The night was as dark as ink, there was no moon, and it was eerily cold.
About half a mile outside the village committee, in the snow, the large, striped tiger lay listlessly, the wound on its right hind leg so deep that the bone was visible.
"who?"
Suddenly, Zhang Jianhao, who was crouching in the bamboo grove a hundred meters away from the tiger, turned his head sharply.
"Jianhao, what are you doing here?" Old Han asked, looking at Zhang Jianhao with a surprised expression as he held a pitchfork.
"Ahem, I was just thinking about Lord Shanjun!" Zhang Jianhao chuckled awkwardly, feeling a little embarrassed.
"Me too!" Uncle Han sighed, walked to Zhang Jianhao's side, and looked at the tiger in the snow in the distance. "Lord Mountain Lord is too badly injured, otherwise he wouldn't be ignoring us."
Tigers have very sharp ears; they should have made a sound from this short distance.
But now, the tiger is lying there motionless, like a dead thing.
"Sword Master, Uncle Han, you guys are pretty quick!"
More sounds came from behind, but Zhang Jianhao and Uncle Han were too lazy to turn around. How many times was this?
Li Qiming, with his hands tucked in his sleeves, jogged over and squatted down as well.
"What are you doing here?" Zhang Jianhao asked him.
"I'm afraid the mountain lord will die here!" Li Qiming pouted. "My mother said it's unlucky to die behind the village. I was thinking, should we drag it away?"
As he spoke, Li Qiming shrugged his shoulders, revealing a bundle of cow rope.
"When did you get so bold?"
"Hehe, Lord Mountain Lord is about to breathe his last, what's there to be afraid of?"
Just then, there was another rustling sound not far to the left. Zhang Weiguo and his father crouched down, holding hunting rifles, and crept over.
"Oh, you guys are here too!" Zhang Weiguo saw Uncle Han and the others and didn't feel embarrassed at all. He chuckled and said, "Master Shanjun is lying here. My dad and I couldn't sleep soundly, so we came to check on him."
The five of them squatted together, whispering to each other.
A moment later, another figure swayed over.
Uncle Han was completely exasperated and simply stood up and walked out of the bamboo forest.
When Zhang Cheng arrived, a fire had already been lit outside the bamboo forest.
"Haha, I knew Er Gouzi would come! Look, he's here!"
"Ergouzi, come and sit down!"
"Er Gouzi, it seems Lord Shan Jun won't make it through the night. We've been making a scene here for ages, and he hasn't even lifted an eyelid."
Zhang Cheng chuckled, walked over and sat down by the fire, stretching out his hands to warm them. "Uncles and elders, what's the plan here?"
"We can't let Lord Shan die at the village entrance, it's bad luck!"
"We brought a cow rope, how about we drag it a little further?"
"Who will put on the rope?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the area around the fire immediately fell silent.
The tiger looked like it was about to die, but who would dare approach it? What if it made a last-ditch effort and attacked...?
Zhang Cheng didn't dare either; his small frame couldn't withstand a tiger's slap.
"I have a solution!"
Zhang Jianhao chuckled, pulled out a machete from his waist, and disappeared into the bamboo forest.
Before long, he dragged out a bamboo pole six or seven meters long, trimmed off the branches, and seemed to want to use the bamboo to poke the tiger and test its reaction.
"Are you out of your mind, kid?" Uncle Han quickly got up and grabbed him. Six or seven meters? A tiger could cover that in a single leap! What if it had a final burst of energy before death? Zhang Jianhao would definitely be done for!
The others also realized what was happening and started trying to stop them.
"This won't work, that won't work either. Are we really going to just watch Lord Shan die here? I still have to go to the county with Brother Gou to make a fortune this year. I can't start the year with bad luck!" Zhang Jianhao was unhappy and threw the bamboo on the ground.
Just as Zhang Cheng and his companions were huddled around the fire, worrying about the tiger...
Four men, dressed in thick cotton-padded coats and carrying hunting rifles, were following the tiger's footprints in the snow and making their way this way.
"Brother, that big cat is really tough! Its tendons were almost crushed, but it still managed to run this far!"
"Stop talking nonsense and watch your step. This snow is about to freeze into ice shards. Don't fall into the pit."
"Is Zhangjia Village just ahead?"
The man at the front pulled off his face mask, revealing a fleshy face with a scar running from his forehead to his chin; he didn't look like a nice guy.
"Brother, how about we go to the village and get something to eat? We've been eating pancakes every day, my teeth are about to fall out," complained a weasel-faced guy next to me.
"Find the big cat first!" Scarface replied coldly.
"Alright!"
Braving the cold wind, the four of them quickly made their way to the outside of the village committee.
In the middle room of the village committee building, the stove was still burning, emitting a faint light.
Li Yuanyuan was scared and huddled in Zhao Qingwan's bed, too afraid to sleep alone.
"Qingwan, do you think that tiger... might come here?" Li Yuanyuan asked softly, her heart pounding with anxiety, as this place was too close to where the tiger was lying.
"What are you thinking? Everyone in the village said the tiger is too injured to walk," Zhao Qingwan comforted her.
“Yuanyuan,” Zhao Qingwan hesitated for a moment before asking, “You’re so handsome, why are you fixated on Zhang Cheng?”
"Because he's amazing!" Li Yuanyuan's eyes seemed to light up.
Zhao Qingwan sighed, "But he's married to Yangyang after all. Isn't this... not a good thing for you to do?"
“I like him, what’s wrong with that?” Li Yuanyuan retorted stubbornly.
Zhao Qingwan was both amused and exasperated by her self-righteous attitude.
"Bang Bang Bang!"
Sudden!
Someone knocked on the window.
Li Yuanyuan and Zhao Qingwan turned pale with fright and looked up sharply at the window.
A man's face, wryly grinning, was pressed against the glass, his eyes fixed on the two people inside.
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