Outside the mountains, on a field path behind the village, a hunter headed into the hills with a bulging bundle on his back. He deliberately stepped where plantain grew, his strides light and quick.
He had not gone three li before he spotted an old man ahead.
The hunter instantly grew wary. Without slowing, he slipped one hand toward the short knife at his waist.
The old man looked about sixty, his back bent like a ripe head of rice. Strands of gray-black threaded his grizzled hair and beard. He wore coarse cloth clothes with dark patches at the shoulders, mud flecked his trouser cuffs, and straw sandals covered his bare feet.
A cloth bag slung across his body, he stood on a low mound, gazing into the mountains.
The hunter did not lower his guard just because the stranger was old. He had never seen anyone like him in any of the villages for ten li around. Who knew what a stranger suddenly appearing in this remote countryside was up to?
Only the stranger's age spared him. Had he been a young, able-bodied man, the hunter would already have shouted for the villagers to beat him half to death, tie him up, and dump him with one of the local wealthy households. If they accidentally killed him, then so be it. These wilds were full of lives and deaths no one could account for.
If they encountered an unfamiliar young woman from elsewhere, they would beat her, drag her back, and bind her into being someone's wife. If it was a lone child from elsewhere, they would give the child a beating, then take them home to raise as their own.
That was how things worked in the mountain wilds. Rather rough.
As he drew closer, the hunter first scrutinized the old man's face, checking for tattooed brands.
In these desolate mountains, an unfamiliar old man was either a kidnapper or a scout sent out by a band of outlaws.
The old man grinned.
The hunter's heart jolted. Those teeth were very white, unlike the rotten, broken, yellow-black teeth of the village elders. Yet the wrinkles on his face were real. Too strange. His thumb pushed the knife clear of its sheath, ready to thrust. He planned to stick half the blade into him first, then question him at leisure.
Before he could act, the old man slowly sat down and asked with a smile.
"Young man, have you had any nightmares lately? Or heard anything at night that shouldn't be there?"
So he was a dirty old man, asking about those nighttime affairs the moment he opened his mouth.
Fortunately, the old man spoke the authentic local dialect. He was probably someone from a remote gully who rarely left home. Mountain folk were linked by kinship upon kinship; trace a valley's family ties far enough and everyone was related. He could not just stab him.
His hand left the knife hilt.
"Whose family are you from? There are tigers in the mountains. Don't go wandering around for no reason."
The hunter ignored the question and snapped back with a cold stare.
The old man did not mind that the hunter had failed to answer. He stroked his beard with a hand stained almost black by plant sap.
"Where does this path lead?"
The hunter's brows knitted. He thought the old man was touched in the head. So much useless chatter.
"Where else? It's a hunting trail."
He flung out the curt reply and quickened his pace into the mountains without looking back, giving the stranger no chance to speak again.
After walking some distance, he glanced back and saw the old man slowly following him. By the look of it, he intended to trail him all the way into the mountains.
The hunter figured he was probably another old fool so terrified of death that he had lost his senses, hoping to find some medicinal herb of immortality deep in the mountains. There were plenty of people like that. He could not be bothered to stop him. Besides, this dirty old man needed to suffer a little.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a wicked grin. Passing the bare flat, he deliberately softened his steps and kept close to the trees. Pine Gully lay ahead. He carefully plotted it out: once there, he would veer a few steps toward a certain spot...
Humming a bawdy folk tune along the way, he soon left the old fellow far behind.
Deep in the mountains.
Black Snake, the fox, and the fat weasel had searched painstakingly for a long time, yet found nothing.
But a faint trace of deathly energy remained, lingering like a strand of gossamer that would not disperse.
Chi Ke had already returned to the Lone Crag Courtyard. The three neighbors searched the valley floor again and again, but the source of the deathly energy seemed to have dissolved into the mist. Even their gray vision revealed no definite trace.
The fat weasel had even summoned several litters of youngsters to help rummage around, still without finding a clue.
They would search for one more day at most. Their animal nature denied them sufficient patience. Hungry bellies and restless blood urged them back to their hunting instincts.
By day, they roamed about, carefully sniffing every burrow and heap of dead leaves. After nightfall, they left their bodies to dart and drift around.
Through all this back and forth, even Black Snake nearly forgot why he persisted. Only that faint thread of deathly energy pricked his senses, keeping him alert and unwilling to relax his guard.
On a clear morning, a breakthrough finally came.
