Volume One: Fresh Rain Chapter Six: Deep in the Woods, Unseen

Relentless pursuit, cunning and uncanny—was this truly just a tiger? Ye Mingke took a deep breath to suppress his fear and listened intently.

The forest was utterly silent. Apart from the persistent patter of rain, it seemed only the sound of the white tiger crushing leaves beneath its paws disturbed the hush. Yet Mingke heard something else—a sound he'd been seeking since the moment his flight began.

"Not far now," he whispered under his breath, inhaled deeply again, and leapt from one branch to another, climbing a new tree. He paid no mind to the crashing sounds of trees falling behind him and launched himself towards the next tree.

From tree to tree, between life and death, Ye Mingke could no longer hear the rain soaking the woods; all that resounded in his ears was the thunderous pounding of his own heart and the nearly inaudible sound ahead.

Closer, closer! The sound of flowing water!

Through the shifting branches, he caught a glimpse of the mountain stream ahead. Against all odds, his speed surged once more—swift as the wind, he soared past one tree after another, moving even faster than the white tiger chasing him below.

Faster, faster still!

At last, the stream drew near.

Ye Mingke hurled himself from the tree like a shell from a cannon, sending mud flying in all directions. The girl on his back meant he could not roll to break his fall; instead, he landed with violent force. He thought he heard his bones cry out, but he had no time to consider the pain—he simply sprinted towards the rushing water!

He had made only one mistake in this deadly hunt, but ironically, it was that very error that would save his life.

The spot where he landed was only a dozen meters from the stream, but it felt interminable. The weight on his back was crushing, the mud underfoot soft and clinging, his steps feeble.

Why was he moving so slowly?

Time seemed to stretch impossibly long in those fleeting moments. Behind him, a deafening tiger’s roar sent his hair flying forward, forward—flying, flying, flying!

Bang!

With his last step, water splashed high as Ye Mingke leaped forward, soaring like a hawk toward the torrent ahead.

As he jumped, the chill on the back of his neck told him the white tiger’s foul breath was upon him. In mid-air, he twisted violently, a flash of icy light as he drew a sharp dagger from his boot and stabbed fiercely backward. The tiger’s claws tore his shirt; with his other hand, he gripped the tiger’s paw with all his strength.

A tangle of blood, roars, and cries of pain bloomed between man and beast. Clinging to the tiger’s paw, Ye Mingke crashed heavily into the stream, sending up a great spray.

Water—rushing, surging water, stained with blooming blood.

Falling into the stream, his first instinct was to drive the dagger into the tiger’s paw he still gripped. But suddenly, the paw slipped free, and his dagger struck nothing but water.

What is happening?

Ye Mingke’s mind spun. In his confusion, he swallowed a lungful of water and choked. Struggling to hold his breath, he fought to swim upward, only to be seized by a powerful undercurrent that hurled him into a spinning tumble.

He flailed desperately, his chest growing tighter, his limbs weak. He craned his head up, staring through the surface at the dim sky, his eyes wide with terror and unwillingness. As if in answer to the fervent plea in his heart, the current slammed against something and rebounded, lifting him upward. Grabbing the chance, he fought his way to the surface.

Splash!

His head finally broke free of the water. He coughed out the river, gasping for air, never before so grateful for each breath.

But he barely managed a few gulps before a floating log, borne by the torrent, slammed into his chest. He spat blood, yet by some animal instinct he clung tightly to the log, both executioner and savior.

He adjusted his position, scrambling atop the log as it bobbed through the water. The roar of the river filled his ears. He did not know how far they’d been carried by the current; the banks seemed impossibly distant, sapping any lingering courage to try swimming ashore.

His chest still bled from the tiger’s claws, and the exhausting chase and struggle had left him spent. Darkness crowded his vision, his ears rang, and he felt he might faint at any moment. Mustering his last shred of consciousness and strength, he untied a vine binding Bai Qiaoqiao to his back and lashed them both to the log. Then, he lost consciousness.

Bai Qiaoqiao had awakened before Ye Mingke fainted. She came to as soon as they hit the water, coughing from the shock. If not for Ye Mingke dragging her to the surface, she might have drowned.

Once above water, she kept calling to him, but the thunderous river drowned out her voice, and Mingke, already fading, did not hear her.

When he worked at the vines around her, she thought in terror that he meant to abandon her in the river. But she soon saw the boy—on the verge of collapse—binding her, himself, and the log together in tight circles.

