Shi Lei laid the coarse cloth back in the bottom of the basket and had Chen Xiuyuan put it on his back. The five left the old charcoal kiln while the rain briefly eased.
They skirted Broken Stream on the way back. Shi Lei scouted ahead, while Shi Duo still guarded the rear, urging them to hurry across open ground, then stopping to wait for Ge Ping on the rough rocky slopes. Chen Xiuyuan's legs grew heavier with every step. When he finally saw the clearing before the Bloodstone Gate, he almost failed to recognize it.
They had set out from there that very morning.
Someone above the gate called Shi Lei's name, then spotted Ge Ping's arm in its sling and immediately ran down to help. Shi Qiren met them at the entrance to the path, his gaze passing over each of them.
"Five?"
"Five," Shi Lei answered.
"As long as everyone's back. Come inside first."
Ge Ping had gritted his teeth the whole way, insisting he could still walk, but when he entered the gate and saw a woman wearing a headscarf, he suddenly stopped. She rushed over to support him, her mouth already open to scold him, but the sight of the sodden cloth around his left arm silenced her.
"How did you get hurt this badly?"
"Just a graze. Shi Lei caught me."
Ge Ping reached into his clothes with his right hand for his ration bag. Only when he touched its red cord did he remember. His smile was strained. "There's still half a piece left."
The woman slapped his uninjured shoulder, so lightly it barely made a sound.
"Who asked you about that!"
She took over the side Chen Xiuyuan had been supporting. Someone else came to help, and once Ge Ping no longer had to hold himself up, his legs instead went weak. He was practically carried into the medicine shed.
Elder Shi was already waiting inside. He first told everyone to move aside, pressed Ge Ping down onto a bench, and undid the wet cloth to examine him. Shi Duo stood nearby with his left arm hanging at his side, but one upward glance from the old man made him sit down too.
Chen Xiuyuan set down the little basket. Before he could speak, Elder Shi asked, "Your leg?"
"I can walk."
The old man extended his wooden staff, blocking the foot Chen Xiuyuan was about to step outside with.
"Not until I've looked at it."
Chen Xiuyuan could only sit at the other end. Only after confirming that his old wound had not reopened did Elder Shi let him change into dry clothes. Through the cloth curtain, he heard Ge Ping draw in a sharp breath, Shi Duo murmur that his bones were fine, and then Elder Shi tell him to save his breath.
By the time Chen Xiuyuan returned, Ge Ping's injured arm had been bandaged again, and Shi Duo's shoulder had been dressed with medicine. The old man warned both of them against strenuous exertion for the next few days, especially Shi Duo: being able to lift a saber with his right hand did not mean only the right side of his body moved.
Shi Duo gave a word of assent and handed the saber he had been about to pick up to someone beside him.
Only then did Shi Qiren enter the shed, dragging a stool over to sit by the doorway.
"Start at the bridge. Who saw it first?"
When Shi Lei reached the broken section in his account, Chen Xiuyuan added the position of the wooden post on the near bank, then brought over the little basket. He lifted the coarse cloth. The broken arrow was still lodged in the rattan frame, its snapped shaft slanting outward.
Shi Qiren pressed a finger against the split bamboo strip and looked at Ge Ping.
"Was this the one that wounded you?"
"No," Chen Xiuyuan answered first. "This one hit the empty basket. The one that wounded him came from higher up. It wasn't left behind."
He explained how the little basket had been dragged beside the slanted rock and how the lower archer had moved out from behind the gray rock. After listening, Shi Qiren had Shi Lei steady the basket's frame, pried apart the already split bamboo strips himself, and eased the broken arrow back through the original hole without shortening the shaft further.
Fine strands of rattan clung to the arrowhead. Rain had washed clean the iron surface near its rear, revealing an old, dark mark.
Chen Xiuyuan took out his herb-identification booklet and drew both banks of Broken Stream on the blank space of the last page. The drawing was rough, but the crooked pine, gray rock, and slanted rock on the near bank were distinct. He marked the empty basket's position with a short line, then noted where the arrow had been retrieved.
