Before dawn, Chen Xiuyuan put his herb basket on his back.
At the bottom lay clean strips of cloth, two small coils of thin cord, and the packet of medicine Elder Shi had given him. His waterskin was tied to the side, his dry rations wrapped separately. The short knife had been wiped spotless, and even the ties on its sheath had been checked again.
Elder Shi stood by the door and reached out to lift the basket slightly.
"The knot is too high. It'll chafe your neck."
Chen Xiuyuan took it off and adjusted the straps. The notebook he had drawn herbs in yesterday was wrapped in cloth beneath the basket lid. His damaged interview bag stayed inside the house, his phone switched off and put away with the transcribed pages of his mother's words.
When he reached the door, he looked back once more.
Elder Shi had already sat down and was sorting medicine pouches by the light of the stove fire.
"Look when you get back," the old man said.
Chen Xiuyuan answered and stepped over the threshold.
Four people were waiting outside the tribal gate. Shi Lei leaned against a gatepost, checking his bowstring. Another warrior with a saber on his back stood farther out, along with two herb gatherers, a man and a woman. The woman's herb basket was a size larger than Chen Xiuyuan's, with a short-handled herb hoe tied to its rim.
"Call her Auntie Sang." Shi Lei pointed at her. "When it comes to identifying and finding herbs, listen to her."
Auntie Sang came over and tightened Chen Xiuyuan's basket straps, then tucked away the loose ends.
"They'll catch on branches in the forest. Don't begrudge the trouble."
Shi Qiren was still at the gate today. Seeing that Chen Xiuyuan was going out too, he asked who he was going with and where they were headed, then had him stand between the two herb gatherers.
"Come back through this gate. Don't split up until everyone is here."
The gate hinges slowly turned, and morning mist poured through the gap.
Chen Xiuyuan followed them out, the earth soft beneath his feet. Behind him, the wind stretched the cooking smoke into a slanting thread that faded as they walked farther away.
This was a different route from the one he had arrived by. They first followed the creek valley east, then turned into a forest. Shi Lei led the way, with the saber-carrying warrior bringing up the rear. The two herb gatherers talked now and then, but after they passed the first gentle slope, their voices grew quieter too.
Shi Lei stopped at a fork and waited for the others to approach.
"Once we're in the forest, don't just stare at your feet. When I raise my hand, stop. If you want to gather something off to the side, call out first."
After saying this, he gave Chen Xiuyuan a pointed look.
Chen Xiuyuan nodded and moved his hand away from his knife hilt.
A branch had just knocked against his sheath again, and he had nearly drawn his knife. He tightened the sheath strap and followed Auntie Sang so he would not fall behind at the fork.
The light dimmed inside the forest.
Damp leaves cushioned their steps, making almost no sound underfoot. Chen Xiuyuan avoided the protruding roots and followed Auntie Sang for over half a li before she stopped in front of a small patch of low-growing plants.
She brushed aside the fallen leaves and let him look first.
"Recognize it?"
The leaves were still alive, rather different from the shriveled specimens in the herb shed. Chen Xiuyuan crouched and examined it from the leaves down to the rhizome against the soil, recognizing several features he had carefully drawn yesterday.
"It looks like scarlet whisker root. I need to expose the root crown to be sure."
"Then expose it."
Auntie Sang handed him the little hoe and watched him work.
Chen Xiuyuan brushed away the loose soil first. As he dug into harder earth, the hoe suddenly pressed against a thin root. He checked his strength and dug down from the side instead. The damp soil loosened little by little, revealing the two rings on the root crown.
It was indeed scarlet whisker root.
Supporting the soil beneath the roots, he slowly lifted the whole plant out, keeping even the fine rootlets as intact as he could. Auntie Sang took it, shook off the loose soil, and put it in her basket.
"Careful work for your first time. You can start digging a little farther out. The rootlets underground are longer than you think."
Chen Xiuyuan committed her words to memory. As he returned the hoe, he glanced to the side again.
Half a leaf protruded from beneath some dead leaves, its veins similar to those of the plant he had just dug up. He brushed them aside and found an even smaller plant underneath.
"There's one here too."
Auntie Sang looked down and tapped the ground beside it with the hoe handle.
"Too small. Leave it to grow. Remember this spot, and we can gather it next year."
Chen Xiuyuan gently spread the dead leaves back over it.
