Chapter 24: It was fortunate enough that they weren't made to pay for the tiger skin.

"Little girl, that's an unreasonable thing to say. If saving a life only counts when you're explicitly asked to, wouldn't all the good people who sacrificed themselves to save others have died in vain?" a middle-aged man remarked, unable to watch any longer.

The others nodded in quick succession.

"In an emergency, there's no time to shout for help."

"Exactly. If one could just call out for someone to save them, they wouldn't be in such a desperate spot."

"Jealousy has its place, but if you lose your life, you won't be grabbing hold of anything at all."

The villagers were all siding with the Zhang family. They all felt she didn't know what was good for her, showing up to sponge off others and then even trying to snatch the Zhang family's prey. Of course, to them, the tiger bones and meat were important, but maintaining a good relationship with the Zhang family was equally important. They weren't foolish enough to side with an outsider.

"Brother Qiang, this relative of yours is a bit ignorant of the situation. You'll have to have her parents teach her a thing or two later."

Zhang Qiang offered a bitter smile: "She's just a child."

Bai Mianmian twitched the corner of her mouth, using quite a bit of effort to suppress a laugh.

"I can't be sure whether other heroes died in vain or not, but regarding this tiger, I can certainly ask if your conscience hurts while you divide it up like this. Do you all know where I brought this tiger from?"

Everyone looked at one another.

"From that hillside over there. There are tracks I made all the way here. You are welcome to follow them back up," she said, pointing toward the middle of the mountain, her voice resonant and firm.

There is a fundamental difference between bringing something and being chased by it. If she had discovered the tiger and was hunting it, then the Zhang brothers' intervention would indeed be theft. But...

The crowd withdrew their gazes, staring at her intently. It was only then that they noticed her face was a mess. Her eyebrows were thick, her eyes appeared wide, and her mouth seemed shifted out of place. Standing further away, she looked like a ghost crawling out of a coffin on the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month, enough to scare someone two miles away.

"Heh!"

"Haha!"

Once one person laughed, everyone followed suit. Given her small stature, let alone hunting or fighting a tiger, she might not even be able to catch a pheasant.

"This is the funniest joke I've heard all year. Little girl, don't blame your uncle for being blunt, but with a scrawny build like that, you dare to venture into the mountain?"

"Forget her. I crave meat myself sometimes, but I only ever dare to think about it. This mountain isn't easy to enter; if we weren't afraid, we wouldn't have to gather in groups just to cut firewood!"

"Children's thoughts are just so naive. This is a tiger, not a pheasant. 'Brought it,' she says! I'd really love to see how she 'brought' it!"

One after another, they spoke, and no one believed Bai Mianmian. She, however, was neither anxious nor annoyed.

***

"Can you kill it?" Zhang Huilan suddenly asked. Her eyes were searching and excited. It was unclear what she was so excited about.

"What I have in my head is clearly different from what you have in yours," she said, pointing a finger to her temple. "Do I have to be able to hack at it with a knife to have the right to claim it?"

"Why don't you all ask why the tiger ran into the trees so strangely? When they struck it, the beast kicked its legs a few times. Do you really think a tiger is so easy to kill that it just gives up the ghost by running into a tree?"

Bai Mianmian was so assertive that it started to sound plausible, and when they looked at the expressions on the Zhang brothers' faces, the possibility that she really had "brought" it seemed real.

"Her?" someone made a final attempt at denial.

The Zhang brothers' faces grew even uglier. Zhang Yuan, in particular, looked pained. He hadn't just been the first to strike; he had also seen Bai Mianmian leap down the hillside while clutching a tree branch. Rather than saying she had deliberately led the tiger to her niece, it looked more like she had intentionally steered the tiger in that direction.

"I didn't ask them to return a whole tiger skin to me, and I didn't blame them for all the tiger blood I lost—that should be enough. And yet, they are dividing the meat as if it’s their right. You all still have the nerve to ask for some? Do you want some? Do you have the face to ask?"

My prey—do you still want it?

Of course, some people still wanted it, but Bai Mianmian's tongue was too sharp; no one dared to speak up.

"Since it's yours, you make the call," Zhang Qiang said, his face sagging.

If Bai Mianmian had asked them to help carry it down the mountain at that moment, he surely would have retorted with a "Why should we?" Fortunately, she didn't intend to ask.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, she twisted straw into rope and tied the tiger to a wooden pole the length of her own body. With a shove, the bundled tiger went rolling down the mountain.

"A brain really is a good thing to have!" Bai Mianmian took a few gulps from her water flask and walked away, humming a little tune.

The crowd stood there, feeling as if they had just been slapped in the face—the kind that leaves a stinging red mark.

"Qiangzi, this relative of yours is getting more and more bizarre," the man who had spoken first muttered.

The Zhang brothers remained silent. Whether their relative was getting more bizarre, they didn't know, but the second girl of the Bai family was truly strange. The three of them glanced intentionally or unintentionally at Zhang Huilan.

Zhang Huilan sensed their gaze. She looked over and asked a soul-searching question: "How is she going to move it on flat ground?"

How is she going to move it on flat ground? Heh.

***

She wouldn't let them help unless they admitted their mouths were foul.

The group gathered themselves and followed her. However... Bai Mianmian didn't ask for their help. She used a wooden pole to chop out three wooden wheels, tied them with rope, and fashioned a small cart. She dragged the tiger along, walking leisurely ahead of them. There were difficulties, but it was nothing she couldn't handle.

"A set of tiger bones is worth at least eighty or a hundred taels, the tiger penis is even more valuable—around the same amount—and a good tiger skin, I've heard, is over two hundred taels. As for the meat, a hundred or so coins per catty is definitely no problem."

After seeing enough of the tiger, Lady Xiao leaned in close to Old Mother Zhang, whispering and counting on her fingers. By the end, her eyes were red.

"At least two or three hundred taels."

"With two or three hundred taels of silver, she won't be sponging off your family anymore, will she?"

Old Mother Zhang felt like crying. It was true that the girl hung around their house for money, but even with the money, she didn't think it would make the girl stay away. Besides her old man, who else would be such a sucker to run errands for her?

"Sister-in-law, how can this girl be so bold? To even dare to provoke a tiger?"

"I'm starting to doubt that the tiger was chasing her. With that brain of hers, let alone one, I bet she could shake off three or five of them if she wanted to."

The more Lady Xiao pondered, the more she believed that Bai Mianmian could have killed the tiger by herself, and she kept whispering to Old Mother Zhang. Old Mother Zhang had only the possibility of the girl being a killer on her mind and had no heart to respond.

The crowd trailed behind Bai Mianmian in small groups, talking about the day's heart-stopping events while waiting for her to ask for help. Even at this point, everyone still held a glimmer of hope. The foot of the mountain was quite a distance from the village, and the village was even further from the town.

"Second and Third, go help," Old Mother Zhang suddenly called out.

Since the old woman had given the order, Zhang Qiang and Zhang Chao had to comply, and since the Zhang family had stepped in, the others couldn't just stand by and watch.

The problem was, Bai Mianmian wasn't being polite about it either. She went right back to humming a tune. Compared to her cheerfulness, Zhang Qiang, who was dragging the cart, felt utterly depressed. If a three-hundred-pound tiger could be moved so easily, a couple-hundred-pound load of firewood would be nothing at all. He couldn't bear to look back on the days when the villagers had worked themselves to the bone carrying firewood on their backs.

A brain, truly, is a good thing to have. With a clever mind, one can save a lot of effort!