The spirit monsters went off in high spirits to fetch their families.
Even butterflies, dragonflies, leafhoppers, and other spirit monsters not worth making into jerky went to fetch their families.
The spirit monsters set out in the morning and had all returned by dusk.
Some of them, however, looked sorrowful. When the rabbit spirit saw Wang Quan, he even choked up and kowtowed.
"Thank you for granting my wish, Master!"
Wang Quan said calmly, "It was just an offhand remark. There's no need to thank me!"
At that, the rabbit spirit burst into tears. "If you hadn't let me go back, Master, my family would all have become jerky and spicy rabbit heads."
Wang Quan was surprised. "What happened?"
The rabbit spirit mumbled, "When I got back, I happened to find a group of cultivators catching my family. They wanted to catch me too, skin me, and chop off my head. Luckily, I held up the identification token you gave me, Master, and escaped disaster."
"After those cultivators saw the identification token you bestowed on me, they not only let me go, but also released the rest of my family."
"Thank you, Master!"
Wang Quan looked at the dozen or so timid rabbits behind the rabbit spirit and sighed. "Mm. Get them settled in."
The rabbit spirit led his family in kowtowing their thanks, and the other spirit monsters offered their thanks as well.
They, too, had encountered similar things to varying degrees.
Without the identification tokens Wang Quan had given them, they would either have become jerky or mounts.
In any case, their ends would not have been pleasant.
The spirit monsters busied themselves at the foot of the hill, digging burrows, finding cracks between rocks, building nests in trees, and so on, each settling their families in.
On