The Cub Left Out of the Register

Black fur appeared only three times along the way.

The first tuft hung from a thornbush. The second was smeared with blood and stuck in a crack in the stone. The third, however, had been neatly tucked beneath a broken branch. It had not fallen from the cub naturally; it looked more as though someone had picked it up and deliberately left it there.

Kelin studied it for a long time. "Someone's showing us the way."

"Or leading us somewhere," Leien said.

Ailina lifted the black fur with a small knife and sniffed it. "The hemp herb smell is faint, and the blood is fresh. The cub is still alive."

Helian Yuan looked in the direction the broken branch pointed. Its tip pointed east, but the ground ahead sloped steadily downward, eventually leading to Mist Valley. On the map in the route tube, an empty circle had been drawn at the edge of Mist Valley. There was no beast species or road marked, only the words "undetermined."

Just like the blank space on the nameless page.

Wherever the organization did not know, could not write, or did not want ordinary recorders to know, it left a blank instead.

The four did not follow the broken branch straight ahead. Leien suggested circling around from higher ground, while Kelin thought there would be water in the low ground and the wounded cub was more likely to have gone down there. Ailina crouched beside a rock and found that the fine chain's drag marks had abruptly vanished, but there were gnawed herbs beside the rock.

"It's treating its own wounds," she said.

"Can a cub recognize medicinal herbs?" Kelin asked.

"At least it knows which leaves can stop an itch. Hemp herb chafes the skin over time, and animals will find something to mask the smell themselves."

Helian Yuan recalled the black tiger in Old Mo's memory, its forepaws resting on iron bars. The memory had no sound and no complete chain of cause and effect, so it could not prove that the cub before them had anything to do with that cage. But a tiger cub that had been controlled for a long time with a chain ring and hemp herb was enough to draw a faint response from Tiger Shadow.

The black shadow at his feet shifted an inch toward Mist Valley.

Ailina saw it but did not ask immediately.

She only said, "What do you hear?"

"It's not a sound," Helian Yuan said. "It's like the scent of its own kind."

That statement still kept the Tiger-Stripe Bloodline concealed, but it offered more truth than hiding everything. As their cooperation deepened, the risks also had to be disclosed gradually. Otherwise, if something unusual happened in battle, the others would have no choice in the matter.

The four turned and circled around from higher ground.

Outside Mist Valley stood a sentry post left by the retrieval team. Two black-armored figures guarded a hollow ancient tree, with three Scent Beasts tethered inside. The Scent Beasts were shaped like dogs but had long snouts fitted with green-iron muzzle rings. They could not smell the full range of scents and tracked only the mixed smell of hemp herb and bloody meat.

The cub knew how to use herbs to mask its scent, which meant it had escaped more than once.

Helian Yuan took out the green piece from the iron whistle, but Ailina stopped his hand.

"They know the whistle was taken."

"I'm not going to blow it."

"You want to put the green piece somewhere else?"

Helian Yuan nodded.

Kelin quickly understood. "Let the Scent Beasts pick up the familiar smell of their equipment and think the target passed by."

"Where?" Leien asked.

Helian Yuan looked to the other side of Mist Valley. A trail of droppings from a rank-three Firetail Fox clearly marked the boundary of its territory there. If they put the green piece there with the smell of hemp herb, the Scent Beasts would lead the retrieval team toward another territorial beast.

Leien shook his head. "Using another beast again. If the Firetail Fox charges out, the people at the post will tighten their hold on the valley entrance."

"So we only turn the Scent Beasts aside, without disturbing the fox," Ailina continued. "We leave the scent outside the boundary."

She took an empty copper tube from her tool case, put the green piece inside, and wrapped the outside in a layer of medicinal leaves the cub had gnawed. The copper tube would retain the metallic smell without letting the green piece make a sound.

