The Strongest Beast-Tamer (Transmigration)(GL) - Chapter 36

“Yi Xian, Yi Xian…”

“If we could start over, would you be willing to sign a Life-Bonded Beast Contract with me?”

Would you?

Maybe. Yi Xian thought hazily in the depths of her fading consciousness. If there hadn’t been so many layers of schemes, if all the secrets and manipulation had been stripped away, if there had been no walls of suspicion between us… perhaps we could have been honest with each other. Maybe we could have become friends who shared everything.

But it was far too late to say any of that now.

In the end, following this madwoman into the underworld seemed to fulfill that old vow of “to live and die together, to never betray one another.” How different was that from becoming her true Life-Bonded Beast?

It was all just a matter of form.

“Yi Xian, Yi Xian…”

“If we could start over, would you be willing to sign a Life-Bonded Beast Contract with me?”

If that was your last lingering wish.

“As you wish.”

High up in the trees, several birds chirped cheerfully. In the thick grass near the tree’s base, a silver mouse scurried about, dragging out a clump of grass nearly its own size. It nimbly dodged a falling heap of compost and darted through winding corridors toward the central guest room of the courtyard.

The guest room door stood open. A warm light shone perfectly on the bed by the window. The room’s layout was rather odd. The inner room’s bed had been forcefully dragged into the outer room, and a chaise lounge had been messily placed in the doorway, nearly blocking the only exit.

The silver mouse clambered over the lounge like crossing mountains, then leapt onto the bed and cautiously approached the sleeping figure. Just as it was about to shove the herb into Sleeping Beauty’s mouth, a large hand appeared.

Duanmu Ya pinched the mouse’s tail with one hand and took the herb with the other. Her tone was exasperated. “You naughty little mouse, how many times have I told you not to feed her random things?!”

“Squeak squeak squeak.”

“How many times must I say it? Yi Xian’s heart meridians were injured. She needs proper healing. These things won’t help.”

“Squeak squeak.”

“I already prepared a bottle of Heart-Nurturing Pills for her. Don’t worry.”

“Squeak squeak squeak.”

Duanmu Ya had no idea what it was squeaking about. She simply set it on the table and brought over a basin of fresh spirit fruits. “Here, eat. Yi Xian is lucky to have a little pet like you, running all over gathering herbs for her.”

Lord Yin Bao stood with tiny arms on its hips, squeaking indignantly.

Duanmu Ya mimicked Yi Xian’s habit and flicked its head with her knuckle. “Alright, alright, stop squeaking. I still don’t understand you. Don’t say I’m a poor host. These aren’t ordinary fruits. They’re spirit fruits. Eat more, maybe you’ll get smarter, and who knows, with some luck, you might even gain the ability to cultivate into a human.”

Lord Yin Bao didn’t hold back. It gobbled one after another until it couldn’t walk anymore.

Seeing the bright sunlight outside, Duanmu Ya gently picked up the sleeping Yi Xian from the bed and placed her on the chaise lounge. She picked up a comb and began to smooth out Yi Xian’s loose black hair. “Yi Xian, your hair has grown so long and glossy. Why haven’t you woken up yet? I know, you must be making up for all the sleep you’ve lost before. Isn’t that right?”

Yi Xian’s eyelids fluttered slightly, but Duanmu Ya didn’t notice and continued speaking. After combing her hair, she gently covered her with a thin blanket and slipped outside to tend to the spirit herbs she had been cultivating in the courtyard.

“Xiao Ya, why are you still here? The people from Qingshan Sect arrived a while ago.”

“I’m not going.”

“Your father is entertaining them. If you don’t show up, it’ll look like our Duanmu family is being arrogant and disrespecting their sect. Hurry up.”

“Hey, Auntie Xue, stop dragging me.”

…

In a quiet afternoon, a gentle breeze rustled the trees. Dappled sunlight flickered across the ground. The warmth of the sun and the caress of the wind made this moment on the chaise lounge one of Yi Xian’s rare times of peace.

She slowly opened her eyes, only to shut them again from the piercing glare. After repeating this a few times, she managed to shift herself slightly into the shade, finally getting a clear look at her surroundings. It was an ancient-style estate, unlike the beastmen or elves’ dwellings. Winding corridors and stone benches in the yard all delivered one striking message.

She…

Was she back among humans?

Yi Xian leaned against the doorway, struggling to sit up. Then she anxiously attempted to stand. She needed to know if this was real or just a dream. She needed someone to tell her this was all true.

Her long-idle body crumpled to the floor. The slight noise startled Lord Yin Bao from its nap in the pile of spirit fruits. The moment it saw her collapse, it darted across the table and leapt onto her shoulder.

