Chapter 134: The Unfinished Bond Between Man and Tiger

"Tiger demon? Could this be the Mountain Lord from the Mountain Lord Temple?"

Xu Qing retracted his fist and stood up, looking with some suspicion toward the large hole outside the incense hall.

He thought to himself: Are the tiger demons of this era malnourished or what? Anyone hearing this would think they've come to stage a fake accident against him!

At this moment, Sun Erzhuang stammered, "M-maybe it's a biao?"

"Biao?" Xu Qing's expression showed surprise.

Sun Erzhuang clearly hadn't recovered his senses yet; he didn't know where to begin explaining.

After thinking for a moment, he said his mother had been killed by a biao, later his donkey was eaten by a biao, and now this biao wanted to eat him too.

"Mr., if you can defeat it, do so; if you cannot fight it, then simply run! I have much flesh on me; if it eats me and fills its belly, perhaps it won't chase you after."

Xu Qing turned his head to glance at the fat man who faced death with resolve.

This fat man was clearly trembling in both legs, terrified to death, yet he still walked to his side.

"You stay here and properly guard your mother's spirit tablet; as for this tiger demon—"

"My family has a tailor; I'll take it back to make a tiger-skin skirt."

Hearing these words, Sun Erzhuang looked again at Xu Qing's casual demeanor and realized he had encountered a master.

"I'll do as Mr. says, but that tiger demon is fierce; Mr., please be extremely cautious."

Meanwhile, Xu Qing, a zombie with nearly five hundred years of cultivation and also the Grand Patriarch of the Cat Immortal Hall, as well as the most approachable funeral master in the Linhe funeral industry, had already stepped outside the incense hall.

In the temple courtyard overgrown with weeds, the rain had made the surroundings appear even more chaotic.

At this moment, the emaciated evil tiger lay quietly in the courtyard; trickles of blood were spreading in the rain, forming a "winding little river."

When Xu Qing reached a spot a few steps away from the thin tiger, he suddenly stopped.

The whites of his eyes were swallowed by ink-black darkness; his Yin Pupils reflected the thick blood-colored malevolent qi upon the thin tiger's body.

Xu Qing raised an eyebrow, his double sleeves fluttered, and the golden knuckle dusters in his hand were already replaced with plum-colored needles and thread.

He was a kind-hearted man who could not bear to see small animals injured, especially not on such a cold, rainy night.

Xu Qing flicked his wrist; the plum blossoms needles, soaked with cold poison, gleamed with a dull luster, pierced through the rain curtain, and stabbed straight toward the thin tiger's body.

In the next instant, the thin tiger, which had stopped breathing, suddenly leaped up from the ground; its vigorous, lively appearance was nothing like that of a dead thing!

Seeing this, Xu Qing clicked his tongue; this was truly a miraculous recovery; even a divine physician could hardly do better than this.

The thin tiger, which had been in a furious state, finally spoke for the first time.

"Despicable and shameless villain, just like that old woman; I have remembered you. One day, I will settle the score with you!"

After saying these words, the thin tiger turned and tried to flee outside the temple.

However, before it had taken a few steps, the thin tiger swayed and collapsed onto the ground, about to fall.

Xu Qing's lips twitched.

This demon tiger's heart was even bigger than Sun Erzhuang's; with poison needles already embedded in its body, it didn't even look once.

So it truly thought his needles were embroidery needles?

Xu Qing's robe sleeves rolled up, his ten fingers hooked and pulled, and the thin tiger's body was dragged by him into the incense hall.

To avoid damaging the tiger skin, the four red threads he flicked out pinned the demon tiger's four limbs at the three-inch points with perfect accuracy.

Though this demon tiger was thin, its skin was oily and glossy; if it were ruined, that would be a pity.

"M-mr., this biao is still breathing!"

Sun Erzhuang, looking at the tiger inside the hall, was terrified.

