The Bigshot Married Himself to the Heiress-Chapter 601 - 642: Doing Business with Sixth Master
"What’s wrong with the swallows building nests?"
"Do you eat bird’s nest?"
Adrian Desmond looked disgusted. "Swallow’s saliva? I wouldn’t eat that stuff; it’s bizarre."
"Bird’s nest is actually good stuff. Sixth Master really doesn’t know what’s valuable."
"Does anyone usually go to that island?"
"No! This island, and the fifty nautical miles surrounding it, are all my territory. Without my permission, no one is allowed in! If anyone intrudes and doesn’t listen after a warning, I have the right to kill them!"
"Adrian, take me there!" Sienna Johnson said excitedly.
"If you want to see the swallows, I’ll take you tomorrow." Just swallows, what’s so interesting about that? Adrian thought disdainfully.
"No! I want to go now!"
"Adrian, are you going? Take me there. I’ll just take a quick look and be back soon. And look, that island isn’t far from here." Her eyes shone as she looked at him. Seeing he still hadn’t agreed, she shook his arm and said softly, "Adrian, I want to go, and I must go now, or else I won’t be able to sleep tonight."
"What’s so interesting about a bunch of swallows?" He couldn’t understand.
"Who said I was going to see the swallows? I’m going to find bird’s nests."
"If you want to eat bird’s nest, I’ll buy it for you. There’s no need to go to the island and pick it yourself. It’s so much trouble."
Sienna Johnson said excitedly, "I’m not going to eat it myself. Look, there must be so many bird’s nests on that Swallow Island. You know how expensive bird’s nests are now, right? If the bird’s nests on that island are processed and transported back to Sileria City, do you know how much money they would sell for?"
Adrian frowned. "Mrs. Desmond, are you short of money?"
"Who ever has too much money?"
"Let’s go take a look!"
Adrian licked his teeth and looked at Sienna, who was walking away. He followed her. "Slow down."
"You hurry up, you’re so slow."
Adrian was speechless.
They took a speedboat toward Swallow Island. There were indeed many swallows on the island, flying over their heads.
When they arrived at Swallow Island, it was the time for swallows to return to their nests. Their sheer numbers were like a dark cloud obscuring the sky.
"Adrian, they’re swiftlets!" Sienna exclaimed, her face lighting up with surprise and delight once she confirmed it.
The swiftlet is a small, agile bird found in Naminua, Southeast Agaia, and the Amwan Archipelago, living in colonies.
A bird’s nest is a nest built by the swiftlet using saliva to bind feathers and other materials for themselves and their offspring.
"Hmm," Adrian replied, his interest clearly waning.
Sienna looked at Swallow Island as if it were a gold mine. "There are so many swiftlets; the number of bird’s nests must be considerable."
Only the swiftlets in the Southeast Agaia region can produce bird’s nests; ordinary ones, like the swallows in the north of Orienta, cannot make them.
Swiftlets mainly eat small insects, and they go out early and return late to forage. In the morning, swiftlets like to search for insects in forests; in the afternoon, they prefer to catch small insects near rivers. Before returning home at night, they will go to the forest again to find food, rolling it into small balls to feed their baby swiftlets. The sight of the sky full of swiftlets returning home, their bellies full, their CHIRPING echoing all around, was the most spectacular of all.
Sienna could hear the calls of the swiftlets all around her.
"Why haven’t I discovered this Swallow Island before?"
"At that time, you were completely focused on escaping. How would you have had the mood to admire swiftlets?"
"That’s true," Sienna conceded. "It seems Sixth Master’s Unnamed Island really has a lot of treasures. This time I have to take a good, careful look around."
Rather than calling this an island, it was more like a reef. There was almost no flat land; no wonder Adrian said this island had no use at all.
However, this reef-covered island happened to be a perfect place for swiftlets to nest. Sienna looked up at the cliff, over a hundred meters high, and it was covered in swiftlets, a dark mass.
"Slow down!"
It wasn’t easy to walk on the island, and Sienna almost stumbled. Seeing this, Adrian swiftly picked her up. Sienna knew that a fall, given her physical condition, would be disastrous.
"Adrian, which way?" she directed him from his back.
They stood at the foot of the cliff. Sienna looked up and, sure enough, saw the bird’s nests. Swiftlets do not reuse old nests, so those dark-colored ones were abandoned. The brighter and whiter the nest’s color, the newer it was. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
I once met a bird’s nest supplier from Amwan, Sienna quickly calculated in her heart. He said that Amwan swiftlets build nests three times a year. The first time is in spring, when the bird’s nest has more feathers and impurities, so it is called a ’feather nest.’ After the nest picker removes the swiftlet’s first nest, the swiftlet will build a second nest to incubate its eggs. This second nest is of the best quality—white, transparent, and thick-walled—known as the ’White Bird’s Nest.’ When the picker removes the nest again, the swiftlet is forced to build a third time. This third nest is called ’bird’s nest feet,’ which is the swiftlet’s final attempt to incubate, made when they are already exhausted, and it’s of the poorest quality. If I arrange for workers to pick ’feather nests’ now, I could still get ’White Bird’s Nests’...
"Sixth Master, I want to buy the harvesting rights for the bird’s nests on your island. Name your price." Sienna was a person of action. When she saw a business opportunity, she made a decision immediately.
However, her decision nearly made Adrian’s jaw drop.
What did she just say? he thought, stunned. She wants to buy the harvesting rights for the bird’s nests on this island?
"Huh? You’re not willing?" Sienna asked curiously when he didn’t answer for a long moment.
"Didn’t you just say that this Swallow Island is useless? It’s just sitting idle anyway, so it’s better to sell the bird’s nests on the island to me. Don’t worry, I won’t buy the island; I only want the bird’s nests."
"Not for sale!"
"Why?"
"With so many bird’s nests on Swallow Island, you’ll definitely need to hire people to pick them. Then my Unnamed Island would be exposed. I can’t let the outside world know about this island!"
Sienna knew some of Adrian’s businesses were shady. If she wanted to develop Swallow Island, she would indeed need to hire people. This presented a difficult problem to solve.
Sienna gazed at the bird’s nests on the reef, lamenting, "All that money, just sitting there... It’s such a waste not to earn it! Besides, the domestic demand for bird’s nests is huge, and it’s hard to find top-quality ones even if you have the money."
"Mrs. Desmond, if you need money, you can ask me for it!"
Look at her, so fixated on money, Adrian thought. If anyone else saw this, who knows what they’d think. Outsiders might even assume he, Adrian Desmond, was going bankrupt, seeing his wife so desperate for cash.
"Spending other people’s money isn’t as joyful as earning it yourself."
"Adrian, help me pick a few bird’s nests. We’ll eat them when we go back."
"Okay."
