When Mao Xiaoshu reached the gathering grounds, several demi-beasts were already standing there, and they were happy to see him.
“Xiaoshu, you’re here.” A boy of fourteen or fifteen with a stout, tigerish look came running over.
“Xiao Hu.” Mao Xiaoshu called out, then glanced at the few demi-beasts behind him.
All of them familiar faces.
Xiao Hu took Mao Xiaoshu’s hand with one hand and pointed south with the other. “We found a pucker-tree over there, loaded with pucker-fruit. Xiaoshu, come shake the tree with us! We’ll split the pucker-fruit afterward.”
The group came to the pucker-tree, which was hung all over with pucker-fruit, each one fist-sized and orange-yellow.
Because pucker-fruit was so astringent and unpleasant, neither the birds nor the Spinefang Beasts liked to eat it, so this tree still had plenty left.
With any other fruit, a Spinefang Beast couldn’t climb, but it would ram the tree to knock the fruit down and eat it, and then it would never be their turn.
Four demi-beasts wrapped their arms around the tree and started shaking it like mad. Mao Xiaoshu was very strong, and with him joining in, the pucker-tree was shaken to and fro, the fruit raining down, shua shua shua, until in no time dozens of them lay on the ground.
“That’s enough,” Xiao Hu said. “This much is plenty.”
Pucker-fruit wasn’t tasty, but dipped in salt-stone it wasn’t bad, except that salt-stone was very expensive. Two Spinefang Boars only traded for half a jar of salt-stone, and the salt-stone at home was usually saved for stewing meat soup, using it to dip pucker-fruit would be far too wasteful.
So when they ate pucker-fruit on ordinary days, they just gnawed it plain. Gnaw too much and it felt as though a layer of something coated your teeth and tongue, very unpleasant. There were only a few of them, and this many fallen fruit was enough to eat.
But Mao Xiaoshu was still reluctant to stop, hanging onto the pucker-tree and not letting go.
The pucker-tree was very big and very tall, and unlike other trees it wasn’t easy to climb. The lower part of the trunk was like a utility pole, hard and bare, so that even a beast in its animal form couldn’t get a grip with its claws. Mao Xiaoshu had discovered this pucker-tree long ago, but he couldn’t climb it, so every time he could only circle beneath it a few rounds and gaze up at the fruit before finally leaving.
Today he’d been lucky enough to run into Xiao Hu’s group, and remembering what Ah Hong had said, he wanted to shake a little longer and pick up more pucker-fruit to store for the snow season.
Another female beast, Ah Lü, seeing the state of him, probably guessed why.
“Let’s help Xiaoshu shake a while longer.”
Xiao Hu, brows knitted, was about to say something, but the other two demi-beasts bumped into him and took the lead in wrapping their arms around the pucker-tree, the meaning being: don’t waste words, hurry up and shake.
Everyone shook a good while more.
Xiao Hu and the other three demi-beasts loaded a dozen or so pucker-fruit into the folds of their hide garments and then stopped picking.
They’d been out a good while and still had to go find spring mushrooms, so they parted ways with Mao Xiaoshu.
After they’d walked a long way off, one demi-beast looked back. Mao Xiaoshu was kneeling on the ground picking up pucker-fruit, searching very carefully, parting even the grass clumps to look. His hide garment was too short to be rolled up to hold the fruit, so he was gathering the pucker-fruit into a pile, planning to find fragrant-leaves later to bundle them home in.
Seeing the great big pile of pucker-fruit he’d gathered, his face was full of joy and delight.
Watching this, the demi-beast sighed.
The other beasts had all gone, it was silent all around, with only the occasional birdcall. Mao Xiaoshu wasn’t afraid. He didn’t pass over even the smashed pucker-fruit, gathering them all into the pile, and searched the surrounding grass carefully, back and forth, until it was all cleaned out and not a single fruit remained. Only then did he get up to find fragrant-leaves.
