Tiger Guards

Chapter 1 Jishan Hunter
Deep in Jiwang Mountain, the sky was gloomy and the sun was not visible.

Zhao Ji wore a deerskin quiver, leaned on his iron halberd in one hand and stood on the ridge with his other hand on his waist, breathing in the wind, gazing at the ridges near and far, and judging the direction by the density or sparseness of the trees.

After his breathing became a little more stable, he used his iron spear to push aside some weeds and bushes and sat down on a large rock in the open space.

Seeing him sit down, the two brown and yellow hounds following him squatted on the left and right, looking around and wagging their tails.

Zhao Ji looked up at the leaden clouds, then looked down at the palms and backs of his hands.

These were his own hands. The subtle scars on both were familiar to him, and there were also some new scars.

This body is more like a fusion of several bodies.

When pondering why he was here and the purpose and meaning of his current life, Zhao Ji's expression was wooden and serious.

I was very sure that a large part of my body was my own. There was a burn on my foot and a black mole on my right shoulder blade, right where my left hand could touch it.

This is the only black mole on the body, and there is also a very long white hair growing on the left eyebrow.

What confused him was the changes in his facial features, which seemed to be fused together.

How can I describe this face? It’s a dignified face.

Appearance reflects the heart, and the changes in expression between the eyebrows are more like yourself.

He was about 1.8 meters tall, with a sturdy build, and nearly 10 centimeters taller than the person in his previous life.

As for past lives.

He neither died of illness nor experienced any major ups and downs.

I only remember that I downloaded an old stand-alone game on a whim in the middle of the night. It couldn't adapt to the new system and couldn't save the game, so it kept crashing. I simply turned off the computer, and then went to sleep after drinking a bottle of beer and a portion of cumin beef as usual.

When he woke up, he found himself in a hunter's cabin in Jiwang Mountain, without any major memories.

The body's memory information is there, and when he thinks about something, the memory of the relevant information will naturally emerge.

For example, this body is the grandson of the Pei family in Wenxi. He is not closely related to the main branch of Shangshu Ling Pei Mao, but his father, who came here to escape the disaster, is handsome and is highly regarded by the Pei family members, who marry their daughter to him.

My father was good at forging iron and making crossbows, so he had supported the family over the years and had gained some fame far and wide.

As for this body of mine, I am the third son in the family. I like hunting but not blacksmithing. I left home and lived alone at the age of sixteen.

The Zhao family's roots were too shallow, and the eldest brother married a girl from the Pei family, who was not closely related to his mother, Ms. Pei.

This marriage was only to make the Zhao family and the Pei family closer, and the Zhao family was more like a subordinate of the Pei family.

The second brother's marriage was simple, he found a daughter of a nearby mountain dweller; the second brother's job was also tied to the blacksmith shop, and in the future he would work as a blacksmith in the eldest brother's blacksmith shop, and the job could be passed on to his descendants.

Maybe after my second brother's children take over the job, he can become the manager of a blacksmith shop.

As the third child, I seemed to instinctively resist this arrangement. Since childhood, I had refused to learn blacksmithing, carpentry, or leatherwork. I had no interest in farming and was only interested in hunting.

He is the type of person who would climb up the mountain to get bird eggs even if he had to break his legs.

It is really difficult to educate him. Although the family has not been officially separated, it has actually been considered a separate family.

As for studying abroad, this requires the family to support it and also requires someone to introduce it to you. This opportunity can only fall on my eldest brother.

He has an older sister who married into the Pei family; and seven younger brothers and sisters who were born to his father's two concubines over the years.

Two of the younger sisters were brought as dowry and were about to get engaged and married.

From the long-term perspective of the family, my father has done a great job by leaving his hometown and coming here to make a living.

But I really don’t want to work for my elder brother. It’s okay if I don’t get a share of the family property, but I have to keep working for him... just because he was born five years earlier?
Perhaps it was the future self whose thoughts transcending time and space that influenced the previous body, causing the original body to become so rebellious.

In short, I am now Zhao Ji. I can't think about or trace the reason why I came here, nor can I find any clues to go back.

Now, while ensuring survival, what we can do is to improve our quality of life and enrich our spiritual world.

