Chapter 46: Negotiating with a Tiger for Its Skin

After the three left, Li Si sat by the campfire, his eyes half-closed pretending to doze, but not actually sleeping.

After seeing that tiger, his sleepiness had completely vanished. He felt as if the tiger was constantly hiding in the darkness, watching him, ready to tear him to shreds at any moment.

However, throughout the night, apart from the crackling of burning firewood, strange cries of wild beasts, and insect sounds, there were no other noises.

This was Li Si’s first time spending the night outdoors. In his previous life, he had only discussed this topic with a friend who happened to be very fond of outdoor camping and occasionally shared camping tips with him.

He never imagined that the techniques he had heard about but never used in his previous life would come in handy in this one.

By morning, a series of chirping sounds startled the somewhat dazed Li Si awake. He realized that the sun had already peeked out slightly from behind the mountain, and the sky had begun to brighten.

Li Si rubbed his eyes, yawned, stretched, and stood up from the ground.

First, he stretched his muscles and bones. Staying up all night had taken a toll on his body. After all, this body originally had a weak constitution and had never experienced such hardship, so how could it withstand such treatment?

After stretching, Li Si took the earthen pot to scoop water from the pool and poured it over the campfire.

After dousing the fire several times until there were no more sparks, Li Si took out his washing utensils from the book box and began to wash up by the pool.

After washing up, he started packing his belongings, preparing to head towards the cliff.

He estimated that it wasn’t too far and wouldn’t take long to reach.

He could have arrived there yesterday, but due to the original owner’s matter, time was wasted. Additionally, it wasn’t safe to travel at night, so he had camped here.

Now he planned to reach there before noon today to retrieve Cao Qing’s body.

As for the tiger spirit, it had likely witnessed his methods of dealing with the original owner, so it was cautious and had been using other means to test him, not daring to attack directly.

Li Si estimated the possibility of the tiger spirit attacking in the future to be at most one or two tenths.

So as long as this monster tiger didn’t come, Li Si could successfully take away Cao Qing’s body, and perhaps even make it back to Feng Men County before the city gates closed.

As for slaying the tiger spirit, he didn’t hold much hope. He had thought it possible before, but after seeing the tiger spirit’s enormous body, and with his protective charm having only 3 days left, facing this tiger spirit would be a matter of life and death.

As for Xiao Duan and Xiao Yu, they were even less useful. Xiao Duan had some killing power against ghost creatures, but no advantage against monster creatures.

Xiao Yu was even less useful, currently just a baby compared to the tiger spirit.

After packing his belongings, Li Si began walking towards the cliff where Cao Qing’s body was. The journey was uneventful, with only occasional appearances of animals, which ran away upon seeing Li Si.

However, there were some dangerous encounters, mainly with snakes.

In this scorching summer, snakes were active frequently. He encountered two on his way.

One was a green bamboo snake hanging from a branch. This roughly half-meter-long snake froze when it saw Li Si, pretending to be a tree branch.

The other was a gray-brown long snake lying on the path, with a large triangular head and gray-white patches on its body. Li Si also recognized this snake, known in local dialect as the chess board snake, and more famously as the five-step snake. Like the green bamboo snake, it was highly venomous.

Fortunately, Li Si’s eyes had been enhanced, otherwise he might have easily entered these snakes’ attack range, or even stepped on the five-step snake.

Luckily, these incidents didn’t occur. The two snakes showed no intention of attacking, and Li Si avoided them when he saw them from afar.

When the sun became scorching, the cicada sounds in the forest grew more urgent and louder.

At this time, Li Si stopped because he heard footsteps and the sound of leaves rustling from ahead.

Soon after, a person in tattered clothes ran towards Li Si. It was Xu Da Yuan.

But Li Si knew this wasn’t really Xu Da Yuan, but the tiger spirit. The real Xu Da Yuan had probably been eaten by it.

At this moment, when Xu Da Yuan saw Li Si, he ran towards him as if seeing a lifeline.

“Young Hero Li, save my brothers!” Xu Da Yuan shouted loudly, falling to his knees in front of Li Si and crying, “Young Hero Li, you must save my two brothers!”

“What happened? Get up and tell me,” Li Si said, seeing Xu Da Yuan like this. He began to doubt – could this Xu Da Yuan be the real one? Had he not been eaten by the tiger, but instead discovered the tiger with his two brothers and was now seeking help?

As Li Si spoke, he made a gesture of helping Xu Da Yuan up, but didn’t actually touch him. He feared feeling fur if he touched him, which would be awkward.

Seeing Li Si’s reaction, Xu Da Yuan stood up and said tearfully, “It’s all because of my greed. Last night when I went to relieve myself, I found a lot of gold not far from our campsite. I picked up a piece and came back to persuade my two brothers to go find more gold together.”

“But who knew there was a snake nest where the gold was? They both got bitten. Now I need your help to carry my brothers down the mountain.”

As he spoke, Xu Da Yuan became increasingly urgent, as if Tu Feng and Miao Qing An would die if they didn’t go to save them right away. But Li Si already knew that Tu Feng and Miao Qing An were dead, and even the “Xu Da Yuan” standing before him was dead.

At this moment, Xu Da Yuan seemed to lose his balance and fell, causing several gold nuggets of various sizes to fall out from his bosom.

Seeing the scattered gold, Xu Da Yuan looked somewhat embarrassed. Then he stood up from the ground and said seriously to Li Si, “I’ve made a fool of myself in front of Young Hero Li. If you can save my brothers, I’ll give you this gold.” As he spoke, he picked up the gold and offered it to Li Si.

At this point, Li Si felt his scalp tingling. It would be interesting if he touched a paw when taking the gold, so he said, “No need, I don’t want this gold. Let’s go save your brothers.”

Of course, Li Si didn’t care about the gold now. Gold was less useful to him than a single soul point. The tiger spirit’s attempt to tempt Li Si with gold had miscalculated.