Volume 1, Chapter 52: Acting as an Accomplice to a Tyrant

Master Ma pinched his fingers to calculate for a moment, then muttered in a low voice, "Something's off, something's seriously off."

"What's off about it?"

Ignoring me, Master Ma looked at Meiling and asked, "You said that beast came around again recently?"

"It comes by every two or three days, like it won't stop until it bites me to death."

Master Ma took a deep breath. "Do you have a spare room here? The two of us will stake out the place for the night."

A wave of anger surged inside me. Good grief, hunting a tiger is a job for Wu Song, or at least the police or professional hunters if Wu Song isn't around. What are the two of us supposed to be? We don't even have a fireplace poker, let alone a weapon—are we here to serve as a midnight snack for the tiger?

Taking on a gig at a time like this? There are only two days left before the Lunar New Year, and old man Ma literally just took a bride. What's the plan, spending New Year's Eve out in the freezing wilderness?

I quietly pointed out the risks to Master Ma, but he simply replied indifferently that we would keep watch for one night and leave after, without delaying our return home for the New Year.

I just feared we wouldn't survive the night.

Meiling found a room for us—the one her parents-in-law used to live in—and Meiyu and her husband also decided to stay the night to keep us company.

Before long, Meiyu and Meiling's parents arrived, looking like two honest, hardworking farmers.

The desolate house not only became lively, but completely chaotic as well.

From their expressions, Meiyu's parents were clearly unwelcoming toward us.

While Meiyu and Meiling went to cook, Brother Dayong led the donkey away to find a familiar local family who could house it for the night—specifically someone with a livestock shed.

That damned Master Ma was truly unreliable; even the donkey had to suffer along with him.

Master Ma said he wanted to walk around the front and back of the house to show me the surrounding environment.

Once we stepped outside, I unhappily said, "Master, we need to learn to read the room. Her parents clearly don't want us here, so why are we still sticking our noses into this?"

Master Ma looked up at the sky, then back at me. "I'm under a bit of pressure right now."

"What pressure could you possibly have? I didn't see you under any pressure when you were humming bawdy folk tunes."

"Sigh, New Year's is the day after tomorrow. I've been training you for a year now, but your progress is far too slow. A three-year term is set—three years from now, will you be able to go up the mountain with me to deal with that thing?"

I thought to myself that Master Ma's math skills were truly bloody impressive. We hadn't even known each other for a hundred days in total, so how on earth did it become a year?

"Master, we've only known each other for three months."

"Isn't New Year's right around the corner?"

"Even with the New Year coming, it still doesn't count as a full year."

"You little punk, once the New Year arrives, it counts as a year. If you fail to learn your craft, just wait for the Earth God to come and take you away."

Master Ma chuckled softly and said nothing more, his eyes darting continuously around our surroundings.

"Master, is it an affliction ghost created by a tiger?"

"What? You think it's a tiger ghost?"

"Right. People eaten by tigers turn into malicious ghosts bound to their service."

"Your reasoning isn't wrong, but let me ask you a few things."

"Go ahead."

Master Ma rambled on, "How did Old Man Sun die?"

"Mauled by a tiger."

"And Old Woman Sun?"

"Mauled by a tiger too."

"What about Sun Peng?"

"Wasn't he mauled by a tiger as well? No, wait, Master, what are you even listening to? You've just been staring at the two sisters the whole time, that's not what we're talking about."

I rolled my eyes at Master Ma, and he continued, "There are a few things I can't figure out. First, why would the tiger come down the mountain to eat Old Woman Sun while leaving Meiling alone? Second, why would the tiger come down the mountain in the first place?"

"To come down and eat people, obviously."

"Kid, New Year's is almost here. People all over the village are setting off double-bang firecrackers. Those explosive sounds could scare away the mythical Nian beast, let alone a tiger."

"What do you mean?"

Acting all mysterious, Master Ma said, "I smell a conspiracy."

I thought to myself what absolute nonsense—even the Heavenly Hound, king of the three realms, wouldn't dare claim he could smell a conspiracy.

"Kid, the two of us will stake out the place tonight and see if what shows up is actually a tiger."

"What do you mean? If it is a tiger, what can we possibly do?"

