North of the Second Mountain.
Chen Sanshi activated Tracking and Hiding to its fullest. Every mark, every broken branch, every footprint—the entire mountain's traces were laid bare before his eyes.
Rabbits. Roe deer. Mountain goats.
If he wanted, he could carry a goat down the mountain within ten minutes.
But a wild goat barely weighed a hundred or so catties, and even that would sell for just two taels of silver.
That would've been good money before. Now, it was far too little.
His goal was the tiger. At worst, a black bear or leopard—real predators worth hunting.
Following Zhao Qiao's directions, Chen Sanshi headed southwest.
Along the way, he occasionally ran into martial hall disciples dressed in fine robes.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, he had come in light armor instead of his usual uniform.
The disciples saw his armor and the heavy bow on his back. None dared provoke him. Most only cast a glance his way before returning to their own business.
"Why are there so many people here?"
After walking barely five li, Chen Sanshi had already passed more than a dozen people.
Even for hunters, that was too dense to be a coincidence.
And most of them didn't even carry bows—just swords or knives—as if they were searching for something rather than hunting.
The Witch God Sect?
No… that didn't fit.
These people looked too relaxed. Judging from their clothes, most were disciples from Tailei Martial Hall.
Chen Sanshi stayed cautious but listened in.
A gust of wind swept past. His sharp hearing picked up their conversation clearly.
"White deer!"
"The hall master's injured! Whoever finds the white deer will be rewarded with a share of property!"
"Hard task though. I heard white deer only eat rare herbs—each plant costs over ten taels of silver!"
"…"
Chen Sanshi pieced the situation together.
The night Qin Feng died, a battle had broken out in the city.
Thousand-Household Xiang Tingchun and the three major martial hall masters had confronted barbarian assassins, only to run into the Witch God Sect mid-fight. Tailei's hall master was severely wounded, and now they were offering a bounty for a mystical beast—the white deer—to heal him.
No matter the disciple's rank, anyone who captured the white deer would instantly be promoted to a core disciple and even manage part of the martial hall's business holdings.
That kind of reward made everyone lose their minds and flood into the mountains.
Chen Sanshi noted down the white deer's traits in his mind and pressed onward.
Tailei Martial Hall, huh?
He didn't see Zhang Chao or his companion anywhere.
If he had, Chen Sanshi might have loosed a few arrows just for fun.
After another ten li of hiking, he reached halfway up a rugged mountain slope.
There, beside a narrow winding trail, stood two martial hall disciples. Both carried bows. One of them, judging from its size, had a seven-strength bow—a restricted weapon under imperial law.
They each held an iron sword, gazing nervously into the woods ahead. Neither dared to go forward.
Chen Sanshi ignored them and kept walking.
"Hey!"
One of them called out, "You're really going up there? There's a tiger ahead!"
"I know," Chen Sanshi said casually without slowing his pace.
"You know? And you're still going? Aren't you afraid of dying?"
The disciple's eyes lit up when he noticed the massive bow slung across Chen Sanshi's back. He exchanged a glance with his companion carrying the seven-strength bow, then grinned. "How about we work together? My senior brother Wei here is a master in tempering blood at Minor Achievement!"
There really was a tiger up the slope—they'd discovered it only recently.
But with imperial laws forbidding heavy bows, and their limited cultivation, they hadn't dared make a move.
Wei Xu had secretly acquired a seven-strength bow, but even that wasn't enough to ensure success. If the tiger got close, even a tempering blood cultivator couldn't withstand its ferocity.
Meeting someone from the army carrying a two-stone bow was a stroke of luck for them.
"This brother," Wei Xu said confidently, "I've reached Minor Achievement in tempering blood. With your bow and my strength, taking down that tiger will be easy. We'll split the spoils—sixty–forty. I take six, you take four. What do you say?"
Chen Sanshi frowned and kept walking, too lazy to answer.
"?"
Wei Xu blinked, stunned that he was being ignored. "Arrogant bastard!"
"Senior Brother Wei, what do we do if he won't cooperate?" his junior whispered.
