Weishui's Three Transformations, Subduing the Dragon and Taming the Tiger

Weishui's Three Transformations, Subduing the Dragon and Taming the Tiger

Most likely, the fierce winds and driving snow had concealed the commotion at the Li Family Butcher Shop that night.

What had happened that night, no one knew but Yu Chen and Li Er themselves.

By dawn, the wind and snow had gradually abated.

That day, two major events took place in Weishui County Seat.

First, a caravan from the Golden Sun Merchant Guild of the prefectural city passed through Weishui while escorting goods. Having lost nearly half its men in an avalanche not long ago, it posted notices throughout Weishui County Seat early that morning, offering generous pay to recruit strong porters and guards to accompany the caravan to its destination, Yunyang.

The moment the news spread, the Golden Sun Merchant Guild's lavish offer set the hearts of countless Weishui citizens ablaze. Like old lechers catching sight of brothel girls, their eyes shone bright.

The second matter was far less pleasant—Wang Wenli, eldest son of the Wang Household, the renowned herbalist Aristocratic Clan around Weishui's Skybridge, had led men into the mountains to gather herbs some days ago. The heavy snow had sealed off the mountain, trapping them there for two days and two nights. In the end, they were attacked by a silver-white beast in the mountains. Only half of his body remained when he was brought back to Weishui.

The Wang patriarch flew into a rage and put up a reward of one hundred taels of silver for the silver-white beast's life. Whoever brought the beast's corpse to the Wang residence, man or woman, young or old, would be awarded one hundred taels of silver!

Yet the response to this second great event was nowhere near as fervent as the first.

The reason was simple enough.

Following the Golden Sun Merchant Guild from the prefectural city to Yunyang, doing odd jobs and carrying loads on shoulder and back, could make one modestly well-off in a single trip.

But going to hunt that mountain beast was work where nine chances out of ten meant death. Without real skill, it would be like tossing a meat bun to a dog—gone, never to return.

After all, in Weishui County Seat, the legend of the "Fanghua Mountain White Ghost" was enough to stop children crying at night.

The White Ghost in that name referred to the silver-white beast.

Over the years, at least ten villagers and herb gatherers had died in its jaws. Ordinary folk avoided it like the plague, and even the martial men in the southern district of the city, those fond of fighting and violence, had to weigh the matter carefully.

Of course, the villagers and herb gatherers at the foot of the mountain had petitioned the authorities to send troops to hunt the beast. But it was incomparably cunning: when people advanced, it retreated; when they withdrew, it pursued. When it encountered martial artists of the Innate Realm, it fled in a puff of smoke, but against ordinary soldiers, it became savage and vicious.

It specialized in bullying the weak and fearing the strong.

After losing quite a few soldiers, the matter had simply been dropped.

The county magistrate had even invited immortal masters and Daoist elders from the Aura-Observing Bureau, only to be dismissed with a single sentence: "The beast has not become a demon."

The Aura-Observing Bureau only dealt with demons, monsters, ghosts, and fiends.

In short, the Golden Sun Merchant Guild's side of Luoshui Street at Skybridge was bustling with voices, while the Wang Household's side was truly deserted enough for sparrows to nest.

But let us put those matters aside for now.

For the people around Hanging Bridge, there was a third major event besides those two.

Li Er, the tyrant of Hanging Bridge, had changed his nature for the first time under heaven!

That brute who usually never had a decent word to say had actually uttered the word "please" that morning!

At the first gray light of dawn, just after the snow had stopped, villagers and vendors heading early to the market saw Li Er, his face full of fierce flesh, kneeling before Sun the Old Lady's house next door. He respectfully held two taels of silver in his hands, and after the door opened, he was humility itself!

"Li Er repays his debt! Please accept it, Madam Sun!"

To the people of Hanging Bridge, this scene was as absurd as a sow climbing a tree or an iron tree blossoming!

Two bleary-eyed vegetable sellers even declared that they must have risen too abruptly to witness the rogue Li Er apologizing and repaying money. They immediately gave up on selling vegetables and went home to sleep some more.

It was not until more than an hour later, when Sun accepted the silver and returned inside to set up her tofu stall, that everyone finally believed what they had seen with their own eyes was real.

And that was not the end of it.

Afterward, the people discovered that Li Er, the bully who used to be all fierce flesh and foul language, had become much more meek and amiable toward everyone. Even when he encountered beggars on the street, he would smile and call them "sir."

How could anyone make sense of that?

At once, some curious souls gathered their courage and asked Li Er what madness had possessed him. Though Li Er's attitude was astonishingly good, he refused to say why he had changed, no matter what.

