In truth, Little Monkey had deliberately held back when it struck earlier. It just wasn't certain whether the Black Rat King was actually dead.

It immediately went to check the E-rank Giant Rats and discovered, to its surprise, that six of them still clung to faint traces of life!

Little Monkey's excitement surged. It thought, "Squeak squeak... when Master wakes up and sees what I've accomplished, he'll definitely reward me!"

Song Xiaodao was equally thrilled. "This is great! When Zhao Yin wakes up, he'll definitely reward us!"

Little Monkey froze.

What did any of this have to do with her?

It had caught all the rats by itself.

That girl only knew how to cry. Why should she get a reward?

"Bring them back! When Zhao Yin wakes up, we'll contract them all as Contract Beasts!" Song Xiaodao declared.

Little Monkey immediately hoisted the Black Rat King onto its shoulder and strode toward the Invisibility Tent.

Song Xiaodao tied the tails of the six Giant Rats together with vines and had Old Bull drag them toward the tent.

Before long, the Black Rat King and all six Giant Rats had been brought outside the tent.

Song Xiaodao fetched a bucket, collected rainwater, and washed all seven rats clean. Then she and the two beasts stood guard.

Whenever a rat's life force weakened, they immediately fed it a few Chestnut Leaves.

Whenever its life force grew too strong, Little Monkey stepped forward and cracked it over the head with its club.

...

Zhao Yin dreamed.

A long, long dream.

In the dream, his parents had come back. Every day, he ate the hot meals his mother cooked. Every night, he heard his father say goodnight.

So it turned out he could be like those other people after all-enjoying his parents' love. When he was cold, someone nagged him to put on more clothes. When he was lonely, someone set aside work to keep him company.

He was no longer alone.

No longer forced to cut ties, one by one, with relatives who coveted the family's wealth-including his own grandparents.

No longer the child who, from fifteen onward, had no one to guide him.

No longer the boy who, starved of love and drowning in loneliness, gradually let himself go-becoming wild, reckless, the playboy everyone whispered about.

No longer the man who drifted through nightclubs every evening, waking at dawn beside a different stranger, never learning any of their names.

Zhao Yin dreamed he was twenty-two, and the apocalypse had never come.

He married the woman named Su Huan. After the wedding, she bore him a son and a daughter.

He dreamed of middle age. A successful career. A well-known entrepreneur in Guangzhou City. Like most successful men, he kept three female secretaries in his office: Jiang Xin'er, Ning Yue, and Song Xiaodao.

He had once bought a monkey from the zoo and a water buffalo from the slaughterhouse.

Those two animals were Boss Zhao's most beloved pets...

...

"Hehe... hehe...!"

Three hours later, Zhao Yin finally woke, still chuckling like an idiot.

He opened his eyes to the familiar azure ceiling. Confusion flickered across his gaze.

Pain throbbed at the back of his skull.

So it had only been a dream.

Zhao Yin smiled bitterly. In an instant, he accepted reality and sat up.

He vaguely recalled what had happened after the Glutinous Rice Wine's side effects kicked in. He looked down. The scars on his chest still hadn't fully faded.

He hadn't died.

The ones who saved him had to be the monkey and Song Xiaodao.

Zhao Yin stepped out of the tent.

Old Bull stood in the torrential rain. Song Xiaodao and Little Monkey crouched beneath its belly, using the massive body to shield themselves from the wind and downpour.

A row of Giant Rats lay motionless nearby.

Squeak squeak...

Little Monkey was the sharpest. It spotted Zhao Yin instantly and bounded over. "Master! Master, you're finally awake!"

"Zhao Yin... waaah...!"

Song Xiaodao crawled out from under Old Bull and threw herself into his arms.

"You idiot! Why did you do this to yourself? Do you have any idea how scared I was?" She pounded his chest with her small fists-maybe just wanting to act spoiled, maybe only now feeling the terror that came after.

Zhao Yin held her. "Why didn't you go inside to get out of the rain?"

Song Xiaodao looked up at him, startled by how normal he sounded.

"Master, these rats-they're still alive! I caught them!" Little Monkey's voice rang in Zhao Yin's mind as it pointed at the seven rats.

Song Xiaodao released him, pushed the wet hair from her forehead, and wiped the tears from her face.

"I was worried something might go wrong, so I didn't bring the rats into the tent. Little Monkey, Niu Niu, and I stayed out here to guard them."

Only then did Zhao Yin survey the area.