The four divided the work. Leien would set off a small rockfall upwind to make the guards look up; Kelin would roll the copper tube along a rock crevice to the edge of the fox's territory; Ailina would use a thin thread to pull an old beast bone beside the ancient tree, directing the Scent Beasts' noses toward the new scent; Helian Yuan would watch the positions of the two black-armored figures, ready to intercept them if anything went wrong.

As soon as they began, the first Scent Beast turned its head. The second hesitated for a moment, then gave a low bark in the direction of the copper tube. The third did not move. It had an old scar across its snout and seemed insensitive to the smell of hemp herb. Instead, it raised its head and looked toward the stone wall where Helian Yuan was hiding.

The black-armored figures followed its gaze.

"Someone's up there."

The plan had not entirely succeeded.

Leien rolled a second rock down from above, deliberately exposing the face of his shield. The two black-armored figures thought he was alone and immediately released two Scent Beasts to pursue him. The third remained tethered, and with the guards split up, an opening appeared at the valley entrance.

Helian Yuan did not go to Leien's aid. According to their agreed route, Leien would circle back along the far side of the slope. If Helian Yuan turned around now, the two of them would only be trapped together.

The four passed the ancient tree's sentry post one after another. As Ailina passed through last, she used her knife to cut the third Scent Beast's green-iron muzzle ring. She did not set it loose, only loosened the ring. Able to smell everything around it freely for the first time, the Scent Beast was immediately overwhelmed by the fox droppings, medicinal leaves, human sweat, and the scent of its own kind. It froze, no longer tracking the hemp herb alone.

"Why not just kill it?" Helian Yuan asked.

"It's a tool too," Ailina said. "When a tool breaks, the owner blames the tool first."

The mist was thicker in the valley.

They followed the sound of water for half a li and found the cub beneath a fallen giant tree. It was smaller than Kelin had estimated, standing only knee-high at the shoulder. Its entire body was blackish gray, with two extremely faint dark markings on its forehead. A length of fine chain trailed from its left hind leg, and there was no intact iron ring beneath its neck, only a chafed, raw wound.

The cub neither lunged nor cried out.

Several pieces of chewed-up, hard root lay scattered beside it, showing that it had not eaten proper bloody meat for a long time. Two claws on its forepaws were split and turned back, as if it had repeatedly dug at iron plates. A small notch was missing from the edge of its left ear, but the wound had long since healed smooth; it had not been left by this escape. Though young, it bore traces of more than one period of confinement.

Ailina saw all this but did not immediately call it pitiful. She first estimated how much farther the cub could walk, then moved the smallest pair of pliers in her tool case within easy reach. Leien scanned the two open spots beyond the roots where he could set his shield, while Kelin cleared out a waterproof evidence bag. None of the three had agreed to save it, but each had already made room for a possible choice.

The cub tucked itself into the deepest part of the roots. Its dark golden eyes went first to the spear, then to the knife, and finally settled on the shadow at Helian Yuan's feet.

Tiger Shadow lowered itself slightly.

The cub also pressed its forepaws against the ground.

Like two tigers in separate bodies, seeing which would bare its teeth first.

Helian Yuan did not approach. He took out the blank wooden tag, set it on the ground, and withdrew his hand.

The cub smelled the old cage scent on the tag and immediately arched its back, a low, threatening sound coming from its throat.

That reaction was clearer than any note.

It had seen that live cage.

"Number seven?" Kelin said quietly.

Helian Yuan looked at the front of the blank tag. "At least it's what they wanted to put in the empty number-seven slot."

A chain suddenly clinked against stone beyond the roots.

It was not the chain on the cub's leg.

More chains were approaching through the mist.

The sentry post had not delayed the Black-Armored Retrieval Team for long. They came down from both sides of the valley entrance at once, clearly already aware that the cub might be hiding near the fallen tree.

Ailina drew her knife, Leien raised his shield, and Kelin put the blank wooden tag and the route tube into the waterproof bag.

Helian Yuan gripped his new spear.

They had seen the cub.

What they had to decide now was no longer whether this lead was worth following.

It was whether to take away the evidence, or a living creature that had not yet been entered in the register.