“Lord Yin Bao, are we really back in human territory?”

“Looks like it. That pretty boy brought you here. This is his home.”

Yi Xian tried several times before she managed to sit up. Lord Yin Bao scratched its ear. “I’ll go get that Duanmu pretty boy.”

Yi Xian, finally on her feet and leaning against the wall, walked a few steps before feeling the solid truth that she was still alive. When Duanmu Ya came rushing in, Yi Xian was barely able to sit and stand, though even these small actions left her breathless.

Duanmu Ya wept with joy and embraced her tightly. “Yi Xian, you finally woke up! Do you know you’ve been asleep for five whole months?”

Yi Xian wasn’t used to such enthusiasm, especially when she felt like she might suffocate from the hug. She quickly patted her shoulder. “We really returned to human territory?”

Duanmu Ya nodded and wiped her tears away, finally smiling. “Yi Xian, I fulfilled the promise I made to you.”

The certainty in that answer brought Yi Xian true relief. After the excitement faded, she gently touched the spot where the wolf king had pierced her heart. “Why am I not dead?”

Duanmu Ya held her fingers together and gestured in front of her eyes. “You were this close to not coming back.”

She didn’t want to remember the bl00d and chaos of that day. “Auntie Xue said something precious on you might have blocked the fatal blow. She also saw a phantom beast disappear. Was that your beast?”

Yi Xian remembered hearing a shattering sound back then. The pain had overwhelmed her senses, and she thought it was her heart breaking. She thought it was the call of death.

Could it have been that madwoman?

“Would the wolf king really let me leave beastman territory so easily?”

Duanmu Ya’s expression turned bitter. “The rules in Yars City are too unfair to humans. Especially the wolf tribe. They tore up the agreement just like that. But… heh, the wolf king didn’t get away unscathed. He got torn apart by a big lion.”

Yi Xian clenched her fingers.

Duanmu Ya continued gleefully. “You wouldn’t believe it. The wolf king’s death caused a huge fight between the wolves and lions. It was an internal feud. Otherwise, they would’ve blamed everything on us humans.”

Yi Xian wanted to ask about Lan Tong. If she hadn’t been mistaken before losing consciousness, the one who latched onto the wolf king’s throat was Lan Tong. That would mean she had avenged her.

“Where’s Little Lan?”

“Well…” Duanmu Ya hesitated. “Yi Xian, it’s not that I didn’t want to bring her back, but the caravan refused to take along a beastman cub. And—and—”

“And what?”

Duanmu Ya’s face grew solemn. “If the Qi family hadn’t stepped in, you might not have made it back alive. I was too focused on you to look after that little one. You scared me half to death.”

From what Yi Xian knew of that brute Lan Tong, things were never that simple. “Lan Tong wouldn’t have let me leave the beast tribe so easily.”

Duanmu Ya nodded with a shudder. “She blocked our way and went berserk. Auntie Xue was nearly injured, and she had the support of the lion tribe. You probably don’t know, but the lion tribe’s status in beast society is incredibly high. Compared to them, the snake and wolf tribes are insignificant. Aside from the golden Behemoths, they hold the most power.”

Yi Xian pressed a hand to her forehead.

Duanmu Ya mistook it as discomfort. “Don’t worry. That little cub will be fine with her.”

Yi Xian had suspected something was odd about the wings on Lan Tong’s back. She never imagined that brute wasn’t just a stray lion from a remote town. “She really is connected to the lion tribe?”

Duanmu Ya wasn’t entirely sure. “They all look the same. Plus, when she blocked our way, even the lion guards patrolling Yars City advised Auntie Xue to return you to her. So… probably.”

A fake troublemaker turned out to be a real insider. Yi Xian had thought she was just fooling the wolf tribe out of sheer madness. Well, it wasn’t so bad. At least with ties severed between Lan Tong and the wolves, they wouldn’t dare harm her or the cub.

Yi Xian figured there must have been a standoff between the humans and beastmen. “Did something else happen after that?”

Duanmu Ya nodded. “We really have to thank the Qi family. The lions seemed wary of them. When one of the Qi family members stepped in, the lions backed down. But Yi Xian, did you take something valuable from that big lion?”

“Why do you ask?”

Duanmu Ya gave a dry laugh. “Even after the lions gave in, she refused to let go. If I hadn’t told her you’d definitely die if you stayed, she might have gone completely mad. You didn’t see it. When she lost control, she looked like a sixth-level phantom beast… terrifying. So… maybe she likes you?”

