Mountain Demon

Rumble—the mountain flood came surging down the path up the mountain, yellow waves rolling high, sweeping gravel, mud, sand, and torn-off branches down in its wild rush. The eight-man team swayed and staggered in the powerful current, thighs thudding again and again as rocks and branches in the water slammed into them. Xu Yao followed behind Third Squad captain Liu Zhen. He was lean and tall, his features softly cut, but his brows were naturally straight and even, cleanly drawn, the tails lifting slightly, their keen edge lending his face a natural air of severity. His eyes, too, were of startling black-and-white contrast—above all when he glanced sideways, they gave off a 'cold clarity,' like the frostbound crown of a distant peak, carrying its own snow and ice. Two bearlike bruisers hemmed him in front and behind as they pressed on, one reaching out a hand to haul him forward, the other reaching out to shove him along by the backside. At the very front, Captain Liu Zhen led the way with his body arched like a drawn bow, fighting upstream against the flood with everything he had, his towering frame advancing like a moving iron tower. "Captain! Three chi ahead, on the left!" Xu Yao was shouting. Liu Zhen didn't hesitate. With a great roar he slashed his blade into the yellow waves. Then he hauled out of the murky torrent a snake as thick as an arm, already just half a body with no head—and headless, it was still spasming and twisting. Every bruiser behind him bared his teeth, pupils shrunk small, a wave of belated dread running through the lot. "Big Fatty! Hahahaha, good lad! That's our extra dish for later!" Liu Zhen let loose a wild laugh in the middle of the rainstorm and pushed ahead at the head of the line once more. This kind of venomous snake rode down hidden in the three-chi-deep floodwater of the storm. With the flood roaring and thunder booming, so long as it never surfaced it was simply impossible to detect. One bite on the leg, and the whole compound would be sitting down to the funeral feast. But with Xu Yao along, that had stopped happening entirely. Because he could always see it coming. So the seven rough, bearlike bruisers of Third Squad had gone from despising the pretty boy on that first outing to warmth now—and in this downpour they treasured the kid like a precious bundle. Life insurance, that's what he was. If the precious bundle hadn't refused, the bear-bruisers would gladly have carried him up the mountain on their backs. The way they addressed him had traveled from 'Pretty Boy' on his first mission, to 'Clerk Xu' on the second, to 'Little Xu' on the third, and now to an affectionate 'Big Fatty' in the heart of the rainstorm and flood—skipping clean over his real name and 'Nine Jin.' They were rough, hearty men; what they called a person said everything about how they regarded him. If they could use a pet name, you were basically a friend whose life was staked on theirs. Four missions out, and they had fully accepted him, taken to him, come to lean on him. From casting him aside like a worn-out shoe to guarding him now like the apple of their eye. This kid was just too useful. Xu Yao studied the water below, on either side, intently. Ever since the realization that 'so I can be useful too,' he had thrown earnest care into everything he did. Utterly focused. He refused to fall back into that mediocrity that left him feeling powerless, so he cherished this chance and gripped it hard. He himself had no idea how hard he was gripping. Because he had suddenly discovered: so this was how unwilling I am to accept my own mediocrity. Lying flat is comfortable—but only once I had something to run toward did I realize that what I wanted most was never comfort. "Captain! Right!" Shk! One slash, and Liu Zhen, laughing loudly, reached out and grabbed—a spider the size of a human head came out. Startled, he flung it away with a flick of his wrist. "Fuck it too!" The others roared with laughter. "Captain, we can't eat this one?" "Eat your head!" Liu Zhen stripped off his beast-hide gloves, stuffed them into his rucksack, pulled on a fresh pair, and only then gripped his blade again and moved out. He had just grabbed a venomous spider; those gloves would need a good wash back home before they could be used again. From there— "Captain! Ahead!" "Captain! Left—" Xu Yao watched every movement around him and every stretch of water beneath the flood ahead, calling out warnings without pause. Beside the mountain path ahead stood an old locust tree, only as thick as two arms locked around it. At the sight of it Liu Zhen finally let out his breath. "Past this and we're at our ground, Black Pine Ridge." In the middle of the flood he grinned at Xu Yao beside him. "Big Fatty, commit this old locust tree to memory—it's a treasure. There's an underground cellar beneath it. When we patrol the mountain and get this far, we can climb down and rest, sleep. We even keep things stored inside, something to put the strength back in your legs." Xu Yao: "Huh?" All the big men laughed. "That's our secret strongpoint! Captain, aren't you afraid Big Fatty will go back and sell the brothers out to the brigade captain?" Liu Zhen laughed too. "He's one of us. Nothing to it. Even if the brigade captain knew, he wouldn't say a word." "Who's worried about what he'd say? We're worried he'd eat everything we've stashed..." Leaning on the tree, they caught a few breaths, then pushed on up the mountain. By the time Xu Yao had called six more warnings, the team finally charged up over the crest. Then the stripping began. All eight of them, still getting hammered by the downpour, tore off their clothes at once—first peeling