After leaving the Luo residence, the pair didn’t head straight home. Instead, they veered off into the mountains.
“Dajie, why did you pick the bow?” Jiang Ming asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. “I’ve never used one before. I’ll need to spend time practicing my aim.”
“I’ll use it,” Jiang Yue replied simply.
Jiang Ming stared at her. Was she joking? She wanted to hunt? Despite his doubts, he found himself instinctively handing the weapon over as she reached out.
Jiang Yue took a feathered arrow and notched it. With just two fingers gripping the string, she drew the bow into a full, effortless crescent.
Swish!
The arrow whistled through the air. A sharp bird cry followed, and a grey shadow tumbled from the trees, thrashing as it fell.
Jiang Ming’s expression shifted from shock to pure delight in an instant. He shoved through the underbrush toward the sound. There, struggling in the grass, was a grey bird with an arrow through its wing.
“Dajie! How are you so accurate?”
“I was born with it,” Jiang Yue lied smoothly. In truth, it had taken years of grueling practice in her previous life to achieve such precision.
She glanced at the struggling bird, which was about the size of a pigeon. Plucking her arrow back, she muttered to herself, “I’m out of practice. My aim is off; I need more work.”
Curious, Jiang Ming took the bow back. He tried to mimic her stance, but even straining with every ounce of his strength, he couldn’t pull the string to a full draw. He felt a sudden wave of deflation. He couldn’t even pull the damn thing, yet his sister made it look like child’s play. He supposed if her strength was god-given, her aim must be too.
As Grandfather used to say, Fourth Uncle was a born scholar, and Dajie was a born archer.
Actually, Dajie was much better than Fourth Uncle. He’d studied for over a decade and failed twice before finally passing the entry-level exams. Dajie had never had a lesson in her life and had taken down a bird on her first try!
Clutching the injured bird, Jiang Ming followed his sister deeper into the woods. They eventually stumbled upon a rabbit—or more accurately, the tip of a rabbit’s head peeking out of a burrow.
Jiang Ming reached for the bow but immediately remembered his sister’s skill. He shoved it toward her. “Dajie, shoot the rabbit!”
Jiang Yue waved him off. Moving with lightning speed, she located the nearby bolt-holes and plugged them with stones. She left only one exit open and told Jiang Ming to stand guard. After blowing a thick cloud of smoke into the hole, six rabbits came scrambling out.
The entire nest was captured alive: two large adults and four smaller ones—a whole family. They were plump, with sleek, healthy grey fur.
An excited Jiang Ming tied the rabbits together and slung them over his shoulder. Between the rabbits, the bird, and the bow, he refused to let Jiang Yue carry a single thing. After picking a handful of wild fruit for the walk, they began the trek back.
On the way home, a figure suddenly stepped out from the shadows, blocking their path. It was Luo Douzi.
“Were you born with divine strength?” Luo Douzi asked.
He ignored Jiang Ming, who had stepped protectively in front of his sister, and stared at Jiang Yue with eyes full of envy. He had clearly witnessed her display of archery. He had originally followed them to make peace with Jiang Ming, but after seeing his sister’s incredible power and marksmanship, his focus had shifted entirely to her.
Jiang Ming blocked his line of sight. He shook the bundle of rabbits, untied the smallest one, and tossed it toward him with a look of disdain. “Whether my sister has divine strength is none of your business. We agreed on a ten-percent fee for your family—did you think we’d go back on our word? Take it and get lost. Stop following us like a thief.”
Luo Douzi waved the rabbit away. “I don’t want the rabbit! Why are you returning kindness with such hostility? If I hadn’t convinced my grandfather back there, would he have even lent you the gear? Move aside, I want to talk to your sister.”
Jiang Ming’s internal alarm bells went off instantly. “What do you want with my sister? Take the rabbit and get lost. If you don’t start walking, believe me, I’ll give you a thrashing!” He began rolling up his sleeves, his face tight with resolve.
Luo Douzi smirked and took a step closer, mockingly measuring his height against Jiang Ming’s. Seeing that the top of Jiang Ming’s head barely reached his nose, he hopped back a step with an easy laugh. “Listen to you talk! As if you could actually beat me. Have you forgotten the last time we placed a bet…“
“Shut up!” Jiang Ming’s face flushed a deep, angry crimson. “I was younger then! Let’s try it again right now—I’ll knock your teeth out!“
The memory of that day stung. Years ago, he had lost only because he was smaller and weaker, leading to a humiliation he had never lived down. But he wasn’t that helpless kid anymore. That incident was far too shameful for his sister to find out about; he began frantically trying to unbind the rabbits from his belt, determined to fight Luo Douzi and wash away his old disgrace.
