The wolf stood calmly in the small clearing where Han Li had fallen. It wasn't panting. Its massive sides moved with a slow, even rhythm, like bellows at rest. Its unsettling golden eyes simply watched him, waiting.
"What do you want?" Han Li's voice was rough, scraped raw by fear and run.
The wolf did not snarl. It took another deliberate step forward on paws that made no sound on the forest floor. Then it shook its massive head from side to side in a clear, unmistakable arc.
No.
The intelligence in the gesture was staggering. This was no mindless animal driven by hunger. This was something else entirely.
Before the shock could settle, the beast closed the remaining distance. It stopped within arm's reach. The scent of wild musk and something sharper—like the air after lightning strikes, like ozone and charged stone—washed over him. It did not bare its teeth. Instead, it leaned forward with unnerving precision and caught the frayed, loose edge of his patched sleeve between its teeth. It tugged once, softly. Released.
Then it took two steps back and sat on its haunches, watching.
Follow.
Every lesson from his village life screamed against it. Old Zhong's tales around the fire were full of fools who followed strange lights or beautiful voices into the woods, never to return. This was how people disappeared. This was the stuff of nightmares.
But beneath the cold fear, a spark ignited—the same stubborn pull that made him watch the clouds and whisper to an empty sky. He looked from the wolf's intelligent gaze back toward the vanished path to safety, to his aunt's worried eyes, to the simple, knowable world of hunger and chores.
He gave a single, stiff nod.
The wolf stood instantly.
Swallowing hard, the taste of copper and pine sharp on his tongue, Han Li moved forward. Climbing onto its back felt surreal, like mounting a living statue made of storm clouds and mountain stone. The beast's muscles beneath him were coiled granite beneath the cool, strange fur.
Then it surged forward.
The world dissolved into a streaking tunnel of green and shadow.
The wolf moved with liquid, impossible grace. It leapt a rain-swollen gully in a single, silent bound, landing without so much as a rustle. It wove through a dense stand of black bamboo as if the trunks were mere illusions. Wind whipped at Han Li's face, cold and carrying the deep, mineral scent of places no human path ever went. The light faded from dappled gold to the perpetual, green-tinged twilight of the deep woods, where the sun never truly touched the ground.
It stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
They stood beside a raw, dark scar in the forest floor—a sinkhole, cleverly hidden by a massive, rotting log half-submerged in ferns. The wolf padded to the edge, peered over, and let out a soft whine. The sound was low, anxious, and vibrated through its chest into Han Li's own bones. It turned and nudged him firmly toward the precipice.
Heart still hammering, Han Li crept forward on hands and knees, the damp earth soaking through his thin trousers. He looked down.
In the muddy bottom, six feet below, a small, dark shape lay curled. A wolf pup. Its sides heaved with shallow, frantic breaths; its ribs fluttered like a trapped bird's wing beneath damp, matted fur. It looked up, and in the dim light filtering through the hole, Han Li saw its eyes were a milky, exhausted blue, clouded with pain.
Understanding was instant and absolute, a cold clarity washing through him.
He looked from the pit to the adult wolf. All primal menace had vanished from its golden eyes, replaced by a raw, desperate concern so human it stole his breath.
"You need help getting it out."
The spirit wolf stared back, a universe of silent pleading in its amber gaze.
"I'll help." His voice firmed, losing its tremor. This was a task. A problem of ropes and leverage, of physics and friction. This, he understood. This was the language of his world.
He turned, his woodcutter's mind switching to practical focus. His eyes scanned the immediate area, landing on a young Chinese parasol tree, its bark thick and fibrous. He used his axe not to fell, but to skillfully score and peel long, flexible strips of inner bark. His calloused hands, accustomed to splinters and blisters, worked with swift, efficient movements, fingers twisting and braiding the strips into two robust, serviceable ropes.
He secured one end of the first rope to a thick, low-hanging branch of a sturdy old oak, testing the knot with two sharp, professional tugs. He carried the coiled remainder to the wolf. "You must pull. Gently. Steady. Understand?" He placed the rope in its mouth, guiding its grip to the middle. The wolf's formidable jaws closed with careful, astonishing precision, its teeth not piercing the fibers.
Han Li tied the second rope around his own waist with a bowline knot his uncle had taught him and lowered himself into the pit. The walls were slick, vertical clay; the mud at the bottom sucked greedily at his boots with a wet, smacking sound. The pup shrank back into the muck, a tiny, pathetic growl rattling in its throat.
"Easy now," Han Li murmured, his voice dropping to the low, steady tone he used with skittish newborn goats or injured birds. Moving with deliberate slowness, he fashioned a harness, looping the rope securely around the pup's middle behind its front legs, careful not to tighten too much. "Now!" he called up, his voice echoing slightly in the earthy chamber. "Pull steady!"
Above, the spirit wolf braced its powerful legs. The rope snapped taut. With immense, controlled strength, it began to walk backward. The pup was lifted smoothly, steadily, up the sheer mud wall and onto solid ground. Han Li hauled himself up after, hand over hand, the clay cold and slick under his palms.
The scene above was one of silent, profound intensity.
The adult wolf was already nuzzling the pup, licking the mud from its fur with frantic, tender devotion, her whole body shuddering with palpable relief. The pup, wobbly-legged and trembling, pressed into her side, its tiny whimpers softening.
