The sky was barely graying with the first faint light of dawn, draped in a light morning mist.
Lesser Fullness had just passed. As the proverb went, "Lesser Fullness, lesser fullness, the grains of wheat grow plump and full." North of the Yangtze River, the winter wheat had begun to milk and swell, plump yet not quite ripe—hence "Lesser Fullness."
Across the Guanzhong Plain, a thousand years of wind, frost, blood, and fire, of clash of arms and war drums, had long since sunk into the yellow loess ravines. At this hour, only the morning breeze stirred the sea of wheat, shaking loose droplets of dew with a soft, rustling whisper.
On the White Deer Plain, at Fort Li.
In the fields outside the village, two youths walked at an unhurried pace.
The one trailing behind was lean and wiry, dressed in short-cut clothes of coarse black cloth with leg wraps, carrying a wooden-shafted spear across his shoulder.
His skin was dark, and the slightest grin showed a mouthful of bright white teeth.
It was the mark of years spent working the fields.
Farm boys followed behind the adults into the dirt from the time they could walk, braving wind and rain, sweating buckets under the blazing sun. To be a little dark was only natural.
The one walking in front, however, was noticeably taller, back straight as a ramrod, fair-skinned with clean-cut features, his hair casually tied up in a topknot.
He wore the same black cloth clothes and leg wraps, yet across his back hung a bow, and at his waist swung a blade.
He could not be called handsome, only delicate-featured, but his eyes were striking.
Narrow and slanting at the corners, they were classic phoenix eyes, yet his dark pupils hung like suspended pearls. Looking into them, one felt a piercing, chill light and an underlying aura of command.
These were called dragon eyes, or dragon pupils. As the Classic of Physiognomy recorded: "The spirit of dragon pupils stands apart from the mortal realm, their gleam unmoving like dark pearls; tranquil as a cold pool in autumn stillness, they are a wonder of this world."
Phoenix eyes bearing dragon pupils was an exceedingly rare physiognomy.
The youth was named Li Yan, and he was not of this world.
Walking along the ridges between the fields, he could not resist brushing his hand over the wheat ears, feeling the plumpness of each grain. His eyes narrowed slightly, the daunting cold light fading as a faint smile touched his lips.
The wheat before him had been planted by his own hands.
When he first arrived in this world, Li Yan had found it difficult to adapt. But as the brilliant lights of his former life slowly faded from memory, he had grown used to this way of living.
The earth embraced all things.
Working at sunrise and resting at sunset, the restlessness and anxiety of his past life had long been buried in this yellow soil, washed away by the recurring joys of harvest.
"Brother Yan."
The dark, skinny youth behind him broke his train of thought, glancing around restlessly. "Blind Old Third might've bolted long ago. Let's head back."
Li Yan glanced back with a flick of his eyes. "You coward, aren't you going to avenge Er'niu?"
"What kind of talk is that?!"
The skinny youth bristled as if his tail had been stepped on, his face flushing crimson and his neck stiffening. "Er'niu is my sister! If I don't avenge her, my name's not Heidan—I'll pull out a pubic hair and hang myself with it!"
"It's just that wolves take kids when chickens roost, and wolves make merry when the sun is high! We don't go out at night, and we don't prowl at noon. How can we find anything at the crack of dawn?"
"Look at you, rattling off rhymes like you're studying for the imperial exams!"
Li Yan chided him, then turned his gaze toward the distant mountains and shook his head. "Blind Old Third isn't any ordinary wolf..."
Guanzhong had suffered wolf plagues since ancient times.
Over the past two years in particular, something unknown had stirred within the Qinling Mountains, and vicious wolves frequently emerged from the depths, descending to ravage the plains and plateaus.
These wolves were larger than those of the past, and far more cunning and bloodthirsty.
They preyed not only on livestock, but had a terrifying fondness for devouring children.
"When chickens roost" meant dusk; "when the sun is high" meant midday.
"Wolves take kids when chickens roost, and wolves make merry when the sun is high"—the saying meant these were the two times of day wolves loved most to hunt.