He hadn’t once promised not to abandon her; he simply shouldered her burden and never put it down.

To drift down a swelling, rain-fed mountain stream, clinging to a log, was a torment of both nerves and body. Bai Qiaoqiao pressed her pale lips tight and focused wholly on the water ahead. The vine Mingke had tied before fainting was not secure; she undid it and reinforced it with the others. When the log jammed against rocks midstream, she nudged and twisted it until the water bore them past.

After all, he had been so brave and given everything he had—how could she surrender so easily to fear?

She did not know how far they’d drifted before the log finally ran aground on a shallow bank. Qiaoqiao untied the vines, looped Mingke’s arm around her neck, and half-dragged, half-carried him ashore. He was heavier than she, but not so much as to be unmanageable, for his body was so slight and frail.

Dusk was falling. The rain-soaked woods grew darker still. At the edge of the stream, Qiaoqiao gazed towards the forest, feeling utterly helpless and alone before the vast, terrifying blackness ahead.

It was not absolute darkness, but a murky gloom in which vague, uncertain shapes flickered. Nor was it absolute silence—there were unsettling, indistinct noises, impossible to place.

Fear, like a cold, slick serpent, crept again into Bai Qiaoqiao’s heart. She wanted nothing more than to flee, to refuse to step into that dreadful darkness.

But...

She lifted her eyes to the rain-heavy sky. The cold spring rain continued, sapping the last traces of warmth from their numb, shivering bodies as the stream rose higher, threatening to flood this place at any moment.

Go on—she could be brave, just like him.

Her lips, bitten until they bled, trembled as she staggered under Mingke’s weight towards the shadowy forest.

Go on—just find shelter from the rain.

But where, in this chilling, death-laden rain, could they find such a place?

So tired, so cold.

Once as pure and slender as a sheet of white paper, Qiaoqiao now seemed a paper doll, soaked and battered by mud and water. She struggled forward, each step through the mud and water leaving her dress and pale, delicate face smeared and stained.

So tired, so cold.

She did not know how far she walked—hundreds of meters, or perhaps only a few dozen. It felt as though she might collapse at any moment.

And the cold, dreadful, ever-present rain, piercing through the canopy, gathered into heavy, icy streams that beat down upon them again and again. She was afraid—afraid that they might never escape these chilling tendrils.

Yes, hands—the stench of rot in her nose, the distant, eerie cries, the sense of countless hands dragging at them, threatening to pull them down into the mud to rot together.

Bai Qiaoqiao could go no further. She stopped, and this time, stopping might mean they would never rise again. She looked up; above her, only the faintest glimmer of light in the falling torrents, and then nothing—nothing but endless, prison-like darkness.

Nowhere left to go.

Perhaps she should never have insisted on joining the academy’s trial—she should have stayed at home, tending the lonely medicine stove. Perhaps she was an unlucky girl, she thought. Why else did she dream of dreadful things since childhood? Why did the tiger from her nightmares invade the real world? If not for her, would this brave, strong boy have to die?

She sat down in the mud, like a white lotus sinking into the mire, cradling the unconscious boy. She clung to him tightly; in the cold and darkness, they were each other’s only warmth.

She gazed at his mud-stained face and, with the one clean corner of her sleeve, wiped the grime from his cheek. Looking at his tightly closed eyes, his thin, delicate features, she found she was not quite so afraid anymore.

This too was a kind of possession. Perhaps by now they were friends.

She had a friend now.

She hugged that last wisp of warmth, her senses drifting, the warmth fading, cold turning to numbness, darkness to nothingness.

Just then, she heard a bell!

Clang.

A melodious, resonant bell, overpowering the rain, heralding the light of humanity, a bell of mercy and salvation.

Bai Qiaoqiao was startled from her despair. She struggled from the mire, listening intently, scarcely daring to believe her ears.

Clang.

As if in answer, another peal rang out, clear and bright, piercing wind, rain, and darkness.

Summoning her last ounce of strength, Bai Qiaoqiao pulled Ye Mingke to his feet. Eyes wide in the gloom, she felt her way towards the bell’s call.

"Mingke, don’t die—we haven’t truly become friends yet," she whispered softly, though her voice was little more than a rasp.

PS: New author, new book. Please add to your collection and recommend—my gratitude knows no bounds!