Shen Hui left his master's quiet room and looked up at the sky. It was still early, with several hours to go before dinner.
He returned to his room and sat down cross-legged.
Since his master wasn't going to punish him and had even promised him a new set of clothes, he had all the more reason not to slack off.
He quieted his mind and looked inward.
The Bronze Ancient Lamp in his heart was still burning silently. The tiny flame in its wick was perfectly steady, no longer lashing about like it had the night before.
Three hours passed in a flash.
Shen Hui opened his eyes and exhaled a breath of stale air. He was done cultivating for the day.
As usual, he added all the Dao Xing he'd cultivated to the realm column. The number after Qi Induction jumped and changed to 131/10000.
He stood up and stretched his limbs, then opened the door and headed to the kitchen.
Fifth Senior Brother Qing Shi was busy in the kitchen. When he saw Shen Hui, he immediately smiled. "Little Junior Brother, you're here! Feeling better?"
"Much better."
Shen Hui rolled up his sleeves. "Senior Brother, Master wants me to be in charge of the cooking tonight, but I'll have to trouble you to come with me to the back mountain first and help me find some wild vegetables and game."
Qing Shi was taken aback.
"Back to the mountain again? After what happened last night..."
"It's exactly because of what happened last night that we need to be extra careful."
Shen Hui sighed, feeling a little embarrassed.
"I can't tell what's safe to eat and what isn't, so I'll need you to help me pick them out. We won't touch anything we don't recognize. We'll only look for things you know."
Qing Shi thought it over, then nodded. "That should be fine. Come on, I'll go with you."
The two had just reached the courtyard gate when they ran into Fourth Senior Sister Jinghui.
She'd changed into a clean Daoist robe today, with her long sword at her waist. When she saw them, her eyes lit up.
"Well, where are you off to?"
"To the back mountain, to find some wild vegetables and add a few dishes to tonight's dinner," Shen Hui replied.
"The back mountain?"
Jinghui blinked, a mischievous glint crossing her face.
"Aren't you afraid you'll run into something else that's become a spirit, Little Junior Brother?"
Shen Hui seized the chance to flatter her. "With you there, Senior Sister, what have I got to worry about?"
At his words, Jinghui's face broke into a beaming smile.
She waved her hand. "Now that's what I like to hear. Come on, I'll go with you. It'll be good to stretch my limbs."
The three of them chatted and laughed as they left the temple and followed the familiar path toward the back mountain.
The mountain woods in late autumn were quiet. A few birds called now and then, their cries carrying from afar before fading away just as far off.
Qing Shi walked ahead, his eyes roaming in every direction. Every so often, he'd crouch to part the grass, sniff a few leaves, or dig up some roots to inspect.
"This is wild scallion. It's good for seasoning."
He handed Shen Hui a handful of long, thin green leaves.
"And this is ground bamboo. Wash it, slice it, and stir-fry it. It's nice and crisp."
Shen Hui took them, examined them carefully, and silently committed them to memory.
"Fifth Senior Brother," he suddenly said.
"Hmm?"
"I wanted to ask if I could borrow some books from you."
Qing Shi looked back, surprised. "Borrow books? What kind?"
"Anything will do."
Shen Hui chose his words carefully. "Geography and local customs, social conventions, general knowledge, old stories—anything like that. I joined the sect late and don't know much, so I should read more and broaden my horizons."
Qing Shi scratched his head. "I don't think I have any books like that. But Third Senior Brother has quite a few. His room's piled with them."
Jinghui had been listening nearby. She cut in, "What use are those miscellaneous books? They're all about distant, ethereal immortal mountains overseas and strange tales. You can read them over and over and still learn nothing."
"They're not entirely useless," Shen Hui said with a smile. "For one thing, they can broaden my horizons. For another, they'll help me improve my reading. I still can't recognize all the characters, so reading more can only help."
Jinghui tilted her head and thought about it, then nodded. "That's true. I'll talk to Senior Brother later and have him lend you a few."
"Thank you, Fourth Senior Sister."
They chatted as they walked, and before they knew it, they'd gone quite a distance.
As they passed a thicket, Jinghui suddenly stopped and raised a hand, signaling for the others to halt.
Before Shen Hui could react, she darted away as fast as the wind and vanished into the thicket in the blink of an eye.
A flurry of rustling followed, then a dull thump. Jinghui emerged from the thicket, holding a plump wild rabbit by its legs.
The rabbit was still kicking and struggling fiercely. Its fur gleamed, and it must have weighed at least four or five pounds.
"Lucky us." Jinghui proudly swung the rabbit in her hand. "We'll have meat for dinner."