Some fifty-odd pucker-fruit took him two trips to carry them all. All day long Mao Xiaoshu wore a smile. Toward evening, he crouched in his empty stone cave and divided the pucker-fruit into little piles, eight to a pile, extending his index finger and pointing at them, counting under his breath: “This pile’s for one day, this pile’s for one day, this pile’s for one day, wah, so many days I won’t have to go hungry.”
As though not going hungry were a very happy thing, he smiled all the more brightly. Hugging eight pucker-fruit, he sat at the cave mouth eating them half a fruit per bite, so astringent his whole face scrunched up, yet he couldn’t bear to spit any out. Smelling the meat-soup fragrance drifting over from the tribe, he ate all the more merrily.
When he finished he didn’t move, curling into a ball at the cave mouth, gazing all the while toward the tribe, listening to the laughter of the little cubs over there.
There were no households around his stone cave. This was the southernmost edge of the tribe, and Mao Xiaoshu was the only beast who lived here.
He kept crouching at the cave mouth until the sky slowly darkened, until the fragrance faded from the air and no other sound could be heard. Only then did he get up and lie down on his stone bed, still turning over in his mind what Ah Hong had said.
Tomorrow he had to go cut fluff-grass!
That night a great rain fell, thunder rumbling and crashing, lightning like a giant python, terrifying and fierce. The leaves all around rustled in the wind, and the narrow stone cave flickered under the thunderbolts. Mao Xiaoshu started awake from his dreams, poked his head out to look, and saw the lightning crashing in the distance, as though it meant to split the very sky open. With a jolt of fright he leapt back onto the stone bed, so scared he shifted into his original form, a whole cat curled into a ball, tail wrapped once around his head, ears covered by his tail, paws over his eyes, absolutely refusing to look outside.
The great rain fell for most of the night.
Mao Xiaoshu trembled the whole night through and couldn’t sleep a wink, utterly worn out. When he got up he was wilted and listless, looking drained, his stomach growling with hunger. He hadn’t even the heart to eat pucker-fruit, and sat on the edge of the bed with drooping brows, rubbing his eyes.
“Xiaoshu.”
Mao Xiaohe came in through the cave mouth and, reaching the stone bed, took hold of Mao Xiaoshu and looked him over left and right. Only when she saw he was perfectly fine did she let out a breath of relief.
When Mao Xiaoshu was little, his mother had taken him into the woods to gather. The gathering grounds outside the woods usually had no wild beasts, but that time, no one knew how, a Spinefang Beast came running out of the woods. Small as Mao Xiaoshu was, he had an animal’s instincts.
The moment he saw the Spinefang Beast, he wanted to run, but it rooted him down. The beast seemed to have gone mad, Mao Xiaoshu was knocked to the ground, and still it wouldn’t let up, rooting at him again and again, and in the end even carried him off in its jaws.
When his mother heard him crying and threw down her firewood to run over, Mao Xiaoshu was already gone, with only blood covering the ground.
By the time Mao Xiaoshu’s father and the tribe found him, there wasn’t a single unhurt spot on his whole body, he was like something soaked in a pool of blood, with two holes gored through his belly.
He was blessed with a hardy life and survived, but no one knew what he’d been through during those two missing days. Ever since, whenever there was a thunderstorm, Mao Xiaoshu would be scared out of his wits, and sometimes he’d even go running about wildly.
Mao Xiaohe had worried the whole night before, sleepless, if the rain hadn’t been so heavy, she’d have come over.
A few years ago, when Mao Xiaohe married out, she’d taken Mao Xiaoshu into her home, uneasy about letting him live over here alone, afraid he’d go running off again.
Mao Xiaoshan was Mao Xiaohe’s mate, two years ago he’d broken his leg while out hunting. At the time, with the snow season coming and the family’s food stores not yet enough, Mao Xiaohe, so that the whole household, old and young, wouldn’t starve, swapped stone houses with Bao Adi’s family.
Bao Adi’s stone house was very small, Mao Xiaoshan’s was large. Bao Adi gave fifty catties of beast meat as compensation and took over Mao Xiaoshan’s stone house.