Shi Qiren looked at those few lines of writing and asked, "Do you recognize who made it?"
"No. I only know where it came from."
"Then record that for now."
Shi Lei also bent his head to check it, tapping beside the crooked pine. "The one up above was a little farther south than this."
Chen Xiuyuan corrected it and wrapped the broken arrow in another piece of dry cloth. Shi Duo untied the bundle of severed rope at his waist and set it beside it, saying the upper end had been cut with a blade while he was descending into the ravine.
"Wrap them separately," Chen Xiuyuan said. "This end was cut later. The end by the bridge has the cut I made when retrieving the rope. They can't be mixed up."
Shi Qiren glanced at him, had Shi Duo point out both places, then laid a small wooden slip on the cloth wrapped around the arrow.
"Keep everything. Tomorrow morning, we'll take people to inspect the bridge."
Ge Ping straightened on the bench. "Won't they have run off already?"
"The men may run, but the bridge will still be there. Until the route is sealed off, we can't send herb gatherers out to try their luck again."
Someone outside the shed tried to follow them in with questions, but Shi Qiren raised a hand to stop them. He moved to the doorway and told the patrol to spread word of the attack at Broken Stream to every household first, and to question anyone entering or leaving tonight closely about where they had come from.
Ge Ping's wife stood and helped her husband home. As they passed Chen Xiuyuan, Ge Ping paused, about to say something, only to notice his leg, stiff from walking.
"Don't go hauling anything heavy tomorrow."
"You either."
Ge Ping laughed and slowly went out with a hand on his wife's shoulder. The ration bag with its red cord was still tucked inside his clothes, swaying gently with his steps.
Only after some of the people had dispersed did Shi Qiren return to ask Shi Lei how badly the lower archer had been wounded.
"An arrow through the upper arm. He could still pick up his bow. He won't die."
"His face?"
"Covered."
"Could you tell where his accent was from?"
Shi Lei thought back for a moment, then shook his head. Shi Duo had only heard a few shouted curses from the man on the near bank and could not place him either. Chen Xiuyuan described the whistle he had heard, without counting its identical echo as another person.
Shi Qiren rested a finger against the wooden slip and said nothing for a time.
"Could they have been after me?" Chen Xiuyuan asked.
Shi Lei raised his head.
"You know them?"
"No. But I only just arrived, and I can't clearly explain where I came from."
"The bridge was broken beforehand," Shi Lei said. "The beast-luring medicine was already waiting there too. Whoever crossed the bridge would run into it."
Shi Qiren did not immediately agree. He only asked Chen Xiuyuan whether he had made enemies of any outsiders since leaving the mountains. Chen Xiuyuan thought it over carefully and shook his head. Most strangers he had met had been at the meat shed or medicine shed, and he had barely exchanged a few words with them.
"Then we'll investigate this route first," Shi Qiren said. "Without evidence, we won't pin it on anyone."
He put the arrow and severed rope into a wooden box and asked Chen Xiuyuan to leave him a copy of the marked positions. Chen Xiuyuan had just agreed when Auntie Sang looked up from beside the herb basket.
"Ask what you need to, but he ought to have something hot to eat too. That rope under the bridge-he crawled in and cut it loose himself."
Shi Qiren looked at Chen Xiuyuan. When describing the retrieval earlier, Chen Xiuyuan had only mentioned the crossbeam's position and the rope's length, without detailing who had crawled inside.
"You went yourself?"
"Shi Lei kept the man above pinned down, and Ge Ping held out his hoe to catch me."
Shi Lei took over. "Dragging the basket was his idea too. If we'd stayed crowded behind that slanted rock until the men circling around reached us, getting out would've been even harder."
Chen Xiuyuan said no more about it. The severed rope lay in the box, and the swelling in Shi Duo's left shoulder was visible even through his clothes. He only asked, "When you go back to inspect it, can you take me to identify the positions?"