Luo Douzi’s laugh became more boisterous. “Let’s go, then! Hurry up and untie them, don’t let me stand here all day. I have business with your sister. When I win this time, you won’t have to crawl through—“
“You arrogant brat!” Jiang Ming hissed, his face now red all the way down to his neck. He cursed inwardly, regretting how securely he had tied the rabbits; the knots wouldn’t budge in his haste.
Standing behind them, Jiang Yue realized there was bad blood between the two, and clearly, her brother had come out on the losing end. Judging by his frantic embarrassment, it wasn’t a story he wanted her to hear. Looking at the two of them, it was obvious Jiang Ming was physically outmatched, and his current agitation wouldn’t help him win a fight.
She stepped between them, placing a hand on Jiang Ming’s arm to steady him. She looked directly at Luo Douzi. “What do you want with me?“
Now that she was looking closely, she noticed the boy was about fifteen or sixteen. Despite his coarse, patched clothes, he had striking features—sharp, well-defined brows and bright eyes. In her previous world, he would have been a quintessential “pretty boy” idol. It seemed a waste for someone with his looks to be a farmer, or even a hunter.
Luo Douzi dropped his arrogant smirk, his expression turning serious. “When are you going into the deep mountains to hunt? Why don’t you take me with you? Our families could partner up.“
The village rumors said Jiang Yue was a simpleton, but the person he saw before him was calm, calculated, and incredibly skilled. The speed with which she had notched and fired that arrow was something an ordinary person couldn’t achieve without years of training.
As far as he knew, the Jiang family was incredibly stingy toward the eldest branch; there was no way they would have paid for a girl to learn a trade. He didn’t believe in “natural talent” to this degree. He had watched her from a distance while she was catching the rabbits, and he had never seen anyone move with such clinical efficiency. She was only twelve or thirteen—had she encountered some wandering martial arts master who had taught her in secret?
It was the only logical explanation. He just wondered why he never had the luck to run into a legendary master himself.
If Jiang Yue could have read his mind, she would have told him that she had met a master—just in a different life. Her mentor had been peerless in archery, martial arts, and acupuncture. She had studied for two years and only scratched the surface: her medical knowledge was limited to common herbs and basic pressure points, but she had mastered a set of continuous boxing forms through daily practice. Her archery, however, was the one skill that had become second nature.
“Are you sure?” Jiang Yue asked, weighing his intent. It was his family’s gear, after all, so she couldn’t dismiss him too harshly. “The deep mountains are dangerous. Besides, my brother promised your grandfather we wouldn’t go in there.“
“The outer hills only have pheasants and hares,” Luo Douzi countered. “That’s enough to fill your belly, but hard to make real money. The deep mountains have black bears. Now those are worth a fortune.“
Jiang Ming cut in immediately. “Don’t you dare trick my sister into hunting bears with you! If you want to throw your life away, do it alone!“
“We’ll talk about this later,” Jiang Yue said, ending the debate.
She did plan on heading into the deep woods eventually, as game was scarce nearby, but she intended to scout it out alone first. She looked up at the sky; it was getting late, and her stomach was growling. It was a strange trade-off—the heavens might have skipped over the original girl’s intellect, but they had given her a massive appetite and the strength to match.
“Stop pestering my sister,” Jiang Ming warned Luo Douzi one last time. He turned to Jiang Yue, his voice softening instantly. “Dajie, let’s go.“
Luo Douzi wasn’t in a rush. As he turned to leave, Jiang Ming’s threats annoyed him enough that he decided to take the offered rabbit after all. No sense letting a free meal go to waste.
On the way home, Jiang Ming grumbled incessantly. “Luo Douzi’s father was mauled by a black bear and died after they carried him home. That kid has been shouting about revenge for years… Dajie, don’t listen to a word he says. The rabbits we caught today are fat; one could sell for over a hundred wen. We’ll eat one tonight, and Dad can take the rest to town tomorrow to sell.“