Stopping

The young man had been so engrossed in cursing that he failed to watch his step and took one step forward.

"Bang~" His cursing came to an abrupt halt as the young man fell flat on his face.

The bystanders' expressions turned complicated for a moment—both astonished and amused.

But when it came to that fall, most of them felt it was a welcome sight.

Zhang Bo and the others, who had witnessed the young man trip on level ground with their own eyes, could not help baring their teeth. That had to hurt.

"Tut tut." Zhuge Yun looked intrigued. "How exactly did he fall? For no reason at all?"

Zhang Bo folded his arms across his chest, looking grave. "He brought it on himself. He has no one to blame but himself."

"This little brother is right." Someone beside them slapped his thigh and joined in. "Who told him to act like a fool earlier? He must have angered the mountain god, right?"

Uh, although Zhang Bo and the others, being college students, really could not agree with that explanation, they were not rash enough to refute it outright.

Zhao Luzheng opened and closed his mouth before finally forcing out a sentence. "This is too amazing." His eyes shone as he examined the young man from head to toe as though studying some marvelous creature, his face filled with bizarre enthusiasm and excitement.

Xiao Xiao's expression was somewhat strange. Fortunately, everyone else was focused on the young man, who had climbed back to his feet again, so no one noticed Xiao Xiao's unusual reaction.

Xiao Xiao tried hard to control his facial muscles so he would not laugh out loud at such an inappropriate moment. For a while, even his features became a little twisted.

Others did not know how the young man had fallen, but Xiao Xiao had seen it clearly.

Looking at the familiar figure on the maple tree diagonally ahead, Xiao Xiao raised his brows. Wasn't that the monster he had encountered earlier, only to be unable to find afterward?

So this monster had been carrying out the duties of a mountain god, punishing the culprit who had damaged the maple tree.

Unlike before, when Xiao Xiao had seen it hiding behind layers of maple leaves, the monster now stood openly on a branch jutting out from the maple tree.

Its long tail dangled lazily, carrying a hint of carelessness and innocence.

As though it had not been the one to trip the young man earlier.

The young man kept his head lowered, making it impossible to see his expression. But the clenched, vein-bulging fists at his sides revealed some of the turmoil in his heart.

He was probably about to explode with rage, wasn't he?

Xiao Xiao felt a bit sympathetic. Although the young man had been in the wrong first, he was suffering rather badly now.

In front of so many people, he had inexplicably fallen so many times, yet could not even leave, forced to be watched like this.

Didn't people say that if you could not afford to provoke someone, you could at least avoid them? But when facing a monster, ordinary people could neither provoke it nor avoid it.

It was tormenting both body and mind.

Xiao Xiao was certain that the young man would never damage trees again.

At first, the young man really had been furious. But as time passed, fear and panic slithered up from his spine like some cold, slick, boneless creature, seeping into every limb and bone. The feeling of watching the water level steadily rise before his eyes, gradually threatening to swallow him whole, was too terrifying. His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.

He could not take it anymore!

Trembling slightly, the young man took out his phone and called his fair-weather friends, telling them to come pick him up immediately, right away.

He wanted to leave this place!

Hearing the young man's trembling voice, filled with obvious fear, the onlookers could not help feeling a little sympathy for him.

At first, seeing the young man—whose words were arrogant and whose behavior was overbearing—suffer and learn a lesson had given them a certain sense that he deserved this punishment. It had felt deeply satisfying. Or perhaps some of them had simply been gleefully watching the excitement, unconcerned with how serious things became.

But now, seeing how miserable the young man was, they gradually began to feel a little uneasy themselves.

After all, to many people, damaging a tree was not really that serious a matter.

It was not as if he had cut one down.

Quite a few people present had snapped a few branches or kicked a tree a few times when they were in a bad mood.

So seeing the young man in such a miserable state made them feel somewhat guilty as well.

For a moment, as the bystanders' attitudes changed, the scene fell into an eerie silence.

Yet not many people left. They were all curious to see how this would end.

More than ten minutes later, the young man's friends arrived.

When they saw how disheveled and miserable he looked, they were all shocked.

But the young man did not want to say much to them, nor did he have the strength to say anything more. He merely kept urging them to take him away, yet still did not dare move, waiting for his friends to support him.

Although the friends who had rushed over found it strange, they also sensed that something was off and did not ask further questions. They took out the wheelchair the young man had told them to bring and moved to help him into it, one on each side.

The bystanders who had overheard the young man's phone call were not surprised to see the wheelchair. They even silently praised his quick thinking.

Since he could not walk, then he simply would not walk.

Surely he would not fall like this, right?

However, Xiao Xiao, who had kept a close watch on the monster, noticed that the tail, which had remained still because the Young Man had not moved, suddenly began to stir.

What was it trying to do?

A few faint creases appeared between Xiao Xiao's brows.

Then Xiao Xiao saw that the slightly raised tip of the tail was pointed at... the wheelchair!

Was it trying to overturn the wheelchair?

This was no joke.

If that happened, the Young Man's injuries would not be limited to a few scrapes and bruises from a fall; he might even damage his bones and tendons.

It had gone too far!

Xiao Xiao quickly walked beneath the Maple Tree where the monster was. His abrupt movement did not draw the attention of the others, whose focus was entirely on the Young Man at the moment.

Just as the tail was about to shoot out, Xiao Xiao reached out and tightly grabbed it.

The tremendous force made Xiao Xiao stagger, but he pressed his lips together and grabbed on with his other hand as well, fiercely clenching the still-struggling tail.

At that moment, Xiao Xiao had no time to worry about what kind of looks his strange behavior might attract.

He raised his head and stared straight into the monster's eyes.

His lips moved. His voice was not loud, but Xiao Xiao believed the monster in the tree could hear him.

"Enough. He has already been taught a sufficient lesson."

The monster gave a start when its tail was suddenly seized and immediately tried to shake off the foreign object clinging to it. Yet, to its surprise, it could not shake it off!

The monster looked down and saw the... human grabbing its tail?

It was actually a human!

Overwhelmed by surprise, the monster stopped struggling with its tail, which made Xiao Xiao let out a huge sigh of relief.

This monster was far too strong. He had truly worried that it might send him flying with a single flick of its tail.

He did not notice at all that he had actually managed to restrain the monster.