Chapter 177: Cat Boss is Awesome

Yun Jiao poked the cute little wooden carving. "My good friend."

Yun Chenbei looked at the wooden doll in her hand. Carving human figures was much harder than carving animals. Even for this one, his master had given him a lot of guidance before he managed to finish it.

He had ruined three blocks of wood before making this one.

Yun Chenbei patted her head. "I’ll carve even better ones for Jiaojiao in the future."

Yun Jiao nodded happily, no longer feeling so attached.

’She had her fourth brother, so she could have lots of pretty wooden dolls in the future.’

Mr. Mu was out, so Yun Jiao and Wang Hongfei stayed to keep Yun Chenbei company for a while before they left.

As they were leaving, Big Black seemed like he couldn’t wait to bring the two chubby puppies to Yun Jiao, carrying them in his mouth.

His once majestic, glossy coat was now a mess, and his ears and tail were sopping wet.

There was no need to guess—the two chubby puppies had surely been gnawing on him.

Big Black: ’Next time she brings these pups, I’m running away!’

Yun Jiao let out a gloating laugh.

"Huh? Wasn’t there a cat, too?"

Wang Hongfei didn’t see the cat. He remembered the tabby looking quite formidable.

Speak of the devil—Cat Boss emerged from the bamboo grove.

"Holy shit!"

Wang Hongfei’s eyes went wide as he stared at the cat.

The tabby cat was walking toward them, a huge, fat rat dangling from its mouth.

How big was it?

It looked only a little smaller than the tabby cat itself.

"A bamboo rat! That cat actually caught such a huge bamboo rat!"

Yun Jiao crouched down. Cat Boss strutted proudly over to her with the bamboo rat and dropped the fat rodent right at her feet.

There were traces of blood around his mouth. Yun Jiao felt his belly and could tell the big cat had eaten his fill before bringing his prize home.

"Mraow~"

With an air of authority, the tabby nudged the fat bamboo rat toward Yun Jiao.

Behold, human. Your cat has returned from the hunt.

Yun Jiao scratched the tabby’s chin. "You’re so amazing, Cat Boss."

Having spent some time with him, Yun Jiao knew this cat loved to be praised.

Sure enough, Cat Boss’s tail started flicking back and forth happily.

Wang Hongfei was dumbfounded. "This... The cat brought this for you?"

Yun Jiao nodded. "Yep."

Wang Hongfei said, "We have a cat at home, too! It’s even a little bigger than this tabby, so how come I’ve never seen it go hunting?!"

Of course, their cat was an orange tabby, and the only reason it looked bigger was because it was fat.

This tabby, however, was muscular. You could see the explosive power in his build just from the way he walked.

Yun Jiao said, "Cat Boss is amazing."

Then she added, "Big Black is amazing, too."

’They can both go out hunting and provide for the family.’

Cat Boss brought home prey from time to time, a fact many villagers were aware of, making them all quite envious of the family’s big tabby cat.

On the way home, Wang Hongfei circled the tabby, looking at it from every angle.

"No wonder he’s called Cat Boss. He’s a tomcat, and my fat orange cat at home happens to be female. I’ll bring her over next time and play matchmaker. It’d be even better if they could have excellent kittens like this tabby, who can go out hunting and support the household."

Wang Hongfei was lost in his beautiful fantasy.

When they got home with the bamboo rat, the tabby cat received praise from Granny Yun, who also gave him a few pieces of dried fish.

Cat Boss wasn’t hungry, but he ate a little anyway, which made Granny Yun even happier.

"Grandma, I’m going to find Mom."

Bored with staying at home, she put on her little pale-yellow rain boots, grabbed her beachcombing tools, and prepared to head out.

The weather was turning cooler, so she was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants. She couldn’t wear sandals anymore, either.

Wang Hongfei also grabbed a bucket and followed her. "Jiaojiao, Cousin-Uncle will go with you."

’Heh... He’d never been beachcombing before.’

Yun Jiao skillfully opened the coop door. With a few clucking calls, the chickens, ducks, and geese that often went out with her waddled out in a neat line.

Then, one by one, they started following behind Yun Jiao.

Watching from behind, Wang Hongfei was amazed.

"Jiaojiao, did you raise all these chickens, ducks, and geese yourself?"

Yun Jiao nodded. "Yep."

The chickens, ducks, and geese had all finished molting now.

The differences in their sizes were now apparent.

The geese were the largest and also the most domineering.

Among the five geese, there were two ganders and three females.

The ducks were all female. Grandma had praised her for choosing well, saying that their eggs could be sold as specialty sea-duck eggs later on.

There were more chickens: out of ten, four were roosters and the rest were hens.

Following Yun Jiao around, they ate either seafood or insects like grasshoppers. They also had vegetable leaves or grass to eat every day. With a protein-rich diet balancing "meat" and vegetables, they grew very big.

Perhaps she had a knack for raising poultry. To this day, not a single one of the chickens, ducks, or geese she was raising had died. They were all lively and had grown bigger than birds from other households.

"Why are you carrying a basketball?"

Yun Jiao replied, "To see if the killer whales will come today."

Their arms had been sore and exhausted from their last trip out to sea, so they hadn’t gone out for the past few days. Her dad and the others went to do farm work instead.

Yun Jiao, meanwhile, took the opportunity while beachcombing to bring the basketball and go play with the killer whales.

She just went to the nearby waters.

She had been playing with them for several days now.

"Killer whales?! You mean the really big kind?"

Wang Hongfei wasn’t from the village, after all, so he was out of the loop on a lot of things.

He just felt like everything Yun Jiao said was completely baffling.

Yun Jiao walked along the coast to the tidal flats. She didn’t see any killer whales, so she decided to start beachcombing first.

Whenever they came across little shrimp or fish by the shore, the chickens, ducks, and geese following her would stretch out their necks and gobble them up with a single peck.

Yun Jiao found a spot and stopped, then tapped her bucket with a small stick.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK...

Hearing the sound, the chickens, ducks, and geese that had been trailing her scattered to find their own food.

’The kids are all grown up,’ she thought. ’They don’t need their ’mom,’ Yun Jiao, to help them find food anymore.’

The chickens’ claws were skilled at digging things up from the ground; as long as it was edible, they’d peck it up.

Eating it mixed with sand was no problem for them at all.

The ducks and the big white geese preferred to eat things like snails and clams. Their flat beaks were surprisingly strong, able to crush the shells of more fragile snails and clams to eat the meat inside.

For the harder ones, they were smart enough to pick them up in their beaks and smash them against rocks.

In short, Yun Jiao didn’t need to worry about them.

Even the two puppies knew how to find things on the tidal flats now.

Their sense of smell was sharp. Even if they couldn’t find things by looking for air holes like people did, they would press their little black noses to the sand and sniff around. Whenever they found something, their paws would start digging joyfully.

They couldn’t catch anything that moved fast, but they had a perfect track record with slower creatures like Cat Eye Snails and clams.

Then they would come trotting happily over to Yun Jiao with their prize in their mouths.

This style of beachcombing was completely unheard of. At least, Wang Hongfei had never seen anyone else do it like this.

For a moment, he could only stare, dumbfounded.

"Seriously, have your dogs become little spirits or something?"

They’re still so young, yet they already know how to help find things.

Yun Jiao was crouching by a tide pool near a reef, having spotted something in a crevice underneath it.

"Not at all. It took me a long time to teach them."

’It was really hard work, too!’