Later, as word spread from one person to ten and ten to a hundred, the matter became a wildly popular topic amid the clacking of the people's upper and lower lips.

But as the tale spread, it became entangled with Sun the Old Lady again.

Why had this rogue scoundrel, who had run rampant and tyrannized others for decades, suddenly turned over a new leaf overnight and returned the silver of his recently deceased elderly neighbor?

There were countless possible reasons, but the most bizarre, the most eye-catching, and the one people most wished to believe was that Sun the Old Lady had returned from death and frightened that pig-slaughtering bully senseless!

Naturally, these three matters had little to do with Yu Chen for the time being.

At this hour, he had already returned to Qingfeng Mausoleum to claim the benefits of the Scripture of Deliverance!

It was worth mentioning that Sun the Old Lady's final wish had not been fulfilled the moment Yu Chen beat Li Er.

Rather, it was only at dawn, when Li Er truly returned the silver to Madam Sun, that the final wish of "debts must be repaid" in the Scripture of Deliverance finally vanished like smoke.

Then, as before, the ghost offered thanks and crossed the river of deliverance.

Smoke-gray words appeared upon the Scripture of Deliverance.

[Ninth-Rank Mortal Wish fulfilled, Ninth-Rank Mortal Soul delivered. Bestowed: treasured tome "Subduing Dragons and Tigers: Mortal Volume"]

A flash of golden light appeared, and a golden tome flew out of the Scripture of Deliverance, landing in Yu Chen's hands.

The next instant, just as when he had practiced the Manual of Paper Effigies and Paper Horses.

The golden book dissolved upon touching his hand, transforming into a stream of golden light that flowed into Yu Chen's body.

Then the world spun around him, and Yu Chen once more arrived in that empty illusion.

Only this time, what appeared beside him was not bamboo strips and yellow paper.

It was a golden figure whose features could not be seen.

It began practicing punches on its own. As it shifted and turned, punching and striking with its palms, phantom images of dragons and tigers accompanied every fist and kick!

At that moment, Yu Chen seemed utterly spellbound.

His eyes could no longer contain anything else, only the golden figure's movements, wild and domineering!

Without realizing it, he began to imitate them.

There was neither sun nor moon in cultivation.

Who knew how long passed? It seemed but an instant, yet also a hundred or a thousand years.

Yu Chen's movements changed from clumsy and awkward at first to skilled, fierce, clean, and decisive!

Every punch and every kick possessed the profundity and tyranny that only a martial arts grandmaster, tempered by long years of bitter practice, could wield.

He had reached perfection!

Only when he jolted awake and returned to his earthen hut.

His eyes were vacant.

His body had awakened, yet his soul remained immersed in that fierce martial technique!

After a long while, he slowly came back to himself. Pushing open the door and seeing no one around, he could not help practicing amid the heavy snow!

He could no longer remember any movement of the golden figure from the illusion, but his body, as though by instinct, had completely memorized the circulation route of that Internal Force!

He unleashed it!

The force within his Innate Realm body flowed through his meridians along a complex and profound route. By the time it reached his fists, it faintly stirred the blood and qi throughout his body into a roar, like dragons chanting and tigers howling!

There amid the swirling snow and disorderly gravestones, the youth threw punches and palm strikes, and the wind and snow filling the sky roared along with his fists and kicks!

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Fierce beyond compare!

Tyrannical beyond compare!

When he finished the set of punches and kicks, not a trace of snow remained within a radius of ten feet around the youth!

"Phew..."

Only after exhaling a long breath of turbid air did Yu Chen return to the hut.

Even after living two lives, with the calm disposition he had cultivated over the years of never letting joy or anger show upon his face, he could not suppress the delight in his eyes.

Subduing Dragons and Tigers: Mortal Volume.

At that very moment, Yu Chen completely understood the use of the benefit the Scripture of Deliverance had granted him this time.

A martial technique for killing and combat!

And most thoughtfully, just like the Manual of Paper Effigies and Paper Horses, Yu Chen had practiced in the illusion for countless years before fully mastering this killing art, yet not a single moment had passed in the real world.

By the time of the real world, it had taken only an instant for him to go from a novice with merely an Innate Realm body but no martial techniques, to entering the hall and reaching perfection!

Suppressing the emotions in his heart, Yu Chen used a broom to sweep the snow back over the ground and conceal the traces, then returned to the earthen hut.

As before, he lit the fire and cooked a meal, eating his fill.

By afternoon, accompanied by the familiar creak-creak of a wooden cart.

The Corpse Mover came again.

(End of Chapter)