A "Coincidence" in the Woods

The mountain path was barely wide enough for one person.

Lu Yuan's trouser legs were soaked through, the dew icy cold. He picked paths hidden by weeds and stopped to listen every so often. It was too quiet, unnaturally so.

The feeling of being watched had never left him since he departed the academy.

He crouched to tie his shoelaces and glanced back out of the corner of his eye. Nothing was there but bushes swaying in the wind. Yet the invisible thread tied to his back remained taut.

His pursuer was an old hand.

Lu Yuan straightened and tapped his fingers inside his sleeve, a habit of his when thinking. His Soul Power was only level three, and Blue Silver Grass was useless in a real fight. Besides his notes and medicinal powders, he had only a few low-grade materials filched from the laboratory: Bristle Rat bristles, fragments of shed lizard skin, and powdered snake venom.

He had a small packet of each tucked into a pouch beneath his clothes. They were meant for experiments, but now they were his lifeline.

A gentle slope lay ahead, sparsely covered with pines. He took a few steps up it, then stopped abruptly.

There were tracks on the pine needles.

They weren't human. Four toes splayed apart, sunk deep into the ground. Pine needles had been kicked aside at the edges, exposing damp black soil. Fresh, no more than two hours old.

Lu Yuan crouched to measure them, then sniffed. A rank animal stench mingled with the earthy smell.

An Iron Thorn Wild Boar.

He frowned. The thing should have been deep in a mountain hollow. What was it doing here?

Unless...

Before he could finish the thought, a muffled thud came from below the slope. It sounded like something heavy slamming into a tree, followed by a sharp crack and heavy, wet panting.

Lu Yuan immediately ducked low and hid behind a rock.

The panting drew closer.

Bushes crashed apart, and a massive creature charged out.

Sure enough, it was the boar. It was even bigger than the one in the illustrated guide, its black hair stiff as a steel brush, short spines standing along its back. Its left eye was clamped shut, and a gash ran from the corner of the eye to its cheek, flesh peeled back and blood plastered across half its face.

The boar's right eye was blood-red, and foam sprayed from its nostrils. It turned halfway around on the spot, tusks pointing toward the rock.

He'd been discovered.

Lu Yuan's heart sank. He couldn't outrun it. His fingers slipped inside his robes and found the packet of bristles as his mind raced, calculating its charging speed and how early he needed to dodge...

The boar moved.

Its hooves tore at the earth as it charged with a thunderous roar. More than two hundred jin of weight stirred up a gust, sending pine needles flying.

Too fast! Lu Yuan flung himself to the side. A tusk grazed his back, tearing his clothes with a rip. He rolled halfway over and flung out a handful of bristles.

They were too light, and the wind scattered most of them. Only a few landed on the boar's face.

The boar shook its head, its movement faltering for an instant. In that instant, Lu Yuan scrambled up and rushed toward the jumble of rocks.

The boar snorted furiously, turned, and charged again. It came at him in quick, short strides, then suddenly accelerated when it was three meters away, its tusks sweeping upward!

Lu Yuan dodged right, but his foot caught on a tree root, and his body tilted.

Damn.

The tusk was about to drive into his ribs. He gritted his teeth and roused his Soul Power. Blue Silver Grass shot out, but not to bind the boar-the blades twisted together and lashed a loose rock beside him.

The rock rolled down and struck the boar's front hoof.

The boar veered in pain, its tusk scraping past Lu Yuan's waist and taking a strip of cloth with it. A burning pain followed.

Lu Yuan staggered back several steps until his back met an old pine. His chest heaved; more than half his Soul Power was spent. The faint glow at the tips of the Blue Silver Grass was barely visible.

The boar shook its head, the red glow in its right eye growing fiercer. It pawed the ground with a front hoof and lowered its head, gathering strength.

He wouldn't be able to dodge the next attack.

Lu Yuan reached inside his robes for the last packet of snake venom powder. It was potent, but it had to touch a wound. The gash on the boar's face...

He stared at the bloody wound, mapping out a route in his head: feint left, lure it into turning its head, then seize the chance to scatter the poison.

His chance of success was less than thirty percent.

He had no other choice.

The boar's hind legs tensed-

A dark figure darted out of the woods to the side.

Fast as black lightning.

The figure pounced through the air, the five fingers of his right hand pressed together, his fingertips gleaming with a dark metallic light as they stabbed precisely toward the boar's injured left eye!

The boar jerked its head around. But the figure was too fast. With a soft pfft, most of his fingers sank into its eye socket.

The boar let out a piercing, agonized scream, its body twisting wildly as its tusks swept upward at random.

The figure pulled his hand free and retreated. A tusk grazed his left shoulder.

Riiip-

Cloth tore, and blood burst forth.

The figure grunted, used the force to flip backward, and landed on a rock two meters away. He dropped to one knee, his right hand clamped over his left shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers and dripped onto the rock.