Rat corpses everywhere.

Among them lay six E-rank Giant Rats and the White Rat King.

And Little Monkey-it had only one arm left.

Zhao Yin reached out and stroked its head. "Next time I get a Healing Potion, I'll fix you up."

Little Monkey bounced around him, shamelessly flattering. "Master will definitely get a Healing Potion! Master is the strongest!"

Zhao Yin's gaze shifted to Old Bull. Its eyes and horn had fully recovered.

His D-rank potion was gone.

But he said nothing. This bull surviving mattered more than any potion.

He walked to the Black Rat King, crouched slowly, and pressed his hand against its skull.

He activated the contract.

After a moment, he sensed the Black Rat King's faint life force within his mind.

Contract successful.

This Rat King possessed the Earth Tunnelling ability. Its combat strength couldn't compare to the dead White Rat King, but it could keep Zhao Yin alive far longer.

To Zhao Yin, the Black Rat King's value might even exceed the White Rat King's. If it hadn't been so fixated on the White Rat King's fate during the battle, a hundred Little Monkeys couldn't have caught it.

Next, Zhao Yin intended to treat the Black Rat King's wounds. He reached for his ring-and found only empty fingers.

"Zhao Yin, here's your Spatial Ring!"

Song Xiaodao slipped the ring off her hand and passed it over. "Earlier, when you were unconscious, Little Monkey and the others were hurt so badly, I had to-"

Zhao Yin waved her off. "You did well. When I get another Spatial Ring, it's yours."

Song Xiaodao immediately grabbed his arm. "Really? Then hurry up and get one!"

"That depends on fate. Maybe you should pray to the Bodhisattva morning and night."

Song Xiaodao released his arm at once, pressed her palms together, knelt in the mud, and closed her eyes.

Who knew what she was praying for.

Zhao Yin smiled. "Monkey, drag that White Rat King's corpse over here."

High-level Mutant Beast meat worked on low-level Mutant Beasts the same way Evolution Potions worked on human evolvers-it could awaken latent genes and boost strength beyond the base level.

The only drawback was that it required large amounts consumed over a long period. Nowhere near as fast as Evolution Potions at unlocking human potential.

Zhao Yin remembered how devoted the Black Rat King had been to the White Rat King.

Now that it was his Contract Beast, better not to skin and debone the corpse in front of it.

Little Monkey squeaked twice and scampered off.

Moments later, it dragged back the nearly two-ton White Rat King by the tail.

Zhao Yin drew his Mountain-Cleaving Machete and began the dissection on the spot.

First, he followed the joints and severed the White Rat King's four claws.

Those claws were sharp enough to tear straight through D-rank Heavy Armor. They had nearly destroyed his machete.

At least C-rank weapon grade.

Zhao Yin stored them in the Spatial Ring with care, then started skinning.

The White Rat King's 82-point defense was concentrated entirely in this hide. Little Monkey's old Heavy Armor had only 60 defense points-not even in the same league.

Zhao Yin worked carefully, peeling the entire hide off intact.

Pure white. Nearly eight meters long. Almost five meters wide at its broadest. Even the narrowest section-the tail fur-was over a foot across.

The most useful trunk portion measured four meters by three meters.

Like an enormous bedsheet.

More than enough for him and Song Xiaodao to each make two or three sets of leather armor, with plenty left over.

He stored the hide, then carved the meat off piece by piece.

The bones were dismantled and placed in the Spatial Ring.

Even the organs were processed and tossed into the Invisibility Tent-offal soup for daybreak.

Once the White Rat King was fully dismembered, the space he had just freed up in the ring was packed full again.

Only then did Zhao Yin take out Chestnut Leaves and have Song Xiaodao feed them to the Black Rat King.

He walked to the six E-rank Giant Rats and contracted them one by one.

Six faint presences appeared in his mind.

Zhao Yin chopped up a pile of Chestnut Leaves with his machete, mixed them with rainwater, and poured the slurry into the Giant Rats' mouths.

Half an hour later, the sky began to brighten.

The Black Rat King and all six Pseudo-Mutant Beast Giant Rats woke.

"Master..."

"Master, Master, Master..."

Voices echoed through Zhao Yin's mind, one after another.

A smile finally spread across his face.

His dream of building a beast legion had taken another massive step forward.

Every loss had been worth it.

"Xiaodao, Monkey, Old Bull-take them to clean up the battlefield. Bring back all my rat meat!"