Chapter 15

    ROARRRRR!

    Though he could escape from this ferocious beast himself, there was no way he could fight and protect the two children at the same time. As he hesitated, wondering how to escape and help the children, Liu Tan tugged at his sleeve.

    "Young man, sit down. My sister will handle this," Liu Tan said confidently, then turned to gather sticks for the fire.

    Liu Yi You pouted. Since when was she his sister?

    She sent out her spiritual sense, hoping to find a tiger nearby to catch and eat while waiting for Tong Tian to hunt more beasts. She spotted the thin man staring at them viciously with a malicious smile.

    The little girl tilted her head, uncertain. She hadn't been cautious recently due to her cultivation level and the presence of beasts, including Tong Tian, which made her less vigilant.

    This time, Liu Yi You merely narrowed her eyes and then looked away.

    The chubby man, seeing the beast approaching steadily, started to feel uneasy and even more so when he saw his companion hiding nearby.

    "Let's run," he said, trying to pull Liu Tan up.

    Liu Tan did nothing but respond, "Sit down, it’ll be fine. Come, help me start the fire."

    At this moment, Liu Tan saw the approaching tiger as nothing more than a snack.

    Liu Yi You stood up. "Grandfather, prepare the knife," she said and walked forward, ready to confront the large tiger. If one looked closely, a bit of drool was visible at the corner of her mouth.

    ROARRRR!

    The tiger's roar came from a distance. The thin man frowned, confused why the children didn't seem to run but rather looked like they were waiting. He sneered again.

    Stubborn kids.

    The Cloud Tiger got closer and accelerated, preparing to pounce on the little girl first.

    Just then, Tong Tian appeared with five high-level beasts.

    Liu Yi You had asked for two or three, but Tong Tian brought five. The little girl sighed, realizing she should be used to Tong Tian's way of counting by now.

    With five high-level beasts in front of her, a mid-level beast like the Cloud Tiger no longer caught her interest. The chubby man saw the carcasses of the five high-level beasts and was speechless, collapsing in shock.

    The skinny man, being further away, couldn't see clearly but felt an eerie premonition.

    The Cloud Tiger, smelling the high-level beasts and seeing their corpses, knew that if it attacked, it would soon end up like them. Thinking that, it abruptly halted its pounce toward the little girl.

    However, due to its speed, it lost its balance. In Liu Yi You’s past life, this would be called a face-banging brake. The halt was halted, sure, but whether or not Liu Yi You would let it go…was a different matter.

    She then suddenly jumped onto the tiger's back in one leap, whispered a few words, patted its back lightly a few times, and then jumped off gracefully.

    Without delay, she ran back to the still-standing Tong Tian, quietly putting the beasts into her cosmic bracelet, leaving one out to skillfully butcher it.

    “H..hey... you…you…” The chubby man, still on the ground, scrambled backward in fear.

    Liu Tan turned around and said, "Don't worry about it. This is normal. Come, help me start the fire."

    The Cloud Tiger regained its footing after a brief hesitation. Once it seemed to have collected its wits, it turned toward where the thin man was hiding. Then, a chaotic chase ensued as the Cloud Tiger pursued the thin man throughout the forest.

    "Help! Help me!" the thin man cried as he ran.

    Only his chubby companion still cared about him. The others, including the veiled woman, the little girl who had jumped onto the tiger's back, and the young man inviting him to drink, paid no attention to the thin man anymore.

    "Uh, I should go help my friend..." the chubby man hesitated.

    But then he remembered that the thin man had thrown Human-Biting Dog grass at them even though he was there too. His concern for his friend diminished. If the group he was with were not top-notch fighters, they wouldn't have even feared the mid-level Cloud Tiger. He would have been killed by that tiger already. Since the other guy didn’t care about him, why should he care about the other guy?

    Thinking this, he calmed down and sat next to Liu Tan, helping the young man start the fire.