However, in the past few days, without a mobile phone and the Internet for efficient information exchange, he felt very uncomfortable, as if he could not eat enough and drink water to quench his thirst.

Fortunately, I have to cook everything myself. Life as a single person is busy enough that I tend to forget about toys like mobile phones.

Even so, he still feels anxious from time to time when he has free time because he doesn't have a mobile phone.

Even with a small plug-in, he still cannot get rid of his attachment to mobile phones and the information society.

The cheat was very simple. As he concentrated on thinking, a skill icon appeared on his palm, which looked more like a scarlet emblem of a sword swinging.

Cut through the thorns and increase attack damage.

As a small plug-in, it is currently at level one. Through perception, we can know that this thing can increase damage by 8%.

This skill does not consume extra physical strength or energy when used. Each time it is activated, your force posture will be corrected.

The body postures and moves are more in line with the principle of force. Is this how the damage is increased?

Or does this skill still increase extra damage after correcting your moves?

If you use all your strength and correct your moves reasonably, you can steadily output more than ten times the damage. After the skills are further amplified, can you produce more than twenty or even more than thirty times the damage?

Just correcting the moves is extremely valuable and is martial arts knowledge that cannot be bought with money.

I don’t know if there will be other new skills if the skills cannot be further improved.

Zhao Ji was not in a hurry. While taking a break, he looked down at the skill icon on the palm of his right hand that looked like a red tattoo, thinking about reliable ways to improve his quality of life.

The quickest way was naturally to become an official, a slave owner, or an employer, hiring a few servants, or to rob some slaves, or at the very least, to marry a wife from a family. Marrying a wife from a family would tie her to the family, working for her father, her eldest brother, and her future nephew.

If I hire servants, where will I get the money and supplies?
He didn't even have a horse, so he couldn't go out to rob slaves far away; it was difficult to rob people nearby, and if he robbed them, they would be redeemed by acquaintances, or he would escape because he was familiar with the terrain.

It is not easy to improve our current living conditions.

Besides, it is not easy to survive in the deep forest of Jishan.

With a slight sigh, Zhao Ji stood up, put the backpack back on his shoulder, tied his trouser legs tightly, and then he called out to his dog with his iron halberd, "Let's go!"

The two hounds first wagged their tails, and then chased each other out in no particular order, exploring the way forward along the direction Zhao Ji pointed.

Following the ridgeline and crossing two ravines, a dog pounced and caught a slender pheasant.

After bleeding the pheasant on the spot, Zhao Ji put it into a backpack and took a detour back with the medicinal herbs, mushrooms and other things he collected along the way.

Before dark, he also had to check the snares and traps along the way. Today he was lucky as a big rabbit was caught on the leg by a thin leather rope.

When Zhao Ji approached, the rabbit struggled more violently, pulling the bushes to shake.

Before Zhao Ji could do anything, a dog pounced on him and bit him.

When Zhao Ji approached, the rabbit had been bitten by the dog and was shaking violently, and it was considered to be obedient.

Zhao Ji crouched down and pulled out the dagger from the leather sheath of his boot. He stepped on the rabbit's two slender hind legs, grabbed the rabbit's head with his left hand and pulled it back to expose the neck area.

Without hesitation, he stabbed the dagger in his hand into the rabbit's neck and cut the fur, trying to let the rabbit's blood flow out as cleanly as possible to avoid dirtying the rabbit skin.

Rabbit skin and mouse skin can be sewn together to make fur coats to keep warm in winter.

After the rabbit stopped struggling, Zhao Ji wiped the blood off the dagger on his boot, put it into the sheath, and locked it.

After covering up the bloodstains a little, Zhao Ji hung the rabbit on the iron halberd, slung the halberd over his shoulder and walked towards his wooden house halfway up the hill.

Outside the wooden house was a low wall made of wooden piles and stones. However, before Zhao Ji got close, he found that the wooden door had been lifted up and there was a slight smoke rising from the wooden house.

The two dogs also became excited and swam quickly around Zhao Ji, shaking their heads and smelling various smells.

Zhao Ji climbed up the hillside with his iron halberd and saw his second brother Zhao Yuan squatting in the vegetable garden in the yard picking leaves.