Thirsty, the fox came to drink by the stream. Keeping its eyes and ears alert, it lowered its jaw close to the surface and rapidly lapped, curling water into its mouth.
Suddenly, it noticed an odd taste. An extremely faint stench of decay, almost washed away by the current, mingled with the cool, clear stream water.
At first, it thought a dead animal lay soaking upstream. Yet after examining the smell carefully, it found something not quite right.
Its quick-witted mind abruptly sharpened. This might well be connected to the concealed deathly energy.
Two short, urgent cries rang through the valley.
Before long, Black Snake and the fat weasel emerged from the woods and arrived together beside the fox.
The fox gave several cries to indicate something was wrong with the water, then led its two bewildered neighbors upstream. As they ran, they watched both banks, scanning beneath the shadows of boulders and inside hollow trees. Near the thatched hut, they slowed their steps.
They confirmed that the deep pool was the most suspicious place.
The fox leaped onto an old, crooked tree beside the pool and surveyed its dark depths from above. A fox emerged in the faintly wavering reflection on the water.
Then the fat weasel appeared in the reflection, followed by a snake's head slowly extending into view.
Three pairs of eyes fixed on the pool.
Black Snake flicked his tongue. He had indeed detected an extremely faint trace of the strange odor, one absent from the stream farther upstream. After some thought in his smooth brain, he decided something was wrong with the deep pool. Come to think of it, despite having lived in the valley for so many years, this was actually the first time he had paid attention to it.
But so what? At worst, he could drink upstream.
The fat weasel had no good solution either. It was not a strong swimmer, so all it could do now was stare.
Sitting there, the fox tilted its head to look at the great Black Snake and gave two tentative cries, pointing out that there was prey in the water.
Splash!
Black Snake slipped into the water. The pool was bone-piercingly cold, but still within his tolerance. Undulating his body, he descended toward the dark, seemingly bottomless depths...
The fat weasel stared at the fox with its little round eyes and squeaked, as if to say, Aren't you afraid the great Black Snake will swallow you for courting death like this?
The fox gave two cries that sounded almost like a laugh, with more than a little guilt behind them.
Looking up from the bottom of the pool, sunlight pierced through gaps in the forest and stabbed into the water, becoming several slowly wavering shafts that cast trembling shadows across the jagged stone walls. In those beams, leaf fragments and motes of dust drifted like countless stars, while bubbles passed through the light toward the brightness above.
There was no current in the depths, only a bone-piercing chill.
His vertical pupils moved slowly through the gloom, scanning the jagged shadows inch by inch.
He found no prey, but he did discover a spectral shape in a hollow in the rock wall.
A writhing, twisting mass of spectral shadow huddled inside. At the same time, a powerful sense of danger surged from the depths of his heart, no less intense than facing a striped tiger head-on!
A ghastly pale, hideous face appeared before his eyes, and it let out a piercing
scream, cursing something he could not understand.
Waves of dizziness swept through his mind, cold stupor surging over him like a tide.
Black Snake realized he had been careless...
But he no longer had a chance to flee. His only option was to unleash his strongest attack and kill the other party before he was injured!
He opened his mouth and attacked the spectral shape!
Outside, the fox and the weasel were peering intently down into the dark pool.
Suddenly, a blinding light erupted at the bottom!
The glare forced them both to turn their heads away hastily. In that instant, the blazing light had given them a glimpse of the sand and stones at the bottom, along with Black Snake's enormous body.
About two breaths later, the little cold-water fish native to mountain streams floated to the surface, white bellies up. They formed a dense mass, drifting downstream with the current.
"..."
The fox and the fat weasel had no idea what had happened underwater. Neither had ever seen anything like this.
A black snake's head slowly broke the surface. Dragging his exhausted body, Black Snake swam to shore, then wound his way through the cracks in the rocks and crawled back to where he had been coiled before.
He looked listless and utterly worn out. Fortunately, there were no wounds on his body.
The fox gave a cry.
Black Snake gently swayed the tip of his tail and flicked his tongue.
The deep pool regained its former clarity, with no more deathly energy or rotten odor. A few of the belly-up fish struggled as they recovered, while most drifted away with the stream. Faint ripples stirred the surface, as though nothing had ever happened.
With the threat removed, the fox bounded around in a few circles, gave two soft cries, and leaped away.
The fat weasel rose upright and bowed toward Black Snake with both forepaws, then led its youngsters back into the depths of the forest.
Black Snake turned his body as well and swam toward the boulder warmed by the sun.