Tiger Vanguard
Majestic and grand, with a fierce display, Striped coat, eyes like lightning's ray. In the blood pool, its wrath does rise, With a bronze head and iron tail, it terrifies.
The tale began centuries past, when the journeyers crossed Yellow Wind Ridge. In those days, the old Tiger Vanguard lost his life seizing the Tang Monk. He left behind two sons who, once orphaned, had to fend for themselves.
The mountain groves lay in ruins. The tiger brothers led the remaining lesser guais in a bitter struggle for survival. Fortunately, their father had taught them enough to make a living. As the sandstorms ebbed, rock guais slowly restored the groves to their former state. The elder tiger, following his late father's ways, governed the yaoguais in the mountain. Each knew their place and dared not prowl forth to prey on the living. Later, mortals drawn by the lush peaks and clear springs built a village amid the slopes. The elder tiger gained renown as a deity in the mountain with the principle: "Devour the evil and shield the good."
The villagers built a Crouching Tiger Temple for the brothers, offering rich tributes that made their lives even more blissful. Yet long had the younger nursed a grievance; his elder brother reaped all the glory in people's words on the tigers in the mountain. He believed his brother earned this merely by dint of a few more years of life.
Another century turned and Yellow Wind Sage returned to Yellow Wind Ridge with a host of rat guais. The younger tiger declared that it was the Sage's negligence that had doomed their father. He clamored to slay the Sage in vengeance, urging his brother to drive off the rats. Deeming this just, the elder agreed. But in that fight, the Sage unleashed a vessel like a bodhisattva's severed head, with its gale sharp as an edge. In a single clash, the younger tiger fell grievously wounded. For the life of his little brother, the elder tiger at once cast down his arms and knelt in surrender. The Sage held no grudge, after learning the brothers' origin, he even bestowed upon the surrender the title of Vanguard.
When the younger tiger woke and learned his brother now served as the Vanguard, he seethed in disbelief. The brothers quarreled bitterly until the younger stormed off, severing all ties with the only family he had left. In the Tiger Vanguard's eyes, that yellow-furred rat had twice destroyed his family and left them broken and scattered. He hated him for that, but he was no fool. As long as the rat had protection from the higher ones, what more could a tiger do beyond venting his rage by devouring a few lesser rats each day?
