The Hunting Ground Perimeter

The Gray-Robed Retrieval Team did not start by looking for false leads.

They started by marking off the mountain.

Three wagons stopped on the eastern side of Sunken Bone Slope, and six people split into two groups. One group drove in boundary stakes and tied gray cloth to them, while the other carried iron traps and rope nets. The strips of cloth formed a semicircle along the outer edge of the tier-four Blue Rock Panther's territory, enclosing the spring and three animal trails.

They knew the area.

They knew even better than ordinary hunters where the panther drank and where it lay in ambush.

Helian Yuan lay low on the northern slope and watched a gray-robed man holding a sheet of paper. Each time he drove in a stake, he made a mark in a box. In his hands, dangerous magical beasts, springs, and traces of human activity were all like entries in a ledger.

That afternoon, the short-clad men dragged over a tier-three Red-Maned Wolf trapped in a rope net. An iron trap had bitten into its leg, and its jaws were bound shut with rope. They pinned it down beside the Blue Rock Panther's trail, then retreated behind the rock wall.

The wolf was bait.

Once the panther pounced on it, the outer rope nets would close in, and iron traps would block its retreat. If the Blue Rock Panther was taken away, Sunken Bone Slope would lose the dangerous boundary most capable of stopping the retrieval team from venturing deeper.

Helian Yuan did not intervene out of pity for the wolf.

He needed to make the retrieval perimeter fail while also obtaining the records the gray-robed men had brought.

After dark, he circled behind the wolf and cut partway through a load-bearing knot in the rope net, but did not release the wolf immediately. The rope still looked intact, but a single full-force struggle from the wolf would snap it.

Next, he hung a piece of tier-three Split-Tooth Lizard meat closer to the rock wall. Mixed with the scent of the meat was Helian Yuan's scent, which the Blue Rock Panther knew.

When the tier-four Blue Rock Panther appeared, it smelled the injured Red-Maned Wolf first, then the Split-Tooth Lizard meat. It did not pounce straight on the bait, but stayed in the darkness for a long time.

The retrieval team did not move either.

Both sides waited for the other to enter the position they had prepared.

Helian Yuan used a thin cord to tug gently on a stake holding the wolf's net.

The stake tilted, and the tier-three Red-Maned Wolf, thinking its bonds had loosened, struggled violently. The partially cut load-bearing knot snapped, and it charged south, dragging half the net with it.

The short-clad men mistakenly thought the Blue Rock Panther had already hit the net and immediately rushed out from behind the rock wall.

Their footsteps and the bloody scent of the wolf alerted the Blue Rock Panther at the same time.

Instead of chasing the wolf, the panther pounced on the man in front. As he backed away, he stepped into one of their own iron traps, which clamped shut around the sole of his boot, and their formation fell apart on the spot.

Helian Yuan used the chaos to circle around to the wagons.

Two Tracking Hounds were still tethered beside the third wagon, their muzzles covered with leather hoods. They had yet to be released. As Helian Yuan passed downwind, he smeared some prepared mud mixed with Blue Rock Panther dung beneath the wagon shaft, then stuffed a strip of cloth carrying the scent of his blood into the rope net on the first wagon. Once the hounds were released, they would first go back and forth between the retrieval team's own wagons, checking the scents.

This trick would delay them for only a short while at most. The handler would soon see that someone had moved the scents around, but in the chaos, that short while was enough to determine who guarded the iron chest first and who chased the Red-Maned Wolf first.

Before approaching the iron chest, Helian Yuan touched the wagon wheel with the back of his hand. The axle was still trembling faintly. The driver had not gone far, but had only hidden behind the rock wall. So instead of opening the chest from directly behind, Helian Yuan circled in along the shadow of another wagon, keeping the wooden boards between himself and the driver's line of sight the whole time.

The first wagon held rope nets, the second held iron implements, and an iron chest was secured to the back of the third. The chest was not actually locked, only fastened with a leather strap-the retrieval team believed no one would dare approach the outskirts of the hunting ground.

Helian Yuan undid the strap.

On top was a master relocation chart. It listed several numbers, hunting grounds, and statuses. One row read: number seven, relocated, pending retrieval.

The words "relocated" had been painted over with thick ink, but could still be made out from the impressions on the back of the paper.

