106 Riverbank: The Tiger Play!

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The owner of the pair of green-glowing eyes, illuminated by the campfire on the riverbank, was a tiger over two meters long, its fur a vibrant orange-yellow base adorned with black stripes, its belly, chin, and cheeks brushed with snowy white.

Chen Jue hadn’t expected that practicing his Tiger Roar and Golden Bell Shield technique on the riverbank—using his voice to strike the internal energy—would actually summon a real tiger from the depths of the wilderness.

However, this tiger differed somewhat from the ones he had seen before. Although the black stripes on its forehead formed the character "King," it looked noticeably less majestic than the tigers Chen had encountered in zoos.

Moreover, this wild tiger’s head was more rounded, its orange hue deeper, and its black stripes narrower.

What Chen Jue did not know was that this was an extremely rare Indochinese tiger, also known as the Corbett tiger, a subspecies with a small population mainly distributed beyond the southwestern border in foreign lands. Although traces of this tiger had once been found in the southwestern region of China, it had become exceedingly rare in recent years and was considered a world-class endangered species.

Bathed in the glow of the campfire, man and tiger locked eyes. Since beginning his cultivation, Chen Jue’s courage had only grown stronger; back at Chen Village Reservoir, he had once kicked a wild boar weighing over 300 jin away with a single blow.

Facing such a wild tiger, he felt no fear—instead, there was a subtle spark of excitement.

As mentioned earlier, Chen Jue’s university nickname was “Cat,” and his favorite animals were the chubby stray cats on campus, which he often fed with cat food he bought online. The sensation of petting cats was uniquely delightful to him.

He had also seen videos online of wealthy Middle Eastern oil barons and Russians from the northern Bear Country who loved keeping tigers and other large predators as pets. The thrill of stroking a big cat firsthand was so tantalizing that even through a screen, Chen Jue felt an itch in his heart to try it himself.

Therefore, when he saw this wild tiger, his first instinct was not to flee like an ordinary person but to stare back and emit a roar resembling a tiger’s call to attract it.

The tiger, half-crouched in the grass, responded with a couple of roars upon hearing Chen Jue’s strange tiger-like howls.

As the saying goes, two tigers cannot share one mountain.

This rare wild tiger likely mistook Chen Jue’s roar for that of a rival encroaching on its territory and had tracked the sound here.

However, wary of fire, the tiger emerged slowly and cautiously from the thicket, its body half-crouched, its tail with black rings hanging stiffly downward, ready to pounce at any moment.

Chen Jue’s heart pounded wildly. He shrugged off his newly bought windbreaker, tossing it onto the pile of cobblestones to reveal a black athletic tank top beneath. With a firm step, he advanced toward the tiger some tens of meters away.

Upon closer inspection, Chen Jue’s muscles trembled slightly; his hands hung loosely by his sides as he walked, seemingly relaxed and vulnerable—yet his mind was intensely focused, poised on the brink of sudden explosive action.

When the distance between man and tiger closed to less than twenty meters, the two-meter-long adult tiger could no longer restrain itself.

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Suddenly, its lowered tail snapped upright; its fur bristled, and a deep, thunderous rumble burst forth from within its body—this was the so-called “tiger bone thunderclap,” a powerful force that could propel a pounce over ten meters in an instant. It lunged forward, swiping its massive front paws.

Chen Jue felt a fierce gust of wind rush toward him; his hair stood on end, bones trembling, as thunderous rumbles echoed through his body!

This was the state known in boxing classics as “thunderous strike,” a rare sound produced only after refining one’s bones and marrow through martial cultivation.

In ancient times, it was common for high-level cultivators to be summoned by emperors to demonstrate this thunderous ability in the palace, earning titles such as “Thunder Master” or “True Man of the Five Thunders,” referring to feats like Chen Jue’s.

The only difference was that Chen Jue’s strength and physique allowed him to generate thunderclaps many times more intense.

This time, however, he chose not to clash head-on with the tiger. Considering the tiger’s endangered status, he wished to avoid harming it. Employing the light and agile Butterfly Dance technique, he moved almost brushing past the tiger, evading its first flying pounce.

