Uncle Jie was gone.

Perhaps overwhelmed by grief or his grievous wounds, Liu Tang collapsed, unconscious again.

Xiangzi carried Liu Tang to the straw, then went outside to dig a pit—a deep one.

Even with pursuers possibly closing in, he spared no effort.

Only a deep grave could keep scavenging demon beasts at bay.

When it was done, Xiangzi sat dazed, staring around, lost in thought.

Wen San and the others were dead.

Uncle Jie was gone too.

In just a few months in this world, everyone Xiangzi knew was gone.

In that instant, a gripping fear of alienation seized his heart.

A single day had turned everything upside down.

He glanced at Liu Tang, uncertain of life or death, and stood.

In this world, Liu Tang was his only friend left.

He couldn’t let him die.

Cutting strips of demon beast meat from the tiger’s belly, Xiangzi roasted them roughly over the fire, mashed them, and fed them to Liu Tang with water.

The ninth-rank demon meat worked wonders—color visibly returned to Liu Tang’s face.

With no more medicine, Xiangzi dared not use the earlier cauterizing method.

Liu Tang’s wounds were too numerous—more ore-laced soil might burn him to ash.

While feeding Liu Tang, Xiangzi gnawed on the demon meat.

The half-cooked tiger flesh was foul and rancid, but he chewed the leathery fibers patiently, swallowing them down.

A warm, burning sensation slid down his throat.

His wilted blood and qi vortex in his dantian stirred.

Xiangzi knew his vitality was slowly recovering.

As he ate, his gaze drifted to the dark mining zone forest.

The earlier commotion, though masked by the demon beast, might draw investigators, sparking another fight.

Dawn was nearing.

At night, this forest belonged to demon beasts.

By day, it was the Li family’s domain.

At the thought of the Li family, Xiangzi’s hand paused, a surge of emotion flooding his heart.

Swallowing the last piece of demon meat, he recalled his promise to Uncle Jie.

His eyes fell on the fresh soil nearby.

Xiangzi lowered his head, his gaze distant, murmuring inwardly: Uncle Jie, I’m sorry. This time, I can’t listen to you.

As if resolving something, Xiangzi stood and approached the lifeless tiger demon.

Its massive body loomed like a hill.

Its metallic bones defied ordinary blades.

Fortunately, its anatomy mirrored common beasts.

With great effort, Xiangzi located its heart.

Slicing through the diaphragm, a head-sized heart appeared.

Compared to the bear heart Wan Yuxuan had given him, this tiger heart was larger, stranger.

In the foul, viscous fluid, the crimson heart bore faint golden veins.

It felt heavy, like an iron ball, still pulsing in his hands.

Xiangzi set the heart down.

In his hand was a bone fragment—spoils from killing the ninth-rank warrior Liang Hua.

Li Gui’s cruel scheme had been to frame Xiangzi with this high-grade demon bone.

A crude, almost clumsy plan—but enough to pin blame for a dead convoy leader.

As for the rickshaw pullers, they meant nothing to the Li family, easily scapegoated onto Ma Liu’s fools.

Li Gui never imagined Xiangzi would kill Liang Hua.

The bone fragment was now Xiangzi’s.

Without much hesitation, he plunged the jade-like bone into the tiger’s heart.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

But his prior experience with the bear heart gave him patience.

After what felt like ages—

Shlick! A wisp of pale golden mist rose.

The heart still beat, but the bone visibly melted, like ice meeting fire.

A glistening droplet landed in Xiangzi’s hand.

Not quite liquid, it was soft, like candy.

This was the blood and qi marrow refined from a high-grade demon bone.

Compared to the faint golden liquid from the bear bone, this marrow was clearer, more radiant.

Another drop followed.

As the bone fully melted into the heart, two cool drops of marrow rested in Xiangzi’s palm.

Xiangzi frowned—last time, the lesser bone yielded four drops.

This superior bone, larger and finer, produced only two?

Gazing at the jade-like marrow, Xiangzi pinched one—

And placed it in his mouth.

The cold marrow turned scalding upon touching his tongue, like swallowing boiling water.

With no bath or special herbs to temper the marrow’s potency, Xiangzi didn’t know what swallowing it raw would do.

Suddenly, he recalled Jin Fugui’s ghastly state.

“Mine miasma” was something even high-rank warriors feared.

Xiangzi glanced at Uncle Jie’s grave, a faint smile curving his lips.

He swallowed.

—

The radiant marrow burst in his mouth, a fiery, piercing pain spreading from his throat to his dantian.

Like needles, like blades.

His eyes shut involuntarily, his body trembling, his mind a raging vortex.

The overwhelming pain nearly drowned his consciousness.

He was gambling—betting his body could withstand the marrow, betting his mind could endure the demonic transformation.

As Skinny Monkey said before dying: Their lives were worth little.

Lose the bet, lose his life.

In this chaotic world, Xiangzi had no other path.

To seek revenge, he had to gamble his life!

After an eternity, he caught his breath and slowly opened his eyes.

A dazzling white caught his sight.

Xiangzi’s heart skipped—was it dawn?

He shot up, only to realize the white was a bird.

Instinctively, his gaze locked onto it. He could clearly see its feathers, even from afar.

Xiangzi looked around—the night was still dark, with only a faint white at the horizon.

The bird was ten yards away.

By his reckoning, refining the marrow had taken nearly half an hour.

But what shocked him more was his vision.

To see so clearly at night, from such a distance?

He recalled a documentary from his past life—tigers, as felines, had remarkable night vision.

Was this from the marrow?

It seemed the only explanation.

Glancing at his shoulder, the once-gruesome wound had mostly healed, sprouting pink flesh.

Probing his dantian, he was stunned—

Three wrist-thick pillars of blood and qi intertwined.

Three pillars of blood and qi? Unheard of.

His blood and qi were now thirty percent stronger!

Even ninth-rank entry-level warriors didn’t boast such vitality.

Was he truly a freak, able to endlessly bolster his blood and qi?

Amid his joy, Xiangzi didn’t notice—

A fleeting glint of gold in his dark eyes.