This tiger was so thin; who knows how many days it had been starving? If it recovered its strength, it might truly eat him clean!

"What, are you afraid?"

Xu Qing drew the Si Nan Sword and handed it to Sun Erzhuang, saying, "This tiger took your mother's life; now your enemy is right before your eyes. You can very well end its life here to console your mother's spirit in the heavens."

Hearing these words, Sun Erzhuang's fear was instantly replaced by hatred.

He took the Si Nan Sword, his eyes bulging with rage, breathing heavily, and walked step by step toward the demon tiger.

Seeing this, the demon tiger painfully raised its head, as if drunk, sticking out its large tongue and uttering a sentence—

"We share the same mother; you cannot kill me."

Share the same mother? Xu Qing was stunned.

Even Sun Erzhuang, whose eyes were clouded by hatred, stopped his movement.

"Who shares the same mother with you? I am human, you are a biao; you killed my mother, so I will kill you!"

Sun Erzhuang's hand paused for a moment, then he gripped the treasure sword again, about to stab the demon tiger's neck!

However, at this critical moment, a voice suddenly came from outside the incense hall, whose doors stood wide open.

"He truly is your brother."

Xu Qing turned his head and saw a limping large man walking in through the hall door.

On the yellow-clad large man's exposed chest were prominent claw marks, deep enough to see the bone.

On the man's leg, blood was also seeping out.

"What nonsense are you saying! My mother was human, and I am human; how could I have a demon brother?" Sun Erzhuang clearly recognized the other party and looked at the yellow-clad large man with some displeasure.

The large man fell silent for a moment, then spoke: "You not only have a younger brother, you also have an older brother."

"You probably do not yet know my name; my surname is Guan, my given name is Dazhuang."

Before the dying thin tiger, Sun Erzhuang was contemplating life.

He felt he was dreaming; actually, his mother had not died, and his donkey was still alive and well; otherwise, how could such incredible words have reached his ears?

Nearby, Xu Qing used his Yin Pupils to look at the yellow-clad large man and saw a majestic tiger phantom appearing behind the other party.

Combining the large man's words, Xu Qing instinctively turned his head to look at Sun Erzhuang beside him.

The Yin Pupils could penetrate the Nine Netherworlds and perceive evil spirits; whether divine realms, ghost domains, or transformations of demons and ghosts, they could reveal the true form.

Presently, Xu Qing observed Sun Erzhuang closely but discovered no signs of any evil spirit; this was just an ordinary, very fat man.

"Evil spirits are deceitful; this person is also a tiger demon. Do not listen to his nonsense!"

Having spoken, Xu Qing turned his head to look at the man in yellow robes, smiling as he said, "You say your name is Guan Dazhuang? If that is your logic, then the name of this thin tiger should be Guan Sanzhuang."

"Does that make sense, Sanzhuang?"

Xu Qing kicked the thin tiger.

The latter panted heavily, keeping his eyes closed and offering no reply.

At this moment, the man in yellow robes at the doorway shook his head and said, "He is not named Guan Sanzhuang; his original name was Guan Xiaohu, a young tiger personally raised by Guan Huapo."

After a pause, the man in yellow robes sighed, "I was originally a young tiger of Old Taishan as well. Guan Huapo raised me, and this temple was originally my temple. Unfortunately..."

The hand holding the needle in Xu Qing's sleeve paused; he seemed to have accidentally overheard something extraordinary.

Beside him, Sun Erzhuang felt his head spin; how had a simple incident of a tiger injuring a person suddenly turned into a complex family drama?

The fat man instinctively touched the flesh on his body, thinking to himself: Could I also be a tiger, and have I simply been kept in the dark all along?

The man in yellow robes sighed softly and recounted everything he knew.

After hearing the other party's words, Xu Qing finally understood some things.

Guan Huapo was originally a spirit medium, and most spirit mediums practice arts to summon immortals and gods to descend; in that regard, there is little difference between them and disciples of the Horse-Calling Sect.

