Volume One: At the Foot of Mount Zhongnan Chapter Two: To Think I’ve Actually Traveled Through Time
After a brief period of unconsciousness, Li Ming awoke feeling drenched and uncomfortable, his skin burning and itching as though someone were scrubbing him with a giant wire brush. His mind was still hazy, and he wondered to himself, “Didn’t I fall off a cliff with that poacher and die? Could it be I’ve arrived in the underworld, suffering the punishment of being flayed with an iron brush?”
He struggled to open his eyes, only to be assaulted by a pungent, fishy wind. Before him lay an enormous tiger, and he found himself tightly embraced by its massive front paws while the beast licked him incessantly with its rough tongue. The tiger’s body was colossal—its paws as large as basins, its head the size of a water vat. Its tongue was as broad as a small blanket, covered in sharp barbs.
“Damn!” Li Ming’s heart plummeted to the depths. “Surviving a fall from a cliff only to end up in a tiger’s belly—so this is how it ends.”
He considered catching the tiger off guard and landing a punch on its nose, to let it know that human flesh isn’t so easily swallowed. But his body was limp and powerless; he couldn’t muster the strength.
“How ironic,” Li Ming thought bitterly. “All my life I’ve protected animals, only to be eaten by a beast in the end.” He closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.
Yet, after a long wait, the tiger made no move to eat him.
Puzzled, he opened his eyes again, only to see the great feline gazing at him with unmistakable affection. Wait—affection? Could a tiger wear such an expression? Li Ming’s mind reeled. The tiger could not speak, but he felt an inexplicable sense of warmth from it.
Seeing Li Ming staring blankly, the tiger licked him once more, then nudged him gently toward its belly with its nose. A rumbling sound emerged from its throat, as if urging him to nurse.
Already nestled against the tiger’s belly was a small black cub, suckling eagerly. When Li Ming was pushed over, the cub opened its mouth and let out a milk-scented “ya-ya,” then, seeing Li Ming unresponsive, gave him a nudge with its rump before returning to nurse with renewed vigor.
Amid the little one’s noisy drinking, Li Ming’s mind nearly shut down. “Could it be true that good deeds are rewarded? I saved animals, and now they spare me? But I rescued a panda! Do pandas and tigers commune with each other?”
Li Ming looked around and realized he was inside a vast stone cave, lying atop a pile of messy straw and animal hair. Not far away lay a gigantic wild boar, its lower half gnawed down to bare bone. Judging by its massive upper body and tusks as thick as arms, it must have weighed well over a thousand pounds.
Everything here was enormous—the tiger, the boar, the cave itself. Wait a minute! The cave seemed strangely familiar. On closer inspection, wasn’t this the very cave on Mount Zhongnan where he had once taken shelter?
Li Ming distinctly remembered a peculiar rock inside the cave, hollowed out in the middle with many vent holes below—like a natural stove. He’d once used it to boil water.
If the cave was the same and only about thirty square meters, why did it now seem so immense? Could it be that the cave hadn’t grown, but that he had shrunk?
Looking down, Li Ming discovered he was no longer the tall, strapping man of over six feet, but a chubby, pudgy infant!
The realization dawned: the tiger was an ordinary tiger, the boar an ordinary boar—they only seemed gigantic because he had become a baby.
But how? Hadn’t he been mortally wounded? How had he become an infant, and why was he with a tiger? The strangeness of it all defied explanation.
The tiger, seeing him still lost in thought, nudged him toward its belly again, insisting that he nurse.
Fortunately, Li Ming was naturally optimistic. Unable to make sense of it, and feeling the hunger in his belly, he crawled over, latched onto the tiger’s teat, and drank greedily.
His noisy nursing disturbed the black cub, which opened its toothless mouth and let out a series of “wu-ya” cries while trying to shove him aside, refusing to share.
A few gulps of tiger’s milk revived Li Ming, and he slowly regained control over his body. He gave the cub a playful bump with his bottom, sending it rolling, then settled in a comfortable position to continue feasting.
But the little beast was not to be outdone. Though newly born and without the majesty of a true king of beasts, its nature was competitive. It staggered back, pushing against Li Ming in an attempt to reclaim its place.
“Come on, there’s plenty! Why fight me?” Li Ming grumbled inwardly, wary of offending the tigress, whose own cub this was. He glanced up at the mother tiger, but she simply lay with eyes half-closed, unconcerned.
Li Ming didn’t know that, for wild animals, survival is all about competition—survival of the fittest is written in their very bones. From birth, siblings compete for food; as adults, they fight for territory. Even parents and offspring may become mortal enemies. Wild beasts lack human cunning, and the struggle for survival is relentless—nature’s law prevails.
With this in mind, Li Ming showed no further restraint. After a few more mouthfuls, strength returned to his limbs. He kicked the cub over again with a flick of his leg.
The little one, undeterred, crawled back, but no matter how many times it tried, Li Ming always sent it tumbling. At last, the cub realized this new “sibling” was not to be trifled with and dared not approach. Hungry, it whimpered pitifully from a distance.
Seeing the cub so subdued and hearing its plaintive cries, Li Ming, once sated, yielded some space. The starving cub scrambled over and began nursing again, pausing to “woo-woo” at Li Ming, as if in supplication.
Amused, Li Ming reached out and patted the cub’s head, and it looked up in response. Its intelligence pleased him. Now exhausted from eating and tussling, his infant body grew heavy with sleep. He shifted to a comfortable spot, nestled against the cub, and drifted off.
He slept until hunger woke him again. The tigress was gnawing on the wild boar’s thick bones, which cracked like sugarcane in her jaws. Li Ming’s stomach growled, but seeing her mouth smeared with fresh blood, he dared not disturb her—wild animals are most dangerous when eating.
Soon the cub awoke, hungry as well, and whimpered. At once the tigress stopped feeding, lay down, and offered her milk.
As soon as she settled, Li Ming quickly crawled over to nurse. The cub tried to join him but, intimidated by a glare and a raised foot, hesitated, watching with longing as Li Ming drank his fill.
Once satisfied, Li Ming yielded his place, and only then did the cub dare approach and nurse.
Li Ming wanted to explore the cave but found his infant bones too soft to move much; even sitting up was a struggle.
He mulled over the situation, unable to fathom how he had become a baby, or why the tigress accepted him as her own. But infants are prone to sleep; overcome by confusion and fatigue, Li Ming drifted off, his questions unanswered.