Save whom? Grandpa Rabbit couldn’t make sense of it, and seeing Mao Xiaoshu perfectly fine, he glanced outside the stone house, at this hour, the hunting party shouldn’t be back yet.
“Has something happened to Xiaohe?”
“Not sister, it’s… it’s…” Mao Xiaoshu didn’t know Qin Ziheng’s name and got stuck for a moment. He fumbled about for a good while, unable to figure out how to explain, and in his hurry just grabbed Grandpa Rabbit. “Anyway, that beast is all hot-hot. Grandpa Rabbit, hurry.”
Hearing this, Grandpa Rabbit didn’t dare delay and went with him.
When he saw Qin Ziheng, Grandpa Rabbit’s face scrunched up tight. The Fluffy Tribe wasn’t small, but it wasn’t large either, the whole tribe was only three hundred-odd beasts. Grandpa Rabbit had lived the better part of his life here and knew every beast in the tribe. Qin Ziheng looked unfamiliar, he’d never seen him. One look and you could tell he was from another tribe.
“Where did this beast come from?”
Mao Xiaoshu said, “At Bear Slope. He was there, caught the hot-hot sickness and fell asleep. Xiaoshu is big and strong, so I carried him back.”
At his words Grandpa Rabbit’s face darkened, and he smacked Mao Xiaoshu on the shoulder. “You went running off again. Why do you never listen? Didn’t I warn you not to go into the deep woods? If a Spinefang Beast or a Longhair Beast had run into you, you’d probably have died there.”
Guilty, Mao Xiaoshu pressed his two index fingers together, hung his head, and said nothing.
Grandpa Rabbit shot him a glare, then sat down by the stone bed and felt Qin Ziheng’s forehead, scorching hot indeed. He’d caught a fever, no doubt about it.
He needed medicine.
Grandpa Rabbit went home and fetched a handful of herbs, then had Mao Xiaoshu haul over a slab of stone, and the two of them crouched at the cave mouth and began pounding the medicine. The herbs were freshly picked, still green and glossy.
After pounding a while, Grandpa Rabbit gave them a twist and found he could wring out the herb juice, so he stopped and told Mao Xiaoshu to fetch a bowl to catch it.
Head down, plucking at his hide garment, Mao Xiaoshu said awkwardly and in a small voice, “The stone bowl at home is gone. There isn’t one.”
The tribe had beasts of all clans, Tiger, Leopard, Cat, Snake, Dog… Different races though they were, gathered together they made up the Fluffy Tribe. The Beast World was fraught with danger, so everyone huddled together for warmth, ordinarily they got on very well.
But living together long in the tribe, there were bound to be some frictions. The Tiger and Leopard clans were the strongest of the beasts and the most formidable out hunting, among the very top in the Beast World, though the Golden Tiger reigned supreme.
The Fluffy Tribe’s Tigers weren’t Golden Tigers, but they were still more formidable than the Snake, Rabbit, or Cat clans.
The Fluffy Tribe relied on those two clans for protection, so the Tiger and Leopard clans could be said to have the final word in the tribe.
Some of the Tiger and Leopard clanfolk took pride in this and would now and then ‘bully’ the tribe’s other races.
Mao Xiaoshu’s mind wasn’t quick, and he lived alone, Mao Xiaohe had married another beast and couldn’t look after this side of things, so some beasts, using “borrowing” as an excuse, had carted off what little there was in Mao Xiaoshu’s stone cave.
Now the cave was empty and bare.
Grandpa Rabbit gave a soft sigh and said nothing. He told Mao Xiaoshu to pry Qin Ziheng’s mouth open.
Mao Xiaoshu did as told, obediently.
Grandpa Rabbit gripped the pulped mass of pounded leaves and wrung it hard, the herb juice that flowed out had a pungent smell, and was very bitter.
Qin Ziheng felt his mouth being forced open by something, warm and soft to the touch, and then an icy, foul-smelling liquid was poured in. His brows knit at once, and even though his consciousness hadn’t cleared, he instinctively tried to turn his head away to dodge it. But his head seemed clamped fast in iron pincers, he couldn’t move it no matter what. That alone would have been bearable, but his head was being squeezed to an agonizing ache, as though those pincers meant to crush his skull.
Seeing him about to move, Mao Xiaoshu immediately held Qin Ziheng’s head down firmly and said loudly, “Be good, be good, it’ll be over in a moment. Once you’ve had the medicine, Xiaoshu will go pick you sweet prickle-fruit.” That was how his sister and mother used to coax him when he took medicine.
Grandpa Rabbit, seeing him coaxing so convincingly, laughed out loud. “You think this beast is you? Has to be coaxed before he’ll take medicine. And someone who took a dose of my medicine last year has given me a wide berth ever since, even yesterday, spotting me from afar, he turned and ran faster than a dog. Now you’ve got the nerve to coax another beast. All right, the medicine’s in. Whether he wakes up depends on his fortune. You should give him more…”
He’d meant to say give Qin Ziheng more meat broth to drink, but seeing the little stone cave clean and bare, not so much as a wooden stump to sit on except that pile of pucker-fruit in the corner, Grandpa Rabbit stopped himself, and said instead to give Qin Ziheng plenty of water.
With a fever this bad, he couldn’t take anything solid, but he had to have something, so more water it would be.
Mao Xiaoshu nodded earnestly, then twisted his fingers and grew uneasy.
Ordinarily, when a beast of the tribe went to Grandpa Rabbit for medicine, they didn’t take it for nothing, they usually gave some meat, or some salt-stone and beast hide, or at the very least some fruit in return.
That was how Grandpa Rabbit made his living.
Mao Xiaoshu had nothing to give. His mind was a bit slow, but he wasn’t ignorant of how things worked, so just then he felt rather embarrassed.
