HLM – Chapter 210 The Commander Displays His Might

After listening to Geer’s introduction to the Golden Aquitaine cattle, Wang Bo was deeply tempted. He also wanted to get a batch of such high-end cattle to raise on his ranch. With the “Heart of the Ranch” and these premium cows, the results would be phenomenal.

Unfortunately, the French guarded their cattle as tightly as they did fire. Trying to take them through official channels was extremely difficult.

After lunch, Wang Bo shook hands with Geer and said goodbye. He invited Geer to visit his castle sometime and taste the beef and lamb from his own ranch—he believed it wasn’t far off from the Golden Aquitaine.

On the return journey, dozens of large trailers full of cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other livestock raced northwest. As they passed through the town of Omarama, they attracted many onlookers.

With Highway 8 available, transportation was easy. When the trailers arrived at Sunset Town, Wang Bo had the Beebe brothers and other cowboys come out to direct and lead the newly purchased animals into the ranch.

Seeing truck after truck of livestock, Hani exclaimed in shock, “Oh my god, weren’t you just going to buy alpacas? Why did you get so many cattle and sheep? Shit—what’s up with these chickens? Are their claws deformed?”

“You’re ignorant. These are Dong Tao chickens—each one costs fifteen or sixteen hundred bucks!”

“Oh, shit. We need to start training the Ronavis right away. The Queen and Zhuang Ding have to stay on the ranch too. If any of these animals get stolen, we’re screwed,” Ian quickly added.

The other cowboys nodded wildly. They finally had a proper excuse to keep the Queen and Zhuang Ding—the two dogs—by their side.

Wang Bo agreed. Indeed, he had spent a total of 650,000 yuan at the auction this time, and transportation had cost another 60,000—well over 700,000 yuan. It was a major investment.

That evening, the Queen and her cubs stayed in the ranch apartment. Zhuang Ding tried to sneak back to the castle at night, but after a scolding from Wang Bo, it trudged back to the ranch, ignoring everyone who called to it.

The sudden change in environment terrified the alpacas. They huddled together and bolted at the slightest disturbance—running from the east of the ranch to the west, then from the south to the north, eventually settling by the northern Twin Lakes.

Wang Bo was amazed by their speed and exclaimed, “Damn, no wonder in our country they’re called ‘grass mud horses’—they really run like horses!”

Bowen nodded. “Of course. The native South American Indians originally domesticated alpacas as mounts. Don’t be fooled by their small size—they’re stronger than they look. But still, why call them ‘horses’?”

That was a bit hard to explain. Wang Bo and the cowboys went over to calm the alpacas. But these long-haired beasts, finding themselves cornered by the lake, decided to go all out. They stretched their necks and spat out a bunch of sticky, digestive-looking goo.

Wang Bo reacted quickly and dodged, but a few slower cowboys got sprayed all over. The stench was like cow dung—awful.

“F**k! I just changed into my work clothes!” Ian cursed furiously.

Wang Bo, however, was intrigued. “Did you notice? That stuff didn’t come from their mouths.”

Bowen shrugged. “Of course. What comes from the mouth is just spit. What you saw came from their nostrils—it’s not snot though, it’s regurgitated stomach content.”

Wang Bo thought that was even more disgusting than snot.

After releasing the livestock into the ranch, Wang Bo returned to the castle with peace of mind. The cowboys advised him not to buy animals during winter again—changing environments in this season often leads to mass deaths.

Wang Bo understood this. So did other ranchers. That’s why cattle and sheep were cheapest in winter. If he’d bought this many livestock in summer, it wouldn’t have cost just 600,000+—at least 10% more.

For New Zealand’s South Island, August was the tail end of winter. The seasons weren’t sharply defined here—generally, June to August was considered winter, and September marked the beginning of spring.

The next morning, Wang Bo got up for a jog. He snapped his fingers, and Little Wang came bounding over, blinking its big, shiny eyes cutely and licking its tongue nonstop.

“Hungry again?” Wang Bo asked helplessly.

Ligers probably had one of the biggest appetites in the animal kingdom. They lacked growth-inhibiting genes and could grow even larger than lions and tigers, meaning they needed to eat more.

Little Wang wasn’t even half a year old yet and already weighed about 100 kilograms. Since arriving at the castle a month and a half ago, it had more than doubled in size—about the size of an adult lioness.

Wang Bo went to the kitchen, grabbed a lamb leg, thawed it briefly, then boiled it to medium doneness before chopping it up and tossing it to Little Wang.

Though ligers could eat raw meat, Wang Bo never gave it any. He always fed it semi-cooked meat, worried that too much blood and raw flesh would make it overly aggressive.

Little Wang found semi-cooked meat tastier and easier to digest. It lay down and devoured the entire leg with snorts and chomps.

Little Bartier, now awake, was lying by the door watching. “Wang, my dad is coming back soon. Can you tell him I want to raise a liger too?”

Wang Bo replied, “You’re still too young to take care of such a big creature. Look at Little Wang—he eats five kilograms of meat in one meal. And that’s while he’s still small. When he grows up, he’ll eat twenty kilos per meal. Are you sure you can handle that?”

Little Bartier shook his head in disappointment.

Once Little Wang finished eating, Wang Bo tucked him into Bartier’s arms and let the two play together while he went for a jog.

As soon as Wang Bo stepped outside, something dropped onto his shoulder from the sky. He instinctively reached up and smeared it—warm, squishy, and stinky.

Bird poop!

“F**k! Commander!”

He looked up and shouted, only to find he’d wrongly accused the Commander—the little parrot hadn’t done it. The culprit was a snow pigeon, one of the many that had settled in his castle.

Hearing the commotion, the Commander flapped out sleepily from inside, still half-asleep: “Ah, your mom’s blown up! Ah, I was sleeping! Ah, what now?!”

Wang Bo pointed at the chattering snow pigeons in the trees and yelled, “Go! Get rid of them! Look at all the poop they’ve dropped!”

Upon hearing the command, the Commander perked up. Unlike normal parrots, it was aggressive by nature. Now hyped up, it shot into the air.

There are different kinds of snow pigeons—Asian ones grow fairly large, while Australian ones are smaller, barely bigger than sparrows.

Well-fed and well-raised at the castle, the one-year-old Commander was over thirty centimeters long—about the size of a small hen. It had a clear size advantage over the snow pigeons.

It flew menacingly into the trees and immediately pecked a brooding snow pigeon with its hooked beak.

The little snow pigeon was no match. After getting pecked nearly to death, it fled in terror.

The Commander was on a rampage, flying from branch to branch, attacking snow pigeons wherever it found them, leaving chaos in its wake.

Having driven off the pigeons, it proudly stood beside a bird’s nest and tidied its feathers with its beak before shouting at Wang Bo, “Ah, Commander is awesome! Ah, awesome!”

Wang Bo gave it a thumbs-up in praise. Just as the Commander was ready to keep going, something unexpected happened…