The Girl and the Wolf
Fourth Continent, Rising Wind Season, Autumn · Ti Wolf Festival
(Ti: a cinnabar-yellow, orange-red hue; also refers to armed personnel, the Ti cavalry. Today it names the five elders' ti robes, a surviving color of ancient military dress. — Commentary on the Master of Robes, Spring Offices)
In the ninth year of the Rising Wind Season, this land had passed beyond the brightest season of the "Blazing Sun," and the vitality the wind carried let all things grow. Over several years, the animals of the mountain forests multiplied greatly. The wolf packs that chased their food bathed in the forest wind and grew stronger from its abundance; no longer hiding or feigning, after absorbing the vitality of the "Blazing Sun" attribute, their gray-maned coats were dyed orange-yellow and crimson, and they became fiercer and more untamed.
A gentle breeze brushed the forest, and a pale-yellow, faintly reddish leaf drifted slowly down from a branch to land on the head of the girl beneath the tree.
The leaf's dry, stiff edge scraped across that snow-white, smooth hair, then slid down along the wind and the strands to fall onto the shaded forest floor thick with dead leaves.
A girl was facing off against a vicious wolf.
Xilutaiya watched the orange-red vicious wolf before her with a tense expression, a low growl rumbling in its throat. One hand twisted the side of her dress, the other trembled faintly in the air, while the corner of her eye searched desperately for anything usable nearby.
Anything would do—a branch, a stick—at least it would beat facing this vicious wolf bare-handed.
She couldn't recall anymore. One moment her memory had her sitting on a bus heading home to her hometown, and the next she woke in this uninhabited forest. She'd walked a full hour without finding any trace of human presence. If everything before her and around her hadn't felt so real, she would have suspected she was dreaming.
"Wuuu..." The low sound came again.
Baring its lips, the red wolf revealed interlocking canines and bright red gums; the orange-red mane on its back bristled slightly, its forequarters lowered, its triangular eyes fixed on the silver-haired girl, as if sizing up the strength of its opponent. As a vicious wolf tainted by the "Blazing Sun" attribute, it had gradually risen above the bounds of an ordinary beast and gained a measure of wit.
Its opponent's snow-white, tender skin and clean, gentle scent marked her, without exception, as an exceptionally rare delicacy. Though it had never eaten a human, the instinct in its blood told it that the creature before it would be the most delicious food of its entire wolf life.
Eat her!
The red wolf moved. The girl barely saw how it leapt, but when the wolf's head was less than half a meter from her, she reacted.
Twisting her body aside, her right hand blocking before her chest, as the red wolf sprang into the air she brought the slender fingers from her sleeve nimbly onto its head; her ring finger happened to press against the wolf's eye, and the stiff lashes and moist eyeball made her heart clench. Even so, she forced down the terror rising in her chest and swatted the wolf's head aside, sending its lunge into empty air to the right of her body.
After dodging the first strike, Xilutaiya had no time to think; half stumbling, she dashed forward, bent as she ran to grab the branch she'd spotted in panic a moment ago, then spun back—just as the red wolf lunged at her again.
She'd fallen to the ground while grabbing the branch, and had no time to rise; all she could do now was pull her lower legs in as far as possible to keep them from the wolf's teeth.
Missing its target and getting only the hem of the girl's dress, the red wolf released its jaws, and with its gaze full of murder, lunged once more at Xilutaiya's throat. Now Xilutaiya thrust out the dead branch she clutched, aimed it at the open wolf mouth, and jammed it inside.
The rough bark of the branch stabbed into the soft windpipe and gave the red wolf a violent urge to retch; it recoiled, thrashing its head, trying to fling the branch out of its throat.
The fierce struggle came through the branch in her hand. Xilutaiya knew that at this moment she must not, by any means, let the red wolf shake it free. One hand gripped the lower end of the branch and drove it deeper into the wolf's mouth, while the other seized the fur at the wolf's back and neck, trying to pin it down.
