Wang Baoshan stared blankly for a long time, his lips trembling as he said, "Since... since the True People are willing to help us escape from this misery, I’ll offer what’s left of these old bones if it can be of use."
"Very well, in one incense stick’s time."
A cold glint flashed in Li Mo’s eyes.
He had already discerned the situation and did not intend to let go of the benefits within reach.
Previously, cultivators came to River God Village, but perhaps due to their fear of the Mountain Lord Strange Beast, they chose to deliver the corpse of a Fake Beast to fulfill their task.
Li Mo, however, believed that he had some confidence in dealing with River God Village’s Mountain Lord Strange Beast.
Merely through the brief manifestation of the Awakened Lion, he had already grasped the situation, thanks to the Ghost Tiger’s ability to sense similar strange beasts.
Li Mo’s gaze fell on the banyan tree next to the ancestral hall. The reason the red string could bind the Awakened Lion, apart from its connection to the Chang Ghosts, was because the banyan tree itself contained traces of the Mountain Lord Strange Beast’s aura.
The same was true for the dry well in the eastern village, the ruined temple in the southern village, and the hillside at the village entrance.
Li Mo ignored the lion dance and placed his palm against the banyan tree, while his consciousness focused on the Creation Book. After all, the blank page could reveal the internal organs he touched.
Soon, a blood-drenched, deformed tiger’s head appeared on the blank page.
Li Mo inwardly confirmed his suspicions—counting the remnants of the dry well, the ruined temple, and the hillside—they had already located all the bodily parts of the Mountain Lord Strange Beast.
He deeply doubted that, after the Mountain Lord Strange Beast ravaged River God Village, it was killed by cultivators.
Its scattered corpse fell into the river, and as a result, though it did not rot, it transformed River God Village’s villagers into Chang Ghosts, trapping them in this place.
There were still many unresolved questions, but they didn’t obstruct Li Mo’s desire to glimpse the corpse of the strange beast.
Even if its remains weren’t used to nourish the Ghost Tiger Tattoo, selling the strange beast’s corpse on the black market could fetch a considerable price in Spirit Stones.
Li Mo sat beneath the banyan tree, lost in thought.
The Ghost Tiger circled around the Awakened Lion, continuously provoking its feral nature.
Wang Baoshan dared not disturb the True People and, together with the villagers, began the hurried preparations for the instruments and costumes to be used during the temple fair ritual.
It felt to him like returning to some ten years ago, when the grand ceremony of inviting the god, held once every five years, mobilized almost everyone in River God Village—a tradition spanning over a thousand years.
"Serving the tiger, serving the tiger..."
Wang Baoshan closed his eyes in pain, then mustered his spirit and walked out of the ancestral hall.
The appointed time with Li Mo had yet to arrive, but he started beating the lion drum, and the muffled sound immediately reverberated through the waters.
The villagers did not hesitate and began the lion dance alongside Wang Baoshan.
"Chang dong chang, chang dong chang dong chang dong chang..."
The Awakened Lion grew increasingly frenzied—not merely due to the Ghost Tiger’s provocation, but also because the sound of the drums and gongs drove it to the brink of madness.
The Awakened Lion slammed its head against the banyan tree, blood and brain matter trickling slowly. The withered banyan tree unexpectedly sprouted traces of vitality.
An ear-shattering tiger roar echoed through River God Village. Wang Baoshan struck the drums harder, as if pouring his life force into the drumstick.
The Awakened Lion bit into the banyan tree, sucking the blood-like liquid from within its trunk.
Clusters of grotesque tumors surfaced—soon followed by five villagers’ faces, twisted in agony and sprouting dozens of hands that supported themselves on the ground.
Crack, crack, crack...
Bones collided as the Awakened Lion’s spine suddenly split open, revealing a monstrous entity clawing its way out bit by bit.
Li Mo hummed the tune of the lion dance, casting a Magic Finger to fling out a strand of Mist Fog Silk Thread. As water surged, the Awakened Lion froze in place.
The Awakened Lion was teetering on the brink of promotion, about to evolve into a childhood-phase strange beast.
Li Mo’s timing seemed disturbingly precise.
The Awakened Lion opened its bloodthirsty maw, only for a surge of water to overflow, sending its head sliding off its neck. The surrounding waters turned a deep crimson.
