Chapter 15: The Treasure's Shell
Because he had evening classes at the tutoring center, Chen Meng didn’t go home but instead headed to the Hong Family Ancient Martial Arts Academy near his school.
The academy was deserted today—not a single soul inside. The old man had locked the doors for reasons unknown. Luckily, Chen Meng had a key. He let himself in and trained alone for over an hour, mainly practicing the Little Lotus step technique his teacher had taught him. When he started feeling tired, mindful not to affect his evening studies, he drank a vial of Life No. 1 oral solution.
...
After leaving the tutoring center that night, Chen Meng took his usual shortcut through the abandoned old residential complex. Whenever he passed through here now, he couldn’t help but recall last week’s battle between the giant rat and the cats, especially the piece of gold that he was still obsessed with.
“Squeak, squeak!”
As he walked, he suddenly heard a familiar sound. His heart leapt with excitement—the “fat sheep” had finally appeared again.
“Brother Rat, is that you?”
“Brother Rat, come out, I know it’s you.”
“I can smell the fat sheep, I know it.”
Chen Meng muttered to himself. At that moment, he saw a plump, golden-furred giant rat emerge from a nearby ruin. It was the same rat that had fought the cats last time. Chen Meng remembered its front leg had been injured by the feral cats, but now it seemed completely healed.
It must have spent the past days recuperating.
“Squeak, squeak!”
The giant rat squeaked again, clearly recognizing Chen Meng. After that, it spat out a gold nugget, about the size of a grape.
Chen Meng was thrilled—Brother Rat was so generous, greeting him with a gift.
He moved to take it, but the giant rat pressed its paw over the gold nugget and squeaked some more.
“Does it want me to do something?”
Chen Meng pondered—apparently, he would have to complete some task before receiving the gold. He examined the nugget: though small, it must weigh forty or fifty grams, which would fetch seven or eight hundred yuan.
The giant rat grabbed the nugget and dashed off in a certain direction. Chen Meng followed without hesitation.
He watched as the rat crossed the old complex to the collapsed wall near the street, then pointed across to a shop.
Chen Meng looked where the rat indicated—it was a roast chicken shop.
“So, the rat wants roast chicken!” He understood and smiled. “Brother Rat, you want roast chicken? No problem, leave it to me. You pay, I’ll buy—it’s a good deal.”
The rat nodded enthusiastically and handed him the gold nugget.
Chen Meng took it, crossed the broken wall, and went to the roast chicken shop, buying a chicken weighing over two pounds. It wasn’t expensive—just twenty yuan for one.
Returning, he found the rat waiting behind the wall. It rushed forward, grabbed the chicken, and ran toward the abandoned plaza, finally placing it on the old stone table where the elderly used to play chess.
The rat was clearly eager, but managed to restrain itself. Carefully, it unwrapped the packaging and produced a shard of glass resembling a knife, slicing the roast chicken with elegant precision, as if dining on steak—far too refined for a rat.
Of course, this was a rat possessed of intelligence.
“Squeak, squeak!”
The rat looked at Chen Meng, hesitated, then cut off a drumstick and pushed it toward him.
Chen Meng was surprised and touched, but resolutely replied, “Brother Rat, you don’t know how expensive things are nowadays. The bit of gold you gave me is only enough for this chicken.”
The rat paused, seeming to grasp his meaning.
Chen Meng chuckled, “Enough talk, eat up, eat up.”
He simply wanted to tell the rat that the gold was spent—there was nothing left.
The rat seemed a little embarrassed and gave him a chicken wing, looking as though it hurt to part with it, making Chen Meng feel guilty.
But then, Chen Meng grew delighted—he had found a promising way to make money. If he could keep buying roast chicken and other food for the rat, the profit margin was astonishing!
The giant rat devoured the whole two-pound chicken in no time, and the drumstick and wing Chen Meng hadn’t eaten were eventually finished off by the rat as well.
Chen Meng considered the rat: it probably wasn’t a divine creature yet, but its appetite was frightening.
“Brother Rat, are we friends now?” Chen Meng mused aloud. Only as friends could he fleece more money from it.
The rat seemed to understand and nodded.
“Let me introduce myself: I’m Chen Meng, a senior high student about to take the college entrance exams.”
“Squeak, squeak!”
Chen Meng slapped his forehead. “I forgot, you can’t speak human language.”
The rat looked at the chicken bones, picked up a leg bone, gestured to the table, and began scratching on its surface.
After a minute, Chen Meng gazed at the two twisted characters and finally deciphered them.
“Rat Bei?”
He muttered, then frowned. “Rat Bei (generation)? Isn’t that an insult? Brother Rat, you can’t use that name!”
The rat was puzzled, and wrote two more characters: “Treasure.” It meant the “bei” in “treasure.”
Chen Meng laughed, “Brother Rat, it’s not what you think. I know your ‘bei’ is from ‘treasure,’ but when you add ‘Rat,’ the homophone sounds awful. We often say things like ‘gutless rat generation’ or ‘nameless rat generation’—those are insults. I suggest you add another ‘bei’ and call yourself Rat Bei Bei.”
The rat thought it over, squeaked a few times, and nodded happily.
Chen Meng was quite pleased with the rat’s agreement—this was the benefit of education; knowledge truly changed destiny. Otherwise, when the rat became famous, people would laugh at it.
“I’ll call you Bei Bei from now on. We’re friends, so whenever you want to buy food, clothes, toys, or anything else, you must come to me—never anyone else.”
If you go to someone else, how can I earn the middleman’s commission?
From today, call me Chen the Great Middleman.
Bei Bei nodded, completely trusting Chen Meng now.
“Bei Bei, how did you learn human language?” Chen Meng asked curiously.
“Squeak, squeak.” Bei Bei jumped off the table and ran toward a spot nearby. Chen Meng followed, discovering it was the local elementary school.
He understood: Bei Bei must have hidden somewhere at the school, eavesdropping on teachers, which is how it learned.
Seeing it was getting late, Chen Meng bade Bei Bei farewell, promising to meet again tomorrow.
Back home, Chen Meng examined the gold nugget. It seemed dug from the earth, not the doghead gold from before. It was so light he couldn’t weigh it on the household scale as he had last time.
“Bei Bei is an awakened intelligent rat, and from what I’ve recently learned, reporting the discovery of such intelligent animals to the Animal Protection Association earns a ten thousand yuan reward. If you actually bring an awakened animal to the Bureau of Animal Protection under the association, the reward rises to fifty thousand.”
Chen Meng calculated: but buying a roast chicken for Bei Bei earned him seven or eight hundred yuan, which was easier than reporting the rat.
He was short of money now, and having encountered a natural ‘fat sheep’ like Bei Bei, he intended to fleece it thoroughly.
...
A new day dawned, and Chen Meng was in a good mood.
At school, there was no rune class today, so he had no idea how he’d done on the last test.
As usual, Yan Ruoxi tutored him in the evening. This time, she switched from high school technology to biology, and handled it with effortless ease.
“Senior, you’re incredible—I just can’t understand how someone like you didn’t get into a top university.”
“For example, I missed one exam,” Yan Ruoxi replied casually as she packed her things.
Missed one exam!!!
Chen Meng watched her departing figure, feeling utterly lost in the wind.
If he remembered correctly, Jiangzhou University ranked high among second-tier universities, and missing one exam was enough to enter Jiangzhou—so if she hadn’t missed an exam, could Yan Ruoxi have been the city or even provincial top scholar?
Once again, Chen Meng was struck by how hardcore his senior truly was.