"That tiger's no joke. I saw it once—it's terrifying. Where does he get the confidence?"
Wei Xu scowled. "Follow him. Maybe the tiger eats him first. Then we'll pick up the leftovers."
…
'If I'd come two days later, someone else would've taken this beast for sure.'
Chen Sanshi crouched on the ground, scooping up a handful of soil. He sifted through it carefully and found two coarse, orange-yellow hairs buried in the dirt. A bit further away—claw marks, half-buried droppings, and dried blood splattered in the tall grass.
Every step of this process, he'd practiced countless times.
Following the trail like a line drawn across the terrain, he soon discovered a hidden cave halfway up the slope.
The cave's entrance was about five meters wide, thickly concealed by brush and tangled branches—easy to overlook without a keen eye.
Roughly twenty zhang ahead, the shrubs were littered with tattered, half-rotted clothes and scattered bones, their white sheen gleaming faintly in the shadows. Whoever they belonged to had been dead for quite some time.
'Nine times out of ten, the tiger's lair is in there.'
Chen Sanshi wasn't foolish enough to walk straight in.
In a cramped space like that, his bow and spear would lose their advantage completely. He needed to lure the beast out first.
"Whsssh—"
He suddenly turned, loosing an arrow.
A hundred paces away, a bounding roe deer squealed as the arrow sliced across its flank, leaving a bloody line on its fur.
"Reeek—!"
The startled deer shrieked, panicked.
"Whsssh—"
Another arrow struck the ground right by its hooves.
Terrified, the deer bolted—straight toward the cave.
Chen Sanshi had done that on purpose.
Experience from hunting the black bear had taught him—dead bait rarely drew predators. But a live one, bleeding and screaming, was an entirely different story.
Especially with tigers. Their territorial instincts were ferocious; they tolerated no intrusion.
A wounded animal crying and bleeding within its domain would never go unpunished.
Chen Sanshi climbed up a nearby tree, finding a vantage point high above. From there, he fired arrows to block the deer's escape paths, forcing it to stay near the cave. Blood from its wound spattered wildly as it stumbled and crashed through the brush.
The commotion lasted a full five minutes, loud enough to send flocks of birds shrieking into the sky—yet from the cave came nothing but cold, absolute silence.
'Not working? That shouldn't be. Tigers are vicious killers by nature—they don't stay hidden this long.'
Just as Chen Sanshi was about to try another tactic, a gust of cold wind swept through the mountain pass.
Wind follows the tiger, and clouds follow the dragon.
It was coming.
A dark shadow burst from the silent cave—massive as a boulder, swift as a leopard.
In a blur, it pounced on the deer.
Fangs like ivory daggers sank perfectly into the prey's throat, severing its artery in one clean bite.
The deer thrashed weakly, then went still.
The king of the mountain had arrived.
Chen Sanshi's eyes narrowed as he took in the sight.
The tiger was over one zhang long, easily weighing seven to eight hundred catties. Its golden fur gleamed in the sunlight, its claws like sharpened blades, slick with blood. Its amber eyes blazed with murderous light as it threw back its head and roared—its deafening cry echoing for ten li in every direction.
No wonder ordinary men pissed themselves at the sight.
The tiger didn't eat immediately. It wasn't hungry. It had killed simply because the noise offended it.
Clamping its jaws around the corpse, it began dragging the deer back toward the cave.
That was Chen Sanshi's moment.
The two-stone bow in his hands bent into a full, perfect arc like a new moon.
He loosed a Wolf Fang Arrow.
"Bang—!"
The arrow slammed into the tiger's skull with a dull, bone-crunching thud. It pierced the skull but stopped short of the brainstem—failing to kill.
'That hide's thick as iron… this beast's almost on the level of a spirit creature!'
"Rooaaar—!"
The tiger bellowed in rage, blood spraying as it snapped the embedded arrow shaft clean off. Then, with a gust of wild wind and killing intent sharp as knives, it charged straight toward the spot where Chen Sanshi stood.