Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 44: A Gentleman Conceals His Weapons

Qi Wu and the surviving guards stared in absolute disbelief. The crude, painted clay statue of the Mountain God had just sprung to life, brandishing a sword to parry the massive tiger demon.

“The Mountain God has manifested!” A Yue whispered, his eyes wide with religious awe.

Qi Wu, ever the pragmatist, reacted first. “No! Someone is hiding inside the statue!”

He was right. As the sword-wielding ‘deity’ traded blows with the towering beast, chunks of dried mud and chipped paint sloughed off the figure, revealing the very human cultivator concealed within.

It was Lu Yang.

“You son of a bitch!” Lu Yang roared, launching a vicious kick at the tiger’s snout. “I waited five days for you! Five days of playing a damn lawn ornament! Eat my sword!”

For someone with Lu Yang’s hyperactive, quick-witted nature, sitting perfectly still was a fate worse than death. To avoid the tiger demon’s acute senses, he had entombed himself inside the hollowed-out clay shell, unmoving and cramped, for over a hundred hours. He was stiff, miserable, and absolutely furious.

Before the stunned merchants could process this absurdity, the flanking statues of the Civil and Martial Attendants violently ruptured.

“Lu Yang, we shall lend you a hand!”

Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu burst from their respective clay prisons in a shower of dust and debris, unleashing their cultivation techniques to eradicate the beast.

***

Five days earlier.

The dilapidated Mountain God temple had welcomed three uninvited guests. After swallowing their Inedia Pills to stave off hunger, they meticulously hollowed out the backs of the three central statues and squeezed themselves inside.

The idols were massive, standing several feet taller than an average man, making them surprisingly roomy inside.

“Are you entirely sure this is going to work?” Meng Jingzhou asked, peering out through the statue’s eyeholes with deep suspicion.

“Based on the intel Brother Man Gu gathered, our only option is to wait for the tiger demon to come looking for a meal,” Lu Yang replied, adjusting his shoulders within the clay shell. “Let’s just get settled first.”

Man Gu, meanwhile, was lost in deep, scholarly thought. *Could this be what the ancient texts meant by the proverb, ‘A gentleman conceals his weapons within his person’?*

*Exactly! That must be it!* Man Gu’s eyes lit up with profound realization. *They say reading ten thousand books is nothing compared to traveling ten thousand miles. I could never grasp the true meaning of that proverb in the sect. Yet, on my very first mission with Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou, I have achieved such enlightenment!*

His Master had been right all along. To excel in one’s studies, one must first find excellent role models. And what better role models than these two, who so flawlessly applied ancient wisdom by literally hiding inside hollowed-out statues?

The three cultivators settled into their respective idols, matching the rigid postures of the gods, leaving only their eyes exposed to the dark temple.

*Testing, testing. Can you hear me?* Lu Yang projected his voice inward using the Divine Thought Technique.

It was a simple utility spell the trio had picked up on the road. At extremely close range, it allowed for telepathic communication using sheer willpower, completely bypassing the need for spiritual energy.

*Loud and clear,* Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu replied in unison.

*Is the carriage going to be alright?* Meng Jingzhou asked, a hint of worry in his mental voice. To avoid drawing the tiger demon’s attention, they had left his family’s luxurious carriage and their old horse at an inn miles away in Yanjiang County.

*Focus,* Lu Yang chided. *Our intel on this tiger demon is dangerously thin. What we do know is that its cultivation is somewhere between early Foundation Establishment and early Golden Core. It’s incredibly cunning and paranoid. It only hunts mortals because it’s terrified that injuring a cultivator will bring down the wrath of a major sect. If cultivators sweep the mountain, it burrows into some hidden hole until they leave.*

*In other words, it avoids fair fights like the plague.*

The only reason this beast had survived on Song Mountain for so long without being purged was its absolute refusal to engage anyone who could fight back.

*That’s why we have to lay the trap before it even knows we’re here,* Lu Yang continued. *Tiger-type demons are hyper-sensitive to spiritual energy. We absolutely cannot use even a drop of spiritual power while we wait.*

Hence, the reliance on the willpower-driven Divine Thought Technique.

Five days later.

*Good grief, after sitting here until my bones fused, someone finally showed up.*

*They look like a merchant caravan?*

*Wait a minute,* Lu Yang’s mental voice sharpened. *Why is there an old hunter guiding them? Didn’t the locals say every single hunter fled Song Mountain because of the tiger?*

They had investigated the surrounding towns thoroughly. No one had seen a hunter come down from the mountain to sell pelts in months.