Han Li stood back, coiling the muddy rope. He felt no surge of heroism—only the quiet, solid satisfaction of a necessary task completed, the same feeling he got when he successfully patched a leak in the roof or sharpened an axe to a perfect edge.
After a long minute, the spirit wolf turned from her pup. Once more, she approached Han Li. Again, she caught his sleeve and gave a soft, insistent tug.
This journey was shorter, slower, the pup limping but determined beside its mother. They moved to a small, hidden clearing where a single shaft of sunlight pierced the canopy like a spotlight from heaven, illuminating motes of dust that danced in the still air. The wolf padded to the northern edge and nudged aside a thick curtain of creeping moonvine with her nose.
Han Li stepped forward, and his breath caught in his throat.
Ginseng.
Not a single, lucky find, but a small, perfect patch. Ten plants, their distinctive, five-pronged leaves forming a delicate, vibrant green canopy against the dark humus. Some had only three prongs, young and tender. Others boasted seven or nine, their "necks" thick and gnarled with the concentric rings of decades, even centuries. A treasure trove glowing in the beam of light. Any one of the mature plants represented more copper taels than his uncle saw in a season of back-breaking labor. It was a fortune lying in the dirt.
He turned to the wolf, who simply watched him, her head tilted slightly. He bowed, not deeply or grandly, but with the respectful dip of the head one gives a skilled elder or a wise neighbor. "My thanks."
He worked with a forager's reverence, the quiet focus of one who knows the value of what he handles. Using a sharpened stick, he carefully excavated the soil around only the four oldest plants, his fingers probing gently to avoid snapping the fragile, hair-like feeder roots. He left the younger ones to thrive and reseed. He brushed the dark, rich soil from the gnarled, humanoid roots—their shapes strangely potent, almost spiritual, in his hands—and nestled them in his basket, cushioning them with soft, green sphagnum moss.
When he straightened, the basket now weighty and significant on his back, the clearing was empty.
The wolves were gone. Vanished as completely as morning mist, leaving not a broken twig or a paw print in the soft earth behind them.
The walk back toward the village felt different. The forest sounds—the distant woodpecker, the sigh of wind in the high branches—seemed sharper, yet more distant, as if he were hearing them through a layer of glass. The basket's weight was an anchor to an event that already seemed dreamlike, mythic. The ordinary path beneath his feet seemed less real, a painted backdrop compared to the vivid, silent transaction that had just occurred.
This was more than roots in a basket; it was a quiet revolution. A full pantry through the lean winter months. His aunt's hands, red and cracked from lye soap and cold water, could rest. The lingering debt to the butcher, cleared with a single root. A small, profound shift in the unyielding gravity of their lives. A breath of space. A taste of possibility.
He was nearly to the tree line, where the wild, uncut woods gave way to the stumps and harvested fields of Lingshui's domain, when he saw it.
To the west, deep in the oldest, most untouched heart of the Greenwyld, where even the hunters and herb-gatherers dared not go, a light pulsed between the distant, dark trunks.
Cool. Blue-white. Not the warm gold of fire or lantern, but the color of winter ice under a full moon. It pulsed, steady and rhythmic as a resting heartbeat.
Thrum… Thrum… Thrum…
It made no sound he could hear, yet he felt the rhythm in his teeth. It threw no discernible shadows on the trees around it. Yet it pulled at the edge of his vision with a physical insistence—a silent, persistent summons, a hook lodged behind his eyes.
Han Li stopped dead. The basket's strap dug into his shoulder, a grounding, mundane pain.
Behind him, down the gentle slope, lay the path home: safety, warmth, profound relief, the simple, mortal world of hard-won comforts and his aunt's embrace. Ahead, through miles of treacherous, pathless wilderness guarded by who-knew-what, lay the deep unknown and its silent, beckoning light. It promised nothing. Explained nothing. It simply was—an unanswered question written in cold fire against the gathering afternoon gloom.
The forest around him was utterly still. No bird called. No insect chirped. It offered no counsel.
The wooden bead on his wrist felt neither warm nor cold. Just a smooth, patient mystery against his skin.
For a long, suspended moment, Han Li stood at the crossroads, the weight of the ginseng pulling at one shoulder, the weight of the light pulling at his soul.
He thought of his aunt's worried eyes. Of the stew waiting on the hearth. Of the solid, good work of tomorrow.
He thought of Old Zhong's stories. Of clouds that stalled to listen. Of swords of light.
Then he took a step.
Not toward home. Not toward the light.
He stepped off the worn, familiar path and sat on a large, moss-covered stone, setting the heavy basket down with a soft, final thud. He would wait. He would watch that cold, steady pulse until the sun dipped toward the mountains and practicality forced his hand. He would let the weight of both choices—the known love, the unknown call—press upon him until his decision came not from boyish impulse, but from a deeper, quieter certainty he could feel forming in his core, as hard and real as the roots in his basket.
The forest, ancient and knowing, held its breath with him.
The blue light pulsed on, indifferent, patient.
As the last golden rim of the sun kissed the distant purple peaks, Han Li stood. He lifted the basket of treasures, his ticket to an easier life. He looked once, longingly, down the path to the village.
Then he turned his back on it, hefted his axe, and took his first deliberate step off the map, into the deepening twilight, toward the silent, beating heart of the unknown.