One might wonder: night was understandable, but in the heat of midday, how did wolves dare slip into the village to harm people?
What they didn't know was that common folk toiled from dawn till dusk and had to take shelter during the hottest hours around noon, which was precisely when the wolves prowled.
They were extraordinarily sly. While the adults were fast asleep at noon, they would slip between them and snatch away the child sleeping in the middle—a trick known as "pulling a garlic shoot."
They would even hide in the wheat fields, whimpering like crying babies; if curious children wandered in to investigate, they would be carried off in their jaws.
Blind Old Third was one such wolf that had come down from the Qinling Mountains.
It was thicker and burlier than any other wolf around.
To guard against the beasts over the last two years, the villages across White Deer Plain had set traps. When Blind Old Third first arrived, he fell into one and had an eye shot out. Nursing a bitter grudge, the beast fixated on tormenting Fort Li.
Search party after search party had tried to corner him, yet he slipped away every time.
From then on, the name "Blind Old Third" spread far and wide.
Some said Blind Old Third was unlike other wolves—that he had grown up on Mount Zhongnan, absorbed the mountain's spiritual energy, and attained spiritual cultivation.
Others grew terrified, even talking of building a shrine to appease him so he would stop terrorizing the village, though Fort Li's clan patriarch put a stop to that foolishness in time.
In short, Blind Old Third had become a shadow of terror hanging over Fort Li.
The period around the summer harvest was always when the wolf menace peaked.
Er'niu was Heidan's little sister, barely two years old. When their parents went out to the fields, they feared leaving her at home alone was unsafe, so they carried her on their backs.
Halfway through their chores, finding it too awkward to work with her strapped on, they set her down at the edge of the field.
The edge of the field bordered the official road, with plenty of villagers coming and going, so they assumed it would be safe enough.
Who could have guessed that in the blink of an eye, Blind Old Third would lunge out, seize Er'niu in his jaws, and dash off?
The folk of Fort Li grabbed sickles and hoes, chasing for several li, but by the time they found them, all that remained was a ragged ring of bloody swaddling.
Heidan's mother cried until she nearly fainted away, and his father, a man of fierce temper, rallied his kinsmen to scour the hills and wilds for days and nights on end, but found nothing.
Eventually people urged him to let it go, saying that she was only a girl after all, and with the busy farming season upon them, the search was called off.
Yet Heidan could not forget, and he went to Li Yan for help.
Li Yan was equally keen to rid them of this scourge, and he had given the matter much thought.
He reasoned that Blind Old Third was exceedingly cunning; perhaps, like an army mounting an ambush, he struck neither at night nor at noon, but just before dawn when people slept the deepest. And so, for the past several days, he had brought Heidan out two hours before sunrise to search. Yet after days of searching, they hadn't found so much as a single wolf hair.
This had begun to make even Li Yan doubt his own judgment.
As the two spoke, fish-belly white light showed on the distant horizon, casting the winding mountain range in deep silhouette, while wisps of cooking smoke rose from Fort Li.
"Let's go," Li Yan said, resting a hand on the hilt of his blade as he shook his head. "We'll try again tomorrow."
Disappointed though he was, Heidan nodded.
Guanzhong boys had a stubborn streak in their bones. He had made up his mind: this would only end once Blind Old Third was dead.
The two took no main roads, instead heading back toward the village along the hillside.
Heidan had snuck out in secret. He needed to scale the rear wall of his courtyard before his parents realized he was gone, or he would never be allowed outside again.
The closer they drew to the village, the more downcast Heidan became, not uttering a word.
Li Yan glanced at him. "What's the matter?"
Heidan muttered, "In a few days, Dad's taking me out to work as a wheat reaper."
Li Yan frowned at this. "Why leave before harvesting your own family's fields?"
Heidan said, "My dad heard that last year a lot of factories opened up in Tianjin and Jiangnan, and lots of young folks ran off to make money. Now there aren't enough hands on any of the plains.
