"The Dragon King is indeed the Dragon King..."
The Monkey King lay on his side on the ground, raising his hand to cover his backside, and spoke with a face full of grievance.
Master Lucky Fox wanted to pick the monkey head mushroom as soon as he arrived, but the Monkey King still had his heart set on it.
"Describe in detail what the Dragon King looks like, where it lives, and what it tells you to do?"
Master Lucky Fox didn't find the monkey's response strange; it would indeed be odd if the monkey could spout the Dragon King's scientific or Latin name.
"The Dragon King wants us to build a water house—a large room with waterways, a big pool, sunlight, and a canal dug to the underground. Also, it wants the underground water to be redirected to the surface Dragon Palace..."
"If we fail, it will spray us with sizzling water flows, making us squeal in pain."
When talking about the Dragon King's oppression and exploitation of the monkeys, the Monkey King felt his backside wasn't hurting anymore and, with tears streaming down his face, spoke of the Dragon King's brutality and appearance:
"The Dragon King is big, slippery, with bumpy skin, and likes to force us to rub its feet and massage its lumpy body."
The Monkey King drew a line on the ground, then ran about five meters away to draw another, estimating the Dragon King's size by eye.
In the Monkey King's words.
The Dragon King is an aquatic four-legged creature with slippery skin covered in many gray-brown bumps and a flat, broad tail. It lives in a cave but has a huge body and usually dislikes exercise. It loves the warm streams in the sun.
To avoid unnecessary movement, the Dragon King enslaved all the monkeys in Golden Thread Gorge.
It made them build for it the Dragon Palace—a structure that blocks the sun yet channels warm streams, draws cool underground water, and allows the Dragon King to easily walk in streams and caves.
The monkey group had attempted construction before, but the framework collapsed halfway, and all the wood fell on the Dragon King, who flew into a rage and nearly turned the monkey bones to dust.
Having been hit by timber, the Dragon King didn't want wood again and ordered the monkeys to use rocks to build the Dragon Palace.
If any more accidents happen.
These monkeys would find it was the end of the line.
It wasn't due to the cleverness of Golden Thread Gorge's monkeys that they knew to build a mechanical model to test the earthquake resistance and stability of future buildings before construction.
They didn't understand any architectural mechanics.
But the Dragon King was well-versed in classic mechanics.
Under the threat of annihilation from the Dragon King, the monkeys had no choice but to rack their brains to help it build the Dragon Palace.
"Living in caves, a four-legged creature, gray-brown..." After listening to the Monkey King's description and watching him sit cross-legged on the ground, covering his eyes and crying, someone looked at him with a puzzled expression and said:
"The Dragon King you mentioned, could it be the friend of the giant salamanders at the marketplace, a nationally protected giant salamander?"
From the Monkey King's description, with Ansheng's limited experience, he could only think of a giant salamander.
"Eek..."
The Monkey King shook his head, indicating he didn't know about giant salamanders, but the Dragon King was particularly fierce.
"Besides the Dragon King, do you have any powerful creatures in this area?" Ansheng pondered for a moment and asked the Monkey King.
"Eek eek eek..."
The Monkey King thought for a bit and told Ansheng about some of the things he'd seen in the forest.
Speaking of ferocity.
Besides the Dragon King, they occasionally saw two four-legged beasts; one with two horns, the other with a single horn, but they were rare. The third ferocious one should be the creatures of the night.
At night, they were extremely vicious, burrowing into the gaps in their fur and biting fiercely.
Possibly...the black bears in the woods were also quite fierce.
"Daddy!"
While conversing with the Monkey King, the fully armed Fungal Parasitic Beast arrived first and greeted Master Lucky Fox with a shout of "Daddy."
The Monkey King and the golden monkey perched on his hair soon arrived afterward.
"You've come just in time..."
Ansheng glanced sideways and said, "I just saw these monkeys stacking blocks in the forest, so I asked them about the situation in the woods. They said a Spirit Beast called the Dragon King lives in the forest."
"Dragon King?"
The Monkey King looked at the monkeys with a start.
The golden monkey tilted its head, looked at the troublemaking monkeys, and emitted a series of "eeek eeek" sounds.
The Monkey King nodded firmly in response.
The two monkeys quickly communicated, and in no time, the golden monkey pulled an electromagnetic emitter from the bag on the Monkey King's back and handed it to the Monkey King. The monkey looked at the gun in its hands with amazement.
"Is this what you call recruitment complete?"
Under the golden monkey's orders, the monkey group of Golden Thread Gorge lined up to receive firearms, and Ansheng, with a peculiar expression, looked at the Monkey King and said.
"Monkeys are intelligent. Anything with some human traits aspires to a better life. We just need to give them an offer, and in most cases, they're willing to help." The Monkey King replied with a smile.
In terms of combat power, he wasn't even significant among the woodcutters.
But the Monkey King had great influence and could easily rally a monkey army and send monkeys on tasks.
"I don't think it looks like help; it seems you're treating them like beasts of burden." Ansheng remarked, watching the monkeys giddily playing with the firearms they received, twitching his lips as he spoke.
Right now, there's no monkey troop here.
Everywhere looked like livestock.
They sold themselves and were quite happy about it.
"Forget it, let the Monkey King lead the way. We'll go take a look at this Dragon King that knows classic mechanics."
"From the Monkey King's description, it sounds like a giant salamander." Master Lucky Fox raised his arm, and the Parasitic Beast immediately came forward, lifting Master Lucky Fox high as they headed into the forest.
"Eeeek..."
The Monkey King, holding a gun, was brimming with courage, bouncing forward to lead the group to the stream area.
A channel leading into the cave lay inside the stream's mountain ridge.
Reaching the waterfall-like mountain ridge, the Monkey King looked at Master Lucky Fox and the golden monkey.
"Eek!"
The golden monkey nodded confidently.
The Monkey King received his order, looked nervous, and walked to the front of the mountain cave, taking a deep breath.
The golden monkey wasn't lying; the savior was here.
"Dragon King!"
"We're not building your house anymore! We're not going to rub your toe seams either! We're rebelling!"
"Hetui—don't even think about making us lie on you to help pick fleas with our mouths again! Pah, each time we end up with a mouthful of fishy odor."
"If you've got the guts, come out. I, the King, will make sure you get a taste of our tribe's number one monkey head mushroom!"
The Monkey King shouted loudly.
Then, after he finished shouting, he shrank back his neck and ran away.
A massive water jet sprayed from within, shooting straight into the forest, slicing through a stand of trees near the bank like a blade.