    Soon, the high-level beast meat was ready for everyone to enjoy. However, the chubby man was just a Qi Condensation cultivator. He might be able to survive an encounter with a mid-level beast, but he couldn’t handle eating high-level beast meat. Watching Liu Yi You and Liu Tan compete to eat the meat made him feel a strange sense of unease. How could these people eat beast meat so nonchalantly?

    But thinking was one thing; who would dare voice any objections?

    "Hey! Young man, why aren't you eating? Go ahead, don't be shy," Liu Tan encouraged, his mouth full of roasted meat.

    The chubby man wanted to cry but had no tears. He didn't want his body to explode from consuming high-level beast meat. So, no matter how hungry he was, he could only clutch his stomach, swallow his saliva, and softly reply,

    "I'm full."

    "What a shame," Liu Tan said, continuing to eat.

    They ate happily amidst the thin man's desperate cries as he fled from the roaring Cloud Tiger.

    Before long, Liu Tan lay down, patting his belly contentedly in front of the chubby man. And that was when the true terror began... The little girl devoured the rest of the large high-level beast meat…all by herself.

    Is she human or a demon?

    Finally, the chubby man couldn't take it anymore and prepared to leave. But it seemed the cute, demon-faced little girl noticed.

    "Where are you rushing off to, Uncle?" Liu Yi You looked at the chubby man with an innocent face, but the sight of her chewing non-stop with grease all over her mouth made him feel as if he was looking at a little demon.

    The young man froze. Seeing this, Liu Yi You tossed him three porcelain bottles. The chubby man caught them in surprise.

    When he opened them out of curiosity, he was utterly astonished.

    He didn't expect the porcelain bottles to contain Qi Condensation, Qi Breaking, and Pulse-Piercing Elixirs.

    Was this demon…trying to make a soul-devouring contract with him by giving him such valuable items?

    "Mi-Miss, wh-what do you want?" the chubby man asked with difficulty.

    Liu Yi You frowned, looking at him as if he were an idiot. "You helped me, so I'm just paying you back a little."

    This... this... a little?

    The man looked at the porcelain bottles in his hand, then bowed his head in gratitude to Liu Yi You and Liu Tan before hurrying away.

    Seeing his actions, Liu Yi You frowned and looked at Liu Tan. "Grandfather, did you scare him? Why is he so afraid of me?"

    Liu Tan shook his head, now full and content. "I didn’t do anything."

    Liu Yi You pouted, watching the chubby man run off as fast as he could. What kind of person runs away when a child gives them something, instead of being happy?

    Without an answer, she continued eating happily amidst the thin man's anguished cries and the Cloud Tiger's roars.

    Liu Tan, with his full belly, was about to fall asleep. Though annoyed by the noise, he comforted himself by thinking it was like the Liu family's children crying. If he could sleep through kids crying, he could sleep through one person yelling. With this thought, Liu Tan fell asleep.

    Liu Yi You ate until nearly midnight, when sleep finally overtook her. She stopped eating, packed up, and lay down to sleep, with Tong Tian standing guard.

    In the morning, Liu Yi You and Liu Tan woke up feeling refreshed. As she woke, the sounds that should have been loud had softened. The Cloud Tiger was now weakly chasing the thin man. Liu Yi You squinted and shouted into the air,

    "Looks like we'll have roasted tiger today."

    ROARRRR!

    The Cloud Tiger roared again. Hearing this, the thin man jumped and ran for his life once more.

    For the two days and nights that Liu Yi You waited in the forest for Mao Tong, the only sounds were the Cloud Tiger's roars and the thin man's anguished cries as he was clawed at by the beast. His already thin body now looked like that of a beggar, with tattered clothes and wounds all over.

    "You stinky kid!" Mao Tong jumped out of nowhere and landed on Liu Yi You's head.

    "You're back? Where are the herbs?"

    "Can you stop asking for a moment? Here, I have something to show you." With that, a book appeared.

    Stories of the Immortal World

    The little girl raised her eyebrows, but before she could open it, two turtles carried a young man and dropped him in front of her. Liu Yi You examined the body indifferently and frowned even more.

    Damn!

    Inhumanely handsome...