The stone house was so small that Mao Xiaoshan’s family could barely all fit, so Mao Xiaoshu had moved back here on his own.
When the rainy season was about to arrive, Mao Xiaoshan and Mao Xiaohe would call Mao Xiaoshu over every few days, urging him: when it rains you absolutely must not run outside, understand?
Every time, Mao Xiaoshu would nod.
But Mao Xiaohe still couldn’t set her mind at ease. This little brother of hers wasn’t quick-witted, when he was frightened, how could he possibly remember their words? Mao Xiaoshan would try to reassure her, saying Mao Xiaoshu was grown now, you can’t shield him forever.
The last few thunderstorms, Mao Xiaohe had come over to find Mao Xiaoshu hadn’t run off, and had eased her mind a little. But last night’s thunder was truly fearsome, as if it would split the sky, even she was afraid, let alone Mao Xiaoshu, so first thing this morning she’d come rushing over.
Mao Xiaoshu still remembered his errand and wanted to go borrow a bone knife from Ah Hong’s.
Mao Xiaohe asked him, “What do you want a bone knife for?”
Mao Xiaoshu answered obediently, “To cut fluff-grass. Sister Ah Hong said the snow season’s coming and I’ve got to cut fluff-grass, or it’ll be cold.”
Mao Xiaohe’s eyes reddened a little. In years past she’d always been the one to help Mao Xiaoshu prepare these things, but these last two years her mate had a broken leg, and between gathering and stockpiling winter food she simply couldn’t attend to things over here. If Mao Xiaoshu could prepare on his own, that was undoubtedly the best.
She felt a touch of comfort. “Mm, go on then. Stay at the edge of the woods, and don’t go running off, understand?”
“I understand,” Mao Xiaoshu said.
Fluff-grass only grew on the north side of the woods. The fluff on this grass was rather like cotton wadding, white, not prickly, and it didn’t itch to lie on. Every year, before the snow season came, the tribe’s beasts would cut some, dry it, and stuff it into their stone beds for warmth.
But fluff-grass didn’t keep you very warm, laid on a stone bed, in less than half a month it would grow damp, clump up, and turn hard.
Beast hide was warmer than fluff-grass.
Mao Xiaoshu couldn’t hunt, and beast hide, like salt-stone, was expensive, he couldn’t afford it, so all he could do was go cut fluff-grass.
This silly Mao Xiaoshu looked all sweet and dopey, a bit foolish, as if his head didn’t quite work.
And the truth was, his head really didn’t work all that well, but he was nimble at his tasks, cutting fluff-grass zip-zip-zip. Except that as he cut, his mind wandered again, there were birds calling over at Bear Slope.
Might there be bird eggs over there?
He hadn’t eaten pucker-fruit this morning, and had cut fluff-grass a good while, Mao Xiaoshu felt terribly hungry.
He stared over toward Bear Slope for a good while, stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, and in the end slowly walked over that way.
He was one to remember his food and forget his beatings [1]meaning: never learns his lesson, always tempted again jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2954293_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2954293_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
……
Birdcalls filled his ears, something crying out endlessly, the noise grating and harsh.
Qin Ziheng lay face-down, sprawled on the ground, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Perhaps dreaming of something, his brows were tightly knit. A black bird alighted on a branch beside him.
The big bird cawed a couple of times at the black, unidentifiable object on the ground, and seeming to decide this black thing posed no danger, spread its wings, flew onto Qin Ziheng, and stabbed its sharp beak down toward the side of his face.
“Caw, caw, caw…”
When the beak was only half a finger’s width from the black overcoat, the bird suddenly shrieked violently, its voice like a cracked gong, or like an infant not yet a month old wailing for its life, its wings flapping frantically.
Qin Ziheng had it by the neck. Seeing it black all over and hearing its dreadful cries, he instinctively flung it against a nearby tree trunk.
The bird dropped to the ground, then instantly beat its wings and fled in a scramble.
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