He took only the master chart and left the other papers untouched. Taking more would slow him down and let the other side know immediately what they had lost.

Someone suddenly shouted from the back of the wagon, "Who's there!"

Helian Yuan vaulted over the wagon shaft and rolled into the low pines. The gray-robed man chased him for two steps, but the Blue Rock Panther's low growl was already drawing near the wagons, leaving him no choice but to turn back and protect the iron chest.

Once the chaos began, the hunter with the crossbow on his back did not shoot at anyone. From the western slope, he shot through two strips of gray cloth on the outer perimeter in quick succession, giving the fleeing Red-Maned Wolf a path free of iron traps and making the retrieval team think the rope nets had broken on the other side. Once he was done, he withdrew without going near the wagons.

Helian Yuan saw the direction the arrows had come from and immediately abandoned the closer western route he had originally planned to take, passing through the shadows of the wagons instead. The two had not agreed on their actions step by step beforehand, but both followed the same temporary shared interest: the hunting ground could not be completely sealed off.

The driver quickly released the Tracking Hounds. The two hounds first charged toward the wagon shaft smeared with Blue Rock Panther dung, then turned toward the rope net hiding the bloodstained cloth, pulling against each other. The handler cursed and crouched to examine the sources of the scents, rather than immediately sending the hounds after the intruder.

That gave Helian Yuan a few dozen more steps of distance, but it also confirmed to the other side that someone had approached the wagons beforehand. A successful diversion had left evidence at the same time; no strategy brought gains without a cost.

After taking the master chart, he put a blank sheet of wrapping paper in its place. When the lid closed, the change in weight was slight, and the gray-robed man might not notice exactly what was missing at the first moment. If he had simply left an empty space, all the guards would have abandoned the Blue Rock Panther and given chase at once.

On his way back to the northern slope, Helian Yuan saw that the short-clad man caught in the iron trap had already cut away the sole of his boot. His injury was not serious. The retrieval team had failed not for lack of fighting strength, but because they had too many objectives to deal with at once. Once they reassigned their tasks, the old methods on Sunken Bone Slope would no longer work.

The strips of cloth marking the retrieval perimeter had been trampled apart by the panther and the fleeing wolf, and the iron traps had injured one of their own. But the Blue Rock Panther was unhurt, much less captured. It stood in the darkness by the rock wall, the old iron ring beneath its neck intermittently visible as it watched those trying to enclose it again.

Helian Yuan retreated to the northern slope and waited until the retrieval team lit torches to search the mountain before unfolding the master chart.

Besides number seven, "relocated" had been painted over on two other rows; the status for number thirteen read "materials not retrieved." The record keeper was unwilling to leave a record of where the magical beasts had gone, yet repeatedly stressed that certain things had to be retrieved.

The records seemed to set out the hunting ground in perfect order, yet the truly critical destinations had all been erased.

Helian Yuan tucked the master chart away against his body and did not celebrate.

A little animal fat from Helian Yuan's hand had gotten onto the edge of the master chart. He did not wipe it off on the spot. Instead, he first wrapped the entire sheet in dry soil and cleaned it only after retreating to the northern slope. If the Tracking Hounds had smelled the papers in the chest, they might still follow that faint scent.

He also cut a strip from his outer garment and tied it to a piece of netting rope left behind by the fleeing Red-Maned Wolf. Once the hounds were released, the wolf's blood, panther dung, animal fat on the wagon, and scent of his old clothing would give them four conflicting directions.

These arrangements could not make the pursuit disappear; they could only force the gray-robed men to spend more time judging each direction before confirming it. By the time the other side learned to rule them out, Helian Yuan had to be off his usual routes.

The retrieval team would certainly discover that a paper was missing. They would also see that the Red-Maned Wolf's rope knot had been cut, and that the Blue Rock Panther had not wandered in by chance.

Starting that night, the gray-robed man would no longer merely suspect that someone had tampered with the old iron tag.

He would confirm that someone on Sunken Bone Slope understood their rules and knew how to use them.

The firelight to the east did not go out all night.

Before dawn, another wagon arrived.

The gray-robed man himself stepped down from it, holding a rolled-up new map with neatly trimmed edges.