Qi Wu and the others watched the scene before them in disbelief: the clay mountain god had actually come to life, wielding a sword to slay the demon!
"The mountain god has manifested!" A'yue said blankly.
Qi Wu was the quickest to react. "No! Someone was hiding inside the mountain god statue!"
Indeed, as the sword-wielding mountain god fought the tiger demon, chunks of clay crumbled to the floor, revealing the true appearance of the person hidden within.
It was none other than Lu Yang.
"You son of a bitch! I waited five whole days, and you're finally here! Pretending to be a statue for five days wasn't in vain—take my sword!" Lu Yang snarled, throwing a kick.
Quick-witted as he was, he loved wandering about and was the sort who could least sit still. To keep the tiger demon from noticing him, he had hidden motionless inside the statue for five whole days, suffering terribly from the ordeal.
Before the crowd could even react, the civil and martial mountain god statues sprang to life as well. "Lu Yang, we'll lend you a hand!"
Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu burst from the clay statues, displaying their prowess to eradicate the tiger demon.
...
Five days ago, the Mountain God Temple welcomed three uninvited guests. After swallowing Fasting Pills, they hollowed out the mountain god statues and squeezed inside.
The statues were several sizes larger than normal men, offering more than enough room to fit a person.
"Are you sure this method will work?" Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu looked at Lu Yang skeptically.
"Piecing together the information Brother Man Gu provided, our only option is to sit by the stump and wait for the hare—to wait for the tiger demon to come feed... Let's just get inside first."
Man Gu fell into deep thought. Could this be what the books meant by 'a gentleman conceals his weapon upon his person'?
"Spot on, spot on! That must be what it means! Truly, one must travel ten thousand li as well as read ten thousand scrolls." Man Gu was overjoyed. When he had read that line before, he couldn't make heads or tails of it no matter how hard he tried. Now, having only just come out on a single mission with Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou, he had already gained such profound insight!
Master was right: if you want to learn well, you must first find good role models to learn from!
The three each chose their respective statues. Once inside, they assumed the exact postures of the statues, leaving only their eyes exposed.
"Hello, hello, can you hear me?" Lu Yang said in his mind using the Divine Thought Technique.
The Divine Thought Technique was a spell the three had just learned on the road. At extremely close range, it required no spiritual energy, relying solely on mental intent to communicate. It was easy to pick up, needing only a little practice with one's mind to use.
"Hear you," Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu replied.
"Is the carriage all right?" Meng Jingzhou worried about his carriage and the old horse.
To avoid having their movements noticed by the tiger demon, they had left the carriage in the care of an inn in Yanjiang Commandery.
"We know too little about the tiger demon. What's certain for now is that its cultivation realm lies between early Foundation Establishment and early Golden Core. It's cunning and cautious by nature, and afraid that harming cultivators will invite trouble, so it only preys on mortals and never touches cultivators. If cultivators search the mountain, it hides away in some secluded spot where no one can find it."
"In other words, it will absolutely never clash with cultivators. If it can avoid them, it avoids them; if it can hide, it hides."
That the tiger demon had remained entrenched on Mount Song for so long without being detected by cultivators was entirely due to this habit of never fighting or contesting.
"That's why we had to hide beforehand and wait for the tiger demon to arrive, so we can wipe it out in one fell swoop!"
"Tiger-type demons have a keen sensitivity to spiritual energy. While waiting, we absolutely cannot use any spiritual energy."
For precisely this reason, they had chosen the Divine Thought Technique, which required no spiritual energy to activate.
Five days later.
"Boy, after waiting all these days, someone's finally here."
"Looks like merchants?"
"Wait, why is there an old hunter? Didn't they say all the hunters had left Mount Song because of the tiger demon?"
They had investigated Mount Song thoroughly. The locals all said the mountain's hunters had long departed, and it had been ages since anyone heard of a hunter coming down to sell pelts.