A fully grown tiger, when sprinting at full speed, can reach up to 88 kilometers per hour—roughly 24 meters per second—twice as fast as the fastest sprinter in the hundred-meter dash.

A distance of a dozen meters is covered in less than half a second by such a tiger.

If not for Chen Jue’s lightning-fast reaction at 2.30 seconds, his swift movements, and the buffs from “Butterfly Dance” and “Swallow’s Grace” techniques, he would have surely been struck by the tiger’s huge paw on their first clash.

The tiger’s failed pounce scattered many small cobblestones across the riverbank, stones flying with a clatter. Roaring in frustration, it twisted its body and slashed again with its claws.

Chen Jue watched its movements carefully, predicting its path while swiftly retreating. His legs kicked off the cobblestones, creating distance of several meters between them, avoiding the second claw strike that swept with the fierce wind.

The wild tiger, embarrassed and infuriated by two missed attacks, straightened its body and, with a furious burst of power, stomped its hind legs down so forcefully that the cobblestones beneath its paws scattered wildly—showing just how terrifying its third attack would be.

Chen Jue knew the tiger’s energy was waning. As the saying goes: “The first burst is strong, the second weakens, the third exhausts.”

Even a wild beast reigning over the mountains and forests cannot sustain three full-power charges in such a short span without losing breath and strength.

With a sideways flash and nimble footwork like a butterfly dancing through flowers, Chen Jue dodged the tiger’s third pounce again.

Just like the legendary hero Wu Song encountering the fierce tiger on Jingyang Ridge in “Water Margin” — a few lunges and swipes were all it took to quell the beast.

Sure enough, after its fierce third attack, the wild tiger collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily, its breath forming white mist in the cold night air. Its green eyes, lit by the campfire, glowed with a puzzled, bewildered expression as if questioning its own fate while staring intently at Chen Jue.

“No moves left, huh!” Chen Jue said with a grin.

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He turned back toward the campfire, planning to pick up some leftover fish heads and bones to feed the big tiger and build some rapport.

In Chen Jue’s eyes, this tiger was just a big cat; small cats and big cats alike loved the fresh taste of fish.

But by turning his back so carelessly, he exposed a glaring vulnerability to the panting tiger. In the wild, when facing a predator, it’s best to either keep eye contact or play dead.

Bold and skilled though he was, revealing his back like this was courting death.

“Roar!”

The once-exhausted tiger suddenly gathered strength and lunged forward like an orange lightning bolt across the riverbank, its thick paws slashing toward Chen Jue’s back.

Chen Jue sensed the attack instantly; his pores closed tightly, his skin trembled, and thunder rumbled through his body. Simultaneously activating the “Thunder Strike,” “Thirteen Protectors,” and “Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield” techniques, his skin instantly turned a dark bluish hue, goosebumps rising like iron beans.

He spun around, clasping the tiger’s paws with his hands, also employing the Tiger Claw technique.

With a muffled thud, Chen Jue firmly caught the tiger’s massive, thick paws as a full-force charge from the tiger slammed into his ankles, embedding his feet deep into the loose cobblestones and yellow-white sand of the riverbed.

Man and tiger faced off, both using tiger-claw postures—one genuine, one feigned. It was like Li Kui meeting his counterfeit twin, an oddly amusing scene.

When the tiger’s razor-sharp, hooked claws scraped Chen Jue’s hand, they did not pierce the skin but instead left faint white marks, as if scratching against a solid rock.

Thanks to the protection of “Shaolin Bronze Man,” “Peerless Protector,” and “Golden Needle Iron Finger” techniques, Chen Jue’s hands were as hard as iron—capable of piercing rock walls—and easily resisted the tiger’s lethal claws.

“The texture of these paw pads isn’t bad,” Chen Jue joked, “Just a little unruly.”

With tiger-claw strength, he squeezed the tiger’s furry paws, then, using the vibrating energy of Tai Chi, he unleashed a sudden shake before the tiger’s sharp teeth could clamp down, dispersing the last of its strength.

Taking advantage of the momentum, he flung the tiger several meters away, where it landed firmly among the riverbed’s cobblestones.

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