The coarse orange-red mane was rather prickly, and the flesh of the neck beneath the fur was hard to hold. This fellow is quite sturdy, the girl couldn't help thinking.
To keep the red wolf from breaking loose, she pressed down on it with both knees, and several times she nearly lost her grip; meanwhile the dress beneath her was torn and clawed again and again by the wolf's paws, leaving burning scratches on her legs through the cloth.
Time passed...
She didn't know how many minutes had gone by. Just as Xilutaiya felt she couldn't hold on any longer, the red wolf's struggles beneath her finally began to fade. Bloody froth spilled from its mouth, yet the girl still wasn't reassured; she went on driving the branch deeper into the wolf's windpipe, and continued until it lay wholly motionless, its heart stilled. Only then did she finally ease her nerves and calm a little.
Slowly standing, Xilutaiya realized her back had long since been drenched in sweat, and some strands of hair had stuck to her forehead. She drew a deep breath, settling the pulse that had raced so wildly before, and now at last had the leisure to look around.
Orange-yellow, crimson, and a trace of black—Xilutaiya studied the fur of the dead vicious wolf at her feet. In either shape or color, she had never seen the like; in her memory there were wolves with orange-red coats somewhere in America, but their form was nothing like this one's.
Her fingers lightly touched the coarse fur, and an exceedingly faint heat came through—weaker the closer to the roots, strongest at the tips, where it even gave a slight prickly feel.
[Ti Wolf]
In the middle to late part of the Rising Wind Season, wolf beasts, tainted by the power of the "Blazing Sun" attribute, have their coats turn orange-yellow and become "Ti Wolves." When the fur over their whole body turns a flame-like crimson, they become a first-order "Red Wolf." Fierce Red Wolves bring great harm to the residents and livestock of villages, to the point that the image of such creatures often appears in fairy tale books.
Note: the pelts of "Ti Wolves" and "Red Wolves" hold a trace of "Blazing Sun" attribute power, giving them quite good warmth in winter; if they can be preserved until the Deep Mist Season, their value rises still further.
Her eyes blinked. Xilutaiya was startled by the knowledge that had surfaced in her mind—how she could know the creature's origin from a dead wolf, and even learn part of this world's history and customs.
Seems there's still quite a lot for me to figure out.
Slowly rising to her feet, she looked around, then reached out and gave the wolf corpse a testing tug; its heaviness made her abandon any idea of dragging it along.
She had no blade at hand, so skinning or dissecting or anything of the sort was out of the question—and besides, she'd never killed a wolf before and had no idea where to begin.
After a few seconds' thought, Xilutaiya decided to keep heading out of the forest. She didn't know whether the dead wolf's body would draw other creatures, but at this point, since she couldn't make use of it, she could only leave it far behind.
After resting a few minutes, Xilutaiya straightened her disheveled dress and hair and continued on through the shade. Judging by the sun's position, it was about three or four in the afternoon, past the hottest part of the day.
She didn't know where she might find food or a place to spend the night. The girl touched her belly and felt she wasn't hungry yet.
This body was clearly not the one she'd worn before, yet there was no stiffness in the way it moved, as though it had always been hers. Walking through the shade, Xilutaiya slowly sorted through her memories.
She remembered it clearly: this time, because a call came from her hometown, she'd put in for annual leave at the company to go home.
Boarding the speeding high-speed train, she left the big city where she'd worked for years and headed for the hometown she hadn't seen in ages. Ever since graduating high school and going off to another city for university, then leaving to take up work after graduation, the days she'd returned home could be counted on one hand—probably just those few days around New Year.
Come to think of it, it had been a long time since she'd walked among the mountains and forests like this. The girl raised her head, one hand lightly shading her forehead, and gazed up at the pale green and yellowing leaves overhead.
As a child, every summer vacation she would go to her grandparents' place and play for ages. Her grandparents didn't live in the city but in a remote mountain village, where there were rolling green hills, little streams, and all manner of creatures.