Zhao Yuan is slightly shorter, but also has a handsome appearance. Because he is a blacksmith, his physique is three points stronger than Zhao Ji.

Today, Zhao Yuan was wearing a sleeveless patent leather armor with obvious signs of paint peeling and wear on the armor plates. Two palm-sized steel plates were hung on the chest area to enhance protection.

When entering and leaving the mountains, it is easy to defend against wild beasts, but the most difficult thing to guard against are the mountain people lurking near the road and their sneak attacks.

Zhao Yuan glanced back at Zhao Ji before standing up and saying, "The county is recruiting soldiers. Do you want to go, third brother?"

Seeing Zhao Ji remain silent, Zhao Yuan stepped back from the vegetable garden and continued, "This is also what father meant. Third brother, you've been living alone in the mountains for over a year, and the family is worried about you. The county also praises your courage and perseverance, so we came to invite you."

After a pause, Zhao Yuan continued, "This time I'm being polite, but I don't know what your attitude will be next time."

Zhao Ji was speechless. He followed Zhao Yuan to the mountain stream outside the courtyard and said to Zhao Yuan, who was washing vegetables, "Do they think I'm a bandit in the mountains?"

"Not only them, your sister-in-law's family also thinks so."

Zhao Yuan raised his eyebrows and looked at Zhao Ji. "You are strong and vigorous, and at an age when you enjoy being active. But you live in seclusion in Jishan, without a teacher. What are you doing here?"

Judging from Zhao Yuan's appearance, he obviously suspected that his 'predecessor' was engaged in some shady business.

Zhao Ji knew very well that before he actually took over this body, his thoughts had transcended time and space, or were hidden in his mind and influenced his 'predecessor'. Therefore, the purpose of his predecessor's seclusion in Jishan was very simple, that is, he did not want to be manipulated by his family, and came to this wilderness with an axe and bow and arrow to survive.

Zhao Ji spread his hands and said, "Second brother, you see, I don't have a single horse or donkey here. I'm sure there won't be any thieves around here."

"It doesn't matter what you did in the past. What matters is that the county and the township think you are capable of being a thief!"

Zhao Yuan's tone grew stern as he spoke, "This is what father meant. Don't bring trouble to our family! A loner like you is like a ferocious beast. If the county is in turmoil, the Pei family will be in turmoil too. Come down the mountain with me. Father has prepared a suit of armor and a horse. Please enlist in the army."

Seeing Zhao Ji was unmoved, Zhao Yuan softened his tone and said, "There are over twenty people in my family, both men and women, young and old. Can you bear to let you implicate us?"

"Second brother, what you mean is that even if I die, I want to die far away?"

Zhao Ji drew water to wash his hands and then his face. He asked a question that left Zhao Yuan silent.

Seeing Zhao Ji finished washing up, Zhao Yuan said in a low voice, "That's not what I meant. I'm just a blacksmith at home. I don't have a say and I can't take charge of things. What's the point of you saying that to me?"

Zhao Ji just chuckled after hearing this: "Second brother is innocent. It's all my fault. But if you go down the mountain to enlist now, aren't you afraid that if I die, someone from my family will have to fill the gap?"

"Until all the men in the family die out and the wives and daughters remarry?"

Seeing that Zhao Yuan remained silent, Zhao Ji said, "For you, it seems I really can't die."

Zhao Yuan added, "Then you can't escape either."

What he was greeted with was Zhao Ji's indifferent gaze. Zhao Yuan did not take it as a surprise and emphasized, "If you become a deserter, our whole family will suffer."

Zhao Yuan walked into the courtyard. Seeing his third brother not following him, he didn't turn around. He stopped, looked up at the sky, and said in a long tone, "Father has something to say to you. If you don't come down the mountain with me, when I get here, I will burn this place to the ground. It's not that I don't want you to live a peaceful life, it's that the villagers can't tolerate you."

"You're not from the countryside, so you naturally don't know what they say about you. Some say you've been bewitched by a fox demon and are neighbors with mountain spirits and ghosts."

Zhao Ji was indignant about this. Just because he had lived alone in the mountains for a year, did that make people around him feel afraid of him?
This anger came and went quickly.

Zhao Ji calmed down, turned around and followed Zhao Yuan back to the courtyard.

(End of this chapter)