Yi Xian shook her head. That brute understanding something as delicate as love was impossible. It was more likely that she had simply grown used to her presence. Beastmen were territorial, and that obsession was probably nothing more than possessiveness.

“So, the reason I survived and made it back was thanks to the Qi family’s intervention?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me about the Qi family.”

The Qi family was the largest merchant guild in the Sunlight Nation. In fact, it was not only in Sunlight. Many small workshops across Silver Moon and the Shenlin Empire also operated under the Qi family’s name.
It was the eldest miss of the Qi family who had proposed opening trade between beastmen and humans.

Among the Qi family, it was not the second young master nor the third miss who had the sharpest business acumen. It was this eldest miss, delicate and ordinary in appearance, with no trace of martial strength, who held the livelihoods of most people in the three great empires in her hands. Many capable individuals were even willing to risk their lives for the Qi family.

Back then, the merchant group they had traveled with was led by one of the Qi family’s Earth-ranked Beast Tamers, who had stepped in to suppress the lion tribe. The Duanmu family had only joined the caravan in search of a medicinal herb. No one had expected their eldest miss to storm out of Yars City in a fit of anger, triggering everything that followed.

Yi Xian found something puzzling. Back then, she had been half-dead, a worthless life, unsure whether she would live or die. It made sense that the Duanmu family had chosen to protect her. “But why did that Beast Tamer from the Qi family step in to help me?”

For once, Duanmu Ya refrained from bragging about her own title as a fourth-tier alchemist. She simply shook her head. “Auntie Xue didn’t say. She just prepared a generous gift to thank the Qi family and planned to visit them with you once you woke up. But then, you slept for five months.”

“Thank you,” Yi Xian said.

Duanmu Ya waved it off. “If we’re friends, don’t bring that up. What matters is that we all came back safely.”

Yi Xian grew tired quickly and needed a full week of rest to recover some of her former strength. And that was with daily sun exposure to absorb light energy. It showed just how close she had come to meeting the King of Hell.

Even during that time, she could not summon her Little Pony.

While resting with her eyes closed, she often wondered what position the madwoman had taken when she had stepped forward in Yi Xian’s most critical moment to block that fatal strike? Without her sacrifice, Yi Xian would undoubtedly be dead.

But from the story that madwoman had once told, she was the type to fight both heaven and man, a woman who rejected fate and believed only in herself. Someone who would stop at nothing to survive.

Why would such a selfish person save her?

Yi Xian knew she had never cared enough about the madwoman, nor had she ever tried to understand her. Sometimes she had even deliberately provoked her, using Lord Yin Bao as leverage over her in order to manipulate the Life-Bonded Beast situation.

The madwoman must have seen right through her. If she knew the contract was hopeless, then why?

Yi Xian thought and thought, and suddenly remembered. In her hazy consciousness, the madwoman had brought up the Life-Bonded Beast contract again. And Yi Xian, moved by their sorrowful farewell, and perhaps stirred by that bitter story, or by the sight of the white fox slowly vanishing before her eyes, had… agreed!

Damn it. Could the madwoman’s real goal have been the Life-Bonded Beast contract all along?

At the thought, Yi Xian broke into a cold sweat and hurried outside to find Duanmu Ya. But once she stepped out of the courtyard, she realized she had no idea where to look. She hadn’t left the yard once during her recovery.

She stood in a daze for a moment, then gradually calmed down.

Pressing her fingers to the center of her brow, she sank into her sea of consciousness. There, she found not only the sleeping Little Pony but also, curled up nearby, a white fox.

It was real!

This was the same white fox that had repeatedly shielded her from danger. The one the madwoman had claimed was her Life-Bonded Beast. And now it rested in Yi Xian’s own consciousness.

That could only mean one thing. The contract had been formed.

What the hell.

Yi Xian opened her eyes, stunned. Her mind was full of curses, but she was too furious to even speak. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was angry about. After all, she had survived. It didn’t seem right to resent the madwoman for resorting to trickery.

Still, it felt infuriating to be played so thoroughly.

“Yi Xian? Yi Xian, what are you doing standing out here?”

“I…”

Yi Xian couldn’t even speak. She had been thoroughly tricked by that madwoman. They said when gods fought, mortals suffered. In her case, she was just a novice tossed about by a scheming master.

“How come I didn’t feel anything when the Life-Bonded Contract was made?”

“What Life-Bonded Contract?” Duanmu Ya’s eyes widened. “Did you sign another phantom beast? Why didn’t I hear anything? But that’s strange. When a Life-Bonded Contract is made, Heaven itself bears witness. There’s usually a huge commotion. I would’ve noticed.”

