Chapter 57: Have You Ever Seen the Streets of Xiabei in Winter?

"Ying-ying-ying—"

Ansheng savagely tore into an ostrich leg, took a mouthful of meat, and then turned his head to bite the straw and gulp down an iced cola.

Ansheng had not yet experienced the lifestyle of eating meat and drinking fine wine by the large bowl, but he was getting an early taste of eating meat in large chunks and washing it down with carbonated drinks to aid digestion and cut through the greasiness.

That thirteen-pound fox had brazenly devoured three pounds of meat, a five-hundred-milliliter bottle of cola, and half a chicken.

"Ying-ying-ying..."

Ansheng let out a burp, looked at Chen Zhiyu, nodded with a satisfied expression, and gave a thumbs-up.

Little Chen! You are magnanimous, and I am loyal too!

As for that crocodile, don't you worry. I'll go scout out the location tonight. When the time comes, we four can divide up the skin of that seven-meter crocodile. Those who want car seat covers made of leather will get them, and those who want custom belts will get them.

Just now, Yu Xueqing had been chatting idly with Chen Zhiyu, and Ansheng had actually been cocking his little gossiping ears to eavesdrop the whole time.

Piecing together the scattered bits of information along with the notes on his wish list, it wasn't hard for Ansheng to deduce a piece of intelligence.

Chen Zhiyu held a position of no small importance in the Changping Mountain Chen clan.

The Changping Mountain Chen clan used to run breeding operations across the entire village. Although they had now transitioned to pet breeding and pet supplies, the foundation of the Changping Mountain Chen clan remained animal husbandry.

The admission tickets to the Changping Mountain Pet Paradise were not where the profit lay; the main purpose was to build goodwill with the locals, which explained why entry came with complimentary snacks and pet grooming.

As long as they didn't operate at a loss, the primary goal was simply to cultivate a customer base so that local residents would come to Changping Mountain whenever they wanted to keep pets in the future.

However, the crocodile lurking in the river posed not only a threat to the safety of the pet paradise, but also a hazard to the foundational breeding operations of the Changping Mountain Chen clan.

The river was an important water source, and the Chen clan's husbandry was not about raising pigs, but rather cultivating so-called game.

That meant crossbreeding wild animals with poultry and selling the second- and third-generation offspring at high prices.

Through crossbreeding and free-range cultivation, they could bypass legal risks while replicating the fresh and sweet taste of rare mountain delicacies.

Until the crocodile crisis was eliminated, Chen Zhiyu would have to keep pouring money into extra security measures, and there was even the potential for casualties and injuries...

Moreover, Ansheng now strongly suspected that the so-called crocodile in the river was very likely just like the non-mainstream wild boar he had encountered at Lean Dog Ravine.

The wish list stated it very clearly.

With the progress of the lucid waters and lush mountains project, the entire Xia Country had eliminated most pollution, returned cultivated land to forests, and some creatures that had faded from human view were quietly reviving.

That crocodile in Chen Zhiyu's words was extremely likely to be some kind of long-extinct prehistoric little monster.

Just like the mammoth wild boar of Lean Dog Ravine.

If it really turned out like the wild boar of Lean Dog Ravine...

Ansheng felt he should be able to soar. Gaining wish power points from encountering those prehistoric behemoths was completely different from the stingy +1+1+1s of the past!

The Lean Dog Ravine wild boar had directly granted +3 wish power, almost making the little fox flip over with joy.

Besides.

Chen Zhiyu had treated him to a grand feast—though Ansheng would have been happy to do good deeds for wish power points even without the treat.

***

Chen Zhiyu's hospitality left Ansheng extremely satisfied. He felt exceptionally refreshed, imbued with the pleasant sensation of being hosted.

"Ying-ying-ying..."

Sitting on Chen Zhiyu's lap, Ansheng looked with considerable curiosity at the torn professional skirt, extended a paw, and scratched the black silk stockings on her thigh. Sure enough, the silk laddered.

Chen Zhiyu didn't mind that at all. She just chuckled heartily as she stroked the fox's back, feeling the fluffiness of the albino-red fur and enjoying the little red fox's "making biscuits" kneading motion.

As a third-generation hunter from her family, Chen Zhiyu could tell Ansheng's origins at a glance.

Yu Xueqing's fox was an albino red fox.

Snow fox ears were never this sharp and pointy. Because they lived in cold weather, snow fox ears, though pointed, appeared noticeably thicker and rounder compared to red foxes.

A snow fox's ears and thick fur were designed primarily for warmth.

