My words have become law; I truly have no desire to display my divine power before others.

The wolf's eyes remained open, the eerie green light gradually dimming, and it let out a short whimper before becoming still.

Shen Zhaoyue sheathed her sword with fluid movements, the entire process taking only a blink of an eye from drawing to sheathing it.

She looked down at Lü Yang, who was sitting on the ground:

"Still think I'm weak?"

Lu Yang stared, mouth agape, at the half-eaten wolf carcass beside him, then at Shen Zhaoyue, before finally managing to utter:

"...Your knife is really fast."

Shen Zhaoyue: "It's because you're too slow to react."

Lü Yang: "..."

He got up, his legs still trembling, his face pale.

"Why didn't you make a move sooner?"

Shen Zhaoyue: "Didn't you say I was bragging?"

Lü Yang: "I admitted I was wrong, okay?!"

Ye Qingfeng stood to the side, watching this scene, and couldn't help but twitch his lips.

They're just like the bystanders.

Lu Yang said, feeling wronged, "Immortal Master, what are you laughing at?"

Ye Qingfeng: "I'm laughing at you for talking too much."

Lü Yang: "..."

The three continued walking forward.

It was completely dark by then.

The moon had not yet risen, and it was pitch black all around. The only sounds were the rustling of the wind through the grass and the occasional calls of some unknown animal in the distance.

After walking for a while, Lü Yang looked back with lingering fear:

"How come there are wolves in these mountains?"

Shen Zhaoyue: "What's so strange about wolves in the mountains?"

Lü Yang: "What if a few more come?"

Shen Zhaoyue: "If one comes, kill it; if two come, kill them both."

Lu Yang thought about it and felt that hearing these words from her mouth did make him feel a little more at ease.

After walking for a while, several lights suddenly appeared ahead.

Lü Yang's spirits lifted:

"Someone's there!"

The firelight flickered in the valley, and several figures could be vaguely seen gathered around the fire.

The three quickened their pace and headed towards the firelight.

As we got closer, we could see that it was a hunter's camp.

A campfire was burning brightly, and four or five people were sitting or lying around it, dressed in clothes sewn from animal hides, with bows and arrows, pitchforks, machetes and other such weapons beside them.

A wild rabbit, sizzling and dripping with oil, sat on the fire, its aroma wafting far and wide.

He is a hunter.

Lu Yang swallowed hard.

"There's food!"

Shen Zhaoyue glanced at him:

"Didn't you just eat some fruit?"

Lü Yang: "Fruit won't keep us full! We've been walking all afternoon, we're starving."

Shen Zhaoyue didn't say anything more.

As the three approached the camp, the hunters also spotted them.

The leader was a bearded man in his thirties, burly and broad-shouldered, who was drinking from a wine flask.

He squinted at the three of them for a moment, showing no signs of shyness, and then called out loudly:

"Hey! Someone's here! Come in and sit down!"

The other hunters also looked up, their gazes sweeping over the three of them, and when they landed on Ye Qingfeng's Taoist robe, they clearly lingered on it for a few more seconds.

Ye Qingfeng lifted his foot and walked over.

Around the campfire, several hunters automatically made room for each other.

The bearded man handed over the wine bag:

"Come on, have a drink! It's cold in the mountains at night, warm yourself up!"

Ye Qingfeng took it, tilted his head back and took a sip, then handed it back to the bearded man.

The man with the thick beard's eyes lit up:

"Impressive drinking capacity! The Taoist priest is also a straightforward person!"

The other hunters laughed, and the atmosphere became lively.

Lü Yang and Shen Zhaoyue also sat down by the fire.

Lu Yang leaned closer to the fire to warm his frozen hands, but his eyes remained fixed on the roasted rabbit.

The bearded man looked at him, then at Shen Zhaoyue, his gaze lingering on the knife at Shen Zhaoyue's waist.

"And this is...?"

Shen Zhaoyue: "On the road."

The bearded man didn't ask any further questions and handed over the wine pouch:

"Even when traveling, you need a drink to warm yourself up. Come on, come on!"

Shen Zhaoyue took it, drank a sip, and didn't even frown.

The man with the thick beard gave a thumbs up:

"Good! This guy's a straightforward one!"

Lu Yang was trying not to laugh.

Shen Zhaoyue glanced at him, and he immediately became more composed.

A younger hunter approached, looking at Ye Qingfeng with curiosity:

"Where did you come from, Taoist priest? Where are you going?"

Ye Qingfeng: "They came from afar, heading towards the town ahead."

Young hunter: "Tiger Roar Town is ahead, where are you going, Taoist priest?"

Ye Qingfeng nodded.

The hunters exchanged glances, and the bearded man put down his wine bag, his expression turning serious.

"Master, you may not know this," he lowered his voice, as if afraid of being overheard by something, "Tiger Roar Town has been quite unsettled lately."

Ye Qingfeng, holding the bowl, casually asked:

"Why is things not peaceful?"

The bearded man sighed:

"A tiger has appeared in the back mountain."

The young hunter beside him interjected, "This isn't an ordinary tiger, it's a tiger demon! Extremely powerful!"

Ye Qingfeng didn't speak, he just looked at him.

The bearded man continued, "Three months ago, people started going missing. First, it was people who went up the mountain to chop firewood..."

Then came the passing peddlers, and later, even the women who came down the mountain to fetch water disappeared. They vanished without a trace, neither alive nor dead.

Another hunter said, "At first we thought they were bandits, but then someone found bones on the mountain—human bones. There were also tiger claw prints, as big as a washbasin."

The bearded man nodded: "That's when we realized it was a tiger. But that tiger is very strange; we sent several groups of hunters up the mountain, but they all returned empty-handed. Two hunters still haven't come back."

The young hunter's voice trembled: "I heard that when tigers eat people, they don't bite them to death, but drag them away alive. Some of those dragged away can still scream for help, but their cries are cut off halfway through..."

Lu Yang felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't help but ask, "How many people did they eat?"

The bearded man paused for a moment, then held up two fingers:

"Say no more, this number."

Lü Yang: "Twenty?"

The bearded man shook his head: "Twelve. And that's just the ones we can count. Who knows how many more there were—those passing through, those from out of town, those who didn't report to the authorities?"

Ye Qingfeng's brows twitched slightly.

Shen Zhaoyue asked from the side, "Isn't the government doing anything about it?"

The bearded man gave a wry smile: "We managed it. A group of people came, searched the mountains for three days, found nothing, and left. Before they left, they even said we were exaggerating, that there was no tiger at all."

The young hunter said indignantly, "Of course they won't find it! That tiger never comes out during the day; it only attacks at night!"

The bearded man waved his hand, signaling him to calm down, and then said to Ye Qingfeng:

"We just don't believe in this nonsense. We've spent our whole lives hunting in the mountains, what kind of beasts haven't we seen? I just don't believe it could really have become a spirit!"

As he spoke, he patted the steel fork beside him:

"Tomorrow morning, a few of us will go up the mountain. We're going to twist that beast's head off and show it to the townspeople!"

Ye Qingfeng looked at him, then at the other hunters.

They were all strong, muscular men, their bodies bearing scars from years of hunting, their eyes revealing fierce courage.

But then he glanced at the wine flasks beside him, and at the slightly tipsy face of the bearded man, and casually asked:

"Aren't you afraid of drinking too much and making mistakes?"