internally.
It was still shocking she hadn’t broken out yet. With the way she was eating in this world, her skin should’ve been covered in stress pimples. And her stomach? Please. Back in her old body, one greasy meal and she’d be hugging the bathroom for hours. Here? Nothing. Not even a cramp. The way this world was built had to be illegal.
"Dear, do you like the way it smells?"
The sudden question yanked Isabella out of her spiraling thoughts.
She turned her head and found the elder woman watching her closely. The woman had been massaging the cream through her hair with such gentleness, and now she was smiling with eyes so kind it made Isabella want to sink through the water. Kind eyes—but with fire. Like this woman had seen things, lived through centuries, and still laughed at the end of it.
Caught red-handed sniffing like a lunatic, Isabella scrambled to answer. She forced a smile to match the woman’s.
"Yes, ma. It smells so..."
She froze mid-sentence, choking on her own words. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. She was not about to embarrass herself by saying it smelled like food. She already scolded herself once. If she slipped now and compared luxury hair cream to cake icing? She’d actually cry.
But apparently, fate had other plans.
"It smells so delicious," the elder woman finished warmly, saving Isabella the trouble.
Isabella’s eyes went wide. WHAT. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
For half a second she was ready to scream. Did this woman just—did she just read her mind? Did she have some kind of secret telepathy skill? Had Isabella been exposed this whole time, with her food-obsessed thoughts out in the open?
Her brain panicked in quick flashes: She knows. She knows I wanted to eat it. She knows I’m insane. Oh my gosh, she’s probably going to tell the whole village the goddess likes to drink hair cream.
Her heart thudded once, twice—until another, far more reasonable voice in her head sighed.
"Dummy, she also has a nose to smell and a brain to think."
Isabella exhaled so hard she almost deflated into the bathwater. Right. The woman had a nose. She could smell too. Not everything was about her weird cravings. Not everyone here was a secret mind reader waiting to laugh at her private thoughts.
Only then did Isabella finally relax.
Looking at the woman who stared at her with that expectant gaze, all Isabella could do was nod.
It was such a small thing, a simple nod, but the way the woman’s face lit up in response made Isabella’s chest ache. The woman laughed lightly, the sound soft and warm, like the laugh of a mother who had just caught her child sneaking food from the cooking pot and couldn’t find it in herself to scold.
"That is why we know," the woman said gently, her voice rich with certainty, "that when we use it for our daughters, their lives will always be filled with sweetness."
Isabella stilled.
Her hands froze halfway through smoothing cream into her hair, and for a moment the smile she had been holding cracked.
Her lips parted before she even realized it. The words slipped out unguarded.
"But... I am not your daughter, ma."
The sentence hung in the air heavier than she intended. She hadn’t meant it to sound so lonely, so fragile, but her voice trembled at the edges. She turned slowly to look at the woman, expecting maybe anger, maybe confusion.
But what she saw instead was a warm smile.
The kind of smile that said: Silly child, don’t you know already?
Before the first woman could reply, one of the older women who had been rubbing the cream into Isabella’s hair spoke instead.
"And so what, dear?"
Her tone was playful, but there was a firmness beneath it. It was half a scolding, the kind you gave a child who had just said something unthinkable. But her eyes were too soft, her hands too gentle, to make the words sharp.
"Do you think simply because we did not birth you ourselves, we cannot consider you our daughter?"
Isabella blinked. Her throat tightened.
Her first instinct was to argue, to explain that no, of course not, she didn’t mean it like that—but her instincts also screamed something else. That the right answer was silence. That the right answer was to accept.
So she shook her head.
And instantly, she knew she had chosen correctly. The moment her head moved, the woman’s smile deepened, becoming something even warmer, even brighter, as though Isabella had just passed some kind of test she hadn’t known she was taking.
"Then why would you ask such a question?" the woman murmured as she continued fixing Isabella’s hair, her fingers gentle but steady.
Isabella didn’t have an answer.
Her chest tightened again, and for once, words failed her.
The first woman picked up the thread of conversation, her head motioning subtly toward the other elder women who were busy bathing and grooming the other young women around Isabella’s age. Their laughter filled the air, soft splashes echoing across the bathhouse.
"We did not birth most of them," she said with quiet pride, "yet we still consider them our daughters. So why should you be any different?"
Her voice trembled with love, as if every syllable carried a piece of her heart.
Isabella’s throat went dry.
The woman kept speaking, her hands steady as she poured water gently over Isabella’s shoulders. "Besides, you have done so much for this small village. Even I know, very soon, we will be the envy of all other villages."
The words washed over Isabella like the water itself, warm and heavy and impossible to ignore. She couldn’t help it—her lips curved, her expression softening despite herself.
She smiled.
She didn’t know why those words touched her so deeply, but they did. They wrapped around her like a blanket, warm and comforting, filling cracks she didn’t even realize had been there.
And just like that, her mind betrayed her.
Her thoughts drifted back. To her past. To a woman whose voice she would never hear again. To a mother she could never touch again.
Her chest squeezed painfully. Memories she had shoved deep down came clawing their way back to the surface—the sound of laughter, the scent of home, the echo of words spoken in love. Words she hadn’t realized she missed until this moment.
Isabella let out a long sigh. Her lips formed a small smile, but it wavered, quivered, and froze before it could become anything more.
Because the second woman chose that exact moment to speak again.
And the words that came out of her mouth nearly killed Isabella on the spot.
"Besides," the woman said casually, like she was commenting on the weather, "we are using more of this cream so you will become really fertile. Then having babies with our King will be extremely easy."
Isabella: "..."
Her brain flatlined.