A chang ghost!
Communicating through divine thought, the three instantly reached the same conclusion: this was no old hunter acting as a guide at all, but a chang ghost luring people in!
They had originally been somewhat skeptical about the tiger demon's existence, but seeing the chang ghost, there had to be a tiger demon on this mountain!
"Did you hear what the old hunter said? He lives with several other hunters, and that's where the caravan leader found him. That part probably isn't a lie."
"It's very likely those other hunters are chang ghosts too, pretending to be normal people and colluding to hoodwink travelers. That makes their story far more convincing and keeps anyone from suspecting they're chang ghosts!"
"Should we jump out and take down the chang ghost now?" Meng Jingzhou was eager to fight.
Lu Yang urged Meng Jingzhou to hold back, analyzing, "Don't alert the snake by beating the grass. Did you hear that Qi Wu guy say he would ask the Five Great Immortal Sects for help? Given the tiger demon's cautious nature, it will definitely come to eliminate them. We wait quietly. The moment the tiger demon appears, I'll strike while you two cover me and get these merchants out of harm's way."
"All right."
"Mm, do you hear footsteps outside the temple? It shouldn't be the tiger demon."
Hearing Qi Wu and the old hunter try to drive away the girl in green, Man Gu couldn't help grumbling, "How foolish. With that female cultivator present, the tiger demon wouldn't dare come to kill. The tiger demon fears its existence being discovered: if it kills her, her sect will come looking for vengeance; if it doesn't kill her, she'll bring her sect right to it. Either way spells certain doom, so its only choice is to send her away."
"See? I was right. The chang ghost sent her away."
Lu Yang was more level-headed. "Look at it the other way: if the female cultivator stayed, the tiger demon wouldn't show up. How long would we have had to wait then?"
Meng Jingzhou let out a soft exclamation. "Did you notice the jade pendant at the girl's waist?"
"What's wrong with the pendant?" Lu Yang and Man Gu knew that many jade pendants were symbols of status, but they didn't know much about what specific styles signified.
"That's a jade plaque of the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace."
The Moon Laurel Immortal Palace was one of the Five Great Immortal Sects.
Between the Central Continent and the Far North lay a continuous mountain range stretching from east to west, blanketed in eternal snow with rarely a sunny day. Hailed as the tallest peaks on the Central Continent, they reached closest to the moon.
Nestled within these snow-capped mountains stood a magnificent complex of immortal palaces—the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace.
"She should be in the Foundation Establishment stage. Once we start fighting the tiger demon, let's make plenty of noise so she notices and see if she's willing to lend a hand."
She was certainly not in the Golden Core stage; a Golden Core cultivator from an immortal sect would have seen through the old hunter's guise as a chang ghost at a glance, rather than being so easily duped into leaving.
After a while longer, the three watched helplessly as Qi Wu and the others drifted into sweet dreams, which made them feel sleepy as well.
Man Gu recited quotes from the sages, using willpower to dispel his drowsiness: "The sage said, 'I examine myself three times daily.' Are you sleepy? I am not. Are you sleepy? I am not. Are you sleepy? I am not..."
"Stop chanting that! I wasn't sleepy, but you're putting me to sleep!" Meng Jingzhou told Man Gu to recite silently in his head, unable to stifle a yawn.
"But I am reciting silently right now," Man Gu replied via the Divine Thought Technique.
"Listen closely!" Lu Yang ignored the bickering between the two idiots, forcing himself to stay focused and constantly monitoring the sounds outside.
"It's the sound of something stepping on weeds... The tiger demon is here!"
Alerted by Lu Yang, Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu stopped their banter and instantly snapped to attention, ready for battle.
"We've finally waited out this beast!"
No longer suppressing his aura, Lu Yang jolted his body, shattering the mountain god statue. Grasping the Green Blade Sword, brilliant sword light flared from the blade, illuminating the entire temple.
Chapter 44