The Lass and Sihuang

Du Yu bandaged the tiger demon's wounds and led it down the mountain.

The tiger demon followed him, its eyes scanning its surroundings warily. Soon, Du Yu brought it to the wooden cottage at the foot of the mountain.

Before knocking, Du Yu glanced back at the tiger demon and found it staring at the cottage, looking particularly tense.

"Looks like I guessed right."

Du Yu knocked on the door and said, "Lass, I've brought Sihuang."

The cottage door slowly opened, and the old woman poked her head out. Her eyes were very red, as though she had just finished crying her heart out.

"Sihuang-" The old woman saw the tiger demon and immediately threw herself at it. The tiger demon, too, looked grief-stricken.

Human and demon clung to each other and sobbed.

Du Yu watched quietly for a long time before slowly saying, "I've fulfilled both your wishes. I protected Sihuang, and I let Sihuang see the lass. Isn't it time you fulfilled my wish, too?"

The old woman raised her tear-streaked eyes and asked, "What do you want?"

Du Yu fell silent for a moment, then said, "I want to know everything. About the two of you, about your dead son, and about you and the county magistrate... what exactly happened?"

After hearing this, the old woman slowly rose to her feet. She opened the door, invited Du Yu inside, and poured him a bowl of flower tea.

"Sir, you've done us both a great kindness. If you truly want to know, let this old woman tell you."

Something flickered in the old woman's world-weary eyes. Her lips parted slightly, and she slowly began to tell an exceptionally sorrowful story-

Forty-four years ago, a hunter's household moved to the foot of Cloud Dream Mountain.

It was called a household, but there were really only two people. An elderly man and a girl of eleven or twelve lived in that dilapidated wooden cottage.

The old man was called Zheng Liu. The little girl had no name; he usually called her Lass.

The people in the county had assumed they were father and daughter. Only after asking around did they learn that Zheng Liu had abducted the girl from somewhere and was keeping her to be his wife.

Every day or two, Zheng Liu would take his bow and arrows up the mountain to hunt, while the lass gathered wild vegetables near their home. Their life was poor and hard, but at least they had enough food and clothing.

Zheng Liu was a skilled hunter and always returned from the mountain laden with game. Their days continued like this for a long time, until one winter, when he captured a tiger cub on the mountain.

For some reason, the cub had been wandering the mountain alone, with its mother nowhere in sight. Zheng Liu acted decisively, striking its hind leg with a single arrow, then binding its four limbs with rope and tossing it into the backyard.

With heavy snow about to seal off the mountain that year, Zheng Liu watched the weather and calculated when to slaughter the cub to feed them for a few days. Perhaps its pelt could even provide him with a new hat.

The lass, however, took an interest in the little tiger. Whenever Zheng Liu wasn't looking, she often sneaked it a little dried meat. She also carefully bandaged its wound and applied medicinal herbs. Perhaps, in that lonely wooden cottage, she regarded the little tiger as her only friend.

The lass named the cub Sihuang because its yellow fur shone so brightly.

One day, Zheng Liu looked at the heavy snow outside and frowned. "Lass, we won't be able to go up the mountain for the next few days. Let's slaughter that cub tomorrow and eat it."

At those words, the lass's heart clenched.

The wind raged, and the snow fell thick and fast. Outside the cottage, a tiger cub shivered in the deep snow.

Unable to bear eating the cub, the lass untied the ropes around Sihuang's limbs that night and set it free.

When Zheng Liu found out, he flew into a rage and gave the lass a savage beating. First, her actions had cost them many days' worth of food. Second, she had violated a hunter's greatest taboo-letting a tiger return to the mountain.

When spring came and the flowers bloomed the following year, the cub would have grown and would surely descend the mountain to take revenge.

But the question was, would their remaining food last until spring came and the flowers bloomed? For a moment, Zheng Liu felt an urge to kill the lass and eat her flesh.

After weighing it over and over, Zheng Liu decided to put on his cloak and pursue the wounded cub through the night. Its hind leg was injured, after all, and it had gone hungry for many days. Surely it couldn't have run far. And so, on that night of wildly raging snow, Zheng Liu entered Cloud Dream Mountain.

He never returned.

The lass waited at home all night. She had a strange premonition. Perhaps, from that day onward, she would never see that filthy old man again.

Sure enough, the second day passed, then the third, and he still hadn't returned. Even after the snow stopped, he did not come back. The lass ate lumps of snow from outside every day, growing sallow and emaciated from hunger. She didn't know what to feel. There was pain, but no tears would come.

Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, a rustling outside woke her. She pulled on her clothes and opened the door, only to find that lively tiger cub standing there with a wild rabbit in its mouth. Upon seeing the lass, it set the rabbit down before her, then ran off without looking back, its plump little figure leaving trails of pawprints through the snow.