"Not this time," Shi Qiren said. "Explain the drawing clearly and let your leg heal. If there really is something we can't make out, I'll ask you when I return."
He closed the box, but did not simply take the matter out of their hands.
"Whatever we find out about this arrow, we'll tell you. All five of you suffered for this. You're owed an accounting."
Only then did Chen Xiuyuan nod. He pushed the herb-identification booklet toward the edge of the table and, together with Shi Lei, filled in the grassy slope they had not drawn clearly earlier. When Shi Qiren left, he took the copied piece of hide, while the original little map remained in the booklet.
Auntie Sang had already sorted the medicinal roots.
Only a few small bundles had made it back. Spread across the bamboo tray originally prepared for the herbs, they did not even fill half of it. Those caked in mud or crushed were set aside. Following her instructions, Chen Xiuyuan laid several intact red-whisker roots before Elder Shi.
Elder Shi examined them one by one, selected those that could be used, and pushed the thinnest one back.
"This one's not quite ready. Keep it for another use."
Auntie Sang said, "Past the bridge, there would've been another whole patch to gather."
"It's enough that everyone came back."
The old man put the medicinal roots into a small box, then asked about the households that had requested medicine that morning. Auntie Sang went through them one by one. Listening beside her, Chen Xiuyuan soon realized that nearly all these few roots already had somewhere to go. The shed had already been short of medicine, and now Ge Ping and Shi Duo had been added to the patients. It was nothing like he had imagined, where bringing back a basketful would make up the shortage.
He pushed forward the bundle originally allotted to him.
"Give it to those who need it urgently first. My wound hasn't reopened."
Elder Shi did not respond to that. He held out a hand and had him roll up his trouser leg, pressed around the scabbed area again, then made him walk a few steps.
"Yours will be prescribed for your injury. Taking too much won't do, and forcing yourself to skimp won't do either."
Chen Xiuyuan stopped and did not argue again.
In the end, the old man left him somewhat less medicinal food than expected, but made the required days of rest very clear. The wound had closed on the outside, but inside it had repeatedly been strained until it hurt. Tomorrow morning, he was not allowed to lift whole slabs of beast meat, nor secretly spend extra time holding the Savage Elephant Art stance.
"Keep practicing what you can do sitting down. Let your leg recover first."
Auntie Sang put away the medicine tray. The empty basket still stood by the table leg. Chen Xiuyuan picked it up. Shi Lei had temporarily fastened two bamboo splints over the arrow hole in the bottom. It could still hold things, but would wobble when it struck something hard.
He felt along the basket's rim and left the hole alone.
They ate dinner in Elder Shi's house. Only when the hot soup was served did Chen Xiuyuan feel warmth slowly returning to his hands and feet. He finished a bowl and took another half. Elder Shi did not complain that he ate too much; instead, he moved the stool a little closer to the stove, bringing his cold, damp trouser cuffs nearer the fire.
A patrolman passed outside. His footsteps stopped some distance away, as though he were questioning a household. Chen Xiuyuan listened for a while, then took the short saber from his waist and laid it, sheath and all, before Elder Shi.
"I've borrowed it for so long. I should have returned it to you properly."
Elder Shi drew the blade out a little and saw the small nick in its edge.
"From getting the rope?"
"Yes. I'll sharpen it tomorrow morning."
"Wait until your leg's recovered."
Chen Xiuyuan did not take the saber back.
"Elder Shi, I want to learn the saber."
The old man held the sheath and waited for him to finish.
"If those men at Broken Stream run into me again, I still won't be able to stop anything. Even if I could think of dragging the basket, someone still had to loose that arrow for me."
Chen Xiuyuan looked at the short saber on the table.
"Next time I go out, I want to be able to block a blade myself."
Elder Shi slid the exposed blade back into its sheath and laid it across the space between them.
"Then stop using meat-cutting methods to stake your life against other men."