The Mist Fog Silk Thread flicked again.
The banyan tree’s surface split, revealing a conglomerate of bones and flesh—a sight of Mountain Lord Strange Beast’s head.
As the tiger’s head emerged, its other bodily parts reawakened.
A cacophony of tiger roars erupted in every direction.
Li Mo’s actions seemed to stir a hornet’s nest—River God Village, once delicately balanced, spiraled into uncontrollable chaos.
The tiger head clustered and separated, barely forming a complete skull.
Wang Baoshan’s consciousness began to wane, his drumming sustained purely by instinct.
At that moment, Wang Baoshan heard Li Mo’s loud shout: "Brother asks me for the hour; it divides the Kan hexagram as Jia Yin."
"On the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month in early autumn, at Zi Chou’s hour, my body was born, precisely aligned with the metal stem."
Wang Baoshan snapped awake, screaming with all his might: "Bring forth the River God!!!"
The Ghost Tiger could no longer be restrained, its two-meter frame pounced upon the tiger head, devouring the strange beast’s remains in one gulp, its aura fierce and untamed.
The tiger head churned within the Ghost Tiger’s body; before it could suppress the remains, other fragments of the strange beast emerged from the village’s depths.
The remains clung together, seeking to reforged their whole form.
Li Mo’s flesh shriveled slightly as the Red Fox emerged from his left arm, coiled uneasily around the tiger’s leg, shrouded in river water.
He, meanwhile, used the Mist Fog Silk Thread to deflect the tiger’s tail.
Wang Baoshan gazed dazedly at the Ghost Tiger, his memories flooded with scenes of lion dances—its ferocity amplified by the accompanying drums and gongs.
Li Mo stole glances at the villagers, whose bodies had uniformly grown frail.
He continued to wield Hui Qingyi, his body visibly thinning, while the Ghost Tiger swelled to over five meters, its joints extending razor-sharp bony blades.
Wang Baoshan felt his life slipping away: "Brother asks me where the lion emerged?"
"The lion emerged in River God Village, upon nine layers of stone slabs and nine layers of mountains."
The Ghost Tiger savagely tore apart the tiger’s body, its tail instantly puncturing its own flesh to subdue the struggling tiger head within.
Li Mo tossed a tiger leg toward the Ghost Tiger, watching its swelling ferocity with a shake of his head.
The Ghost Tiger dispatched the tiger leg in mere moments; the Red Fox likewise pinned the tiger tail underfoot, fragmenting the Mountain Lord Strange Beast completely.
Wang Baoshan nodded respectfully toward Li Mo.
He raised both thumbs, placed them side by side, mimicking a gesture from wandering Jianghu performers as he murmured: "True People, your name shall endure for eternity."
As he spoke, the villagers—along with the submerged houses—vanished, leaving only faint echoes of the lion dance instruments in Li Mo’s ears.
Li Mo reclaimed most of his Blood and Flesh Spiritual Power. The Ghost Tiger reverted to two meters, promptly regurgitating the indistinct tiger head.
"Wasted ten percent of my Blood and Flesh Spiritual Power."
Li Mo slapped the Ghost Tiger hard, which lowered its head in defeat, while the Red Fox darted around it smugly.
With the strange beast vanquished, the supernatural phenomena in River God Village all dissolved into nothingness.
The scattered remains of the strange beast, their value—so immense even Li Mo, akin to a human-shaped mine field—couldn’t help but show his blazing enthusiasm.
"Could the strange beast have been deliberately sealed in River God Village? Was it an experiment to see if Chang Ghosts could counter the Mountain Lord Strange Beast?"
Li Mo stored the strange beast’s remains in his Storage Bag, then swam toward the shore, an unsettling feeling tugging at his heart.
When he surfaced, his expression turned to a bitter smile.
Li Mo’s heart skipped a beat as the spiritual tablet in his arms stirred. Uneasy, he pressed it to his forehead, and Steward Hu’s transmitted thoughts surged forth.
Li Mo held the spiritual tablet in silence for some time, hesitating for half a day before reluctantly detailing the River God Village incident to Steward Hu.
Steward Hu had no response, and the matter seemed to end inconclusively.