The lass picked up the rabbit, which still held a trace of body warmth. A jumble of feelings filled her heart, and she didn't know what to make of them.

Thanks to that rabbit, the lass did not starve to death during the coldest part of winter. From then on, every two or three days, the cub brought game to her door. She watched Sihuang slowly grow into a fierce tiger, while Sihuang watched her grow from a little girl into a young woman.

At some age she could no longer remember, the lass grew accustomed to the game Sihuang brought every few days, as though it were the man of the house going out to hunt.

Everything changed that day.

That day, Sihuang left its catch at the cottage door as usual, rubbed its back against the door, and departed.

The lass came outside to look, and her expression instantly changed.

This time, the "game" was a human infant on the brink of death.

The lass hurriedly carried him inside, found a way to warm him, and cooked a little rice porridge to feed him. As the infant's breathing gradually recovered, the heart that had been hanging in her throat finally settled.

But where had this infant come from?

The lass went up the mountain and found the fierce tiger, hoping to learn where Sihuang had gotten the child. Though she wasn't afraid of the beast she had watched grow up, she had no way to communicate with it. Unable to discover the infant's origins, she was at a loss. She could only go from door to door in Qi County to ask, but she couldn't find any family that had lost a child. Instead, before long, rumors spread throughout the county that the lass living alone outside town had borne some man's bastard and now couldn't find its father.

In anger, the lass left the county town, determined to raise the child alone outside its walls.

Many more years passed in the blink of an eye, and the child was already in his teens. Throughout those years, the lass had kept his origins from him, saying only that she was his mother. As for his father, he had gone hunting in the mountains years ago and had yet to return.

The lass named the child Mengshan. She had no surname and didn't know what surname to give him. Since the child had come from the fierce tiger on nearby Cloud Dream Mountain, she named him Mengshan.

The lass poured all her affection into Mengshan, but he was like a ghost come to claim her life.

From childhood, Mengshan liked catching insects, then pulling off their legs one by one while they were still alive and watching their whole bodies tremble.

When he grew a little older, Mengshan noticed Sihuang coming every few days to deliver game, and he began ambushing it with sharp weapons. Sihuang had watched Mengshan grow up and naturally couldn't bear to hurt him. It could only keep fleeing. It didn't know what it had done wrong, and of course, it had no way to tell the lass about it.

Then one day, as the lass slept, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her arm. She opened her eyes and saw Mengshan holding a pair of bloodstained scissors. The scissors had left a deep gash in her arm.

Horrified, the lass pulled Mengshan over and spoke earnestly to him. "Mengshan! You mustn't hurt people! Especially not your own mother!"

Mengshan gave a cold smile and asked, "Why can't I hurt people? Why can people hurt animals but not other people? Why does being my mother mean I can't hurt you?"

A great chill settled over the lass's heart. Mengshan was only eleven that year!

No matter how much love the lass gave Mengshan, she received nothing in return. As he gradually grew older, those days became even more terrifying.

At twenty, Mengshan began yearning for life in the county town. Its streets teemed with carts, horses, and people, offering far more excitement than the wooden cottage at the mountain's foot. In town, he also heard gossip about the lass. People mocked his mother with filthy mouths, inventing rumors about her seducing men. Mengshan found it entertaining. He laughed along, then went home and repeated it all to her.

Hearing those filthy words from her own son's mouth, the lass washed her face with tears all day. She didn't understand why her life was so miserable. Abducted by an old man as a child, she had finally found someone to pour her heart into, only for him to become another ghost come to claim her life!

Day in and day out, the lass felt she didn't have a single person to talk to. Loneliness, helplessness, and despair surrounded her all day long.

Until one day, Sihuang spoke.

When Sihuang first spoke, the lass showed no expression. Perhaps her bitter life had already driven her mad. How could a fierce tiger she had watched grow up suddenly speak?

Only after a long time did the lass realize just how incredible it was. Sihuang truly could speak.

The lass felt no fear, only joy. Now she had a companion. Her companion wasn't one of those terrifying humans with malice in their hearts, but Sihuang, with whom she had depended on each other for survival for twenty or thirty years!

Sihuang also noticed that whenever it spoke, the lass became very happy, so it came to talk to her every few days.

What Sihuang couldn't understand, however, was why the hunters fled in panic whenever it ran up to speak to them on the mountain.

They were all human, so why were their reactions so different from the lass's? Having only just awakened its intelligence, Sihuang couldn't make sense of it.

Sihuang gave the lass a reason to keep living, and she stopped bothering with Mengshan. After all, he was nearly forty and still idled his days away, wandering around the county town every day. The lass and Mengshan seemed to have become strangers and went a long time without speaking.

Until one day three years ago, when something happened.

Even now, the lass still trembled whenever she recalled it.