The boar struggled, crashing through several small trees before its front legs gave way and it fell to its knees with a thunderous crash. Its panting grew weaker and weaker, until all that remained were the ragged gasps in its throat.

A dozen or so breaths later, it stopped moving.

The woods fell quiet.

Lu Yuan slowly straightened, his back against the tree trunk. He watched the figure on the rock without approaching.

The figure took a few breaths and raised his head.

He was a youth of fifteen or sixteen, agile and powerfully built, with long arms and a narrow waist. He had wheat-colored skin, short, bristly hair, prominent brow bones, and deep-set eyes. As his emotions stirred, his amber pupils faintly narrowed into vertical slits. A faint old claw scar ran diagonally across his left cheek, from cheekbone to corner of his mouth, adding a touch of wildness.

The youth studied Lu Yuan, his gaze sweeping over his tattered clothes and the bloody mark at his waist before settling on the dim Blue Silver Grass around his wrist.

He frowned, the tip of his tongue flicking quickly over a canine tooth.

"Level-three Soul Power?" he asked rapidly and bluntly. "Blue Silver Grass?"

His hand tightened on his shoulder, and more blood seeped out.

"How did you end up here?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer. He stepped forward twice, keeping a safe distance, and looked at the youth's bleeding shoulder.

"That wound needs treating," he said. "I have medicinal powder."

The youth scoffed. "Take care of yourself first." Despite his words, he didn't refuse and jumped down from the rock. His movements were nimble, but his left shoulder visibly stiffened when he landed.

Lu Yuan took out the cloth bundle Bai Zhi had given him, picked out the packet of powder for stopping bleeding, and handed it over.

The youth took it and sniffed, raising an eyebrow. "Moonlight Orchid powder? Mixed with garden burnet root... nicely done." He pulled aside the torn cloth on his shoulder, exposing the wound. The tusk had left a short but deep gash, its flesh curled outward.

He poured the powder straight on without so much as a frown.

"Thanks." He casually crumpled the empty paper packet and looked at Lu Yuan again. "You still haven't told me. Level-three Soul Power, a Trash Martial Soul, and you come into an old forest alone. Are you looking to die?"

Lu Yuan was silent for two seconds.

"I'm traveling," he said. "Taking a shortcut."

"A shortcut?" The youth sounded as though he'd heard a joke. "A shortcut into an Iron Thorn Wild Boar's den?" He shook his head, his amber slit pupils narrowing slightly. "Forget it, none of my business. Hurry up and..."

His expression changed before he could finish.

Almost at the same time, Lu Yuan felt it too-a faint, cold fluctuation of Soul Power coming from deep in the dense woods behind him.

It was like a snake slithering through the grass.

The youth's head snapped up, his gaze sharp as a hawk's as he fixed it on the shadows behind Lu Yuan.

"Watch out!"

He barked the warning, his right hand going to the sheath of the dagger at his waist.

Lu Yuan slowly turned around.

The light among the trees was dim. Behind the rocks where he had hidden earlier, a tall, thin figure in gray stood there, having appeared at some unknown time.

The man was around thirty, with an ordinary face. But his eyes were utterly still, without the slightest ripple, and he looked at them as though they were stones.

He carried a long, narrow-bladed saber, its blade dull and dark. On his shoulder was an inconspicuous piece of gray embroidery, faintly resembling the outline of a bird.

Lu Yuan held his breath for a moment.

That presence was... exactly like the feeling he'd had when he was being followed.

The gray-clad man's gaze lingered on the youth first, sweeping over his bleeding shoulder before turning to Lu Yuan's face.

"Lu Yuan?" His voice was hoarse and flat.

Lu Yuan said nothing.

The gray-clad man didn't seem to care. Saber in hand, he walked forward step by step. His footfalls were light, making almost no sound on the pine needles.

"Teacher Sun asked me to send you on your way," he said. "I was going to wait until you'd gone farther, so I wouldn't dirty the academy grounds."

He paused and looked at the youth.

"I didn't expect an extra catch."

The youth's pupils contracted. The tip of his tongue flicked over a canine tooth again, and he lowered his body slightly, like a leopard poised to spring.

"Who are you?" The casualness had vanished from his voice, leaving only cold wariness.

The gray-clad man didn't answer. He stopped about five meters from them, his saber pointing diagonally down at the ground.

"Will you leave on your own," he said to the youth, "or shall I help you?"

His meaning was clear.

The woods fell utterly silent. The wind seemed to stop, and the birdsong vanished. Only that cold fluctuation of Soul Power spread through the air, weighing heavily on their chests.

The youth's knuckles turned white against his shoulder.

He turned his head and glanced at Lu Yuan. His expression was complicated: anger, bewilderment, and annoyance at being dragged into trouble.

Then he turned back to face the gray-clad man.

"Help your grandpa."

He spat and reached for the hilt of his dagger with his right hand.

The sound of the blade leaving its sheath was especially piercing in the deathly still woods.