Xiong Jing was startled by Fan Zhou’s enthusiasm.

Her left paw, which had been raised mid-step, froze in the air.

Her round, black eyes widened in surprise.

The beast-hide pouch in her mouth almost fell to the ground.

Seeing her up close, Fan Zhou was overwhelmed with excitement.

So cute, so cute, so cute, so cute, SO CUTE!

The cutest creature in the universe!

But he had obviously startled her.

Quickly suppressing his excitement, Fan Zhou first glanced at Xiong Jing’s stomach.

The wound had already healed, leaving behind a faint pink scar.

Clearing his throat, he put on a friendly smile and asked:

“Xiong Jing, what brings you here? Did you need something? How’s your recovery?”

Xiong Jing blinked.

Her raised paw finally touched the ground, and she walked around the rock toward him.

When she stood before Fan Zhou, she placed the beast-hide pouch on the ground.

“I’m almost fully recovered. I came to give you a bone knife. Thank you for the Beast Spirit Flower. I can’t hunt yet, but once I’m better, I’ll bring you meat often.”

She was great at hunting.

Fan Zhou’s smile widened.

What a kind little bear—her wound hadn’t even fully healed, yet she was already thinking about repaying him.

“I don’t need a bone knife. You should keep it.”

“You do need it.”

Xiong Jing lifted her paw and pushed the beast-hide pouch toward him.

She had heard that Tu Zhou’s beast form was tiny.

Such a fragile rabbit definitely needed a sharp bone knife!

Her sincere expression made it hard for Fan Zhou to refuse.

So, he opened the pouch.

Inside was a bone knife over 30 centimeters long.

The blade was thin and finely sharpened—it was obviously very sharp.

For the past few days, Fan Zhou had been using water blades made with his abilities to gut fish and cut wood.

But to avoid drawing suspicion, he really did need a proper bone knife.

“If you give this to me, what will you use?” He asked.

Xiong Jing immediately lifted her right paw.

“I’ll use my claws.”

Her claws were powerful.

Fan Zhou had never looked closely at her paws before, but now that he did—

Her claws didn’t look like normal animal claws. Instead, they resembled metal. Indeed, it was very sharp.

“Thank you, Jingjing,” Fan Zhou said with a bright smile, preparing to accept the bone knife.

Jingjing?

Xiong Jing’s round, black eyes widened in surprise.

This was the first time a beastman had ever called her that…

For some reason, she suddenly felt a little shy.

She instinctively turned around to leave. “Then I’ll be going now.”

“Hey, since you’re already here, why don’t you have breakfast with me?”

Fan Zhou quickly called out to stop her.

“No, you eat by yourself.”

Xiong Jing shook her head firmly, looking like a rattling drum.

Tu Zhou had worked hard to gather food—for all she knew, he barely had enough for himself.

“I have Hard Nuts, though.”

Fan Zhou threw out his trump card.

Xiong Jing immediately swallowed hard—Hard Nuts! But every beastman never had enough Hard Nuts—they were too precious.

She couldn’t take his food.

Seeing that Xiong Jing was still walking away, Fan Zhou was a little surprised—she could actually resist the temptation?

“Actually, I need your help with something. I can’t do it alone.”

As soon as he said this, Xiong Jing immediately turned back, her round black eyes fixed on him.

“What do you need help with?”

“It’s about those red stones you found. I got one yesterday, and I want to grind it into powder.”

“Grind it into powder?”

Xiong Jing tilted her head in confusion.

“Yeah, I want to see if I can extract salt from the stone.”

Fan Zhou wasn’t a real beastman so eating bland food every day and licking salty stones was more unbearable than death for him.

He had to make salt!

“You know how to make salt?”

Xiong Jing was shocked.

“No, but I want to try.”

“Then I’ll come over after breakfast.”

Xiong Jing turned and continued walking.

Fan Zhou: “……”

What a kind and sensible little bear.

He walked over and blocked her path—there was no way he was letting her leave without eating!

Xiong Jing had never met a beastman so insistent on feeding her.

However, when she heard Fan Zhou say that once she recovered, she could repay him with meat, she hesitated for a moment before finally giving in.