*A Changui!*

The three reached the exact same conclusion in a fraction of a second. The kindly old man leading the caravan wasn’t a hunter; he was a Changui—a malicious ghost bound to the tiger that devoured it, forced to lure fresh prey to its master.

Any lingering doubts they had about the tiger demon’s existence vanished. If there was a Changui, the tiger was definitely here.

*Did you hear what the old man just said?* Lu Yang noted. *He claimed he lives in a cabin with several other hunters. The merchant leader confirmed he found him there. It probably wasn’t a lie.*

*Which means the other ‘hunters’ are likely Changui too,* Meng Jingzhou deduced. *A whole nest of them pretending to be normal people to build credibility and avoid suspicion. Clever.*

*Should we take out the Changui now?* Meng Jingzhou’s mental voice practically vibrated with eagerness.

*Hold your horses. Don’t startle the snake,* Lu Yang ordered. *Did you hear that guard, Qi Wu? He threatened to report the missing merchants to the Five Great Immortal Sects. Given the tiger demon’s paranoid nature, it will absolutely come tonight to silence them. We wait. The second the tiger shows its face, I’ll strike first. You two cover me and get the mortals out of the crossfire.*

*Understood.*

*Hold on. Footsteps outside. Light tread. Not the tiger.*

Through the eyeholes of their statues, they watched the scene unfold as Qi Wu and the old hunter successfully drove away the mysterious girl in green.

*Fools,* Man Gu muttered telepathically, his tone dripping with scholarly disdain. *With a female cultivator present, the tiger demon would never dare attack. It fears exposure. If it kills her, her Master’s sect will hunt it down. If it doesn’t kill her, she’ll report it to her sect, and they’ll hunt it down. It’s a dead end either way. The Changui’s only option was to manipulate the mortals into chasing her off.*

*See? I told you. The Changui got rid of her.*

Lu Yang remained perfectly calm. *Look at it from our perspective. If she stayed, the tiger wouldn’t show up. Do you want to spend another five days in this clay coffin?*

*Hey, did either of you catch a look at the jade pendant on her waist?* Meng Jingzhou asked, a note of surprise in his mind.

*What about it?* Lu Yang and Man Gu knew jade pendants often denoted status, but the intricate heraldry of the cultivation world was largely lost on them.

*That was a jade token of the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace.*

The Moon Laurel Immortal Palace—one of the Five Great Immortal Sects.

Far to the north, separating the Central Continent from the extreme frozen wastes, lay a massive, jagged mountain range. Perpetually blanketed in blizzards and rarely seeing the sun, these peaks were hailed as the highest point on the Central Continent, the closest place to the moon itself. Nestled within that unforgiving, breathtaking landscape was the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace.

*She’s probably only at the Foundation Establishment stage,* Meng Jingzhou analyzed. *When we engage the tiger, let’s make as much noise as possible. If she senses the spiritual shockwaves, we’ll see if she’s righteous enough to come back and lend a hand.*

She certainly wasn’t a Golden Core cultivator. A Golden Core master from an Immortal Sect would have seen through the Changui’s disguise in a heartbeat, rather than letting herself be shooed away by a grumpy mortal.

Time crawled by. The trio watched helplessly as Qi Wu and the rest of the caravan drifted off into a deep, exhausted slumber. The rhythmic sound of their snoring echoed through the ruined temple, acting like a potent sedative on the three hidden cultivators.

To fight off the crushing weight of sleep, Man Gu began reciting passages from ancient scholars, using sheer willpower to keep his mind active.

*The Sage said, ‘I daily examine myself on three points.’ Are you sleepy? I am not sleepy. Are you sleepy? I am not sleepy. Are you sleepy? I am not sleepy…*

*Stop chanting!* Meng Jingzhou snapped. *I wasn’t tired, but your droning is putting me in a coma. Recite it silently!*

*I am reciting it silently,* Man Gu replied, his mental voice perfectly polite.

*Shut up and listen!* Lu Yang barked, tuning out the two idiots. He forced his heavy eyelids open, straining his senses into the dark woods beyond the temple doors.

*There… the sound of heavy paws crushing dry weeds. The tiger demon is coming!*

At Lu Yang’s warning, Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu instantly dropped their bickering. Adrenaline flooded their veins, washing away the exhaustion of the past five days.

*Finally. I’ve been waiting for this vile beast!*

Lu Yang stopped suppressing his aura. With a violent flex of his spiritual power, the clay Mountain God statue detonated outward in a shower of shrapnel. He lunged forward, the Qingfeng Sword already in his hand, its brilliant, deadly light illuminating the darkest corners of the ruined temple.