the thick green grass felt from their legs layer by layer, then hauling down their trousers, each man searching his legs and body for vermin. Bloodsucking worms, leeches, legless grubs, ants—several dangling off every one of them. Two of the bruisers, fumbling as they stripped off their own, ignored the spasming worms hanging from their legs and rushed over first to check Xu Yao and pick the bugs off him. "I don't need—" Xu Yao clamped his legs together and covered his crotch, panicking. "No—not—especially not there—" "Hahahahaha..." An explosion of laughter. "Well, well—he really doesn't have a single bug." As they left, the bruisers gave his backside a friendly parting slap. Whack! "Everybody, help each other. There's no applying medicine in this rain, so anywhere the vermin bit you, squeeze hard—force out as much blood as you can. When you're done, slap the wound good with your palm." Captain Liu Zhen was bellowing. Xu Yao cleaned himself off. Truly not a single bite—while every other man carried at least a dozen. He alone had none. So he turned to help the burly Zhang Sanping squeeze the poisoned blood out of his back. This was the one who had held him in the most contempt when he first joined, hollering 'backdoor pretty boy' all day long. His attitude had improved since, so Xu Yao decided to let the old grudge go and help him out. He set his teeth and squeezed with all the strength in his body. He squeezed so hard that a patch of bruise bloomed blue-black across Zhang Sanping's back on the spot, and Zhang slapped at the wound with everything he had—whack, whack, whack... Zhang Sanping, in the same breath as squeezing the poisoned blood out of Bao Facai's back ahead of him, winced and grimaced, muttering under his breath: "I suspect this kid is paying me back for how I looked down on him, but I've got no proof..." Bao Facai bared his teeth. "Don't need proof... he IS paying you back, hahahaha..." Liu Zhen took out a water clock and glanced at it. "One more shichen. The yin qi gathers, wandering souls come clinging from every direction—and the mountain demon is made." He looked at Xu Yao. "Before a mountain demon takes shape, the demon-catching compass of our Black Mountain observation array will point the way. So we must all arrive before it forms. Too late, and the moment it forms it abandons the spot and vanishes without a trace; years on, it will have become a great demon laying waste to the whole region." Xu Yao had asked this question on his first mission. But back then they had all looked down on this pretty boy, and a grunted "why do you care so much? Just follow along" had fobbed him off. After that, Xu Yao never asked again. But now Liu Zhen was explaining it himself, and in detail. Everyone else had known all along—this was plainly being explained for his sake alone. "So that's it. That's why we always rush the march. We're buying time." Xu Yao nodded. An inexplicable sense of accomplishment rose in his chest; the corner of his mouth twitched upward before he could stop it, and he hastily forced it down. Heh heh heh... So having a skill people respected felt this good. Then what if I got stronger still? He had never hidden the matter of his eyes, because that was where his value lay. His father had said it: only someone with value is worth cultivating. "This rain is an eerie one. When it's past, I figure every brother in every Mountain Guard Brigade of the Demon Suppression Inspection Office across this whole region will be running his legs off." Worry sat on Liu Zhen's rugged face. "Every year, from spring's first thunder, the mountain demons wake and begin gathering strength. Summer and autumn, with all their thunderstorms, are when mountain demons, wood demons, demon beasts, and uncanny fiends take shape—new ones without end—and we have to grind on until the first snow falls. Then it eases. Winter has its troubles too, but very few; at the least we get four months of breathing room." While directing the squad in rigging up a crude tarp shelter in the downpour—eight men huddling inside, packed together out of the rain—Liu Zhen walked Xu Yao through it, and the other six big men listened just as closely. All bare-backed, they broke into laughter at the purple-red blotch across Zhang Sanping's spine. "Sanping, who worked your back over? What a masterpiece." "Ah, don't even ask. Big Fatty did it." "Serves you right! That's what you get for antagonizing people!" "Never took Big Fatty for such a scheming grudge-keeper." The others were in stitches: "Count yourself lucky no one rubbed salt in it!" Salt? Xu Yao's eyes lit up at once. "Oh?" He spun to stare at Zhang Sanping's back, itching to try it. Zhang Sanping shuddered and dropped his head, face crumpling. "Big Fatty, I was the one in the wrong before. I looked down my nose at people..." "Hahahaha..." The others laughed until they couldn't breathe. The tarp was too narrow; two men's backs were left out in the open, and the rain smashed down on them like it was beating on tough water-buffalo hide, a dull boom with every blow. "With things like mountain demons and wood demons, finding them before they take shape is the easiest way. At that stage, though they already have spirit, they're still just a tree that cannot move. At the instant of forming—when the green glow rises from the ground in a clump—one stroke of the blade kills it. Then you take the essence-spirit root, carry it back, hand it in, and that counts as merit." "Strike too early and it fails: the spirit scatters and gathers itself again somewhere new. Too late fails too." "And if the transformation completes and it can tear itself out of the soil and fly—then it's a disaster." "It stops