Yes, she could eat the Hard Nuts now, and once she got better, she would hunt more food for him.

She accepted the Hard Nut from Fan Zhou, sat under a small tree at the entrance of the cave, and used her sharp claws to slice open the tough outer shell.

Then, she held the Hard Nut in her paws and happily started eating.

Hard Nuts were delicious even when raw—crispy and sweet, better than most fruits!

Watching Xiong Jing enjoying her meal up close, Fan Zhou felt his heart overflow with joy.

Seeing her tilt her head back, eyes squinted in bliss, he desperately wished he could gather all the delicacies in the world and let her choose whatever she wanted to eat.

But reality was cruel—he didn’t even have salt…

Salt-making was urgent.

Even though his salt-making knowledge came from wilderness survival videos on the internet, he had to give it a shot.

Fan Zhou took out the remaining Hard Nuts, his stored snow chicken eggs, and some dried meat.

This shocked Xiong Jing.

Snow chickens were incredibly fast and difficult to catch, and their eggs were well hidden in hard-to-find places.

Yet Tu Zhou had an entire wooden basin full of snow chicken eggs!

And not just that—he had two large baskets full of dried meat!

So much food!

How did Tu Zhou manage to gather all this?

But since she wasn’t very close to Fan Zhou yet, she didn’t ask. Instead, she just praised him: “You’re amazing.”

With so much good food in front of her, Xiong Jing had originally planned to only eat one Hard Nut but under Fan Zhou’s enthusiastic urging, she dug into the snow chicken eggs and dried meat as well.

Meanwhile, Fan Zhou had set up a fish trap in the stream next to his cave.

By now, seven or eight fish—each about a foot long—were caught inside.

He was already sick of plain fish, but since Xiong Jing was here, he grilled all of them.

All the pandas he had seen in his previous life were chubby—

But Xiong Jing was too skinny!

Unknowingly, Xiong Jing had eaten until her belly was round.

Feeling embarrassed, she hurriedly urged Fan Zhou to let her get to work.

Work?

Absolutely not.

What if she reopened her wound?

Fan Zhou didn’t take out the stone.

Instead, he led Xiong Jing to the stream.

To make salt, the first problem was filtration.

Based on his observations, all the beastmen in the tribe wore only beast-hide clothing. And based on the original body’s memories of the Xiaotan Tribe, there were no woven fabrics.

Salt-making was urgent—he couldn’t afford to wait until he figured out how to process plant fibers into fabric…

So, he dug a small water pit by the stream and covered it with a large leaf.

Then, he poked small holes in the leaf and poured the sandy water over it.

The water trickled through the holes, leaving the sand trapped on the leaf.

“Jingjing, this is filtration. If we want to extract salt from the stones, we need to filter out the small rock particles first. Do you have anything that can be used as a filter?”

Xiong Jing stared at the leaf, thinking for a few seconds.

Then, she shook her head. “No.”

Fan Zhou sighed.

Alright. He’d have to come up with another solution.

“I saved the fur I shed before. Would that work?”

Xiong Jing noticed Fan Zhou’s disappointed expression and offered another suggestion.

Panda fur?

“Bring it over. Let’s test it.”

Fan Zhou became interested.

Xiong Jing obediently went back to the tribe to fetch her fur.

As soon as she disappeared from sight—

Fan Zhou immediately used his abilities to form a water hammer and began smashing the red stone he had received the night before.

There was no way he was letting Jingjing do such heavy labor.

By the time Xiong Jing returned, carrying a beast-hide pouch in her mouth, Fan Zhou had already ground the red stone into fine powder.

Xiong Jing was stunned.

How did he work so fast?!

She felt guilty—she had offered to do the work, yet Fan Zhou had finished it himself…

“Next, we have to build a fire. It’s really hot today—you’ll have to watch over it. It’ll be tough work.”

Fan Zhou grinned at her.

Hearing this, Xiong Jing finally cheered up again.

“Alright! Let me see if my fur can be used.”

Fan Zhou opened the beast-hide pouch.

But what he saw wasn’t black-and-white panda fur.

Instead—

It was a fluffy, snow-white material that looked like cotton. Fan Zhou’s eyes widened as he quickly grabbed the material, examining it carefully.