The immortals and gods summoned were not true immortals or gods, but rather immortal families such as Hu, Huang, Bai, Liu, and Bei; as for the gods, they were spirits of various monsters and souls.

Guan Huapo was different; though she was a woman, she had loved fierce tigers and great beasts since childhood. Later, for some unknown reason, she actually managed to pick up a small tiger.

This small tiger was Guan Dazhuang, the man in yellow robes before them.

Guan Dazhuang grew up with Guan Huapo; the two of them, human and tiger, were like a Horse-Caller and an immortal family, but even more like mother and son.

Guan Huapo was a spirit medium who knew the methods to establish a hall and sit in a temple, and just twenty li outside Guanmen Village happened to be a Mountain Lord Temple that had incense offerings but no deity to preside over it.

Such a ready-made temple was a top-tier hall that one could not find even with a lantern.

Thus, Guan Huapo turned this temple into a place to raise tigers.

Nearly ten years passed, and the incense offerings at the Mountain Lord Temple reached a level of prosperity unprecedented before.

As for why it was so prosperous, it was because the two hundred li radius surrounding Old Taishan had become Guan Dazhuang's territory.

Whenever bandits or robbers entered the territory, Guan Dazhuang would drive them away; if he encountered injured hunters or villagers injured in the wild, he would even carry them back to the towns.

Just like that, the Mountain Lord Temple gathered incense offerings from hundreds of li around.

Sometimes, people even came from a thousand li away, attracted by its fame; even the local county magistrate, moved by its benevolence, specifically ordered the temple to be repaired and personally went to offer incense and pay respects.

If days had passed so peacefully, it would have been fine, but just at this moment, a disaster broke out in the north, and many refugees fled to the Tianjin area.

Some refugees, perhaps having heard that the Mountain Lord Temple was efficacious and that many kind people came here, threw children who were still in swaddling clothes outside the temple gate.

Guan Huapo, a maiden of marriageable age, originally should not have taken in this child, but she felt the child had a fate with her, just like the abandoned Dazhuang had once been, so she decided she should adopt him.

Just like that, the young Guan Huapo became a mother; when people around heard of this, combined with the influence of her identity as a spirit medium, no one was willing to arrange a marriage for her.

When Sun Erzhuang was one year old, Guan Huapo went to the sheep pen to milk the sheep, but she saw a scrawny little tiger under the mother sheep's body.

That tiger was very fierce; though small, it ate milk as if it wanted to swallow the mother sheep whole.

Guan Huapo was happy in her heart, thinking this was a good thing arranged by heaven; otherwise, why would this little tiger go nowhere else and specifically find her home?

Guan Huapo never knew to this day that the little tiger was actually brought by Guan Dazhuang.

Inside the incense hall, Guan Dazhuang said regretfully, "Guan Xiaohu was a young tiger abandoned by a mother tiger; he was originally not a tiger of Old Taishan, but one I found in a wild mountain hollow while roaming the mountains."

"Later, the disaster became more severe, and this tiger needed blood food to be sustained. Guan Huapo could not raise it, so I hunted for her and brought blood food back to feed the little tiger."

"But after this rascal learned to hunt, he actually brought a child back..."

Xu Qing listened quietly until he heard that Guan Huapo had banished Guan Xiaohu from the family; then he could not help but speak up: "This evil tiger injured a human life, and moreover, it was a child. According to human rules, paying with its life would not be excessive."

"But Guan Huapo only banished it and did not harm it in the slightest; where did it get the resentment to bite its adoptive mother and brother to death?"

Guan Dazhuang shook his head and said, "Who knows? People say that when a young tiger is abandoned, its heart becomes unbalanced, breeding much resentment. It was abandoned once by its birth mother, and now it has been banished from the family; perhaps it holds a grudge because of this."

As soon as Guan Dazhuang finished speaking, the thin tiger lying on the ground, who had kept his eyes closed and said nothing, suddenly opened his mouth.

