Giant Rat

The secret that he could understand the language of beasts was something Ye Zhen had discovered several months ago.

Ye Zhen himself did not know what had happened. In any case, one day several months ago—

It was around the time his cultivation broke through from Initial Strength Training to Intermediate Strength Training. After evening lessons, Ye Zhen felt that his cultivation was progressing too slowly. Restless and unable to sleep, he ran to a nearby hilltop to get some air.

While lost in thought, he suddenly understood the chattering language of the little beasts in the mountains. At first, he was badly startled, thinking there was something wrong with his ears.

After several days of careful study and contemplation, Ye Zhen finally confirmed it—he could understand the language of beasts.

Whether it was the squeaking of mountain rats, the grunting of wild boars, or even the roars of tigers, so long as Ye Zhen focused and listened closely, he could understand what they meant.

At first, when Ye Zhen discovered this little secret of his, he simply found it amusing.

Whenever his slow cultivation progress left him irritated and agitated, he would calm himself and listen to the sounds of nearby rats, wildcats, foxes, and even snakes.

The somewhat foolish meanings they conveyed sounded rather funny, and always lightened Ye Zhen's mood.

But half a month ago, when Ye Zhen had been feeling stifled at night and wandered to this hill by chance, he overheard a pair of rat brothers living beneath the rocks conversing, and it gave him a spark of inspiration.

It suddenly made Ye Zhen realize that this little secret he used for amusement might truly bring him something.

Whenever Ye Zhen came to this hill at this hour of night, he would always hear the rat brothers discussing going somewhere together to feast on delicious food.

Naturally, the rats' delicacies held no appeal for Ye Zhen. But one night, when he poked his head out and saw the size of the rat brothers as they left their nest for their feast, he was utterly stunned.

Giant rats!

Enormous rats!

They were a full meter long, even slightly larger than wildcats. Their long tails were as thick as a child's arm, while their pair of incisors resembled sharpened weapons, flashing with a grim, chilling gleam beneath the moonlight.

What stunned Ye Zhen even more was that, because he had stepped on the entrance to their nest, the rat pair actually attacked him. An Iron Branch Pine as thick as a child's arm, which Ye Zhen had casually picked up, was bitten clean through by the rats in a single bite.

Their teeth were as sharp as blades!

Ye Zhen was completely shocked.

With what little knowledge he possessed, the pair's features were undoubtedly those of the most ordinary, commonly seen Gray Mountain Rats. Usually, reaching the size of an adult's palm was already remarkable.

Yet now, they had grown to nearly a meter long, looking exceptionally terrifying and monstrous.

Something was strange. There was absolutely something strange about this.

After quietly listening to the rat brothers converse for several days, Ye Zhen discovered what was bizarre about them: every night at midnight, without fail, they would go and eat some so-called delicacy. Not even thunder could stop them.

Ye Zhen vaguely felt that the reason these two rats had grown so enormous might be related to the food they fought over every midnight.

That food might perhaps be some kind of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.

Only the legendary Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures could make Gray Mountain Rats with such ordinary bloodlines grow so huge, nearly becoming ferocious beasts.

The thought made Ye Zhen's heart pound.

Having heard since childhood countless tales of poor boys who accidentally found Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and became rich overnight, lost their lives over wealth, or became great experts in a single night, Ye Zhen naturally understood their value.

Even within the Qi Yun Sect, Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures were exceedingly precious things. They were unlike the Herbs used to brew Blood Origin Soup, which were all grown by Menial Disciples.

Ye Zhen was no fool. Naturally, he wanted to follow the rat pair and find these Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.

At the same time, this discovery made Ye Zhen suddenly realize that his little secret of understanding beast language might truly bring him extraordinary gains.

And it was precisely this discovery that gave rise to his determination when facing his parents earlier that day.

First, he wanted to hold fast to his childhood dream of soaring across the skies, and to fulfill his father's wish. Second, now that he possessed this little secret that no one else had, how could he let it sit idle and go to waste?

A year of cultivation in the Qi Yun Sect had made Ye Zhen understand that, aside from the influence of one's bloodline talent, cultivation speed had much to do with whether one possessed abundant cultivation resources.

And now, because of this little secret, Ye Zhen might be able to obtain cultivation resources that others did not possess.

After discovering the secret of the rat brothers, Ye Zhen came every night at midnight to the rock above their nest, quietly listened to them, and then followed them.

But how could Ye Zhen, a martial artist at Blood Refining First Level, compare with the speed and agility of beasts moving through the mountains?

Every time he followed the rats, Ye Zhen ended up losing them.

However, Ye Zhen was not stupid.

After following them for more than ten days in a row, Ye Zhen had roughly determined that the rat brothers' range of activity was within ten li of this rocky hill.

Moreover, after so many days of tracking and searching on his own, Ye Zhen had already eliminated many places. Only two or three directions remained.

