I'm the Black Bear Spirit!

Once he had finished writing,

Chen Guan looked at the little girl expectantly.

"Ah...?"

Xiao Qing stared at the crooked, twisted characters, but she couldn't make sense of a single one.

She had been killed by bandits before she could learn to read, then hidden away by them in the Dilapidated Temple.

You can't read?

Chen Guan erased the name he had written earlier and wrote another line.

But once he finished, he realized he might as well have written nothing.

She couldn't read, so of course she wouldn't understand.

"Brother Black Bear, I can't read..."

Though Xiao Qing couldn't read, she knew that those orderly marks were called "characters."

And although she seemed a little vacant, she wasn't stupid.

Now that she knew Brother Black Bear could read and understand human speech, she said happily and admiringly,

"Brother Black Bear, you're amazing! You can read! Xiao Qing can't read at all!"

"Roar." Chen Guan nodded, showing that he understood her now.

They both spoke human words and wrote human characters. Wasn't that nice?

Even if one was a bear and the other a ghost,

they had both been human in life.

"Brother Black Bear, what are you doing here?"

After her excitement faded, Xiao Qing asked another question, curious as a little child.

It was what she had cared about most from the start.

And once again, they couldn't communicate.

Chen Guan didn't know how to answer.

After all, the girl named Xiao Qing couldn't read.

With no other choice,

Chen Guan pointed toward the gloomy side room in the rear courtyard, where rain fell, then made a gesture of closing his eyes and sleeping.

Xiao Qing watched him, tilted her head, and thought for a moment before asking fearfully,

"Brother Black Bear... are... are you checking if anyone's staying here...

so... you can eat them while they're asleep?"

"What the hell? What kind of thought process does this little girl have?"

Hearing her answer, Chen Guan felt a wave of helplessness surge straight to his head. He hadn't expected Xiao Qing to come up with that!

But when he thought about it,

in her eyes, he was probably a "black bear that had become a spirit."

So it didn't seem strange that a monster would eat people.

Huff, huff—

Even so,

Chen Guan shook his head, denying her guess. He made the gesture again, this time putting a stone under his head.

And to stop her from asking, "Are you going to smash them to death first, then eat them?",

he went on to demonstrate all sorts of sleeping positions: on his side, flat on his back, and even pulling up a blanket.

Xiao Qing watched in confusion for a while, then understood. She realized she had mistaken Brother Black Bear.

"So..."

She clapped her hands happily. Though she was only an apparition and made no sound, her voice was full of joy.

"So Brother Black Bear is a good bear!"

"Good fucking bear..." Chen Guan didn't know what to say.

Because he really was a bear.

That was an undeniable fact.

If I weren't a bear, that pack of 'constable brothers' wouldn't have chased me like mad this afternoon, risking their lives to catch me.

Chen Guan found the whole thing absurd.

But he also knew that if he weren't a bear, he wouldn't have been able to avenge his previous life so quickly.

Though one of them had gotten away,

he had heard the words "Little Liuzi Town."

The constables and Bandit Brother were both over there.

In the days that followed,

Chen Guan hunted near the Dilapidated Temple, but didn't venture any farther.

First, constables and outside martial-arts reinforcements might be searching for him.

The farther he went, the more likely he was to expose himself.

The deep mountains and old forests weren't safe, either.

Second, he wanted to get to know Xiao Qing better and learn more about this world.

At last,

seven days passed.

He and Xiao Qing had talked for nearly ten thousand words.

By asking questions and using her nods and shakes to eliminate possibilities,

he had cut away 99.9 percent of the useless guesses and learned about Xiao Qing's past.

Her parents had died in a war when she was little. A brothel had taken a liking to her and abducted her, intending to train her from childhood.

Then a Knight-Errant had stood up for her and rescued her.

But as the Knight-Errant was taking her away,

they had run into the enemies pursuing him at the Dilapidated Temple.

The Knight-Errant died, and so did she.

Her body was tossed aside here,

while his enemies carried his corpse away.

It had happened ten years ago.

As for how Xiao Qing had become a ghost, Chen Guan didn't know, and neither did she.

But she told him that before the locust tree outside had been struck dead by heavenly lightning, it used to breathe out a very soothing "black wind."

