In the end, Qian Xuegang soon mastered his grimace and heaved for a breath. His eyes shone as he spoke.

  “My close friend died. Shang Hansheng was he. He lived not here, but in the wilds. The beast took him south of the vilge, in the deep woods, where we wandered to look for herbs. I spent the better part of this day chasing it to avenge him, but I fear I have failed. The spirit escaped me and took his body with it.”

  Not Lu Yuxin then. The ashen one’s chest unclenched; allowed him a thin breath. He blunted his voice to a patable lilt.

  “Were you with your friend when he was ambushed?”

  “I was, yes,” answered the ndowner. It—”

  The man’s gaze fell as he clutched his injured arm to his breast. “This shall be my regret to my dying day.”

  “Cn Ming shall avenge him,” said the servant in the manner a lord would dismiss a maid. “What did you see, Qian-gongzi?”

  The white-haired ndowner hesitated. “A— bear-spirit, I think,” he tried. “It was a giant. Ghost fire burned in the bear’s eyes. It fell upon us from the shadows, so quiet that even the leaves did not stir, and wounded me. Hansheng tore it away from me, and it bit him. It — it mauled his chest and hauled him into the dark.”

  “You think?” echoed the ashen one, “but did you see a bear?”

  “The shape was reminiscent of a bear, yes. But it was a creature of ash and soot. It billowed in the wind. And I heard there are bear dens to the south. It must be a bear.”

  All this had been said, and yet was there not a word from Yin Yue, zongzhu of Ming.

  “I understand,” faltered the servant, thoughtful. “And your friend’s —,” he swallowed, remains. Did you find them afterwards?”

  The ndowner shook his head. His was a deep sigh, the ment unsaid.

  “Consumed, I fear. I found only blood.”

  At that, the ashen one allowed himself a slow exhale and willed his eyes to stay on the injured man. They drifted to ndowner’s hand.

  “You are injured,” said he, softer, “Qian-gongzi, how deep is the wound?”

  The ndowner drew back his sleeve. The gauze, spotted with dark red, climbed his lower arm.

  “Ming-zongzhu has brought with him medical remedies,” announced the ashen one. “May we see?”

  “If you insist,” retorted the ndowner. “I would rather you seek the spirit and end it. My wounds are not severe, and I do not wish to waste Ming-zongzhu’s time or resources.”

  But while the ndowner yet expined, the servant reached out to undo the gauze and bare the wound underneath.

  “Our cultivators hunt the ghost as we speak, Master Qian,” he soothed. “But Ming-zongzhu has medicinal knowledge and a penchant for the mender’s arts. He would not want you to suffer.”

  The gauze revealed a deep and hideous wound. Sharp teeth had torn the skin from the arm, though the wound no longer bled. Some fortune must the ndowner have had in his misfortune, for though the wound was deep and the edges jagged, as if he had torn his arm from the beast’s maw, the bone seemed unharmed. Most of the wound had crusted; the edges had even scarred a little.

  “Thank you,” repeated Qian Xuegang, “but I do not suffer. My cultivation is strong enough to manage a wound such as this. What I suffer cannot be mended with herbs and the healer’s arts.”

  At Huijin’s back, a bleak whisper escaped the zongzhu, the words too quiet to be heard. He hid like a cicada behind his servant.

  With hands as careful as a feather’s touch, Huijin dressed the ndowner’s wound. He kept his gaze low as he spoke and took no notice of the boy behind him.

  “Our condolences, Qian-gongzi.”

  “I hope Cn Ming shall rise to the occasion,” the ndowner parried. “You have my faith, of course.” He raised his head to look over the servant’s shoulder and found there the shrouded face of young Ming-zongzhu. With a raised voice, he added, “and you as well, young man, you have my faith also!”

  “Ah,” said the servant, his question gentle as the ndowner was about to leave them, “but Qian-gongzi, you yourself bear the appearance of a capable swordsman. Are you a cultivator?”

  “Perhaps was I once capable,” answered Qian Xuegang, mid-bow, “but what skills I had have rusted over the years. A decade ago, I used to wander the jianghu, but it has been long since I practiced the sword. My life, I fear, has been one of sheep’s wool and tenants. Sloth and folly, Huijin of Ming. And it has cost a man his life.”

  The boy mustered to speak then, a quaver to his voice. To an ear that did not know him, he might have sounded bashful and shy.

  “Where did Master Shang live?” asked he. “Did he leave family behind?”

  But to the servant’s ear, boy’s restraint hid far worse than timid reserve.

  Qian Xuegang did not hear what the gray one heard. He drew his wounded arm behind his back with another wince of pain.

  “No,” sighed he. “He was a recluse. He lived a hermit’s life in the mountains to the north. No kin — indeed, I suppose he only had me. We were like brothers; our friendship was well known.”

  “Then tell us what you can,” persisted Huijin. “While Ming-zongzhu’s — scouts search the fields and woodnds as we speak, we will stand even stronger with more knowledge. When did this spirit first appear?”

  “We knew not that it was a spirit at first,” mused the ndowner, “but it must have been a moon ago when I lost my first sheep.”

  “And before that? Were there any incidents in the vilge? An unexpected death, or some unforeseen tragedy? A hunt gone awry?”

  The ndowner gazed at the darkened skies above, his face a closed book as he considered. In the end, he shook his head and decred with utmost severity, “no, I can think of no such tragedy here. Not since the st zongzhu of Ming passed away. No tragedy has come close to that.”

