Chapter 10 — An Honest Kind of Hunger

CHAPTER 10

An Honest Kind of Hunger

“If you eat that, you'll die before sunset,” Deng Hu said.

Shi Feng lowered the roasted meat from his mouth. A bent man stood outside the abandoned hut, carrying two fish and a split bamboo basket. Three narrow scars ran down his nose.

“It's a marsh rat,” Shi Feng said.

“I can see that,” Deng Hu replied. “Those things eat poison roots.”

Shi Feng threw the meat into the cold ashes.

Deng Hu nodded approvingly, then held up the fish.

“Two spirit stones,” Deng Hu said.

“You waited until I threw it away,” Shi Feng replied.

“You're a sharp young man,” Deng Hu said.

Meng Shou’s map had led him to this hut. Its roof leaked, but the stone cellar stayed dry.

He paid for one fish and cooked it over the fire.

Deng Hu sat opposite without being invited. His qi was thin and uneven. He was still in Meridian Opening, with a hundred and twenty-six opened meridians. That put him above ordinary hunters, but he hadn't entered Qi Condensation.

Deng Hu glanced at Shi Feng’s bandaged side.

“Boar?” Deng Hu asked.

“Men,” Shi Feng replied.

“Worse,” Deng Hu said, turning his fish.

Shi Feng appreciated the lack of further questions.

Under his robe, twelve meridians now answered his breathing. A marsh rat and the snake coiled around it had been his first small tests that afternoon, and the warmth settling through his chest told him the cavern hadn't been a dream.

“I need beasts I can kill with this,” Shi Feng said, showing his knife.

Deng Hu examined the chipped edge and the bandage before pointing north.

“Grey-Shell Crocodiles in the shallow pool,” Deng Hu said. “If you insist on being stupid, choose one with a white belly. The darker ones are older.”

“Did a dark one give you those scars?” Shi Feng asked.

“My first wife threw a basket hook,” Deng Hu replied. “Watch the crocodile’s tail.”

The next morning, Shi Feng stood beside a shallow pool and waited.

Seven Grey-Shell Crocodiles slept opposite him. Even the smallest could take off his foot.

Deng Hu crouched behind a willow.

Shi Feng ignored him and set a fish on the muddy bank. The fish was tied to Ma Liang's rope. Its scent drifted across the water.

One crocodile opened its eyes.

Shi Feng pulled the fish a little closer.

The crocodile slid into the pool.

He retreated slowly, drawing it towards a narrow gap between two fallen trees. The creature followed the fish, its jaws snapping impatiently. When its head passed the first trunk, Shi Feng pulled the rope sharply.

The fish flew into the air.

The crocodile lifted its head after it.

Shi Feng thrust Ma Liang's knife into the soft flesh beneath its jaw. The beast thrashed. He let go of the knife and jumped onto the fallen tree before its tail swept the bank.

It took half an incense stick for the crocodile to die.

“Your knife's good,” Deng Hu called.

“So are your eyes,” Shi Feng replied.

Deng Hu went to fetch his skinning basket. Behind the fallen trees, Shi Feng pressed his bare palm against the corpse's belly. Vitality rushed into him, moving along his waking channels and easing the ache around his ribs until twenty-four meridians answered.

When Deng Hu came around the trunk with his skinning knife, he stopped short. The crocodile’s belly had sunken in, the flesh beneath the scales dry and brittle as salted leather.

Deng Hu crouched, poked the withered ribcage with his sheath, and let out a low whistle.

“Don’t bother hiding your hand, boy,” Deng Hu said. “I saw an old border sergeant use a blood-drinking body medicine like that thirty years ago. Eats the beast’s marrow right after the kill, doesn’t it?”

Shi Feng wiped his palm on the grass without correcting him. “You know the rules for that medicine?”

“Anyone who carried hides for the border camps heard enough,” Deng Hu said, tapping the crocodile’s jaw. “Has to be your own kill while the life’s still leaving the flesh. Touch a carcass somebody else dropped—or a rat a snake already choked—and you’ll draw nothing at all.”

“And through a glove or a sleeve?” Shi Feng asked, testing the old man against what he had noticed with the snake.

“Through cloth?” Deng Hu snorted. “Medicine sits in the skin of the palm. Wrap your robe around your hand and you might as well stroke a rock. Direct contact, flesh to flesh—that’s why those border fellows always had raw palms.”

“What happens if a man takes in too much at once?” Shi Feng asked.