Chen Guan knew she meant "yin energy."

Of course, he had simply decided to call it yin energy; he had no proof that was what it truly was.

In the end,

he did his best to gather the viscous liquid in the pool with lotus leaves and store it in the side room in the rear courtyard,

in case it went several months without raining and no thunderstorms came to soak the locust tree.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to see Xiao Qing.

She was the only person he could talk to now.

Another five days passed.

One li from the Dilapidated Temple,

Chen Guan sat beneath a tree in the forest, devouring a wild boar raw.

If you ignored the blood all over his mouth, from a distance he looked like he was really enjoying it.

"Awooo~"

"Grrr..."

At the same time,

several wolves and scavengers nearby drooled as they watched Chen Guan's prey.

But they only watched. None of them dared make a move.

Chen Guan was simply too big.

Even sitting down to eat, he stood a meter and a half tall.

"Caw, caw..." Some crow-like birds flapped their wings anxiously in the trees, watching Chen Guan eat.

They were all waiting for the "king of the forest" to finish. Then, in their proper place in the food chain, they would take turns enjoying the leftovers.

"I'm stuffed..."

Chen Guan finished eating and drinking, then rose to his feet with a rumble.

The animals immediately took several steps back, almost without thinking.

"Roar!" Amused by them, Chen Guan let out another furious growl and pretended to chase them, taking a couple of steps forward.

"Whimper, whimper~" Their tails tucked between their legs, they fled even farther, whimpering as if begging for mercy.

"Haha, I'm full. The rest is yours."

A distinctly human smile appeared on Chen Guan's bear face.

It looked a little uncanny, but it was definitely a smile.

Still smiling, Chen Guan glanced toward the Dilapidated Temple, ready to head back.

Over the past ten-odd days,

he had gone out hunting by day and returned at night.

The practice he got from hunting

had not only made him more familiar with the ways bears hunted,

but also increased his innate talent's proficiency quite a bit.

It was now [Primary Bear Strength: 251/1000]

He had roughly ten percent more strength than before.

About thirteen hundred pounds.

If Chen Guan rammed into the wall from before now, it wouldn't merely crack. He'd knock it down in one blow.

I'm even stronger now...

Chen Guan loved this kind of visible progress.

As he thought about it,

he approached the Dilapidated Temple.

Xiao Qing was standing at the entrance, waiting for him.

"Brother Black Bear, you're back!"

The moment Xiao Qing saw him return, her worry vanished, replaced by a happy smile.

Every time Chen Guan went out, she worried about him.

She was afraid something might happen to him.

But because she was bound to her corpse, she couldn't travel far. Otherwise, she would have followed him.

"Roar..."

Seeing his little sister come out to greet him, Chen Guan waved his paw.

By now,

he had gotten used to living in the Dilapidated Temple, and to having a chattering little ghost sister beside him whenever he "came home."

But he felt something strange in his heart.

"People always say the living and the dead belong to different worlds.

When I was reincarnated, I felt that humans and bears belonged to different worlds, too.

And yet here I am, a big bear living with this little ghost?"

Chen Guan found it rather amusing.

Having a chattering little sister nearby, one who worried about his hunts, was nice.

Most importantly, his little sister wanted nothing material. Maybe it was because she was a ghost, or maybe because she was young.

Even food was unnecessary; she could sustain herself by breathing in yin energy.

Chen Guan thought she was wonderful.

But he didn't know that Xiao Qing thought Brother Black Bear was even better, because he always stayed with her and didn't mind that she was a ghost.

That night,

after chatting with his chattering little sister,

Chen Guan saw how late it was,

left the Dilapidated Temple, and headed for the side room in the rear courtyard to rest.

Though bear and ghost were both unusual, men and women were still different.

"Good night, Brother!" Xiao Qing watched him leave, then leaned against the doorway and called after him.

"Roar!"

Chen Guan answered too, roughly meaning good night.

Tap, tap—

He reached the side room.

This place was pretty messy, too.

But the dusty cobwebs had all been cleared away.

Chen Guan slowly lay down on the stone bed, then glanced at the wooden bucket beneath the head of the bed.

He'd used up a little less than half the mucus inside.

