"I'm sorry, Mr. Yang. The position we're hiring for is an animal keeper. It requires a relevant professional background and at least two years of practical experience. Passion alone isn't enough. I hope you understand."
"I understand. I'm sorry to have bothered you."
Yang Qi stood up from his chair.
He sighed inwardly.
Just as I expected. It didn't work.
'I can't get into a public zoo. Maybe I should try a private one?'
Lost in thought, Yang Qi turned to leave.
"Wait."
From behind his desk, the refined Huang Zhongmu flipped open a personnel file and said quietly, "The park has a temporary opening for an Environmental Maintenance Technician, a cleaning position. I don't suppose Mr. Yang would be willing to consider it?"
'An Environmental Maintenance Technician? Responsible for cleaning?'
Yang Qi froze.
'Isn't that just a janitor?'
'And a temporary one at that!'
Under normal circumstances, Yang Qi would have turned and walked out without a second thought.
Except, something very *not* normal had happened to him.
Three days ago, while walking down the street after working overtime until the early hours, a sudden "DING" echoed in Yang Qi's mind. An unusual voice informed him he had received the "Beast Taming Cultivation System."
'Cultivation?'
After confirming it wasn't a hallucination, Yang Qi was ecstatic.
However, the first mission issued by the system left him dumbfounded.
[Initial Mission: Join the Beast Taming Sect]
Join the Beast Taming Sect...
Where in the real world was he supposed to find a "Beast Taming Sect"?
After racking his brains for a good while, inspiration struck Yang Qi.
In modern society, if you had to find a place closest to the concept of "beast taming," it would have to be a circus. The next best thing would be a zoo!
However, traditional circuses had long since declined and were nowhere to be seen in big cities. At least, not in Donghua or any of the neighboring cities.
The circus was a lost cause, which only left the zoo.
So, Yang Qi, a computer science graduate, decisively quit his soul-crushing programmer job and came to Donghua Wildlife Park to apply for a position.
He thought he'd been rejected.
He never expected such a twist of fate!
"Thank you for the opportunity, Director. I'm willing to give it a try." Excitement spread across Yang Qi's face.
'A temp job is a temp job. The important thing is to get into the Zoo first. I'll figure out the rest later.'
'If it doesn't work out, I can just quit in a few days. No big deal!'
'He actually agreed?'
Huang Zhongmu, who had only made the offer on a whim, raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. Then, a sincere, pleased smile spread across his face.
"Good."
He stood up and extended his right hand. "Welcome to the Donghua Zoo."
"Thank you."
Yang Qi stepped forward and shook it.
The moment their hands clasped—
[Mission Complete]
[Congratulations, Host, on joining the Beast Taming Sect and becoming a servant disciple]
[Reward: Beast Language Proficiency]
'It really worked!'
Yang Qi was overjoyed.
Amid his excitement, a cool current of energy poured in from the crown of his head, flowing down his spine and through his entire body. Indescribable knowledge flooded his mind, and his body seemed to undergo a subtle change.
For some reason, Huang Zhongmu, standing right there, found Yang Qi to be incredibly approachable.
Just as he was about to offer a few words of encouragement, the office door was thrown open with a BANG.
A middle-aged woman in a zoo uniform burst in. Her face was ashen, her chest was heaving, and her voice trembled with anxiety.
"Director, it's terrible! The monkeys on Monkey Mountain... they've taken a child!"
What?
The gentle smile on Huang Zhongmu's face vanished, replaced by a grave expression. "What happened?" he asked, his voice low and serious. "Monkey Mountain is surrounded by a safety barrier. How could a child have been pulled in?"
"It was Great Sage!"
With a look of despair, the middle-aged woman explained, "Great Sage is always snatching backpacks from visitors. This time, while he was grabbing a kid's schoolbag, the parents weren't looking, and he pulled the child in along with it..."
"I knew it would be him!"
Huang Zhongmu gritted his teeth. Ignoring Yang Qi, he strode toward the door. "Has a rescue team been dispatched?" he asked as he walked.
"Yes."
The middle-aged woman hurried to keep up. "Xiaowang and Xiaoli went in, but 'Great Sage' is the Monkey King. He's commanding the other monkeys to stop them from getting close. Xiaoli tried to force his way through, but they beat him back, and he went tumbling down the mountain. Luckily, he was wearing a protective suit."