Yu Xueqing's fox had extremely pointed ears with a small tuft of hair at the tips, and the ear leather was thin, offering no advantage in terms of warmth retention. It was definitely not a snow fox breed.

At a single glance, Chen Zhiyu knew Ansheng most likely belonged to the North American red fox variety!

As for... North Xia or South Xia red foxes, Chen Zhiyu hadn't even considered that direction.

Since legally raisable North American red foxes were available, why bother with illegal ones?

Although the two were different, the variance wasn't huge.

Their biggest difference was...

Xia Country red foxes could be raised like pigs, with the current record holder reaching over forty pounds.

North American red foxes averaged around twelve to thirteen pounds per fox.

***

After lunch, Chen Zhiyu led Yu Xueqing to the breeding area on the third floor.

The small animals cultivated on the third floor were basically giant lizards, geckos, and some tropical fish.

Yu Xueqing even spotted a few tortoises.

However, Chen Zhiyu explained that although tortoises were currently showing signs of being deregulated for ownership, individuals were not recommended to keep them for mere amusement. The pet paradise held the proper licenses, which was why they were able to breed tortoises here.

You could just think of those few tortoises as the department heads of the third floor's tropical pet section, not for sale to the outside world.

"Humph?"

The leisurely crawling tortoise suddenly felt a weight sink onto its back. It raised its head, looked at the fox sitting atop its shell, let out a snort, and without paying much attention, continued crawling forward.

That was because the tortoise understood that the fellow on its shell belonged to a scoundrel it could do nothing about, and besides, there was fresh watermelon waiting ahead, so there was no need to bother with him.

Aside from inspecting the tortoise department head, Chen Zhiyu also took Yu Xueqing to see two types of lizards.

One was the blue-tongued skink, priced anywhere from eight thousand to twenty thousand.

A plump, chubby skink was working hard to quickly move its four limbs across the ground, but upon closer inspection, the blue-tongued skink was actually slower than the tortoise carrying the scoundrel.

The blue-tongued skink held its breath and crawled, but ultimately let out a helpless sigh and went sprawling, refusing to move another inch.

The entire lizard looked exceptionally naive and endearing.

The other lizard was called the shingleback skink, possessing a temperament basically identical to the blue-tongued skink.

Though armored in soft scales and looking fiercely imposing, it shared the same goofy nature as the blue-tongued skink—slipping on the floor when trying to crawl and turning into a little slacker giving up on life.

Chen Zhiyu placed a dozen blue-tongued skinks and eight shingleback skinks together, tossing food right into the middle.

"Look! The current state of streets in the North Xia region during winter!"

Chen Zhiyu pointed at the twenty-odd lizards crawling frantically for food while remaining completely stationary, spinning their wheels in place, and made a solemn pledge to Yu Xueqing.

"Pfft... hahaha!" Yu Xueqing instantly burst into laughter, her favorable impression of Chen Zhiyu soaring, especially given how articulately she explained the little pets.

Though Yu Xueqing could hear that those chubby lizards were cursing quite colorfully, to be fair.

However, Yu Xueqing stopped laughing the moment she learned the price of the shingleback skink.

While the shingleback skink and the blue-tongued skink didn't have much of a superior-inferior relationship biologically, in the market, the shingleback skink was always considered an upgraded variety of the blue-tongued skink.

The reason was very simple.

Shinglebacks started at thirty to fifty thousand.

Compared to the shingleback's price tag, the blue-tongued skink's eight to twenty thousand looked downright reasonable.

The twenty-odd lizards Chen Zhiyu had just scooped up were already worth a luxury car.

Of course, the true value was certainly more than that, because the ones on the third floor were all breeding males, and their appearance and grade were absolutely top-tier.

A single breeding male easily commanded hundreds of thousands.

After listening to the introduction, Yu Xueqing subconsciously looked down at the fox in her arms. The little fox seemed to sense it, turned its head, and after locking gazes with Yu Xueqing for a moment.

Human and fox fell into a brief silence.

Then, a round fox-paw print appeared on Yu Xueqing's cheek.

"Stinky little An is too much! I was just thinking about it, and you bad fox actually pinched my cheek..."

Ah Qing, there are some things you don't understand. Trust me, the mere thought of those things will make your cheeks hurt.

Sitting in the car, ready to head home, Ansheng let out a series of grunts with a face dark as ink.

I'm counting on you to bring us wealth, not for me to personally go to a luxury KTV and work hard to achieve common prosperity.

What the hell kind of top-tier shingleback skink is worth ten thousand per mating session?

Just you wait, both you and Chen Zhiyu stand straight later, and I'll slap each of you once.

What does the high breeding value of shingleback skinks have to do with a fox!