After a few glances,

Chen Guan untied a thick vine from his body, dipped one end into the bucket, and let its stalk soak up the water.

During the day,

Chen Guan usually took the vine with him when he went out. Every so often, he'd wipe his eyes with it to keep his Yin-Yang Eyes active, checking the forest for anything strange among the ghosts.

"Brother! Brother! Are you resting?"

Just as Chen Guan was thinking things over, Xiao Qing, who was always full of energy, called out to him from the doorway again.

At the same time, her voice was quiet, tentative even, as if she were testing the waters.

She figured that if her brother was asleep, she shouldn't disturb him.

But her brother was an unusual bear with very sharp hearing, and he could hear her.

"Hulu Lu..."

Chen Guan decided to pretend to be asleep. Otherwise, this little girl could really chatter away with him all night.

He'd meant to pretend to sleep.

But after all his daily training and grinding, the moment he closed his eyes, he drifted off before he knew it.

Late at night.

Inside the Dilapidated Temple.

"When will I be able to leave 'Xiao Qing' behind?"

Xiao Qing stared blankly at her corpse, longing to leave soon.

Then, during the day, she wouldn't be all alone in the temple. She could go outside and play with her big brother, Black Bear.

But whenever she tried to leave the spot where her corpse and the temple stood, she felt a sort of "tug" and "pull" dragging her back.

She didn't understand it.

But she knew that if she breathed in the dark wind from the Locust Tree every day, that tugging sensation would gradually weaken.

"One day, I'll get out!"

Xiao Qing was full of anticipation. Happily, she floated around the temple again and again.

Now and then, she drifted to the doorway, propped her chin in her hands, and gazed toward the side room where her big brother, Black Bear, was staying.

After gathering her soul, Chen Guan was the only "person" who could see her.

That made her feel less alone.

But as Xiao Qing drifted about from time to time, occasionally looking in on Chen Guan,

Tap, tap—

Footsteps sounded outside the temple gate.

A Daoist priest in his forties, dressed in a Daoist robe, glanced at Xiao Qing inside the temple as soon as he spotted her.

"Fate! Fate!"

The moment the Daoist saw Xiao Qing, he showed not the slightest fear. Instead, he swept his palm through the air, sending a strange gust of wind curling toward her and pinning her before the stone statue.

"I'd meant to spend the night here, but I never expected to run into a newborn little ghost."

The Daoist's expression turned greedy.

"With looks like yours, you'll make a fine ghost servant for me..."

The Daoist's thoughts stirred as he eyed her. Ignoring Xiao Qing's terror, he pulled a long, celadon sword from his waist.

"Speak. Will you come with me, or shall I cut you down with one stroke?"

"Brother..." Terrified, Xiao Qing called out to him instinctively.

"Brother?" The Daoist looked puzzled.

Meanwhile,

in the side room,

Chen Guan, still half asleep, couldn't tell whether he was dreaming or hearing something real. Through the haze, he made out the voice of a man who called himself "this poor Daoist."

He also faintly heard his little sister calling out.

Then, a moment later,

while Chen Guan was still lost in a hazy dream,

"Brother!"

Xiao Qing's terrified, anxious voice came through even more clearly.

Hearing her cry for help, Chen Guan's eyes snapped open. He sprang up from the bed.

"Damn Daoist!"

Thud—

Chen Guan's massive body squeezed through the side-room door. He charged forward, his broad paws pounding the blue-brick courtyard.

"Who's there?"

Hearing the commotion, the Daoist instinctively turned his gaze toward the rear courtyard.

In the bright moonlight,

he caught sight of Chen Guan's furious, eerily humanlike face.

"The ghost calls it big brother? Could this bear be a demon?!"

The Daoist was horrified. He froze, his mind going blank.

"Roar!"

But as he stood there frozen,

Chen Guan had already charged into the temple. He planted his feet, mustered all his strength, and swung his enormous paw down toward the Daoist's head like a mighty sweep of the heavens!

Faced with imminent death,

the Daoist barely snapped back to his senses. In his panic, he had no time to dodge. He could only raise his sword to protect himself and twist his body as far aside as he could.

Crash—

But as the bear's paw struck the sword,

the blade in the Daoist's hand shattered. His right collarbone caved in, and the force of the blow sent him flying sideways.