Favorite of the Beast-world: I Got Rich Through Farming-Chapter 101 - 96: More Important Than Me?

An Jin recalled, "I think he went to the western foothills of a distant mountain. He said he was going to hunt some beasts."

"...The western foothills?"

Mi Yin repeated it softly, setting down the half-sewn undergarment in his hands. His blade-like vertical pupils sharpened abruptly, his long, curled lashes hiding the dark emotions surging in his eyes.

’Heh, I think I know what that wolf is up to.’

The western side of the Roldi Mountain Range was a forbidden land where large herds of Giant Beasts and packs of Demon Beasts often appeared. It was a killing field that made Beastmen tremble in fear.

He had gone there himself back in the day to rank up and get stronger, killing a few High Rank Giant Beasts and devouring many of their Crystal Cores. It seemed that Wolf Beast wanted to contend with him for the female.

A sense of crisis rose in Mi Yin’s heart.

’If that’s really the case, the Wolf Beast’s strength will have increased by a huge margin when he returns. My position in Jin’er’s heart might be threatened.’

’If the Wolf Beast were to die by accident, it would actually be a stroke of good fortune.’

Mi Yin’s thoughts grew heavy. He was no saint to begin with, always playing his own dark games.

Catching the pleading look in the female’s eyes from the corner of his vision, Mi Yin’s expression shifted slightly. His snake tail gently coiled around her, bringing her into his arms. He lowered his head and kissed her cheek. "I’ll go look for him. Don’t worry, with his strength, he shouldn’t be dead just yet."

Mi Yin then left for several days. When An Jin got bored, she would sit by the window and weave bamboo mats to pass the time, and also to make her own life more comfortable.

To weave a bamboo mat, one first had to select the right bamboo.

The bamboo needed to be pliable, with long sections between the nodes, and free of wormholes.

There was good bamboo stored in the warehouse from before the year’s end. An Jin first soaked it for a few days in a large stone vat filled with water in the corner of the house. Only then could she begin splitting the bamboo and pulling out the thin strips needed for weaving.

...

After the cold, dry Great Cold Season passed, the sun had been strong these past few days. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

The warm sunlight felt comfortable on the skin. The earth was warming up, and the thick layer of snow piled outside the door began to melt.

After the Cold Season came the Windy Season. Just like on Earth, the Beast World had four seasons a year, each lasting three months.

Compared to the hot, dry Hot Season, the torrential Rainy Season, and the harsh, freezing Cold Season, the Windy Season—with its warm breezes and melting snow—seemed much more pleasant.

Aside from the strong winds in the second month, the first and third months were very agreeable. Everything was growing, creating a scene of spring.

The animals in the jungle awoke and became active. The Beastmen also rushed out of their homes, and An Jin could hear a chorus of excited, jubilant roars from outside.

Having been cooped up for three months with few chances to go out, the males formed hunting parties to replenish their nearly-depleted food reserves, while the females gathered fruits and wild vegetables in the nearby mountains and forests.

An Jin assigned the tribe members to various tasks.

The strong and agile Carnivorous Beastmen went hunting. The females gathered wild vegetables and fruits and tended to the chickens. The herbivorous Beastmen went to plant crops. The remaining few who were cleverer and more nimble followed her to learn how to fire pottery in a kiln.

The seedlings the tribe had planted before the year’s end also began to sprout from the soil.

An Jin taught the Beastmen how to make hoes that were better suited for farming and assigned a few acres of land to the herbivorous Beastmen who were skilled at planting.

The silkworm pupae also emerged from their cocoons. Their bodies were covered in a hard black shell, and though they had a pair of transparent wings, they couldn’t fly high.

After becoming adults, they would mate and reproduce at the end of their lives, leaving behind piles of white eggs in the thatched shed, which would hatch into a new generation of silkworms the following year.

An Jin collected the silkworm cocoons, which filled half a room. She planned to wait for the weather to get a bit warmer before drying them, reeling the silk, and weaving cloth.

The Wild Grass Birds started laying eggs again, and many chicks hatched. These chicks ate grass and caught insects every day, growing fast and plump.

The older birds that could no longer lay eggs were roasted and eaten by the tribe’s Beastmen.

Meanwhile, Mi Yin had left the tribe several days ago, but he was in no hurry to go to the distant western foothills.

He turned and slithered to a hidden, cool cave, transformed into a black-and-red python, and coiled his body up. Resting his head on his coils, he closed his red nictitating membranes and became completely still.

He fell asleep.

By the time he woke up, the Cold Season was over.

An Jin waited in the tribe for nearly half a month, but there was still no news of Ling Hong. When Mi Yin finally returned, he slithered back with a lazy, weary look on his face, naturally reaching out to pull her into his arms and carry her inside.

"Wait, where’s Ling Hong? Didn’t you find him?" she asked anxiously, clutching his arm and craning her neck to look behind him, where there was nothing.

Mi Yin didn’t speak. Hearing the disappointment in the female’s voice, his chest filled uncontrollably with displeasure and jealousy, and his pace slowed. "I didn’t find him. Are you very worried about him?"

The man’s voice carried a chill, a hint of his suppressed violent nature leaking out. He lowered his head and kissed her lips, giving them a punitive, neither-too-light-nor-too-heavy bite. After a long moment, he murmured softly, "...If I disappeared, would you worry about me this much too?"

"What?"

His words made no sense to her, and An Jin didn’t immediately detect the sourness in his tone. She looked at him, puzzled. "If you disappeared, of course I’d worry about you too. But right now, it’s Ling Hong who’s missing."

"He’s probably dead."

Mi Yin looked down and caressed the female’s face. Seeing her eyes widen in disbelief, he felt an even greater urge to provoke her and spoke coldly, "That place is filled with hordes of Demon Beasts and Giant Beasts. It would have been useless even if I went."

"A Fifth Rank Beastman would only be torn limb from limb there. That Wolf Beast couldn’t have survived. He overestimated himself."

An Jin lowered her head, pressing her lips together without a word, but the corners of her eyes reddened. She allowed Mi Yin to carry her back into the house, then sat by the window and silently continued weaving with the bamboo as she always did.

’I know I’m a cold-blooded person. No matter how gentle and kind I appear on the outside, my personality is the complete opposite—indifferent.’

’Hearing that Ling Hong was dead... I don’t know if it’s true, but he’s been gone so long, he’s most likely dead.’

’Death for a Beastman in the Beast World is as common as eating or drinking. In the few months since I founded this tribe, three or four Beastmen have already died, yet this is the first time I’ve felt so down and melancholic.’

’I don’t know why. I just think about that Wolf Beast who quietly stayed by my side and took care of me, and how I’ll never see him again, and I can’t help but feel a sting in my nose.’

Mi Yin was affected by her emotions, and a pang of pain radiated from his chest beneath the mate mark. For a moment, he forgot about his jealousy, annoyed at himself for his harsh words. "I’ll go look for him again."

"Didn’t you say he was dead?" she looked at him, her eyes misty with tears.

"There’s another place that’s too far away, I didn’t go there. He might be there." Mi Yin had no intention of admitting that he deliberately hadn’t searched out of jealousy, and that he’d rather the Wolf Beast just die.

The wooden door closed with a heavy thud. Mi Yin leaned dejectedly against the wall and took a deep breath, staring blankly into the distance. His mind, however, kept replaying the image of Jin’er’s eyes turning red because of that Wolf Beast.

An intensely uncomfortable, throbbing pain pulsed in his chest.

’Is that wolf... really so important to Jin’er?’

’Is he even more important than me?’