“It’s all right.” Grandpa Rabbit saw his awkwardness and patted his head. “No need to give Grandpa anything. Grandpa’s heading back now.”
Mao Xiaoshu saw him out. At the cave mouth Grandpa Rabbit paused again. Qin Ziheng still lay on the bed, not yet awake, his hair a bit messy after all that fussing, his suit a little creased and somewhat dirty, but it was easy to see he was an exceedingly handsome beast: straight nose, fair skin. Whether he was a male beast or a demi-beast, Grandpa Rabbit couldn’t tell.
Male beasts and demi-beasts, apart from stature and certain racial traits, didn’t look markedly different.
Demi-beasts were smaller and thinner, male beasts were usually big and tall, and from years of hunting in the woods and on the plains had darker skin, with more or fewer scratches on their faces and arms.
Qin Ziheng stood one meter eighty or ninety, taller than a demi-beast, but compared with a male beast, his frame looked a bit smaller, and he was so fair, so good-looking that even an old-timer like Grandpa Rabbit felt his heart pound at the sight. Although he saw no tail or ears on him, Grandpa Rabbit privately guessed he might be a demi-beast, no male beast was ever this fair, and rarely this handsome.
Demi-beasts and females were the guarantee of a tribe’s continuation. Grandpa Rabbit’s two rabbit ears twitched, and knitting his brows, he warned Mao Xiaoshu, “If this demi-beast wakes, send him back at once, or if other tribes hear of it, they’ll think our tribe abducted him.”
“Is he a demi-beast from the Great River Tribe?” Mao Xiaoshu asked.
The Great River Tribe was the nearest to the Fluffy Tribe, across the plain and over a few more mountain ridges and you were there.
Game and hunting grounds were limited.
The Great River Tribe and the Fluffy Tribe had clashed many times over the ridges, the plain, and the game. Whenever the Fluffy Tribe’s hunting party ran into the Great River Tribe’s out in the field, the two sides’ beasts inevitably came to blows.
If a Great River Tribe demi-beast really had wandered into their tribe, the Great River Tribe would surely use it as an excuse to make the tribe hand over meat or cede some hunting grounds.
Mao Xiaoshu grew nervous, afraid he’d caused trouble.
Grandpa Rabbit’s two rabbit ears wagged. “I don’t know. The Great River Tribe has the most dog-clan and wolf-clan beasts. This demi-beast, no telling what he’s wearing, no telling whether he has a tail. But he’s got no ears on his head, so Grandpa can’t guess whether he’s from the Great River Tribe. Still, he’s not from our tribe, so that leaves the Great River Tribe. The Great River Tribe is nearest to our Fluffy Tribe, the other tribes are far away, and dangerous besides. For a demi-beast to walk here from another tribe, that’s not very likely.”
Mao Xiaoshu nodded, thoroughly dejected, all his earlier excitement swept clean away.
This demi-beast was so good-looking, and spoke so nicely, yet couldn’t live with him.
And he was the one who’d carried him back.
Mao Xiaoshu was down in the dumps. In his tangled, tousled hair, the two cat ears drooped. He lay against the edge of the stone bed, staring hard at Qin Ziheng, and couldn’t help reaching out to poke him.
“You’re so good-looking,” Mao Xiaoshu said, and lightly touched Qin Ziheng’s long, dense lashes, then held his breath and watched him uneasily. Seeing that he didn’t wake, Mao Xiaoshu grew bolder, he reached out again and poked Qin Ziheng’s nose.
Having taken the herb medicine, Qin Ziheng did in fact feel less wretched, no longer racked by the unbearable hot-and-cold shifts, but he felt terribly drowsy and wanted a good sleep. Somehow, though, someone kept messing with his eyes: now lightly tugging his lashes, now prying at his eyelids, now poking his nose. It felt rather uncomfortable, and his eyes twitched.
As if scalded, Mao Xiaoshu snatched his hand back, clasped his two hands tightly together, and ducked below the stone bed, daring only to let his two eyes peek out and steal nervous glances at Qin Ziheng. Seeing that he’d only stirred and not woken, Mao Xiaoshu let out a hard breath of relief for some reason, and then couldn’t resist. Ever so sneakily he stretched out a hand again and poked Qin Ziheng’s mouth.
Wah.
So soft.
Really fun, Mao Xiaoshu thought.
Qin Ziheng pressed his lips together, as if in response. Seeing this, Mao Xiaoshu was even happier, he decided Qin Ziheng was playing with him, so he puffed out his cheeks and blew a breath at his eyes. Watching Qin Ziheng’s brows knit again, he lay against the stone bed giggling.
So much fun!
Qin Ziheng didn’t sleep deeply, but he never woke. Perhaps it was that all these years he’d been busy without pause, and a sudden high fever had left him so groggy he wanted only to make up all the sleep of those years, to sleep his fill.
Outside, the sun was near setting. The slanting light shone in through the cave mouth, and the dust drifting in the air was lit crystal-clear. In the meantime Mao Xiaoshu gnawed two pucker-fruit, then ran outside to fetch water from the river in a tree leaf to feed Qin Ziheng, the rest of the time he lay against the stone bed, poking Qin Ziheng, or looking at the watch on his wrist.
This thing moved by itself, and when the light struck it, it gave off a pretty gleam.
Mao Xiaoshu found it terribly novel. He cocked his head and stared at it a good long while, until a sudden commotion arose outside and he came back to himself.
It was the tribe’s hunting party returning.
Mao Xiaoshu hurriedly picked up the big tree leaf he’d used to carry water for Qin Ziheng and rushed outside.
Ah Bao had led a dozen-odd companions hunting on the plain today rather than going into the woods. The band of beasts had toiled the better part of the day and only managed, by luck, to run down and catch three Baa-Baa Beasts.