Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 263 Tiger Xiaolin
Even if you don't know how to use a bow and arrow, there are ways to hunt without one.

After all, Jiang Wanli possessed an eighth-rank martial arts cultivation level. Although he was an unknown figure in the martial arts world, he could still defeat most wild beasts in the mountains and forests.

No wonder!
Help!

Jiang Wanli ran wildly through the woods, his pants down, with a large, striped tiger right behind him.

The tiger was enormous, about the size of two ordinary tigers, and incredibly fast. Even with Jiang Wanli's lightness skill, he couldn't outrun it. Several times, just as the tiger was about to bite Jiang Wanli, Jiang Wanli unleashed a burst of speed and used the terrain of the forest to create distance.

Soon, Jiang Wanli realized that his escapes from the tiger's jaws were not due to luck or skill, but because the tiger was simply toying with him!

The tiger was like a cat chasing a mouse. It didn't eat Jiang Wanli, but just kept chasing him, howling every now and then to scare him, and then driving Jiang Wanli around, as if it was having a lot of fun.

While he could play with the tiger, Jiang Wanli dared not lower his guard in the slightest.

If the tiger doesn't catch you, you'll at most go hungry, but if you can't escape, you'll lose your life!
Jiang Wanli regretted more than once why he insisted on splitting up with Shi Yizhi—what was he doing acting so high and mighty! He should have just obediently followed Shi Yizhi and assisted him!

Fortunately, the two hadn't been separated for long, and the tiger's roar could be heard for miles. Shi Yizhi, who had just caught a rabbit on the other side, didn't even bother to pick up the rabbit when he heard the tiger's roar and the faint cries for help. He turned around and ran in the direction from which the tiger's roar came.

Soon, not long after, Shi Yizhi saw Jiang Wanli running wildly in the distance, with a tiger relentlessly chasing after him.

Brother Jiang!

Shi Yi called out from afar, then immediately drew his bow and fired an arrow into the tiger's eye.

The arrow was a wooden arrow with only the tip sharpened, so its killing power was limited. But as Shi Yizhi said, he had practiced archery since childhood and was very skilled with bows and arrows. So the wooden arrow, which was imbued with true energy, pierced the tiger's right eye in one go.

With a furious roar, the tiger, which had been toying with Jiang Wanli, suddenly went berserk. It stopped chasing Jiang Wanli and pounced straight at Shi Yizhi.

Jiang Wanli knew something was wrong with the tiger. Turning his head and seeing its angry expression, he immediately shouted, "Senior brother! Run!"

Although Shi Yizhi did not understand his meaning, he still trusted Jiang Wanli completely. He stepped on the ground, gathered his strength, and leaped onto a tree.

Jiang Wanli felt increasingly desperate: "It's no ordinary tiger!"

I almost got bitten just because I was trying to climb a tree to escape!

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the tiger leaped up from a great distance. A wisp of black energy swirled around its body, and then it took several strides in the air before pouncing toward the tree branch where Shi Yizhi was!

In just a few breaths, Shi Yizhi was greatly alarmed—

This is something no ordinary tiger could do!

It was only at this moment that Shi Yizhi realized that the tiger was terrifyingly large!
Fortunately, Shi Yizhi was quick-witted. At the critical moment, he lightly touched the ground with his foot and jumped onto the branch of another tree, finally causing the tiger to miss its target.

Unexpectedly, the tiger easily climbed the tree branch, then turned its head and leaped again in the direction of Shi Yizhi. Just as the tiger's gaping maw was about to bite down, Shi Yizhi jumped to another tree and survived.

However, this couldn't go on. Before jumping to another tree, Shi Yizhi shouted to Jiang Wanli in the distance, "Brother Jiang! This tiger is strange! We're not far from Tangquan Villa! Go back quickly and ask Miss Hu for help! I can still hold on for a while!"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Wanli hesitated for only a moment before taking off running towards the Tangquan Villa.

Although Shi Yizhi is also an eighth-rank cultivator, the difference between eighth-rank cultivators is greater than the difference between a human and a dog. At least Shi Yizhi can use his family's lightness skill to jump around in the trees and hold them back for a while. Staying behind would only be a hindrance and would be of no use at all. It would be better to go back and ask for help.

The hot spring villa was indeed not far from where the two were hunting. After running for only a few hours (an ancient hour was about 2.4 minutes), they saw the bluestone wall of the hot spring villa.

"Miss Hu! Miss Hu!"

Even from a distance, still outside the courtyard, Jiang Wanli started shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Miss Hu! Help!"

Then, a red figure suddenly flew out of the courtyard; it was none other than Miss Hu!
"What happened?"

Miss Hu had just asked the question when she suddenly wrinkled her nose, sniffed Jiang Wanli, and then her expression changed drastically: "What happened to you?!"

Jiang Wanli had long since exhausted his internal energy, and was now as tired as an ordinary person. He supported himself on his thigh with one hand and put the other on his hip, panting heavily as he said, "A huge tiger! A huge tiger! My senior brother is being chased in the forest, so I ran back to ask for help!"

Miss Hu asked with a serious expression, "Where is it?"

Jiang Wanli hurriedly pointed in the direction he had come from and said, "It's over there! Not far!"

Miss Hu didn't have time to ask any more questions and immediately ran out, leaving Jiang Wanli stunned.

This skill seems to be something only immortals in legends would use, right? Jiang Wanli shook his head, ignoring these random thoughts, and hurriedly chased after her, worried that Miss Hu might not be able to find the place.

Because his true energy was exhausted, Jiang Wanli couldn't catch up with Miss Hu at all. He could only run there using the methods of an ordinary person. When he arrived, his face flushed and breathless, he saw Miss Hu confronting the huge tiger.