"A few big landlords have already spread word that they're paying good wages this year. My dad wants to take me on a circuit to save up some money so I can take a wife."
Wheat reapers were an ancient trade.
Due to variations in climate across the Guanzhong region, wheat generally ripened in sequence from south to north and west to east.
As the saying went, "Three months of wheat cannot match an autumn in length, yet three months of autumn cannot match the rush of wheat harvest." Whenever Grain in Ear arrived and sickles were raised for the summer wheat harvest, the frenzy differed little from going to war.
Although hot, dry weather with scarce rain was the norm in Guanzhong at this time, the Dragon King might sneeze at any moment.
Wheat feared rain above all else; once soaked, it readily sprouted or turned moldy.
A folk proverb warned: "Harvesting wheat is like fighting a fire; snatch the grain from the dragon's maw."
Thus, every year at this season, people across Guanzhong traveled far and wide to reap wheat for others just to earn a bite to eat, known as wheat reapers.
In years past, it earned little money. If a landlord was kind enough to treat them to white-flour steamed buns, the reapers were already deeply grateful.
In bad years, they barely received a few coarse-grain flatbreads, to say nothing of wages.
Even so, a steady stream of wheat reapers poured forth.
The reason was simple: eating another family's food meant saving your own grain.
Life was hard for common folk; what was spending a bit of muscle?
Li Yan knew Heidan was not afraid of hard labor; he feared that once the summer harvest ended, Blind Old Third would flee elsewhere or retreat deep into the Qinling Mountains, leaving the blood debt unsettled forever.
At that thought, he patted Heidan on the shoulder and said seriously, "Don't worry. I ate your chicken, so that counts as my retainer. Blind Old Third—I'll see him dealt with, without fail!"
"Brother Yan, I believe you!"
Heidan nodded with utter conviction.
Across the eight-hundred-li Qin Plain of Guanzhong, the ethos of wandering knights had run strong since ancient times.
Even now, Guanzhong bladesmen kept their word as solemn as a thousand pieces of gold.
Li Yan's father had once been a bladesman who made a name for himself throughout Guanzhong.
Many in the village believed Li Yan would eventually walk the same path as his father.
Seeming to set aside his worries, Heidan looked back toward the distant mountains, a flicker of longing in his eyes. "I heard that the lads who went off as apprentices last year sent money home before the New Year..."
"Brother Yan, what do you think it's like on the other side of those mountains?"
Li Yan gave a light scoff. "What else could there be? Mountains are still mountains, and people are still people."
Before the words had completely left his mouth, his expression shifted slightly. He gripped Heidan's shoulder, sniffed the air, and lowered his voice: "Heidan, do you smell anything?"
Heidan sniffed as well and said, puzzled, "No, nothing."
Li Yan said no more, his face darkening with gravity.
Out in the fields and countryside, strange tales circulated—things like "ghostly blindfolds," "spirit possession," or the "Aunt Tiger."
The village had little entertainment. Only during festivals, Shehuo pageants, or temple fairs would the clan hire an opera troupe from the city of Chang'an, drawing folk from villages for ten li around.
On ordinary days, beneath the old tree at dusk, the stories told by village elders became the children's amusement, handed down from generation to generation.
There were tales of kings, princes, generals, and ministers, but far more were bizarre and uncanny.
Some believed them without question, swearing that such things had happened in this village or that, though none had seen it with their own eyes.
Others scoffed, dismissing them as mere jokes.
Yet Li Yan faintly sensed that some of these things might truly exist.
The reason was simple: a year ago, his sense of smell had begun to change. It had not only grown extraordinarily keen, but he could detect scents no one else could perceive.
For instance, at the Earth God shrine at the village entrance, even when no incense was burning, he could catch a faint scent of smoldering joss sticks...
Or by Widow Wang's house in the village—every time he passed by, he could smell a whiff of incense, tainted by a rank, musky reek...
And now, he caught another scent.
Foul, icy, and carrying a metallic trace of blood.
And this rank, musky reek was the very same smell he had caught back when they found Er'niu's remains...