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Ma Bingjun immediately turned to Shi Wen in surprise. "You're Professor Yan's friend? Then I have to do you a favor."

Shi Wen and Ma Bingjun stared at each other, wide-eyed.

Ma Bingjun was clearly waiting for Shi Wen's answer.

After holding it in for a long while, Shi Wen finally said, "We know each other."

Ma Bingjun burst out laughing and put the cigarette back between his lips. "Why are you so honest? If you'd just nodded and admitted it, I would've sold you these geese."

Shi Wen looked up at him in conflict. But he couldn't lie. Yan Kexing was nearby, and a lie would be so easy to expose.

Gong Jiang laughed beside him. "He really is my advisor's friend. If you don't believe it, ask him next time."

Ma Bingjun clicked his tongue. "Who would dare ask Professor Yan to his face? Fine, since you say so, I'll reluctantly believe you."

Ma Bingjun turned to Shi Wen. "All the geese I can sell have really been reserved. You're local, right? If you're confident, I can give you a batch of freshly hatched goslings that haven't been sorted yet."

Shi Wen agreed at once. "Any geese will do."

With his cigarette between his lips, Ma Bingjun gestured for them to follow. "I'll take you to see the geese. How many do you want?"

Shi Wen said, "Would thirty be okay? It's my first year raising them, so I want to start with fewer."

Ma Bingjun said, "Of course. You aren't raising many, so I'll charge you cost price—eighty yuan each."

A small path behind the farm led to the pasture.

Ma Bingjun led them through several twists and turns before they finally arrived outside a row of poultry sheds.

Even from outside, Shi Wen could smell the distinctive scent of poultry.

They entered one of the sheds. The owner switched on the lights, startling a flock of yellow-gray geese into several uneasy honks.

Shi Wen leaned in for a look and found that the young geese were quite large and looked sturdy, though their coloring was somewhat dull and gray.

Ma Bingjun said, "We bred these from local geese. They're omnivorous. They're still a little small right now, so keep them penned up for two days after taking them home and feed them corn feed. Once they've adjusted to the environment a bit, you can let them out to graze."

Shi Wen nodded quickly. "All right. Thank you, Brother Ma."

Ma Bingjun stepped aside and motioned for him to go over. "Pick them yourself."

Shi Wen entered the goose pen. Looking at the honking geese desperately trying to avoid him, he found himself without any particular idea of how to choose.

After observing them for a while, he picked thirty goslings that were larger and more energetic.

Ma Bingjun packed the geese into a wicker cage for him.

After picking out the geese, they left them temporarily in the back courtyard and went out to eat.

It was Shi Wen's first time tasting local goose meat. It was indeed tender and delicious. Compared with duck, it had less gamey flavor and a hint more natural sweetness.

Even geese boiled in plain water with nothing but salt tasted exceptionally fresh, completely overturning his impression of goose meat.

As Shi Wen ate the goose, he could not help looking forward to the goslings even more.

Once the goslings grew up, they should be delicious too, right?

Chapter 6

After bringing the geese home, Shi Wen kept them temporarily in the livestock shed.

There was no ready-made poultry shed on the ranch. Once the geese grew a little bigger, he would have to build a new one.

The flock adapted well to the livestock shed, while the sheep showed little reaction to them and basically ignored them.

The puppy, on the other hand, was extremely curious about the geese. It constantly stared at them and eagerly wanted to pounce on them.

After two days of training, it could barely restrain its primal urge, though it still watched the geese with bright eyes every day.

That day, after the sun came out, Shi Wen went to the livestock shed to check on the sheep and then let the geese out.

To his surprise, the moment he entered, he saw the puppy staring at the geese without blinking, its eyes gleaming with excitement.

Shi Wen bent down and lightly flicked the puppy on the forehead. "These geese cost one-tenth of your worth. They're expensive, understand? No pouncing."

Whether the puppy understood or not, it turned toward Shi Wen. "Woof!"

Shi Wen gave the puppy a rub and smiled. "You sure bark loudly."

Shi Wen first checked the sheep's feed trough and water trough.

The rapeseed cake mixed with dry grass he had put out the previous night had been eaten clean. The salt block in the salt trough was still there and had not been licked clean, so there was no need to add more.

Quite a bit of rapeseed cake residue and dry grass had fallen into the water trough. He needed to drain it, scrub it clean, and refill it.

As he worked methodically, the puppy ran back and forth around his feet.

The dog was still so small, and the sheep had grown used to it. It darted in and out among them without drawing much reaction, while the sheep instead bleated at Shi Wen.

Perhaps because they had grown a little, the sheep's bleats had become rougher and no longer sounded as soft and adorable as when they had first arrived. Still, they looked plumper than before.

There was nothing wrong with the sheep's condition, and nothing wrong with their droppings either.

Everything had gone smoothly today. He could drive them outside to graze.

Shi Wen opened the main door of the livestock shed, then opened the sheep pen gate.

Led by the lead sheep, the flock slowly headed outside.

Shi Wen made a gesture to the puppy. "Black Kid, front right."

The puppy immediately scampered in circles toward the front right on its four short legs. "Woof woof!"

The sheep stirred, quickening their pace as Shi Wen and the puppy drove them out onto the large pasture, toward grassland that had not been grazed the day before.

Once he made sure the flock had reached the grazing area, Shi Wen called to the puppy, "Black Kid, come here."

The puppy pattered over, tongue hanging out as it sat beside Shi Wen's feet.

Shi Wen took a piece of jerky from his pocket and placed it in his palm for the puppy to eat. "The flock is in your care."

The puppy said, "Woof!"

The ranch's ditches had been cleaned out, and the water flowed very smoothly. One stretch ran through the back courtyard.

With a water source, growing something in the back courtyard should be quite convenient.

Shi Wen had checked before. There were signs of cultivation in the back courtyard, and the dark soil looked very fertile. It had already been well tilled, so after clearing it out again, anything would grow well there.

He wanted to follow the local villagers' example and plant some vegetables in the back courtyard. That way, when he got busy and did not feel like going into town to buy vegetables, he could simply pick some from the back.