A tiger eating is definitely not a pleasant sight.

Grandma Tiger used a treasured sword to chop off a pig leg. The sword was extremely sharp, and the pig leg fell to the ground. Grandma Tiger casually placed it over the fire to roast.

A hide from some unknown wild beast was thrown by Grandma Tiger onto Henry Clark's body, making Henry Clark open his eyes to glance at him.

The cave was filled with the smell of burning pig hair. Even though the scent on Henry Clark himself wasn't much better, he still felt so disgusted he wanted to vomit.

The fat from the pig leg was forced out by the flames, occasionally sparking in the fire pit.

Grandma Tiger spent less time roasting the pig leg than Henry Clark had expected; it probably wasn't fully cooked.

Grandma Tiger ate without any concern for manners, much like a tiger—one tore with its teeth, the other sliced with a sword.

Their eating speed was equally fast.

Henry Clark's mouth was roughly pried open by Grandma Tiger, and a large lump of indescribably flavored white fat was stuffed inside.

The fat melted instantly in his mouth; this must have been the most exquisite part of the pig leg.

The satiated tiger lay by the fire pit, purring like a big cat in deep sleep. Grandma Tiger also leaned against the cave wall, dozing off repeatedly.

As for Henry Clark, he had long since been tossed onto the pile of firewood by the wall by Grandma Tiger.

In fact, by this time daylight had fully arrived. With the help of the morning sun filtering into the cave, Henry Clark took another look around.

After last night's ordeal, he was now quite certain that neither Grandma Tiger nor the tiger intended to eat him.

If he was lucky, he might spend an unforgettable period of time in this cave.

The cave was actually quite tidy, square-shaped, with chisel marks all over the stone walls. Even though the smoke had blackened everything beyond recognition, he could still make out every piece of furniture.

There was a stone table, stone stools, and even a stone bed. In a niche on the wall, there was even an oil lamp.

The oil lamp was simple, even exquisite. Shaped like a crane, its craftsmanship was unrefined yet ingenious. The seemingly simple decorations brought the lively image of a crane vividly to life.

Henry Clark wanted to find something familiar here, but unfortunately, he found nothing—not even the raincoat hanging on the wall resembled any he knew.

It wasn't until noon, when the sun was at its hottest, that Grandma Tiger finally stood up. He carefully washed his face in a stone basin filled with water, then put his black gauze cap back on, retied his jade belt, slung on his treasured sword, gave Henry Clark plenty of water, and then set out with the tiger.

During this process, Henry Clark even felt a sense of solemnity. How to describe it? It was like a great general making his final preparations before battle.

Chapter Four: The Grand Steward of the First Emperor

He walked into that beam of sunlight, and for the first time, Henry Clark saw his face clearly.

If you ignored his shriveled mouth, his forehead was actually quite full, and his narrow phoenix eyes were rather striking—of course, if not for their sinister look, they would have been beautiful eyes.

On the tiger's back was a thick wooden bow and a quiver full of arrows.

Sensing Henry Clark's gaze, he turned his head and said in a strange accent, "Don't die. If you die, you'll become tiger food."

With that, he followed the tiger out of the stone house.

Henry Clark fell into deep thought.

He considered himself well-traveled. Whether it was Han Chinese spoken in the Western Regions, or the dialects of the Miao or Dai people, or even the drawn-out Han Chinese of the Mongols, he had heard them all. But he had never heard an accent like Grandma Tiger's.

Moreover, this guy had only said two sentences in total, and neither conveyed a direct meaning to Henry Clark; he had to interpret them himself.

In other words, this guy still spoke in ancient language.

Henry Clark knew that the closer the era was to later generations, the more similar their language would be to modern times, and the easier it would be to understand.

He was sure Grandma Tiger spoke in ancient language purely because he saw a pile of bamboo slips.

Last night, the room was pitch black, and the bamboo slips were piled haphazardly in the corner—he had thought they were firewood. There were even more bamboo slips beneath him, with a thick layer of wooden tablets covered in writing on top. You could say he was lying on a bed of scholarship.

This discovery made Henry Clark laugh and cry at the same time. What kind of place was this, to be so backward—or rather, so primitive?

Only people from before Cai Lun's time used bamboo slips and wooden tablets...

The scorched outer layer from the fire was hardening like armor, making it impossible for him to even bend his arms.

Fortunately, his neck seemed to have much more mobility, so he could now turn his head slightly left or right, giving him a much wider field of view than yesterday.

Henry Clark recognized the script on the bamboo slips—it was the famous Small Seal Script, which fit perfectly with the identity of the wooden tablets.

As for the content, the characters, which looked like patterns, were far too unfamiliar. After staring for a long time, he couldn't recognize a single character on the bamboo slips.

However, he could make out a few characters on the top layer of the new wooden tablets.

"Fifth day of the fifth month, the stars are in the southern sky, the imperial tomb is unharmed." This turned out to be a newly written wooden tablet.