  The boy’s fingers found the servant’s sleeve then. He clutched at the cloth and burrowed his nails into skin as his shoulders shook. With the cowl’s shelter, he appeared demure and frightened. But his shallow breath and reddened neck told another tale.

  And what then did Huijin have to suffer between the child’s inexplicable wrath and the words which scalded him like hot oil on bare skin?

  He did not know. All he knew was that he needed to be rid of this ndowner before him and be quick about it; the boy’s hands could no longer remain ignored.

  “Very well,” said he, “please do seek rest for the night, Qian-gongzi. Caodi is in capable hands.”

  “I am pleased to hear it. If I can be of use to Ming-zongzhu to trap this spirit, let me know. I will do all I can to see it sent.” The white-haired ndowner bowed. “May you rest well this night.”

  The boy murmured his courtesies as he bent his head. In return, the Qian Xuegang narrowed his eyes at the quiet, uncouth child, and as he clutched his wounded arm to his chest, he gave a faint shake of his head in silent disbelief.

  As soon as they had seen the man climb the hill on which his farmstead stood, Yin Yue kicked a pebble upon the road. It tore into a bush some distance away and clipped a thin branch in its path.

  Huijin cast a look around, then raised his hand and tore the cowl back from the boy’s shadowed face. When he spoke in anger, when his tarred temper was at st roused, his voice took on a hoarse tint. Now he stood at the end of his tether, his gaze like needles, the pallor of his skin stark in the dusk of the night.

  “Yin Yue! What possessed you? What kind of face did you present before that man?”

  A most strange sight greeted him as he shouted. The boy’s anger, so often wet and sullen in nature, now contorted his face. A hateful leer did the ashen one find; the boy’s face white as the moon’s light, the night’s maw in his eyes. So stark was this change, so foreign his hatred, that the servant could be forgiven if he thought the resentful spirit had possessed the zongzhu of Ming.

  Deaf to all rebukes, Yin Yue clenched his hands, his breath hot with disbelief. His chest heaved as he breathed, “how dares he? How dares he keep that token?” He raised his voice. Crimson dyed his cheeks as his blood rose, hot like molten iron. “He should not have it! Unworthy! He is unworthy!”

  This st cry tore the ashen one from his stupor. “Token—,” began he. Then, “have you lost your mind?”

  I have never seen you like this, whispered a chill breath at the back of the servant’s head.

  With forced composure, he decred, “if gege wished to bestow this Master Qian his own crane token, he must have held him in high favor. This is what concerns you? Men die in Caodi, and this is what you chafe at? Yin Yue —”

  He fell silent. No words could suffice.

  The boy turned for his servant then, his face like a bloom moon. He thrust a finger towards the farmstead ahead, a frail quiver to his wrist.

  “You don’t understand,” seethed he, “he is — he is—”

  And then, as he saw the horror on his ashen servant’s face in full, he at st perceived that the ashen one’s dread and astonishment was directed at himself. His hatred flickered and dwindled. Wet bewilderment welled in his eyes, and his hand shook harder.

  The servant’s hoarse voice cshed with the boy’s cry like a sword with a bde. He too bared his teeth.

  “What?” demanded Huijin, “What is he? Did you lose your head because that worthless porcein trinket was chipped? Did you not listen to a word of what he said?”

  The boy’s hand fell. Beads of sweat welled on his brow as his the mist in his eyes became tears on his hot cheeks.

  There was, said the wise, in the hearts of men with honed minds and keen spirits ever a small voice; the chime of a silver bell, the soft thrum of a drum. It was the whisper of premonition, the sixth elusive sense. The one portent of peril; the voice which told a man to halt and turn back, for imminent disaster loomed.

  And it was that whisper the ashen one heard now that voice which told him to swallow his wrath lest he spurred his young master to some camitous act —

  — such as fleeing across the fields in a fit of temper.

  He ran a hand over his eyes.

  “I apologize, Yue’er,” he forced. One of them had to end this. It would not be the boy. “Tell me how this Qian Xuegang provoked you.”

  Yin Yue drew a breath as wet as the river’s froth. His shoulders shook as if he thought to flee the wretched confines of his mortal shell.

  “I — I just — he does not deserve the crane, Huijin. It is all wrong. He allowed it to be chipped. It — it was not just that, though. I vow it. It — he —”

  He cwed at mist and vapor. No matter what reason he took into his mouth, he found it inane now. And as he spoke, the confusion in his voice only grew. His was a lean, thin frame, unfit to hold confusion, hatred and tears all at once.

  “He did not care for the farmers at his farmstead,” he reasoned. “Even though they feared so for him. No, uh, his brother died for him, and he acted as if he chose the wrong livelihood — no, not just that. Right?”

  Huijin did not look him; did not even face him. He stood with his eyes hidden in his hand, his old way seek reprieve from this very realm. And though his apology had been courteous and sincere, it had also been hollow and bereft of warmth; a tomb in the days of winter.

  If gege, whose warmth had shone like a radiant dawn, had held any reproach for the man he had cherished as his closest confidant, it had been for this; with no true spite or insolence, without as much as a hard word, his Huijin could still make a man wish himself scoured from the surface of the realm. No shoulder could be colder, no silence heavier, than that of Yin Zhaoyang’s dearest friend.

  “What else?” asked he.

  In the end, the boy stood quiet. No defense had he; no expnation. Small was he then, this zongzhu of Ming, small as a leaf adrift on the sea.

  His voice shrank with him, fell deeper and frayed like old cloth. “I — I do not like him. Huijin? He should not— have it,” was all he could say. He raised his head; braved the frost he knew awaited him.

  “Huijin, do you truly not see it?”