"Feed your sorry ass to the tiger, of course. Think carefully about what Meiling said and ponder it yourself."

I thought to myself, ponder my foot. It's definitely a tiger ghost—we should just get this over with quickly so we can head home for the New Year early.

Once the job is successfully done, Meiling will have to show her gratitude. The crucial part was that she was a young widow not even twenty years old, and Old Xu here felt deeply sorry for her from the bottom of his heart.

I was thirteen, Meiling was nineteen—an age gap of six years. They say a three-year age gap brings a mother's embrace of gold bricks, so an age gap of six years must mean an embrace of two entire golden mountains, right?

Eh? Two? Golden mountains?

Mhm, pretty massive.

I carefully replayed Meiling's account in my mind. It was tragic and made a certain kind of sense, but some details simply didn't add up.

Why couldn't Sun Peng and his son bring back even a single wild hare when they went hunting up in the mountain?

Back in the day when Old Xu lived in the earth temple, I set rabbit snares every winter. Even if I didn't catch something every single day, I'd bag one every three or four days.

How could a father and son going hunting in the mountains fail to catch absolutely anything?

Could it be that they went up the mountain with the specific intent of hunting tigers?

If so, that would explain why the tiger only targeted Sun Peng's family—it was getting its revenge.

I shared my thoughts with Master Ma.

Master Ma nodded. "A decent analysis, but you haven't hit the nail on the head. Think about it more deeply."

"Since you've figured it out, why don't you just tell me?"

"No. First, you need to use your own brain. Second, I can't let my preconceptions influence you, and my own thoughts might not even be right."

I went over Meiling's story in my mind once more. The main point of suspicion was: why did the tiger drag away Old Woman Sun without harming Meiling?

It was very strange.

Just as I was lost in thought, Brother Dayong returned with a smile. "Master Ma, the donkey is taken care of. I have a distant relative in this village, and their family agreed to stable it."

Master Ma nodded. "Dayong, what does your father-in-law do for a living?"

"He drives piles for the veterinary station."

Driving piles for the veterinary station is Northeast slang for working at a veterinary clinic. This was actually a profession with boundless prospects—back in the day, someone in the Northeast who started out working around veterinary stations eventually grew up to become a high-ranking official, known in the underworld as Old-Gangster Zhang, Zhang Zuolin.

Damn it, my mind is wandering.

Master Ma asked Brother Dayong which village his father-in-law lived in.

When Brother Dayong blurted out the village name, it left me completely stunned.

It was a village that used Northeast folklore as a gimmick for tourism development, specifically designed to fleece out-of-towners.

The local customs in that village were fiercely aggressive and outrageously tough.

To put it bluntly, if the Jade Emperor himself went for a stroll through that village without leaving behind a few coins or valuables, he'd still catch a couple of heavy slaps across the face. If Laozi ever got sick over there, he'd be forced to swallow the village's homemade pills.

Brother Dayong said that the village was full of horse-drawn sleds and donkey mills, and since there was plenty of livestock all around, his father-in-law ran a veterinary station and made a pretty penny doing it.

I couldn't figure out why Master Ma was asking about someone else's father-in-law. What's this, trying to find me, Old Xu, a widow to marry?

Approved.

Master Ma smiled and said, "Looking at your father-in-law, he doesn't seem very welcoming to us. Shall the two of us just leave so we don't ruin your New Year?"

"No, no, nothing like that! My father-in-law is a good guy, just a bit eccentric in temperament. Don't take it to heart—he's just doing it for my sister-in-law's sake, saving someone in distress and all, especially with the New Year right around the corner."

In the Northeast, the phrase "with the New Year right around the corner" can resolve ninety percent of all conflicts.

Using Brother Dayong's cell phone, Master Ma called Fourth Uncle Sun and asked him to run an errand and pass a message to the mistress that the two of us wouldn't be returning tonight.

Whether Master Ma was just bragging or trying to save face, he claimed he'd get me a cell phone after the New Year.

I actually believed him.

We had a hasty meal. At the dinner table, Brother Dayong tried hard to liven up the atmosphere, but his efforts were constantly squashed by his father-in-law. Whenever a bit of laughter broke out, the old man would clear his throat with a cough, making old Xu wish I could shove a bottle of laxative down his throat to clear his passages.