Chapter 025 – One Fierce Woman

Outside Li Yuan’s house, a dark figure scaled the fence and reached the front door. Without even bothering to knock, he gave the door a push, apparently assuming it wasn’t locked.

Just then, the intruder felt a sudden chill, looked off to the side, and froze. Under the pale moonlight, a tiger with a striking, brindled coat was hurtling through the air, leaping over the fence.

The sight nearly made the man’s knees buckle in terror, and an involuntary cry of fear escaped his lips.

In a desperate bid to block the tiger’s path, he flailed forward with both hands, only to find that Li Yuan’s door really was unlocked. It swung open, and he darted inside, hoping to slam it behind him. Surely the tiger couldn’t break down a door, right?

But the beast moved with lightning speed. Before its paws even hit the ground, it pounced again, covering several dozen feet in a flash and circling around behind him. With a lunge, it clamped its jaws onto the back of his neck. The man toppled with a blood-curdling scream for help.

Locked onto his throat, the tiger dragged him backward, heading straight toward the trees. The intruder’s shrieks rang through the night, rousing the neighbors.

Auntie Wang, alarmed by the uproar coming from Yan Yu’s place, grabbed a kitchen knife and peered out her window. One look was enough to make her go pale as a ghost.

“T–tiger...! A tiger’s in the village!”

Meanwhile, the tiger kept pulling its prey across the ground. From his vantage point near the woods,

Li Yuan finally got a good look at the intruder’s face, the same troublemaker who’d once lost to him in an arm-wrestling contest. The man had injured his wrist that day and ended up dodging the draft. A month had passed since then; his hand must have healed.

With the county troops defeated, half the bailiffs dead, and the captain of the guard gone, law and order had all but collapsed. Realizing no one was around to stop him, the scoundrel decided to break into Li Yuan’s home by night, planning to assault Yan Yu—revenge of the worst kind.

A surge of cold fear flashed through Li Yuan as he realized how close Yan Yu had come to harm. His face went grim.

By now, the man’s eyes were glazing over, blood pouring from the severed arteries in his neck like a crimson mop trail. The numbers that had hovered above him 1~2 slowly faded to 0~1, then disappeared entirely. He was already dead.

The tiger, jaws still locked on his neck, kept dragging him away. From house to house, doors remained shut, each family cowering in silence, too terrified to come outside.

It was only natural that everyone stayed behind closed doors.

After all, most of the able-bodied men had already been conscripted. How could the old, the weak, and the women possibly fend off a tiger?

Little Ink Village felt oppressively silent that night, punctuated only by the unsettling sound of a tiger gnawing on its prey. Everyone was weighed down with dread, but no one dared open their door. If a child happened to cry, the family would quickly clamp a hand over the child’s mouth, terrified of attracting that beast.

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By dawn, the village was still eerily quiet. It wasn’t until almost noon that a few of the braver souls ventured out, armed only with pitchforks and sticks. They peeked around to see what had happened overnight.

Meanwhile, in Li Yuan’s house, Yan Yu rubbed her aching forehead and sat up from the bed. Her head felt foggy in a way she’d never experienced before. She glanced outside, blinking at the sunlight streaming past the doorstep, outlining the threshold in a soft, tranquil glow.

“Why is the door open? What...what’s going on?”

She pressed a hand to her temple. Suddenly, her body went rigid. It was daytime. Where was Li Yuan? Why hadn’t she noticed anything during the night?

A dreadful thought struck her. Heart hammering, she felt around her body, up and down, checking every inch. At last, she breathed a sigh of relief. From the look of it, no one had violated her while she was unconscious.

She guessed she’d been drugged, dozing off without sensing a thing. If someone had broken in and taken advantage of her, she wouldn’t have known until it was too late. The very idea made her blood run cold.

Replaying yesterday’s events in her mind, she tried to recall who might have had the chance to slip something into her food or drink. Two people had dropped by for a chat over snacks: Auntie Wang and Feng’er. Was it one of them?

And what about Li Yuan? Had he come home last night? If so, how did he manage that without her noticing?

Heart racing, Yan Yu jumped up, slipped on her embroidered shoes, and dashed to the door, only to freeze in horror, letting out a muffled scream. She clamped both hands over her mouth, stifling her cry into a muted gasp.

Blood. There was blood in the yard, splashed across the muddy ground where the morning light caught it. A raw, savage sight.