Miss Hu actually said to the tiger, "Lord Mountain Lord is magnanimous, why bother with these outsiders?"

"Mountain, mountain, mountain, mountain lord!?"

Jiang Wanli was so frightened that he started to stutter.

Although tigers are commonly referred to as "mountain lords" in folk parlance, that is a more elegant term, and it is mostly found in various literary works and paintings. Normal people would not politely address a real tiger as "mountain lords"!

Especially in this strange place, Jiang Wanli didn't think that Miss Hu's so-called "Mountain Lord" was just an insignificant elegant term like it is in those paintings and calligraphy.

Sure enough, the next moment, Jiang Wanli heard the huge tiger speak in human language to his horror: "He shot out one of my eyes, and I only suggest biting off the arm he used to draw his bow, which is already very fair!"

Miss Hu stood in front of Shi Yizhi and said solemnly, "Lord Shan, you must be joking. How could ordinary arrows possibly hurt you?"

The tiger remained unmoved; its right eye had somehow recovered completely, with only a few traces of blood on its fur.

It stared intently at Shi Yizhi, its eyes flashing with ferocity, and said, "I will avenge the loss of that arrow—is it not laughable to forgive the perpetrator's wrongdoing on the grounds of my superior cultivation?"

Jiang Wanli was so frightened he almost fainted—it was one thing for a tiger to be able to speak human language, but it was even good at debating scriptures!
Shi Yizhi stood behind Miss Hu and interjected without changing his expression: "You were the one who pursued my friend first and tried to hurt him. I was just protecting myself. What wrong have I done?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Wanli nodded hurriedly, "Ah, yes, yes, yes!"

He boldly took two steps forward, getting close to Shi Yizhi, and said in a trembling voice, "You were the one who chased after me first!"

The mountain lord replied, "I was taking a nap in the mountains when you disturbed me. I merely chased you away once or twice, yet you attacked me with deadly force. What excuse do you have?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Wanli felt a deep bitterness in his heart.

When he was being chased so hard that he couldn't lay any eggs, he could indeed sense that the other party could have bitten him several times, but still teased him and let him go. He thought that the other party, this "big cat," was playing "cat and mouse," but who knew that it was just "chasing away" him!

However, Shi Yizhi calmly continued to refute, "My friend merely wandered in by mistake and was attacked and chased by you. How can that be considered driving him away? If you want to say that chasing him just now was driving him away, then my arrow just now was merely self-defense!"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Wanli straightened his back somewhat: "Exactly! Who knew you were driving me away! I thought I was going to be eaten by you!"

Upon hearing this, the mountain lord didn't even glance at Jiang Wanli, but instead glared even more fiercely at Shi Yizhi, angrily saying, "You clever talker! I'll make you pay today!"

After saying that, he let out a long roar, and a stench swept over them. The tiger's roar shook the earth, the rocks on the mountain trembled, the soil crumbled and the trees swayed. Shi Yizhi and Jiang Wanli were also shaken by the tiger's roar, and their legs went weak, and they fell to the ground, almost unable to move!
The tiger's roar from the mountain tiger caused Miss Hu to change her appearance. Two fluffy red pointed ears suddenly emerged from the ground above her head, and a small section of her fox tail, which could not be hidden, was also revealed under her skirt. Even her eyes turned light gold, and her pupils were almost vertical straight lines, leaving Shi Yizhi and Jiang Wanli stunned.

This Miss Hu isn't even human!
But the next moment, this inhuman Miss Hu roared at the Mountain Lord, "Mountain Lord! With me here, let's see if you dare!"

Seeing that Miss Hu was determined to protect the two, the mountain lord scratched the ground irritably with its claws, and slapped its tail, sending dirt and stones flying behind it with a loud cracking sound. After confronting Miss Hu for a long time, it finally said fiercely, "Hmph, Old Man Hu is marrying off his daughter, so I'll let you off the hook today. But in three days, I'll see who can protect you two bastards!"

Having said that, he faced the three people... no, he faced the two people and the fox, and slowly retreated step by step.

It didn't turn around until it had retreated more than ten feet, then leaped a few times in the woods and disappeared from sight.

Once the mountain tiger was out of sight, Miss Hu breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and looked at the two of them with a hint of anger, and said, "What exactly did you two do to provoke it?"

As she spoke, the ears on her head and the tail under her skirt gradually retracted, and the color of her eyes turned brownish-black, and she returned to her human form.

Seeing that the crisis had passed, Jiang Wanli felt a wave of lingering fear and said in a wronged tone, "Miss Hu, I really didn't lie. It just happened out of nowhere. I ran away from a great distance. I never thought it would have nothing better to do than chase after me!"

On the contrary, Shi Yizhi stared intently at the spot where the fox ears on Miss Hu's head had retracted, his eyes filled with curiosity.

"What are you looking at!"

Miss Hu has a fiery temper and a very outspoken tongue. She yelled, "I've been screaming my true colors for you guys! Still looking?! Look again and I'll gouge your eyes out!"

"Sorry,"

Knowing he was in the wrong, Shi Yizhi quickly looked away and explained what had just happened: "I only shot an arrow in desperation when I saw my friend being chased, but I didn't expect that... this mountain lord is no ordinary tiger."

"Don't talk nonsense! Even if you're talking behind someone's back, you must call the mountain king!"

Miss Hu glared at Shi Yizhi and continued, "To be honest, although his cultivation is not as good as mine, I can't beat him in a magical duel. He retreated now only because he knows that if he hurt me, my father won't let him off! But after I get married in three days and leave Peach Blossom Village, my father won't know who you two are. What will you do when he comes looking for you?"

(End of this chapter)