Shen Hui was about to praise her when he noticed something gaudy coiled around her waist. Looking closer, he realized it was a large snake.
It was as thick as an adult's arm and looked to weigh eight or nine pounds. Now it hung limply from her waist, its head drooping. It was clearly dead.
Shen Hui jumped and took half a step back.
Jinghui followed his gaze and looked down. "Oh, this? It was hiding in the grass when I caught the rabbit. I reached in, and it opened its mouth to bite me."
She pursed her lips. "So I punched it."
Shen Hui swallowed. He looked at the snake, then at Jinghui's utterly unconcerned face, and for a moment didn't know what to say.
"It's dead?" Qing Shi came closer and looked at the snake, frowning. "Senior Sister, why did you kill it? It didn't even bite you."
Jinghui snorted. "It didn't bite me because I was fast enough to dodge. Something this big can still come out in weather this cold, so it might've absorbed some spiritual energy from the mountain."
"It's only absorbed a little spiritual energy, and it's already trying to bite people. Give it a few more years to gain Dao Xing, and won't it come down the mountain to eat people? Better to kill it now than let it become a menace later."
As she spoke, she shoved the rabbit into Shen Hui's arms. "Here, hold this. Is it enough? If not, I'll catch two more."
Shen Hui weighed the rabbit, which was still kicking in his arms, and quickly nodded. "It's enough, it's enough. One is plenty."
The three of them carried the wild vegetables and game back toward the temple.
After walking a few steps, Shen Hui suddenly remembered something and asked, "Fourth Senior Sister, why didn't you cut down that Tiger Demon with one strike when you first saw it?"
Jinghui paused and glanced back at him. "A tiger is lord of the mountain. Most tigers that gain Dao Xing develop intelligence and are much smarter than ordinary beasts. That day, it showed itself, but it didn't attack first. Since it knew how to keep its place, we let it go. That's the rule."
"The rule?"
"The rule among cultivators." Jinghui's tone turned unusually serious. "If a demon doesn't harm people, it's cultivated some virtue. We can't just kill it as we please."
Shen Hui nodded thoughtfully, then asked, "What if it goes down the mountain and harms people later?"
"Then we kill it." Jinghui said it lightly. "By then, it won't be a question of whether to let it go. It'll be a matter of life and death."
Shen Hui fell deep into thought.
The essence of morality was reciprocity. If an intelligent demon honored the pact of "not harming people," or even actively did good, then it had fulfilled its duty as a member of the "moral community."
If humans hunted it down anyway, they would be unilaterally tearing up the pact. That would be a betrayal of trust.
Just as people couldn't kill one another on a whim, cultivators couldn't casually kill demons who followed the same rules.
Killing one would punish it for being "good," driving demons who had once been neutral toward the opposite side.
Shen Hui was silent for a while, then asked, "Since the Tiger Demon was already dead, why didn't you bring it back to the temple? Its bones and meat would've lasted us a long time."
Jinghui laughed, the sound carrying a strange note.
"Little Junior Brother, you're so clever. Who'd have thought you'd ask such a muddleheaded question?"
"Why do you say that, Senior Sister?"
The Fourth Senior Sister turned to look at Shen Hui, who was perplexed, and spoke gravely. "Let me ask you this: what's the difference between eating a creature that's gained intelligence and eating a person?"
Shen Hui froze.
"Once a creature has gained intelligence, it's one of us."
After saying that, Jinghui returned to her carefree self and skipped ahead.
Shen Hui stood where he was, gazing at her back, and felt something stir in his heart.
If a being could think, knew how to cultivate, had emotions, and could form social bonds, then in ethical terms it had crossed over from being a mere "animal" into the category of "human."
Eating such a being would be tantamount to violating the taboo against "eating people."
So if eating people was wrong, then by the same reasoning, eating demons that had gained intelligence was wrong too.
"That's interesting. She's trying to prevent our ethical standards from sliding downhill."
Shen Hui looked down at the dead snake at Jinghui's waist, shook his head, and thought no more of it. Holding the rabbit, he hurried after them.
The three returned to the temple when the sun was already sinking in the west.
Shen Hui plunged into the kitchen and got to work.
Fifth Senior Brother helped out beside him, while Jinghui sat on the threshold, munching on some wild fruit she'd picked up from who knew where and watching Shen Hui work.
He skinned the rabbit, chopped it into pieces, and blanched it to remove the odor. He cut the wild scallions into sections, crushed the wild peppercorns, and sliced the ground bamboo. The kitchen had few seasonings, but Shen Hui had his own way of doing things.
In the end, he even made egg-drop soup. Fourth Senior Sister had gathered the eggs from a wild hen's nest; there were nearly half a basket of them, so today was the perfect time to use some.