Chapter 28: Encountering A Wolf Demon

Li Chaosheng continued dispassionately to dissect the big black pig, eviscerating it, severing the limbs, taking the ribs in one continuous motion, and when it came to the final detailed cutting of the pork, Butcher Fan immediately stepped forward to stop him, “I’ll do this, the customer has requirements for this meat.”

Li Chaosheng handed the knife to him, and he immediately began cutting the pork. He cut the belly into chunks, the tenderloin into strips, and the rest into strips, shreds, or chunks, doing a fine job, then taking lotus leaves from an assistant to wrap each portion.

Li Chaosheng then found an excuse to sit aside, and idle men promptly brought tea and fruit, grinning as they made small talk with Li Chaosheng. These ruffians were not usually so attentive and kind, but fierce and sometimes fought the city thugs for fun. Li Chaosheng had just shown a trick pulling the fat pig with one hand and saved their companion, so they felt impressed inside and were a bit more civil.

Money rules servants’ hands, skill outshines those merely working in the trade. Li Chaosheng’s superior strength had conquered these idle men.

Li Chaosheng drank tea and bit into a large pear, the idle men watched him grinning, and seeing he had no intention to chat with them, they took the hint and left.

At that moment Li Chaosheng, with pear in hand, pretended to nap as he had his mind enter the Sea of Consciousness, passing through the Bone Mountain and entering the Stele Forest, and after a moment ten large characters appeared above the stele forest in the air: Killing is not meant for bringing harm to the life of others. It is the Dao protecting all living beings!

“Uh… all I did was kill a pig. That’s a bit much, right?”

Li Chaosheng’s mouth twitched slightly. He muttered to himself, what evil intent could a pig possibly have*? Does it really have to be considered as a living being under heaven?*

Just as Li Chaosheng was dazed, a Beast-Skin Catalog descended from the sky. This catalog appeared for the first time. Li Chaosheng had never seen it before and it was different from the usual one.

Li Chaosheng watched the catalog slowly open, several words floating in the air: Book of Killing Men and Executing Ghosts, Beast-Skin Catalog of Exorcising Demons and Slaying Monsters!

The Beast-Skin Catalog opened and immediately began flipping, going straight to the last page, recording from back to front. It showed only one line of small characters: Black Pig (1/10). Just a simple phrase and it did not even bother with a portrait.

It seemed the Killing Scripture lacked even the minimum respect for such ordinary little animals, Li Chaosheng thought, and then an abacus of sorts began to click.

To work hard at killing to exchange for longevity. Heaven and Earth would tally the accounts clearly.

Clack, clack~

Black Pig (medium) Level: Unranked.

One life for one item, life and item are clearly accounted. Reward: a white ledger, from now on right and wrong are recorded clearly.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh~

A gust of wind blew and Li Chaosheng came to. He found a blank book on his chest with not a single character on it. Li Chaosheng took out the white ledger and the method of use surfaced in his mind: it was an equivalent exchange of information. The white ledger could record stories and if the ledger judged a story valuable, you could ask the ledger one question and the ledger could answer you.

Was it really that magical? Li Chaosheng thought to himself as he opened the white ledger. Inside was even a groove with a brush. Li Chaosheng wanted to try, so he wrote one: the story of Snow White. After finishing the story, a line appeared on the ledger: Not a personal experience, not real, will not be recorded.

“This…”

Li Chaosheng gnawed his teeth, this was too hard, it required personal stories. What a pain! Still, getting such equipment from slaughtering a pig was some profit.

Li Chaosheng put away the brush, closed the ledger, tucked it into his bosom, and left the resting room. Butcher Fan had already finished cutting and packing the previous pig and was preparing to slaughter the next. A group of idle men were figuring out how to catch the pigs.

Seeing this, Li Chaosheng waved and said, “I’ll do it.”

The few men looked at Li Chaosheng. He took the rope loop from one of them, jumped into the pigpen, chose a big fat pig, slipped the loop over its neck, then pressed the pig down, quickly bound it, and with a wave the idle men came in, carried the pig to the slaughter board, slit its throat and gutted it. When everything was done, Butcher Fan took over to dissect the meat. Li Chaosheng did not concern himself with that task.

After slaughtering another pig, the Killing Scripture only awarded two taels of silver this time, and the Black Pig’s tag changed to (2/10). Li Chaosheng frowned. The reward was too little, and why had it become pieces of silver?

Li Chaosheng thought that and kept slaughtering pigs. By night he had killed eleven pigs. The rewards went from two taels of silver, to one tael five qian, one tael two qian, and by the time of the tenth pig the reward had dwindled to a pitiful ten wen of copper.

Li Chaosheng did not believe it and slaughtered the eleventh pig, but got nothing at all. An empty result. Then Li Chaosheng finally understood what the Black Pig’s (10/10) meant: ordinary black pigs could only be killed ten times. Beyond that there were no more rewards. It was a design limit to prevent someone from endlessly farming money.

Indeed, without that restriction, Li Chaosheng could have wiped out the whole ring of sows at the Zheng household. Now these pigs had been spared a life.

At the same time Li Chaosheng inferred that the Killing Scripture did not favor the holder slaughtering small animals for rewards and the rewards were mostly money. The reason the first pig yielded the white ledger was likely because he had slain the first non-human creature and triggered the Beast-Skin Catalog, hence the reward. It was unrelated to the intrinsic value of the black pig.

Having figured this out, Li Chaosheng decided not to farm small animals for rewards anymore. In truth Li Chaosheng actually quite liked small animals. He liked them to the point he could hardly be without them.