"I kindly brought blood food to repay her, yet she banished me without asking the cause or effect. In the end, she is biased; she only likes you and this fat man!"

Guan Dazhuang roared in anger, "What nonsense are you spouting! How could Godmother be biased? Do not say you killed a person; even if I killed someone, or Erzhuang killed someone, Godmother would not forgive us either!"

The thin tiger fell silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "Who said I bit that child to death?"

Guan Dazhuang was stunned; then he heard the thin tiger sneer, "When that child was strangled by someone and prepared to be thrown into a pot to be stewed, I snatched him away."

"She only said not to injure human lives; she never said not to eat humans."

Speaking to this point, the thin tiger seemed somewhat tired; he closed his eyes and said in a strange tone, "Those people are all eating humans, yet she eats only vegetarian food all day. What is wrong with me bringing a person back?"

"You!" Guan Dazhuang's eyes widened, and he panted like an ox. He wanted to say something, but in the end, it all turned into abusive curses.

"You rascal, what use is saying these things? Now you have eaten so many people and bitten Godmother to death, yet you still feel you are not wrong?"

Beside him, Xu Qing frowned deeply as he listened; if he were not already a non-living being, his blood pressure would probably have been surging uncontrollably.

These feathered and horned beasts, even if they have awakened spiritual intelligence, think in ways very different from humans.

And this Guan Xiaohu, abandoned by his mother tiger from a young age, was someone with an extremely unbalanced heart; perhaps it was a mistake for Guan Huapo to take him in at the beginning.

However, compared to the extreme temperament of Guan Xiaohu, Xu Qing was actually more interested in the man in yellow robes.

According to what Guan Dazhuang said, he was also picked up by Guan Huapo, yet he did not display any abnormal behavior.

Watching the grand drama before him, which contained elements of humans, beasts, and family ethics, Xu Qing felt that this trip had not been in vain.

However, though watching the show was one thing, he still had to do what needed to be done.

"Erzhuang, will you kill him or not? If you cannot bear to, I will have to do it myself."

Public matters are public, private matters are private; Xu Qing had always remembered the grudge of Guan Xiaohu attacking him.

Hearing this, Sun Erzhuang instantly realized; he held the Si Nan Sword with both hands, raised it high, and was about to bring it down upon the thin tiger's neck.

Guan Xiaohu opened his tiger eyes wide; dense tiger evil qi surged out, suppressing Sun Erzhuang's spirit.

Yet just then, an eerie voice suddenly sounded within the Incense Hall.

"Xiao Hu, Xiao Hu."

The voice was like that of a blind old woman, stumbling along the village entrance while calling out to her mischievous grandson to come home for a meal.

Xu Qing frowned and looked, seeing a figure of an old woman appear atop the coffin holding Guan Huapo's corpse.

Inside the Incense Hall, Guan Xiaohu, who lay prostrate on the ground, stiffened all over, and the malevolent qi in his eyes instantly vanished without a trace.

His Hukou trembled, but in the end he said nothing, merely closing his eyes.

Sun Erzhuang seemed unable to hear Guan Huapo's voice; after breaking free from the influence of the malevolent qi, he roared loudly, and the sword in his hand fell upon Guan Xiaohu's neck.

The tiger skin was as tough as iron; Sun Erzhuang strained until his neck turned red, yet could not pierce it. Xu Qing stared at the scene in a daze for an instant, and just as he prepared to lend a hand, he saw many tiger hairs sprout on the back of Sun Erzhuang's hand. The next moment, a tiger roar rang out, and the Simnan Sword responded by shattering the tiger-skin defense, piercing straight through the lean tiger's neck.

Xu Qing felt something in his heart; he looked up and saw the yellow-robed giant from before with his eyes tightly shut, as if asleep.

It was the Tiger Lord possessing him, aiding Sun Erzhuang in slaying the demon tiger.

(End of this chapter)