Ye Zhen estimated that even if he lost them again, he could use the process of elimination to find the rat brothers' nightly destination within a few days.

Squeak! (Go!)

With a rat cry, two giant rats whose back fur stood erect like steel needles appeared beneath the rocky cliff, then vanished with a whoosh into the Iron Pine Forest.

His body flashing, Ye Zhen crouched low and hurried after them.

Ye Zhen had already memorized this first stretch of road, so he was not worried about losing them. After following for roughly a hundred breaths, the sound of enormous rat claws stepping on pine needles suddenly disappeared.

Hurrying to a Forest Hollow, Ye Zhen's expression changed. He had lost them again.

This Forest Hollow extended in all directions, leading to every side. Every time, Ye Zhen lost them here.

But Ye Zhen was not flustered. Over these past days, he had already searched several possible directions in which the giant rats might have escaped. Now, only three remained unchecked.

Of those three directions, one was a ten-meter-high cliff at the edge of the Forest Hollow; another was the stream to its left; and the last was the towering trees within the Forest Hollow.

Of the three, Jiang Cheng had already ruled out the stream, because Jiang Cheng had never found any watermarks on the giant rats.

That left only the cliff and the dozen or so towering trees in the Forest Hollow.

Ye Zhen first looked toward the dozen towering trees in the Forest Hollow, then shook his head. That was unlikely, and searching there would be far too difficult.

This ten-meter cliff, on the other hand, was very likely to conceal Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. Yet Ye Zhen had searched both the cliff face and the area below it once already, without finding the slightest trace.

After pondering for a moment, Ye Zhen once again found a suitable spot and slowly began climbing down the cliff face. Today, he had come prepared.

Like a great spider, Ye Zhen clung tightly to the cliff with hands and feet, moving slowly. His gleaming eyes searched the cliff face without pause beneath the moonlight.

Fortunately, his year of bitter cultivation at the Qi Yun Sect had given Ye Zhen the foundation to climb this cliff with ease. Otherwise, even if he knew there were Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures here, all he could do was sigh at the cliff in vain.

Suddenly, Ye Zhen's eyes lit up. On a slightly protruding point of stone on the cliff, he saw a grayish-black giant rat paw print. His expression immediately turned ecstatic.

"Found it!"

Ye Zhen had put no small amount of effort into tracking the giant rats.

He had specially burned and prepared a kind of plant ash that was not easily rubbed away, then scattered it several meters around the entrance to the rat nest several days earlier.

That way, so long as the giant rats emerged from the nest and stepped on the soil, grayish-black paw prints would be left wherever they passed.

Ye Zhen had observed that a giant rat could leap about three or four meters in a single bound. Upon seeing that paw print, he immediately began searching within four or five meters of it.

In just a few breaths, Ye Zhen spotted another faint paw print on a patch of moss. The prints disappeared amid a protruding mass of rock.

After searching for a long while, Ye Zhen suddenly widened his eyes and discovered a crevice thickly covered in moss.

Under the night sky, the moss appeared grayish-black, and the crack in the mountain rock was black as well. Had one of his hands not grasped at empty space, Ye Zhen would never have noticed the crevice.

The crevice was not large, but it was wide enough for Ye Zhen to pass through.

The giant rats were roughly as tall as Ye Zhen was wide, so he was not too worried about whether he could get through.

After cautiously making his way through the crevice for dozens of meters, a foul stench suddenly filled his nostrils, and a natural cave large enough for one person to pass through abruptly appeared.

The sight before him instantly left Ye Zhen dumbstruck.

A crystal-clear stone pillar, resembling the tip of a bamboo shoot, hung halfway down at the end of the cave. It emitted a faint hazy glow, gleaming like a treasure.

The tip of the Stone Shoot shimmered with layer upon layer of watery light, as though liquid might seep out at any moment.

On the rock beneath the tip was a small egg-sized pit where droplets had fallen, but it was utterly empty.

All around the rock lay the white bones of all manner of wild beasts.

Some had weathered completely into bare white bones. Some were still half-rotted. There was even the corpse of a snake and a fox, both looking rather fresh, as though they had died only a few days ago.

But without exception, both the snake and fox corpses were covered in marks from gnawing rat teeth.

At that moment, the two giant rats Ye Zhen had lost were stretching out their short, blood-red tongues, waiting with rapt attention for the watery liquid to seep from the crystal-clear tip of the Stone Shoot.

The sound of Ye Zhen crushing animal bones beneath his feet instantly alarmed the two giant rats waiting for the Stone Shoot's liquid to drip.

The two giant rats whirled around. Their tails snapped erect like whips, their coldly gleaming incisors bared, and their blood-red eyes fixed tightly on Ye Zhen.

Squeak!

Amid an exceptionally piercing rat cry, the two giant rats suddenly leaped into the air, their glittering incisors bared as they pounced at Jiang Cheng from left and right.