"Mimi! Calm down! Let me try again!" Wang Keke said urgently, focusing all her attention on building a clearer, more stable channel for mental communication. She abandoned complicated explanations and instead focused on the other party's most basic demand.
A gentle but firm wave of thought was directed at Mao Mao: "Food! Shiny things! Can give! But can't take anymore!"
Simple, direct, straight to the point.
Mao Mao, who had been preparing to launch a second mental attack, suddenly froze. Its fingers stopped fidgeting, and it tilted its head. A flicker of confusion—and... interest—passed through its lively eyes.
"Chirp? (Translation: Really?)" A doubtful thought came back.
(Inner thought): "It's working!" Wang Keke was delighted and hurried to press her advantage. "Really! Lots of food! Lots of shiny things! But need... peace! Trade!"
She tried to convey the concepts of "trade" and "cooperation," rather than one-sided "tribute" or "robbery."
Mao Mao scratched its head (fortunately, it didn't scratch its red underwear), apparently struggling to understand this new proposal. It looked back at King Gigi, perched on a branch. King Gigi still had its arms crossed, but its head tilted slightly, as if listening to the "diplomatic negotiations" below.
"Grr... chirp chirp... (Translation: How do we trade? What do you want?)" Mao Mao sent back, its thoughts tinged with caution. As far as it knew, "Long-legged hairless monkeys" were always sly, so it had to get the details straight.
Wang Keke froze. She'd only been thinking about calming things down; she hadn't even considered what they might trade for. Without thinking, she looked at Lin Mo.
(Inner thought): "Trade? What could we trade with a bunch of monkeys? Bananas? This king doesn't even like those things!" Lin Mo looked just as baffled, but he reacted quickly. He pointed a paw at Mao Mao, then at King Gigi, made a "very strong" gesture, and finally pointed deep into the forest.
Wang Keke understood at once and tried to send her thoughts: "You... strong! Help us... fight bad monsters! We give food! Shiny things!"
She tried to express the idea of mercenaries or allies.
The proposal clearly fell outside Mao Mao's everyday understanding. It froze and didn't react for a long time. King Gigi, perched on the branch, seemed to have picked up on the keywords "strong" and "fight bad monsters." To everyone's surprise, its haughty face showed a hint of... pride. It even puffed out its chest a little, letting its tiny, battered crown reflect a faint glimmer of sunlight.
(Inner thought): "No way. King Gigi actually falls for this? A couple of compliments and it's already getting carried away?"
Mao Mao seemed to have received some kind of silent order from King Gigi. It turned to Wang Keke, its mental message growing clearer—and a lot more... self-assured:
"Chirp! Grr! (Translation: Help you fight? Fine! But we negotiate the payment first!)"
"Chirp chirp! Chatter! (Translation: Every day! The freshest fruit! The sweetest candy!)"
"Roar! (Translation: And! The Monkey King's new crown! It has to be bright! Shiny! A hundred times brighter than this piece of junk!)"
"Hiss—! (Translation: And my new headscarf... Uh, my new battle outfit! It has to be red! But bigger! Smoother!)"
As Wang Keke received this string of thoughts, mixed with specific demands and inexplicable pride, she translated it for everyone else in the vehicle, the corner of her mouth twitching.
The members of the Wind-Breaking Squad exchanged looks. They wanted to laugh but didn't dare, their expressions priceless. Aunt Zhang rubbed her forehead helplessly. Zhao Gang heard the translation over the communicator and was equally at a loss for words in the command vehicle.
(Inner thought): "A daily supply of fruit and candy? And a custom-made crown and... bigger, smoother red underwear?! What kind of unequal treaty is this?! This king came to hunt, not to run a zoo snack stand and a tailor shop!"
Meanwhile, as this absurd "cross-server chat" struggled along, Outpost 04 and the higher-ups in the human military who were following the situation farther behind had already erupted into chaos.
At the Outpost 04 Command Center, Zhao Gang and a group of staff officers stared, dumbfounded, at the live footage from the front lines and... the "negotiation transcript" relayed by Wang Keke.
"R-report! Miss Wang Keke appears to be having... effective mental communication with the target monkey troop!" stammered the soldier in charge of communications. Even he thought it sounded crazy.
"They... They're haggling? Over fruit, candy... and the size of a pair of red underwear?" A veteran staff officer pushed his glasses back up from the tip of his nose, feeling that his decades-long military career had never faced a challenge like this.
Zhao Gang gaped for a long moment, then suddenly slapped his thigh and blurted out, "Good heavens! That actually works?! Negotiating with monsters?! Using telepathy to talk over a procurement contract?!"
In the higher-level command center, the generals and advisers watching through an encrypted connection reacted even more strongly.
"Unbelievable! It really is mental communication! That young girl from the Wang Family, and that Winged Tiger—they can actually exchange information with mutated beasts?!"
"This... This is an upheaval of biology, sociology, and military science all at once!"
"Quick! Record every conversation... No, every instance of mental communication! Don't miss a single word—no, a single thought!"
"If this isn't an isolated case, if this form of communication can be replicated... My God, our strategy against monsters will undergo a fundamental change!"
"Could we shift from pure confrontation to... limited cooperation and exploitation?"
"Set up a special research group immediately! Analyze every detail of this 'contact'! Assess its strategic value!"
The military's upper ranks were in an uproar. What had originally been seen as a powerful extermination operation had instantly been elevated to a matter of strategic importance. The possibilities implied by being able to communicate with highly intelligent mutated beasts made everyone in the know's heart race.
They watched the screen as the girl tried her best to "negotiate" the style of a crown and the daily candy allowance with a monkey wearing red underwear on its head. The scene was so absurd it looked like a comedy sketch, yet not one of the informed observers had a smile on their face. They were all intensely serious—and exhilarated.
(Inner thought, from one observing general): "The world really is about to change... And the key to that change seems to be in the hands of a little girl and a... particularly gluttonous tiger?"
Up ahead, at the edge of the forest.
Wang Keke was still struggling to "negotiate" with Mao Mao:
"The daily amount is too much... Could we make it weekly?"
"We can have the crown custom-made, but it'll take time..."
"The battle outfit... Uh, the headscarf. Red is no problem, but what exactly do you mean by bigger and smoother... silk?"
Lin Mo lay at the sunroof, watching the unbelievable scene, and let out a huge yawn.
(Inner thought): "Ugh, boring. I thought we'd get to fight and stretch our muscles. Instead, Keke's getting a crash course in business negotiations. Oh well, settling this peacefully is fine too. It saves my armor from getting damaged... Come to think of it, what does Beast General Rank monkey meat taste like? Tsk, I guess I won't get the chance to find out."
He swished his tail and began thinking about his next "proper" hunting target. After all, hunting a Devouring Beast was a lot more worthwhile than arguing with monkeys. This unexpected wave of "diplomacy" had stirred up a storm in the military, but to Tiger King Lin Mo, it was just a noisy little detour on the hunt.
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