"Beast?"
"Who?"
"Me?"
Chen Xian's steps halted. The effect of the Gossip Ear entry made his hearing astonishingly sharp.
He couldn't help growing a little angry.
He was an old man nearing eighty, a renowned candied hawthorn master for miles around, and one of the most respected people among the children.
How dare some little girl disrespect him?
He had to teach her a lesson!
Chen Xian planted his bundle of skewers on the ground, turned around, and swung his cane, ready to give the disrespectful little girl behind him a good thrashing.
But he hadn't expected the "little girl" to be so close, nor her head to be so hard.
"Bonk!"
He hadn't even had time to pull back. His cane had already landed on the other person's head with a dull thud, leaving his palm numb.
"L-little... t-tiger..."
Staring into the enormous head before him, Chen Xian saw the other party blink eyes as big as light bulbs. He shuddered violently and could barely get the words out. His already delicate prostate nearly gave way.
How was this a little girl? It was clearly a white tiger with a head bigger than his upper body!
"Tiger dad—no, tiger mom... I'm already eighty years old. My meat's old and tough. Please don't eat me..."
Though he didn't know why this big white tiger could speak in a young girl's voice or why it had called him a beast, if that was what she said, then so be it!
Begging for mercy, Chen Xian stumbled backward two steps.
The Six-Winged White Tiger took the cane strike full on. It hadn't hurt much, but it felt insulted.
It opened its bloody maw, ready to let out a roar that would shake the mountains and loosen the old man's prostate and sphincter.
"Go to hell! Taste this old man's invincible honey-glazed candied hawthorn!"
When Chen Xian saw it open its mouth, courage came from who knew where. He acted without a second thought, snatched up the bundle of candied hawthorn skewers beside him, and shoved it right down the tiger's throat.
At the same time, the entry in his attribute column changed from [Gossip Ear] to [Swift as Flying].
Chen Xian didn't even bother with his cane. He turned and ran, moving no slower than a twenty-year-old.
The Six-Winged White Tiger wanted to chase him, but the skewer had gone down its throat, and it was in agony.
Its mouth was both sour and sweet, as if dozens of needles had pierced the inside of it. It managed to pull out the long bundle of skewers, but for the moment it couldn't spit out the candied hawthorn still lodged in its mouth.
Worse still, that streak of red light behind it was drawing closer and closer!
The human cultivator hunting it had arrived!
Before long, a woman in a crimson dress, Sword Qi surging around her, came flying through the air.
She stood barefoot on a flying sword, her hair tied up with a red cord whose end fluttered in the wind. She gazed down at the Six-Winged White Tiger with calm eyes.
The sword cultivator flicked her hand, sending out a small ball. In an instant, it transformed into a Black Iron Cage, trapping the Six-Winged White Tiger where it stood.
Then her red lips parted. "Beast, you have nowhere left to run!"
The Six-Winged White Tiger paid her no mind. It sprawled on the ground, pawing frantically at its mouth, its expression pained as it kept spitting blood-flecked saliva.
Shangguan Hongyue furrowed her brow slightly, her eyes shifting. Only then did she notice that the Six-Winged White Tiger had spat out several hawthorn berries!
"So, you beast! Even while fleeing, you still stole a mortal's hawthorn! That's another crime to add to your list!"
Shangguan Hongyue's expression turned cold as she passed judgment on the Six-Winged White Tiger.
The Six-Winged White Tiger felt miserable.
It was a tiger! Why would it steal this sour, tart thing while running for its life?
That old bastard—just wait till it got its paws on him!
Just then, a commotion rose from the village.
Chen Xian had run back to the village and shouted the news. When the villagers learned a tiger had entered the village, they grabbed whatever they could and charged toward the entrance in a furious rush.
A wild beast entering the village was no small matter, especially when it was a man-eating ferocious beast like a Mountain Lord.
Nearly every able-bodied man in the village had come.
"This way! Over here!" Seventy-nine-year-old Chen Xian ran at the very front. The young men wielding cleavers and hoes could barely keep up with him.
"Old Chen's running so nimbly. He's just like a young man!"
"Has that Mountain Lord scared him witless?"
The old fellows bringing up the rear watched Chen Xian running Swift as Flying in disbelief. Someone cracked a joke, and the tense mood eased a little.
By the time Chen Xian led everyone to the village entrance,
they saw a huge white tiger with six pairs of wings toppling the iron cage and roaring at a red-clad woman flying in the air.
"Good heavens! A white tiger with wings! I've lived most of my life and this is the first time I've ever seen one!"
"It's a Blood Beast! A legendary Blood Beast!"
"Right, right! The storyteller said there were flying tigers and bears with human forms deep in these mountains. Those monsters are called Blood Beasts."
"It looks like someone's fighting the Blood Beast—and it's a woman!"
"..."
Quite a few people were so frightened that they fell to the ground, caught between curiosity and terror.
Chen Xian stood trembling on the spot, but he wasn't afraid. He was thrilled, exhilarated!
"So shiny! So bright! Wow! It's a golden legend!"
His gaze wasn't on the Six-Winged White Tiger. It was fixed on the red-dressed young woman fighting it.
In his field of vision, a dazzling golden entry was flying back and forth through the air.
[Innate Sword Bone (Yellow)]!!!
A cultivation entry! The cultivation entry he'd waited sixty years for!
She was here. She'd brought the entry with her!
"Hahahaha! Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—never bully an old man for being poor!"
Chen Xian didn't stop to think. He took off running toward the battlefield where the woman and beast were fighting.
"Huh?"
"Hey!!!"
By the time the crowd reacted, they couldn't stop him. Chen Xian had even run right out of one of his cloth shoes.
The battlefield at the village entrance rumbled. Streaks of light flashed and collided, setting off explosions and making the earth tremble.
If Old Chen ran in there now, he'd be dead ten times over!
The villagers turned their faces away, afraid to watch Old Chen get torn apart by the aftershocks of the battle.
"I understand! I understand everything!"
Just then, the old man Wang Tie Zhu slapped his thigh at the most inopportune moment, his face dawning with realization.
"Tie Zhu, what do you understand?" his friends asked, turning to him.
"Come on! You still don't get it? The sweetheart Old Chen's been waiting sixty years for is that woman in red!"
Wang Tie Zhu declared this with absolute conviction.
"That can't be right. That girl looks only seventeen or eighteen. How could she be Old Chen's sweetheart?"
"Exactly! Old Chen's nearly eighty! We can't just make matches up like that!"
Everyone voiced their doubts.
Wang Tie Zhu disagreed and continued explaining. "You fools! That young woman in red is clearly no ordinary mortal like us. She must be one of those legendary cultivators."
"Legendary cultivators have deep cultivation and extremely long lifespans. Staying young forever must be nothing to them!"
"Though this woman looks eighteen, wasn't Old Chen eighteen when he first came to our village? It all lines up, doesn't it?"
"Now that Old Chen's sweetheart has succeeded in her cultivation, she must've come to take him away so they can enjoy a life of comfort. Didn't you see how excited Old Chen was? He even ran out of his shoe!"
Everyone's eyes fell on the worn-out cloth shoe lying on the ground.
After a moment, someone sighed. "What a devoted pair~"
"Just you wait and see! Old Chen won't die!"
Wang Tie Zhu watched Chen Xian running toward the center of the battlefield, his expression certain. He wasn't worried about his old friend at all.
The others also stared wide-eyed at Chen Xian's retreating figure, their eyes full of envy.