The little Shadow Rat had seen Linley hunt rabbits in Wushan before, but this time he headed along the road in another direction. It panicked and rushed toward him.

It threw itself around Linley’s foot, stood upright, and clutched his leg with tearful eyes. “Little Shadow Rat, why are you here?” Linley asked.

Hillman turned and froze. “A Magical Beast? A Stone-eater Rat?” Soldiers feared ratlike Magical Beasts; he had heard of a whole army swallowed by a swarm of Stone-eater Rats. He kicked toward it at once. “Linley, watch out!”

The rat was faster. It flashed onto Linley’s shoulder.

“Uncle Hillman, stop! It is the animal I have been feeding in the rear courtyard.” The rat nodded as though it understood, leaving Hillman staring. “You have been raising a Magical Beast?”

“Let me persuade it to go back.” Linley picked it up. “I am leaving with Uncle Hillman for the royal capital. You cannot go there.” He put it down, waved toward home, pointed down the road, and started walking again.

The rat stood still, watching them recede. Then it suddenly shrieked and became a black blur, crossing more than twenty meters in an instant. Before Hillman could stop it, it landed beside Linley and bit his calf.

“Ah!” Linley jumped. Blood seeped from the wound, but the rat looked so pitiful that he could not stay angry.

Then dense black light enveloped it. A thread of blood, containing both Linley’s and the rat’s blood, flew from its mouth and became two interlocking black triangles. Darkness poured into the strange magical formation.

“Could this be…?” Linley thought.

Doehring flew out of the Coiling Dragon Ring, his white beard lifting with delight. “Linley, the little fellow is forming an Equal Contract!”

The formation split apart. One black triangle entered Linley; the other entered the little Shadow Rat. Linley immediately felt a faint connection between their souls.

“Are you all right?” Hillman asked anxiously.

“I am wonderful.” Linley and the rat looked at each other on the quiet road outside Wushan Town, beginning their first exchange.

“What is your name?” Linley asked in his mind.

The black rat answered excitedly, “Be… Be…”

Linley could not understand. Doehring explained that it was still an infant and could communicate only simple meanings and incomplete sounds.

“You keep saying ‘Be.’ Shall I call you Bebe?” Linley asked.

The little rat seemed to consider this, then nodded happily.

“Bebe!” Linley grinned.

“Squeak!” Bebe leapt in answer.

An eight-and-a-half-year-old boy and a little Shadow Rat called back and forth in delight.

Only then did Hillman recover his senses. He had heard that dark magic held curses and was frightened by the black formation. “What happened? You had no soul-contract scroll. How did you tame it?”

“It is fine,” Linley said brightly. “Bebe has become my Magical Beast. Come, Bebe, onto my shoulder.”

Bebe sprang up at once. Linley took Hillman by the arm and urged him onward. With Bebe squeaking happily on his shoulder, the three continued toward Finlay City.