"And the child?" Huang Zhongmu was more concerned about her.
"The child is safe for now. 'Great Sage' is holding her and even feeding her a peach." The middle-aged woman gave a wry smile. "But the parents are going frantic. If we weren't holding them back, they would've already charged in to fight the monkeys."
'A war between humans and monkeys?'
Yang Qi, who had been listening to the conversation the whole time, felt his mouth twitch.
But an idea sparked in his mind, and he followed Huang Zhongmu and the woman out of the office and hurried downstairs.
A tour cart was already waiting at the entrance.
Huang Zhongmu stepped into the cart and motioned for the woman to drive. When he saw Yang Qi get on as well, he said casually, "Xiao Yang, you don't need to come. Just wait here at the administration building. We'll process your onboarding with the others later."
"It's alright."
Yang Qi smiled. "I grew up living next to a zoo. I know a bit about monkey behavior. Maybe I can help."
"Is that so?"
Huang Zhongmu didn't think much of it and nodded. "Alright, then. But once we're there, don't do anything reckless."
"Understood!"
...
BEEP BEEP BEEP—
The tour cart's engine whined as it sped down the Zoo's paths, its wheels crushing fallen leaves. It finally screeched to a halt at the perimeter of Monkey Mountain.
The open area in front of Monkey Mountain was now packed with people.
The crowd stood behind the barrier, craning their necks to look in. A cacophony of overlapping chatter rose and fell.
More than half of them were holding up their phones, the screens glinting in the sun.
The middle-aged woman who had driven them parked the cart and shouted as she wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve.
"Make way, please, make way! The director is here!"
She acted as a vanguard, parting the crowd. Huang Zhongmu and Yang Qi followed close behind.
At the very front of the crowd stood a fashionably dressed young woman. Her makeup was ruined by tears, and her carefully styled curls were plastered messily to her tear-streaked face.
With red, swollen eyes, she stared at the top of Monkey Mountain, repeating hoarsely, "Qiqi... Someone save my Qiqi..."
Beside the woman, a man in his early thirties held her tightly.
When he saw Huang Zhongmu, his brows knitted together, and his face darkened as he yelled, "What the hell is wrong with your Zoo? It's been twenty minutes, and you can't even handle one monkey?"
The man gritted his teeth, suppressing his rage. "If you people can't do it, then get me a protective suit! I'll go in and save my daughter myself!"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
Huang Zhongmu bowed his head again and again. "I am truly sorry. Please, rest assured, we will get your child out safely."
"Please have faith in our staff."
Though he said this, his eyes betrayed his anxiety as he looked at the situation on Monkey Mountain.
On Monkey Mountain, four staff members in protective suits were clumsily trying to climb up.
The thick suits made their movements look incredibly bulky, and a layer of white fog had condensed on their helmet visors.
The four of them, each holding a stun baton in one hand and a tranquilizer gun in the other, were driven back by a "defensive line" of macaques with every step they took forward.
A troop of over thirty monkeys shrieked and bared their fangs. Some picked up loose rocks and hurled them, which thudded dully against the suits. Others broke off branches and jabbed them at the staff like spears.
And in front of a stone cave at the very top of Monkey Mountain, the Monkey King known as "Great Sage" was lounging casually on a rock.
His thick arm was wrapped around a little girl in pink overalls. The girl's pigtails had come undone, and her chubby little hand tightly clutched a half-eaten peach. She didn't dare cry out loud; only her small shoulders trembled nonstop.
"Is that Monkey King waiting for something?"
"Yeah, look at the way he's posturing. It's like he's trying to negotiate..."
"That monkey's practically a demon!"
...
The crowd's murmurs mingled with the shrill cries of the monkeys.
Yang Qi focused his hearing, and the once-chaotic monkey screeches suddenly became clear in his ears.
"Not that!"
"Wrong, wrong!"
"Go away! All of you, go away!"
...
As he was trying to decipher the meaning of these words, the Monkey King, "Great Sage," suddenly turned his head toward the barrier and let out a piercing shriek.
To everyone else, this shriek sounded like a show of dominance, but in Yang Qi's ears, it was—
"Bring me something good to drink in exchange!"
'Something to drink?'
'In exchange?'
'Holy crap, has this Monkey King actually become a demon?'
'He actually kidnapped a child just to demand a good drink in return!'