They identified several more plants along the way. The leaf margins that had curled into a tangle on yesterday's paper were finally clear to him now that he had seen living plants. Auntie Sang gave him some of the herbs they had gathered, arranging them one by one with their root crowns pointing upward.
The scattered plants here could not meet the herb shed's needs. Auntie Sang said that beyond Broken Stream was a damp, rocky slope where scarlet whisker root grew plentifully. That was where they usually gathered it.
The group set off again.
As the sun climbed, the forest grew hot and stuffy. Sweat ran from Chen Xiuyuan's temples and dripped off his chin. His leg injury no longer hindered ordinary walking, but after one slope after another, his feet and thighs grew heavier and heavier.
Shi Lei chose an open stretch of rock and let everyone rest.
Chen Xiuyuan did not try to act tough. He set down his basket and sat down. He drank only a few mouthfuls of water, caught his breath, then loosened his overly tight shoelaces.
His first Heavenly Meridian was still at three, and even the breathing practice he had grown familiar with over the past few days required him to sit steadily before he could settle into it. He did not rush to practice, first resting until the breathing that had become uneven during the walk steadied.
Auntie Sang took half the medicinal roots from his basket.
"Carry these for now. There'll be more to add on the way back."
Shi Lei was checking the route ahead. As Chen Xiuyuan stood and shouldered his basket, he suddenly noticed a small patch of wet mud at the edge of the rocky ground.
Several depressions marked its surface.
He did not know what beast had left them, but one shape looked familiar. Before that fang wolf had stepped into the rock crevice that day, its forepaw had left toe marks like these in the soft earth.
"Shi Lei." He quietly called to the man ahead. "There are tracks here."
Shi Lei came over and crouched, using a dead twig to push aside some flattened grass nearby.
Beneath the grass were two deeper footprints, leading toward the gully on the right.
The saber-carrying warrior came closer too. He looked along the gully for a while, then shook his head.
"Didn't see it. Go around."
Shi Lei rose and led them up a higher slope to the left instead.
Chen Xiuyuan followed the change of route. Only when the bushes hid the wet patch of mud did he look away. The prints looked similar, but he could not say for certain whether they belonged to that fang wolf.
As they crossed the top of the slope, Shi Lei dropped back a few steps and told him quietly, "Call someone even if you can't identify it. That was the right thing to do."
Chen Xiuyuan tightened his basket straps.
Farther ahead, the sound of water gradually grew louder.
The forest fell away before a stretch of jumbled rocks, revealing a deeply cut creek gorge. Steep cliffs rose on either side, and the creek squeezed along the bottom, churning white foam around black rocks. The water was not particularly wide, but no one could step from one bank to the other in a single stride.
Chen Xiuyuan saw several wooden posts on the opposite bank.
Only then did he see the bridge.
More precisely, it was half a bridge deck hanging beneath the opposite cliff. The planks were crowded crookedly together, and thick ropes trailed into the water, swaying with each surge of the current.
Shi Lei immediately raised his hand.
Everyone stopped several paces from the cliff edge.
"No one had said the bridge was broken yesterday," Auntie Sang said quietly.
The saber-carrying warrior turned to watch the way they had come. Shi Lei went forward alone, looking first at the creek, then at the two thick posts sunk into the soil on their side.
A length of severed rope was still wrapped around one post.
Looking from behind, Chen Xiuyuan suddenly felt his heart tighten.
A few loose strands of uneven lengths hung from the rope's end, but beneath them, most of the rope's severed cross section was unusually flat. The exposed pale fibers were packed together, very much like the vine rope he had cut halfway through in the hunting shed.
"That piece of rope."
Following his gaze, Shi Lei looked down, crouched, and turned the severed rope halfway around.
As the rope turned, Chen Xiuyuan saw several narrow cuts on the side nearest the post. They varied in depth, but all ran in the same direction.
"It looks like knife cuts," he said.
Shi Lei parted the loose outer strands, his fingertip stopping beside the clean cut.
"It was a knife."
Shi Lei's expression changed.
Rather than reach out to pull at the bridge planks in the water, he backed away and took the bow off his back.
"Get behind the trees."
Chen Xiuyuan immediately retreated with Auntie Sang. The rim of his basket brushed through branches and leaves with a faint rustling.
Shi Lei looked back and pressed his hand downward toward them.
The forest fell quiet, leaving only the rush of the creek at the bottom of the gorge.
Just then, a whistle sounded from the shadows of the trees on the opposite bank.
Short and shrill. After a breath's pause, a second whistle sounded.