novelSusiti Chapter 121 Encounter with a Tiger at Qixia Mountain
Chapter 121 Encounter with a Tiger at Qixia Mountain
Qixia Mountain has beautiful scenery, which is something Wang Lun had wanted to see.
Wang Lun led Hua Rong, Lu Zhishen, and Li Jun up the mountain, and they were exhausted, but they still couldn't find any trace of the tiger.
They moved very carefully and were all fully armed. None of them had experience fighting tigers. Wang Lun secretly regretted that he should have brought Wu Song with him.
After climbing for half a day, we finally saw a temple in a canyon, simple and elegant, quiet and peaceful.
The main gate was tightly closed, except for a small door on the side, with a crack just big enough for one person to pass through. Hua Rong went in, opened the door, and let Lu Zhishen in.
The group passed through two small halls before finally spotting a sweeping monk.
Lu Zhishen stepped forward and said, "Senior Brother."
When the sweeping monk saw Lu Zhishen, the fat monk, he quickly stepped forward to greet him. After exchanging pleasantries for a while, the monk learned that Lu Zhishen had become a monk at Mount Wutai and had gone to the Xiangguo Temple, and he immediately felt respect for him.
Daxiangguo Temple was the royal temple of the Song Dynasty. Although the current emperor has converted to Taoism, Buddhism still holds a significant position.
Within Buddhism, the Great Xiangguo Temple is the core, and Lu Zhishen's ability to go there shows that he was an extraordinary master.
The sweeping monk quickly led the group into the meditation room and poured them tea.
"Brother, let me ask you, why is it that in such a big temple, we only see you?" Lu Zhishen asked, as they had indeed only seen this one monk after entering the temple.
The monk immediately looked worried and said, "Originally, our temple had more than a hundred monks, but some time ago, a group of large insects appeared out of nowhere. There were four or five of them, and these beasts ate many of our fellow monks."
Upon hearing that a tiger had eaten a monk, Lu Zhishen immediately became furious.
"Then the abbot organized twenty warrior monks to go forward and search for these tigers, but..."
As the monk spoke, tears streamed down his face, and he reached out his sleeve to wipe them away.
Lu Zhishen asked, "How is it?"
The monk said, "Only two of my senior brothers escaped back, but they were both seriously injured. Later, everyone fled down the mountain, and only my four senior brothers and I stayed behind."
"What about your four senior brothers?" Wang Lun felt a pang of pity, yet was also horrified. He hadn't expected these tigers to be so powerful, even twenty martial monks were no match for them.
The monk wiped away his tears and said, "Some time ago, a big man came down the mountain. He claimed that he had accepted a reward from the government to get rid of the tiger on the mountain. We didn't believe him at first, but he went up the mountain alone, and two days later he actually brought down the head of a tiger. However, he was also injured and had to stay in the temple for a long time to recover."
Wang Lun asked, "What's his name? Is he carrying a longbow?"
The monk nodded and said, "That's right. He was carrying a longbow that was as tall as me. His name was Pang Wanchun. I heard he was a wandering knight from the Jiangnan region who usually made a living by hunting."
Pang Wanchun?
Wang Lun was overjoyed, not expecting that it was a fierce general under Fang La, nicknamed "Little Yang Youji". He calculated the time, and indeed, there were still some years before Fang La's uprising. Fang La had not yet developed his own power and should not have recruited Pang Wanchun yet.
If that's the case, then this person is a gift from heaven to Liangshan, and by sheer coincidence, we've met him here.
"Yesterday morning, Benefactor Pang recovered. My four senior brothers knew he was highly skilled in martial arts and had a good chance of killing the tiger, so they went to help him. But there's still no news." The monk's face showed worry.
Wang Lun finished his tea heavily and said, "Which direction is it? Let's go help."
Seeing that the group was armed, the monk knew they were skilled in martial arts. He was overjoyed to hear they were willing to help and said, "Go west for about two hours, and you'll see a mountain hollow. That's the lair of the giant tigers. No matter where they go to eat people, they'll eventually return. That's where you brothers are lying in ambush."
Wang Lun and the others did not delay any longer. They checked their weapons again, tightened their sleeves, and prepared for battle.
The group walked westward along the narrow mountain path for a long time, and sure enough, they began to smell a faint fishy odor.
Wang Lun's heart pounded. Any normal person would be afraid if faced with several tigers.
At this moment, Hua Rong and Li Jun automatically walked in front, cautiously. Lu Zhishen carried his monk's staff at the back, also looking cautious, with Wang Lun protected in the middle.
Further on, the fishy smell gradually intensified, and skeletons appeared from time to time on both sides of the mountain road. Some were animal remains, while others were human bones.
Wang Lun felt a surge of fear and gripped the hilt of his knife tightly.
Lu Zhishen untied the wine gourd from his waist, took a big gulp of wine, and then handed it to Wang Lun, whispering, "Brother, have a couple of sips of wine to bolster your courage."
Wang Lun muttered to himself, "Alcohol emboldens cowards."
He still took the gourd of wine, took a big gulp, and handed it to Li Jun in front of him.
The mountain path ahead grew narrower and narrower, and the weeds gradually thickened. Before long, the path disappeared altogether, and the group had no choice but to trudge forward through the grass. They dared not make a sound, even their breathing was deliberately suppressed.
After all, these tigers are used to eating people and are bound to be extremely ferocious. If you were caught by them, you would probably lose your head in just one round if you weren't careful.
It was nearly dusk. The weather had been hot lately, and tigers, being afraid of the heat, mostly slept in their dens during the day. When the weather cooled down at dawn and dusk, the tigers would go out to hunt.
This is a characteristic of felines.
As they were walking forward, Hua Rong, who was at the front, suddenly waved his hand and stopped abruptly.
Everyone immediately stopped.
Wang Lun held his breath and looked ahead through Hua Rong and Li Jun's shoulders. There was no movement in front of him, just a large mountain hollow, shaded by several towering trees.
In the open space beneath the large trees, a few dead pheasants and rabbits lay scattered about. There were some white scratches on the trunks of those large trees.
Even if this isn't the tiger's den, it's a place they frequently frequent.
Hua Rong waved his hand, and the group found a dense thicket of trees and hid there.
Lu Zhishen stayed close to Wang Lun and whispered, "What's with those wild animals? Are those tigers hoarding grain?"
Wang Lun shook his head and said softly, "It doesn't look like it to me. Perhaps it was prey that Pang Wanchun released."
Lu Zhishen looked around but couldn't find any trace of Pang Wanchun or the four monks.
The fishy smell was even stronger here, and Wang Lun felt like sneezing. He forcibly rubbed his nose and held it in.
He looked around and saw tiger feces not far from his feet, which made him feel nauseous.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered that it wasn't just that one spot of excrement, but rather a series of many. He immediately got goosebumps, quietly tugged at Lu Zhishen's sleeve, and whispered, "This is bad, we can't hide here, let's go!"
By sheer accident, they ended up hiding in a tiger's open-air latrine.
Tigers are territorial and mark their territory by excreting. Since this is a den of tigers, they will expand their territory by excreting around the area.
Their location, within the territory, was already extremely dangerous.
Moreover, it is dusk now, and the tiger, having slept during the day, is at this time to defecate.
Although Lu Zhishen did not understand why Wang Lun said that this was not a place to hide, he listened to him and followed him slowly up the hillside.
They hadn't walked more than a few steps when the fishy smell suddenly became stronger, and a loud roar suddenly came from behind them.
Immediately, footsteps sounded, and a tiger pounced on the two of them. Judging from the footsteps, the tiger weighed at least four or five hundred pounds.