Chapter 45: Three Men Make a Tiger

“I’m truly sorry. How about this – do any of you brothers have some alcohol? I’d like to offer you a drink to express my apologies,” Li Si said apologetically, his stern face relaxing as he saw the two men walk away.

Seeing Li Si’s demeanor, the men were stunned for a moment, then exchanged glances. Tu Feng took the lead, smiling, “There’s nothing to apologize for. After all, it’s normal to be cautious when traveling. But I do have some alcohol. We can have a few drinks if you’d like.”

As he spoke, he took out a gourd from his herb basket and smiled at Li Si, “Come, let me offer you a drink.”

Seeing him say this, Li Si stepped forward, clinking his gourd against Tu Feng’s, and said with a smile, “I was in the wrong earlier. I should be the one offering you a drink.”

Seeing Li Si’s straightforwardness, Tu Feng was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. He tilted his head back and took a big gulp, then pretended to be bold and said, “Young Hero Li is indeed a straightforward person.”

Then Li Si looked towards Xu Da Yuan and Miao Qing An, who hadn’t moved.

Seeing the two motionless, Tu Feng laughed and scolded, “Come on, offer a drink! What are you doing standing there?”

Hearing Tu Feng’s words, the two reluctantly took out their alcohol gourds from their herb baskets and walked over to Li Si.

Li Si also clinked his gourd with theirs, considering it an apology, which the two accepted unwillingly.

However, Li Si’s purpose wasn’t to apologize; he felt there was nothing to apologize for.

His purpose was to confirm if there were any ghost creatures among these people. When he clinked gourds with them earlier, he deliberately touched their bodies, but no information came through.

With this, Li Si had confirmed that all three of them were human.

Compared to the Eight Trigrams mirror’s detection ability, he trusted his own probing ability more.

Li Si estimated that this probing ability was unlimited. Even if he faced a thousand-year-old monster, he could easily probe its information.

This could be considered one of his cheat abilities after reincarnation.

However, this probing ability was somewhat useless, as it required physical contact with the target to probe.

This ability was really useless in combat with ghost creatures, because ghost creatures had the ability to etherealize, making it impossible for him to touch them, let alone obtain information.

After drinking, Li Si walked back to the tree, sat down in his original spot, and began to rest with his eyes closed.

Of course, he still left a small gap in his eyelids, just like before.

On the other side, the three men were drinking the fragrant pork bone soup. The aroma wafting over made even Li Si feel a bit hungry.

But he didn’t regret it. One must always be cautious. If a person traveling abroad trusts strangers indiscriminately, that’s truly dangerous.

However, from an angle Li Si couldn’t see, these men’s faces in the darkness looked somewhat unpleasant.

“I’m going to relieve myself,” Xu Da Yuan felt he couldn’t eat anymore. Even with the antidote pills, there would still be residual toxins.

It was like feeding poison to himself.

Moreover, this poison was administered by his own people, and he knew there was poison in it, yet he had to swallow it.

This feeling was far from pleasant.

So he used the excuse of relieving himself to escape.

Seeing Xu Da Yuan say this, Tu Feng and Miao Qing An’s faces looked even worse. They both felt some regret, wondering why they hadn’t spoken up earlier.

At the same time, they slowed down their soup drinking, seemingly waiting for Xu Da Yuan to return before finishing the pot of bone soup together.

Xu Da Yuan took an exceptionally long time to relieve himself, which was within Tu Feng and Miao Qing An’s expectations. However, when he returned, he seemed somewhat secretive, gulping down soup while making eye signals to Tu Feng and Miao Qing An.

This caught the attention of Li Si, who had been secretly observing the three. Then he saw Xu Da Yuan secretly take out something from his bosom to show the other two. It was a golden lump about the size of a quail egg.

Although Xu Da Yuan’s angle was very discreet, Li Si’s position allowed him to see it perfectly.

Was that gold? A lump that big probably weighed about three or four taels.

Three or four taels of gold in this world had a purchasing power equivalent to about 20,000 yuan in Li Si’s previous life. Had Xu Da Yuan stumbled upon a windfall?

At the same time, when Tu Feng and Miao Qing An saw this small gold nugget, they immediately showed excited expressions. But probably because Li Si was nearby, they forcibly suppressed their excitement.

Shortly after, the three finished their soup and began to pack up their things.

“Sorry, Young Hero Li, we suddenly remembered we have some business to attend to, so we won’t be able to stay longer. We’ll catch up another time if we have the chance,” Tu Feng walked up to Li Si after packing up, his face showing an apologetic expression.

“Alright, you may go,” Li Si opened his eyes and said in a flat tone.

“Alright, thank you for your hospitality, Young Hero Li,” Tu Feng said, then hurriedly left with Xu Da Yuan and Miao Qing An.

Li Si felt somewhat puzzled. They just left like that?

A thought struck him – could it be that Xu Da Yuan had discovered more gold? Judging by their hurried manner and the gold nugget Xu Da Yuan had shown, it wasn’t impossible.

But wasn’t this too coincidental? After all, they had only been with him for a short while before finding gold?

Li Si’s suspicions arose, so he took out the Eight Trigrams mirror again and shone it towards the retreating figures of the three men. This time, however, he only saw the figures of Tu Feng and Miao Qing An in the mirror, with a huge figure beside them.

It was a massive tiger with orange-yellow fur covered in black stripes, a hanging-bell eye, and a white forehead. It stood nearly two meters tall with a body length of five to six meters. Tu Feng and Miao Qing An looked tiny beside this tiger.

When Li Si saw this huge tiger, his breath involuntarily caught. He had never seen such an enormous tiger before, and it made him feel a bit uneasy.

The tigers in his previous life were at most about 1.2 meters tall with a body length of about 3 meters. Compared to this huge tiger, the tigers he had seen before were like tiger cubs.

Moreover, this tiger had clearly become a spirit, able to transform into human form to deceive others. Xu Da Yuan had probably already been eaten by it.

From how easily it blended in with Tu Feng and Miao Qing An, it was clear that this tiger had been observing them nearby all along, very familiar with the relationships among the people present.

Li Si even suspected that this tiger had been targeting him for a while, possibly watching from afar when he was confronting the original owner.

So this tiger knew he had the ability to detect monsters and ghosts, and had been waiting nearby. It waited until he had confirmed these three were human, then ate Xu Da Yuan and merged into their group to gain his trust.

Thinking about it this way, Li Si suddenly felt that the tiger’s impersonation of Xu Da Yuan earlier seemed somewhat deliberate. When it took out the small gold nugget, it was as if it intentionally showed it to him, trying to lure him in.

This tiger’s target all along had very likely been him!

Watching the two men leave with the tiger spirit, Li Si felt no ripples in his heart. He didn’t intend to save those two men because, judging from their behavior earlier, these three had always harbored ill intentions towards him.

Moreover, Li Si didn’t want to confront this tiger spirit now because he wasn’t confident. His information about this tiger was only from what he had heard from Cao Qing and some conversations among neighbors.

And Cao Qing? He knew this information yet still died.

So this information was certainly outdated, and he wasn’t prepared to act rashly now.

There was another reason: due to the original owner’s actions, his protective charm now only had 3 days left.

Whether this 3-day protective charm could protect him was questionable.

He planned to stall for a bit, waiting for the system store to update, to see if he could find effective means against this tiger spirit in the store.

Of course, it would be best if he didn’t have to confront the tiger spirit at all. His current urgent task was to bring back Cao Qing’s body.