Deng Hu pointed his skinning knife at him. “That’s the catch! Once that medicine bites into a beast, you can’t stop the draw until the carcass is dry or your own channels burst! Half the men who used it died from greed when they killed something too big.”

Shi Feng looked down at his hand. A moment ago, when his old wounds had twitched, he had halted the flow mid-breath and restarted it only after the heat settled.

Deng Hu had the rest right, and that last part wrong. This wasn’t a border salve dragging its user along. The power belonged to him, and it stopped the instant he willed it to.

“I’ll stick to smaller ones, then,” Shi Feng said.

“See that you do,” Deng Hu grumbled, setting to work on the hide. “Your medicine’s working, though. Yesterday you climbed the ridge like an old man. Today your feet didn’t even sink.”

Over the next four days, Shi Feng hunted the remaining six crocodiles, letting each gain settle before taking another until seventy-three meridians woke.

Before leaving, Shi Feng returned to the mineral bed beside Hanyin Well. He cut out a small block with one living shoot still rooted in it. Pulled roots spoiled within a day. This one remained in its own wet bed.

“Can you get this to Physician Meng Shou in Qingshi Town?” Shi Feng asked.

Deng Hu examined the wrapped block.

“My nephew's fish cart leaves tomorrow. Two stones, and the onward driver takes it straight to the clinic,” Deng Hu said.

Shi Feng paid and wrote the address. Meng Shou deserved a living sample. Deng Hu packed it under wet reeds and promised a receipt when the cart returned.

“You're alive!” Tang Jiu shouted.

Outside Yunze’s herb market, Tang Jiu grabbed Shi Feng’s sleeve and looked behind him with obvious disappointment.

“Did you bet on it?” Shi Feng asked.

“No!” Tang Jiu answered too quickly.

“How much?” Shi Feng asked.

“Two spirit stones,” Tang Jiu muttered. “But that isn't important. Where are Ma Liang and his friends?”

“Still in the marsh,” Shi Feng replied.

Tang Jiu released his sleeve. His eyes dropped to the familiar skinning knife hanging at Shi Feng's belt—Ma Liang's knife—and his expression shifted as he tucked that detail away for future profit.

“All three stayed behind?” Tang Jiu asked softly.

“The marsh was busy,” Shi Feng replied.

Shi Feng bought clean bandages, then found Lin Shuang beside the hide stalls. Tang Jiu immediately tried to leave.

“Twelve spirit stones,” Lin Shuang said, blocking his way.

“Sister Lin, I only have eight!” Tang Jiu protested.

“Then give me eight,” Lin Shuang replied.

He counted them out with a miserable face. Tang Jiu’s debts were stronger than his legs.

“You found your medicine?” Lin Shuang asked Shi Feng.

“Enough to stop falling into ditches,” Shi Feng said.

Lin Shuang glanced at the bandage beneath his sleeve.

“That ditch had teeth?” Lin Shuang asked.

“A few,” Shi Feng said.

“There's a Blood-Crowned Spirit Deer north of the old hunting hut,” Lin Shuang said. “It's wounded. Six hunters went after it last week. Three came back.”

Shi Feng's expression became serious.

“What realm?” Shi Feng asked.

“Strong enough to gore a Qi Condensation cultivator,” Lin Shuang replied. “I'm telling you so you avoid it.”

“Where's the wound?” Shi Feng asked.

Tang Jiu began smiling.

“I know a man who saw it!” Tang Jiu said eagerly. “His directions are very cheap!”

“Your directions,” Lin Shuang said, “led a hunter into a latrine last month.”

“The latrine wasn't on the map!” Tang Jiu protested.

Tang Jiu hurried after him, lowering his voice.

“Three stones,” Tang Jiu said. “The deer has a broken back leg. It drinks at the abandoned stone watercourse before sunset.”

“Who told you?” Shi Feng asked.

“The hunter who broke its leg,” Tang Jiu replied.

“Why isn't he hunting it?” Shi Feng asked.

Tang Jiu hesitated.

“It broke both of his,” Tang Jiu admitted.

Shi Feng looked towards the north road. Fish wouldn’t reopen three hundred meridians. He paid for the directions.

“Young Master Shi,” Tang Jiu called, “if you don't return, where should I collect the rest of your money?”

“Ask the deer,” Shi Feng said.

Across the street, Lin Shuang held up four fingers. Tang Jiu's smile vanished. He still owed her four spirit stones.