“This is the white flower I traded from the Giant Bear Tribe. It’s really soft—I stuffed it into a beast-hide pouch to use as a pillow.”

Xiong Jing explained.

It was very expensive—she had to hunt two Mud Beasts just to trade for this small bundle.

“…Jingjing, you’ve helped me so much!”

After confirming that the “white flower” was almost identical to cotton, Fan Zhou was ecstatic—he just wanted to hug and squeeze Xiong Jing out of pure gratitude.

He had only hoped for some hemp fabric, but Xiong Jing had brought him cotton fiber instead!

Good Jingjing!

“As long as it’s useful.”

Once again, Fan Zhou’s enthusiasm made Xiong Jing feel shy.

She scratched her head with her paw and asked, “What do we do next?”

“Filtration!”

Cotton didn’t need to be woven into fabric to be used as a filter.

If everything went smoothly, he could make salt today!

After half a month of eating bland food, his taste buds were practically dying!

He dissolved the stone powder in a wooden basin filled with water. After it completely dissolved, he used the cotton fibers to filter it the first time. Then, he filtered it a second time using charcoal.

Finally, he placed the purified saltwater over the fire to boil.

The salt wouldn’t be perfect, but compared to the methods of this world, Fan Zhou’s salt-making process was already far ahead.

Xiong Jing was in charge of keeping the fire burning.

She sat by the fire, sweating profusely from the heat.

But when she saw the salt crystals forming on the stone basin, she forgot about the heat entirely—

She immediately scratched off a bit with her paw and put it into her mouth.

A burst of salty flavor spread across her tongue—without any bitterness!

Her round black eyes widened in shock as she looked at Fan Zhou in amazement:

“Tu Zhou, you’re amazing!”

“You’re the amazing one—you discovered these red stones.”

Most beastmen wouldn’t have thought to lick a random red stone, but Xiong Jing had tried it.

And she had even given him cotton, so Jingjing was the real hero here.

Hearing Fan Zhou’s praise, Xiong Jing got shy again.

She grabbed a large leaf and used it as a fan, waving it to cool herself down.

“Jingjing, can you go call the tribe leader? I want to teach the other beastmen how to do this.”

Seeing how overheated she was, Fan Zhou gave her a task to get her away from the fire.

“Okay!”

Xiong Jing had no objections.

This was something the tribe leader needed to know—no beastman would prefer licking stones if they could eat proper salt!

Lang Tian never expected Fan Zhou to not only find Beast Spirit Flowers but also turn salty stones into edible salt.

After his initial shock, he was overjoyed.

“The Beast God has blessed us!”

He had heard that the valley contained a vast amount of red stones.

This meant that their tribe would never run out of salt!

From now on, they won’t need to send a Salt Trading Team ever again!

Lang Tian ran back to the tribe, gathering all the available elderly, weak, sick, and disabled beastmen.

Even though the hunting and gathering teams were still out, there were still enough people in the tribe to start salt production.

By the time the hunting and gathering teams returned in the evening, the tribe already had several pounds of salt, and Lang Tian was eager to send more people to the valley to transport red stones. Even Bao Su was happy—they had salt now!

Que Yu, who had been forced to accept three students the previous night, spent the morning taking the three beastmen out to gather herbs. Of course, this was the official reason, but in reality, his main purpose for going out each day was to search for that man.

After wandering around for the entire day, he still hadn’t seen any trace of that man. He was tired and hungry, just wanting to eat and sleep quickly.

Now that he knew what had happened, he was shocked. Tu Zhou can make salt?

How did he not know that Tu Zhou could make salt?

Moreover, even if Tu Zhou could make salt, that should have happened after reaching the Sacred Mountain. In his past life, beastmen outside the Waterfall Tribe who wanted to ascend to the Sacred Mountain had to learn a craft—such as salt making, pottery, or weaving.

So, if Tu Zhou really could make salt, he must have learned it on the Sacred Mountain with the other beastmen.

…

Could it be that this Tu Zhou was also blessed by the Beast God and he had also experienced rebirth?

How could the Beast God allow that bad rabbit to be reborn?