Chapter 86: Zerev’s Purpose

Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Zerev’s Purpose

Building the three-story stone house—a small villa—went very smoothly. Tyler and Samo found limestone on the mountain. After a few days of stockpiling, they had accumulated a thousand stones, and Samo began to lead the elderly males in constructing the building.

Ophelia only needed to cook for Samo and Zerev every day, leaving her with plenty of free time. Once she was unoccupied, she decided it was time to put her plan of breeding prey on the agenda.

The first thing to do was to build a pigpen.

Tyler was very handy. He quickly used the leftover materials from building the stone house to construct a simple enclosure.

"Your craftsmanship is pretty good, Tyler," Ophelia said, nodding in satisfaction as she inspected the pigpen.

The pen was tightly enclosed with stones, reaching waist height to prevent the piglets from jumping out. Tyler had even thoughtfully installed a wooden door for easy access. Though not large—only about thirty square meters—it was more than enough to raise a few piglets.

She had previously studied the livestock in her farm space. If raised outside, it would take five months before the piglets were ready for slaughter—that is, ready to eat. This was a far cry from the five days it took inside the farm space. However, she was doing all this for show. As long as she established a reputation for successfully breeding prey, no one would suspect her later on, no matter how much meat she miraculously produced. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The next day, under the pretext of foraging for fresh ingredients, Ophelia followed Tyler up the mountain. By noon, when it was time to cook, the two returned with a pair of pink, tender little piglets. Naturally, Ophelia had bought them from the system shop, explicitly choosing one male and one female.

As soon as the piglets entered the pen, they sniffed around curiously and began to let out uneasy OINKS. The noise quickly attracted the attention of the Fu Clan members, prompting the young females and males to gather around.

Moye and Zerev also walked over. Moye looked at the two chubby little piglets inside with curiosity. "What are these?"

Holding the leftover vegetable leaves she had peeled to feed them, Ophelia replied, "These are piglets."

Moye stroked his chin in confusion. "Where did you get these piglets? How come I’ve never seen any this color before?"

"Tyler and I just caught them on the mountain. We went to a lot of trouble to get them. The color is a bit strange, but tigers can have white fur or yellow fur, so it’s normal for pigs to have this color, right?"

The piglets let out a series of OINKS, as if protesting being used as scapegoats.

"But such small piglets don’t have much meat on them. Why bother catching them? You’d be better off having Tyler catch you a wild boar."

Zerev glanced at the pink piglets and stated mildly, "If you want to eat wild boar, I’ll have one delivered to you tomorrow."

Ophelia waved her hands repeatedly. "No, I didn’t catch them to eat. I’m going to raise them. I’ve always wanted to try breeding prey so the males won’t have to work so hard hunting on the mountain every day. Adult prey is wild and hard to tame, so I figured little piglets might be easier to raise."

It wasn’t that no one in the Beast World had tried to raise prey before, but those animals either injured people or died within a couple of days. Since then, no one had bothered to try again. With that kind of free time, it was better to just hunt a few more animals on the mountain.

"It’s a good idea," Zerev remarked.

Moye cast a sidelong glance at his young master, wondering if he was genuinely praising the little female or being sarcastic.

"Mhm," Ophelia smiled. "You guys go drink some pear tea first. Lunch will be ready soon."

After saying that, she went to check on the stew.

Moye took a sip of the pear tea. "So cool and delicious. It’s really sweet." He wondered where on earth she got so much sugar. It had been three days, and Ophelia was still putting sugar in her pear tea. It was truly a generous display.

Zerev stared at the large pot of pear tea, his eyes darkening with obscure emotions. He walked slowly over to the stone pot. Frowning slightly at the beads of sweat on Ophelia’s forehead, he couldn’t help but pull a white beast skin handkerchief from his pocket to wipe her brow.

"Uh..." Caught off guard by his sudden gesture, Ophelia instinctively shrank back.

"Wipe it. Don’t let your sweat drip into the pot."

Ophelia realized he was a typical privileged young master, even exhibiting germaphobic tendencies. "Thank you."

"I have something to ask you."

Ophelia looked up and nearly bumped into Zerev’s chin. She stumbled backward, but the stone pot was right next to her; a moment of carelessness would result in a bad burn.

"Careful," Zerev warned, his large hand swooping out to pull her into his arms.

Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief, then took two steps back to put some distance between them. "What is it?"

Zerev looked away unnaturally and cleared his throat. "Your mate said you made the sugar in the pear tea yourself. Is that true?"

"Yeah, I made it. Why?"

Even hearing Ophelia’s firm response, Zerev found it somewhat hard to believe. Sugar was strictly forbidden from leaving the Holy Capital, so the people in the lower tribes didn’t even know of its existence. The sole reason he had come to the Ten Thousand Beasts City was because someone was smuggling sugar out of the Holy Capital—and that someone was from his own family. He had been tracking the mastermind behind this, only to trace the smuggled goods as far as the Ten Thousand Beasts City.

His gray eyes deepened as he stared at Ophelia’s slender, pale neck. He could easily snap it with a slight lift of his hand, but he didn’t want to do that.

"This sugar is only found in the Holy Capital. How could you possibly know how to make it?"

Ophelia tucked a stray lock of golden hair behind her ear and smiled lightly. "It’s actually not that difficult. As long as you find sugarcane with a high sugar content, you can make it."

"Would you mind showing me how it’s done?"

"Sugarcane doesn’t grow in the mountains during this season, so I can’t." She always felt that Zerev was a bit mysterious, and she instinctively wanted to keep her secrets hidden from him.

"Do you have any more sugar on you? I can trade you Crystal Stones for it." Seeing Ophelia’s evasiveness, Zerev pressed her step by step, leaving her no room to retreat.

"Well..."

"One Yellow Crystal Stone for a bag of sugar."

A bag was roughly half a kilogram. Ophelia had given Ali a lot of sugar when she left, but there were still about five kilograms left in her storage. Since one Yellow Crystal Stone could be exchanged for forty thousand points, she was rather tempted.

"Alright. I don’t have much left, though. I’ll bring it over tomorrow."

Seeing Ophelia frankly agree after a moment of hesitation, Zerev’s expression visibly softened for some reason. "Okay."

The next day, Moye and Zerev arrived very early, and it was obvious what they were there for. Ophelia didn’t dilly-dally, directly handing him the Beast Skin Bag filled with brown sugar.

Zerev took the bag and immediately opened it to inspect the contents. His brows furrowed slightly at the sight of the brown sugar, which was as fine as sand inside the Beast Skin Bag.

"What’s wrong, young master?" Moye leaned over to take a look.

Zerev pinched a small bit of the brown sugar with his long, slender fingers, examined it closely, and then put it into his mouth to taste. The sugar melted instantly upon contact with the heat of his mouth, completely different from the hard, granular white sugar of the Holy Capital.

"Young master, this isn’t sugar from the Holy Capital!"

"Mm." It seemed they had both guessed wrong. Zerev shot a glance at Moye, who hurriedly took out a Yellow Crystal Stone and handed it to Ophelia.

"Your sugar is quite good."