Grandfather kept a herd of goats and sent them up the mountain to graze every day, and as a girl Xilutaiya would follow along with a few of her older female cousins. Everything in the mountains and woods was endlessly fresh and new to her, having grown up in the city.
Chestnuts like spiny balls, split open; mock strawberries, bright red and mouth-watering, along the mountain path; green berries grown in knobby clusters; the odd strange call of a bird; and owls in the trees, hard to make out against the fallen leaves—the presence of these things was like a vivid splash of color in an otherwise drab life, and made the young Xilutaiya especially happy.
A city child's childhood was fairly dull; looking back, most of her time was spent at school, in tutoring classes, doing homework, taking exams. Only when she got to her grandparents' house was there no one urging her to study, and she could play as she pleased. Her uncle and aunt doted on her too, asking what she liked to eat and doing their best to give it to her.
Dragonflies, fireflies, caterpillars, butterflies, even the snakes in the firewood pile—these things from books she'd seen for the first time in her hometown's mountain village, and going there each summer had become the happiest time of her year.
Sitting on the bus heading to her hometown, she leaned against the window and thought back on the past; the sunlight outside fell through the roadside shade onto her, and for a moment her sight blurred and dimmed.
This would be a good time to go fishing; and if she could catch a few crucian carp to make soup, so much the better.
Crucian carp are small fish, and the only kind she'd ever caught as a child; back then there was only a bamboo pole, some fishing line, and a fishhook, far from the gear people had nowadays.
After she landed her first crucian carp, she and a few of her older brothers and sisters gathered around the bucket, unsure what to do—put it back in the water? None of the children were willing to give up a fish caught with such effort, but eating it? The fish didn't look like it had much meat.
The silvery scales were slippery in the hand and threw off a faint iridescent sheen when held up to the sun; along the midline on both sides of its body ran a row of little dots that made the children especially curious.
In the end it was her aunt who helped, cleaning the fish they'd caught and making it into soup.
"What a shame Grandpa didn't get to eat it..." The girl recalled the scene from when she was ten and sighed with some regret.
After that fishing trip, Grandfather heard of it and laughed that he'd missed out—she should catch him one sometime. She and her brothers and sisters readily promised, but after that, fearing the children might drown playing by the water, the grown-ups never let them near the river again.
In time the matter gradually faded from memory—until a few days ago, when she got the call and learned that Grandfather had passed away, and then set out on the journey back.
...
She didn't know whether she could ever return to the world she'd come from; perhaps even if she did, it would be very, very long from now. Still, she missed the hometown of her memory, and those lovely moments that had warmed her whole childhood.
With both hands spread lightly to keep her balance, the girl's toes came down nimbly on the stones hidden beneath the dead leaves, and she made her way down the mountain. After so many years, that old familiarity with mountain terrain returned to her heart, letting her slip easily past rugged slopes and bushes, threading through the layered shade.
So she went on, until, just before the sun was about to set, she crossed one last small rise and saw, in the distance, curling wisps of cooking smoke rising.
A medieval village ringed by fields, calm and quaint, came into view.
Here there were no familiar utility poles, no level cement roads—only houses built of stone and rough timber; quaint windmills stood in the wheat fields, turning slowly, and piles of straw had been bundled and left out across the fields and meadows.
When a carriage of iron-rimmed frame rolled slowly along a path between the fields, the shield-hided beast drawing it came into view, and Xilutaiya finally understood: this was a wholly different world, and if she ever wanted to return to her hometown, she likely had a very, very long road ahead of her.
Wasn't it supposed to be a story where she got a letter from Grandfather, went home to inherit the fields and pastures, and settled into a leisurely pastoral life away from work? Wasn't that the script?
The situation had taken a sharp turn indeed, the girl grumbled inwardly, and then walked toward the village below the mountain.
(End of this chapter)