After slaughtering eleven pigs, night had fallen. The Zheng household steward arrived with supper: three mixed-flour buns per person, a large pot of bone broth, and blood sausages freshly stuffed that afternoon. The fare was quite good, and for these idle men who rarely saw greasy food, it was almost like New Year’s.

Li Chaosheng washed his hands. At that moment the two paper figures on his chest came to life. When night fell they became lively and demanded to go out and play. Li Chaosheng told them not to cause trouble and let them out, then ate with Butcher Fan and the others. After they were full the idle men went home to sleep, and then the steward came.

He held a few pieces of meat and bone, trimmings taken from the eleven fat pigs. The steward looked at Butcher Fan and said, “Old Fan, you and Brother Li worked hard today. Take these meat bones home, consider it a small token from the Zheng family.

Butcher Fan, seeing the meat bones, quickly thanked him, “Thank you, steward, and please also thank the master on my behalf.”

After speaking, Butcher Fan took a small bamboo basket containing his pig-butchering boning knife, put the bones inside, said a few words to Li Chaosheng, and left. The steward called out Li Chaosheng and handed him one tael of silver.

“Brother Li, thank you for your hard work today. Without your cooperation Old Fan could not have slaughtered eleven pigs and our Zheng family would not have been able to meet our obligation in two days’ time. You truly solved our urgent problem this time. This money is our token of thanks, please do not refuse it.”

“Fine, I’ll accept it. By the way, steward, I won’t be coming again in the future…”

“Oh, sure, no problem.”

The steward nodded repeatedly at these words. Li Chaosheng smiled and left. To exit the Zheng estate one had to walk a mountain path. On the estate’s perimeter there happened to be a high mountain, the county’s tallest, called Wolf Head Mountain, named for a cliff that resembled a wolf’s head. It was said there were wolves in the mountain, and usually non-hunters dared not enter.

“Master, bad news, bad news, Butcher Fan ahead is surrounded by wolves!”

As Li Chaosheng was walking back by moonlight, the two paper figures, Little Black and Little White, floated over from afar. Hearing that, Li Chaosheng was startled, grabbed the ghost-head blade on his back, and rushed over. Rescuing people was an urgent task!

When he reached close by, Li Chaosheng saw Butcher Fan leaning against a stack of firewood and straw, half-crouched, holding a knife and confronting a wolf in front. The wolf sat on its haunches, squinting as if asleep.

“Old Fan!”

Li Chaosheng called out on seeing this. Butcher Fan was startled, saw Li Chaosheng and his face lit up, but moments later he panicked and shouted, “Brother Li, be careful, there’s another wolf!”

Hearing that, Li Chaosheng immediately became alert. The wolf sitting before Butcher Fan, pretending to sleep, glanced at Li Chaosheng and its expression shifted slightly. It stood up. At the very moment the wolf rose, a sudden yelp came from Butcher Fan.

“Ouch!”

It turned out the wolf’s head had thrust out of the straw pile and bit Butcher Fan hard on the buttocks. Butcher Fan cried out in pain and swung his knife backward. The wolf head retracted, but the wolf in front lunged forward to bite Butcher Fan.

Li Chaosheng closed in in a few strides, the ghost-head blade throwing a chilling light under the moon. The wolf was startled and twisted in the air to jump past, but Li Chaosheng’s blade swept and struck its face, blinding one eye.

Awooo awooo awooo…

The wolf howled in great pain. Li Chaosheng raised his blade and charged to finish the wolf, but the wolf from the straw pile suddenly attacked from Li Chaosheng’s side and rear. Li Chaosheng swung to cut it down, but the wolf opened its mouth and spewed a fetid black wind that instantly clouded Li Chaosheng’s vision.

“A monster!”

Li Chaosheng was shocked and swung his blade to defend himself. Unexpectedly, the wolves turned and fled swiftly, taking the injured wolf and disappearing from sight.

When the black wind dispersed, Li Chaosheng stood with his blade in place. The surroundings were quiet, with only the wounded Butcher Fan making small groans.

Li Chaosheng made sure there was no danger, waved his hand to have the paper men stand guard, and helped Butcher Fan to his feet.

“Old Fan, are you alright?”

“Oww, it hurts to death, but it’s nothing serious, it’s just that the wolf grabbed my butt.”

Butcher Fan gritted his teeth to speak, while Li Chaosheng supporting him asked, “Can you walk? Let’s go see the physician.”

“Yes, I can walk, but I’ll have to trouble Brother Li to support me. The physician lives next to my house, I can just go see him.”

“Alright, I’ll support you.”

Li Chaosheng held the ghost-head blade in one hand and supported Fan the butcher with the other, asking, “How did this happen? How did you encounter the wolves?”

Butcher Fan held his waist and said, “Well, I left the Zheng household and passed not far ahead when I ran into these two wolves. They stared and followed me. I tried to scare them with my butcher’s knife but they weren’t afraid. I thought, I have meat bones in my basket. I’ll throw them over, so they’ll fight over the bones and I’ll use the chance to run.”

“As a result, I threw one meat bone and one wolf stopped to eat while the other followed me. I threw another, and the one behind would come up again. This repeated, so I hid in this straw pile, holding my knife to confront them. I didn’t expect these beasts to be cunning. One crouched in front pretending to sleep and the other actually crawled into the straw pile to ambush me…”

Hearing the butcher’s words, Li Chaosheng blinked. Why did this story feel so familiar? It seemed he had heard it somewhere before.