being a question of whether we can catch it and becomes a question of whether a squad like ours can live. And if one gets away from here and flies, then for years to come, I'm afraid, every soul in this whole Black Mountain region will face a gate of death." Liu Zhen sighed. "That's why we move out even in today's storm and fight tooth and nail to arrive first. When you go out on missions on your own someday, remember this too: never mind a downpour—hail, knives falling from the sky, you get there ahead of it!" "Even if not for the folks back home, do it for yourselves and your brothers. Let one appear in your territory and the charge of dereliction comes down, and all the brothers lose their heads together. But if you die out on a mission—say hail smashes you flat—as long as your mates finish the job, you're a martyr, a hero of merit, and your family is looked after. Slack off, and if the mountain demon slips away, you're a criminal; even once the blade has taken your head, your whole family suffers with you. Your children will carry that disgraced name their whole lives!" "Chisel this into your memories, all of you!" "A mountain demon normally appears as a single one; only in the rarest cases can there be twins. That's why mission squads generally go down in pairs, just in case. But if the intelligence says one, and you go down and find three—then bad luck has dropped its roof on your head, and that's fate! The whole squad is finished." "Every time you go out, pray you never meet with that." When he finished, Liu Zhen shuffled back a step, giving up his space, and pulled the two bruisers whose spines had been taking the rain in under the tarp. Most of his own body stayed out in the weather, bare back getting smacked loud and wet by the downpour, spray flying. "Boss, we're fine." "Save your breath!" Liu Zhen grumbled, "You two have the big bellies. Go squeeze in with Big Fatty there—warm him up some." A howl of laughter went up at once. Xu Yao said, horrified, "No need—they've got body odor... urp..." Liu Zhen, only his head still under the tarp, fished a compass from behind his waist and studied the needle. It was a special compass, a black-red needle at its center holding rock-steady on one direction: the sheer cliff right beside the spot where they stood. The storm showed no sign of letting up. Lightning netted the sky, flashing the land bright and dark by turns. A little while later. "This storm isn't stopping—we're done waiting. Niu Sibao! Zhang Sanping!" "Here!" "Ropes." "Already rigged!" Liu Zhen nodded and brought out several lot sticks. "The rest of you, draw." The six big men crowded in and drew their lots in dead earnest. Then one buck-toothed fellow threw his head back and laughed in delight: "Mine! I drew it!" The other five cursed him as one, crestfallen: "A thousand deaths on that Buck Teeth! How is his luck this good!" Liu Zhen made his arrangements on the spot: "Two ropes, spliced to length, down the cliff. Lower me and old Bao. We go first and hold position beside the mountain demon and wait for it!" "Yes sir!" Niu Sibao and Zhang Sanping pulled the special ropes from the enormous pack nearby, ran to a pine beside the path as thick as an armful, wound the lines around it, and tied figure-eight knots. Then they joined the ropes end to end, tied a stone at the tip, and, following the direction the compass held, paid it out little by little—until the rope went slack. It had hit bottom. They measured. "Boss, twenty-seven zhang down to the bottom. Less than three chi left in our hands." "It won't be at the bottom—it must be on the cliff face, midway down." Liu Zhen was certain of it: "This thing can't grow on flat ground!" "Buck Teeth, ready?" "Ready." When Buck Teeth spoke, the man stood three chi away, yet that mouthful of gleaming white teeth made it feel as if they had already sunk into your face. He was a man past thirty, burlier even than Liu Zhen, stubble-jawed, with a mouthful of big buck teeth jutting outward. His name was Bao Facai, but everyone had probably forgotten it long ago—Buck Teeth had replaced the name outright. Only at the gambling tables did anyone remember Buck Teeth's real name. Xu Yao gave up on sheltering too; he came out and threw himself into the work, carefully checking the ropes and the cliff face. Liu Zhen looked easy. "Just the one. We deal with it fast and hurry home—this rain really will be the death of somebody." "The cliff face is slick. Captain, Buck Teeth, you two be careful," Niu Sibao called. "Cut the crap!" The two got themselves kitted out: beast-hide protective vests on, a blade and a pick hanging at their waists, a dagger deftly tucked into their hair, ropes gripped in hand, ready to drop. Xu Yao, uneasy, crouched at the lip of the cliff with one hand locked around a small pine at the rim, leaned out, and craned his neck to look down. Clear light swirled in his eyes—and suddenly he went still. "Captain, how many mountain demons did the brigade captain say were over here?" "Just the one." Liu Zhen was ready already; his body shot down over the edge in a smooth slide, only his head left showing, the dagger still stuck in his hair. "Get back up here!" Xu Yao seized Liu Zhen's rope. "I saw three clumps of clear light! The intelligence is wrong—what's about to form down there isn't one. It's three!" "Fuck!" Liu Zhen's whole scalp went numb; it felt as if the lightning overhead had just split down onto him. Mouth stretched wide, eyeballs bulging: "...Th... three?!" I only said this very day that what I feared most was running into three—and the moment the words were out, I run into three? What kind of jinxing mouth is this?! But we only brought two ropes!