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By the edge of the woods near Little Ink Village, a small group of villagers had gathered around a mangled corpse, torn beyond recognition.

“Isn’t that Zhang Shisi from the village?”

“He was young, strong as an ox. Should’ve been conscripted too, but injured his hand and got out of it. Who would’ve thought...” Someone sighed heavily. “Gone, just like that...”

“What a horrible way to die... you think that tiger might still be lurking around?” someone asked, scanning their surroundings with jittery eyes.

Then another villager chimed in, “What was Zhang Shisi doing out in the middle of the night anyway?”

“I heard screaming earlier, sounded like it came from Auntie Wang’s side of the village,” a woman who lived nearby remarked.

“Auntie Wang’s place?” A man frowned. “There’s a widow living next door to her, right? I just remembered. Zhang Shisi once got taught a lesson by that widow’s man. Could it be he tried sneaking into her place in the dead of night?” He paused, then added, “These days, there’s no one left to enforce the law, is there?”

At that, the onlookers fell silent, the air growing heavy with tension.

“Let’s go check on Auntie Wang’s house, and that widow’s place,” someone finally suggested.

Before long, a group of villagers arrived at Li Yuan’s home. They peered through the courtyard fence and saw it was surprisingly clean, no trace of blood or drag marks. The door itself seemed closed.

Spotting the crowd, Auntie Wang came out, calling anxiously over the fence, “Yan Yu? Yan Yu?”

She called twice without an answer. Exchanging uneasy glances, the villagers decided to go in. The man leading them approached the door, raised his hand to knock...and the moment he touched it, the door swung open with a creak.

A strange look passed among them. Why was the widow’s house not locked?

They stepped inside and glanced around, finally spotting Yan Yu lying on her bed in a simple white-and-blue blouse. Even with so many people entering, she didn’t stir.

“Yan Yu! Yan Yu!” Auntie Wang shouldered her way through the others and rushed over. She checked for breathing and exhaled in relief.

“What’s going on here?”

“Must’ve fainted from fright because of the tiger, right?”

“Fainted and ended up neatly tucked in bed? Doesn’t add up,” someone muttered. “I think something else happened to her.”

Auntie Wang quickly ladled some cold water from the water jar, splashing it onto Yan Yu’s face while calling her name.

After a few moments, Yan Yu’s lashes fluttered. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked at the crowd gathered by her bed.

“I... All of you, why are you here? My head hurts...” She tried to focus, still dazed. “Auntie Wang...”

Auntie Wang blurted, “Yan Yu, there was a tiger in the village last night. It dragged Zhang Shisi away!”

“Zhang...Shisi?” Yan Yu looked stunned.

A man in the crowd spoke up, “Zhang Shisi ended up around your house last night. We heard the screams coming from somewhere near here.”

“I... I don’t know anything. My head is spinning.” Yan Yu rubbed her forehead, then suddenly asked, “How did you all get in here?”

A woman answered, “The door wasn’t locked. We just pushed and it opened.”

“What? That can’t be. I always lock my door...” Yan Yu said, puzzled.

The villagers huddled together, muttering, piecing events together bit by bit:

They speculated that Zhang Shisi must have drugged Yan Yu, using some knockout drug, then snuck over in the middle of the night. But before he could do anything, a tiger showed up and dragged him off instead.

“Knockout drug... Yes, yesterday I drank some tea Feng’er gave me, and right after that, I got dizzy...” Yan Yu murmured.

Suddenly, her demeanor changed. Anger flashed across her face as she jumped up, grabbed a kitchen knife, and ran outside.

The rest of the villagers hurried after her.

When she reached Feng’er’s house, she banged on the door with the handle of her knife and shouted, “Feng’er! Feng’er!”

No response came from inside, so she tried the door. It was locked. She stepped back a few paces, ready to slam into it. But Yan Yu was petite; she couldn’t budge the door at all.

Luckily, the much heftier Auntie Wang was just as outraged. She stepped in to help, and after a couple of tries, they managed to break it open.

Yan Yu stormed inside, knife in hand, spotting a quivering lump under the blankets. She yanked the covers back and found Feng’er huddled in terror.

Pointing the knife at her, Yan Yu shouted, “Why!? Why did you try to harm me?!”

Feng’er, shaking all over, stammered, “I-I didn’t...!”

“Why did you do it?!” Yan Yu demanded, stepping closer.

Feng’er shrieked, “It wasn’t me! It was Zhang Shisi, Zhang Shisi!”