“Heaven bears witness?”

Duanmu Ya nodded. “It’s just like an oath. The Heavenly Way acknowledges the bond. On the flip side, if someone breaks it, Heaven delivers punishment. That’s why a Life-Bonded Contract must never be taken lightly. You understand?”

Yi Xian suddenly smiled. “Of course. But is it possible for the contract to be incomplete?”

Duanmu Ya tilted her head. “It’s rare, but it happens. I haven’t seen it myself, but Auntie Xue mentioned it once. If you want, I can take you to ask her directly.”

Yi Xian was not in a hurry. She entered her subconscious again and saw that the white fox and the Little Pony were almost identical in form, both flickering and insubstantial.
It had to be a Soul Contract.

That explained why she had felt nothing.

Seeing Yi Xian’s shifting expressions, Duanmu Ya quickly shooed her back into the courtyard. “The Qingshan Sect guests are still here. My mother told me to entertain them for a few more days. You just rest here quietly. Once they leave, I’ll take you out to get some air.”

At that moment, the still white fox in Yi Xian’s consciousness stirred ever so slightly at the mention of Qingshan Sect. A wave of strong resentment rippled through her, then abruptly vanished.

“What is the Qingshan Sect?”

“It’s a big sect currently recruiting disciples. Anyone with good talent can try out. If you get accepted, it’s easier to travel under their name.”

“Are you a disciple of Qingshan Sect?”

“No. But my parents have been convinced by them. It seems they want to send me there. It’s stressing me out.”

“You don’t want to go?”

“It’s not that.”

Duanmu Ya scratched her head. “How do I put it? I heard that the sect was strict and filled with rules, where this is not allowed and that is forbidden. I don’t think I could stand it. I’m not the type to sit still. I’d probably break some rule and get kicked out. That would be a huge disgrace to the Duanmu family.”

Yi Xian smiled and shook her head. “No rush. Take your time to think.”

Clearly still busy, Duanmu Ya hurried off after a brief farewell. Yi Xian returned to her room to rest and ponder the path ahead.

After a few more days of recovery, she had regained her strength and could even summon her Little Pony again. But the white fox in her sea of consciousness remained completely still, just as it had been the first time she saw it.

That day, Duanmu Ya came looking distressed. “Yi Xian, it’s over. My mom wants to send me to Qingshan Sect to study. What should I do?”

Yi Xian smiled. “I think I heard someone whispering to me while I was unconscious. They said they had mastered fire control. They could summon as many fireballs as they wanted. If they ran into the wolf tribe again, they’d hurl fireballs at them without fear. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Duanmu Ya grinned and raised her hand. A small flame floated in the air. Then she snapped her fingers and another appeared. Soon, several fireballs circled her.

Yi Xian was pleased. This unreliable fourth-tier alchemist had finally mastered her fire element. At least now she wouldn’t falter when it mattered. “Looks like you really have been training.”

Duanmu Ya beamed. “Of course. I begged Brother Lu to train me every day. I never want to go through something like that again—” She stopped mid-sentence, expression dimming.

During Yi Xian’s coma, she had occasionally regained brief awareness. Each time, she heard Duanmu Ya talking to her. Sometimes she was frustrated. Sometimes she cried and begged her to wake up. Very much in character for a noble young lady.

Yi Xian appreciated the change in her. “Duanmu, since your mother has already picked a path for you, the Qingshan Sect must be a good place. You should go.”

Duanmu Ya nodded. “You’re right, Yi Xian. I should train seriously and stop depending on others.”

Yi Xian thought that was for the best. Sometimes, no matter how much you tell someone, it means nothing compared to them figuring it out on their own.

Duanmu Ya’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Yi Xian, why don’t you come with me to Qingshan Sect?”

Yi Xian blinked. That strange sense of resentment bubbled up again. Could the sect the madwoman spoke of be Qingshan?

Duanmu Ya encouraged her. “Let’s go together. That way, we can watch out for each other. Hey, Yi Xian, do you have any other family?”

She knew nothing about Yi Xian’s past.

What fragments remained of her original host’s memories, coupled with Qin Rong’s final words, led Yi Xian to believe that some hidden force had been steering her fate. “I was seriously injured once in beastman territory. After I woke up, I had no memory of my past. So, I don’t know if I have any family.”

Duanmu Ya imagined a tragic backstory and quickly comforted her. “It doesn’t matter. We’re friends. My home is your home from now on.”

Yi Xian chuckled. She didn’t give Duanmu Ya a direct answer, only promised to think it over.

Originally, she had planned to approach a mercenary group and chart her own future.

But now… Qingshan Sect?