Chapter 127: The Hole Problem

The hole was, upon reflection, not getting any shallower.

Zhāo Yàn had checked. Several times. He had stood on his toes. He had jumped, once, which he immediately regretted due to his ribs having opinions about jumping. He had examined the walls .

The walls were dirt. They were straight. They were six feet tall and showed no signs of becoming shorter out of sympathy.

“We could call for help,” Zhāo Yàn said.

Han Shān looked at him.

“We won’t call for help,” Zhāo Yàn said.

Han Shān looked back at the walls.

The afternoon light came down through the circle of sky above them in a thin, unhelpful column that illuminated mostly the mud and each other and the general extent of their situation.

Somewhere above, the village was going about its business entirely unaware that two cubs had fallen into what appeared to be an old game trap that had been dug, forgotten, and then politely covered by several seasons of grass and optimism.

Zhāo Yàn sat down.

Han Shān remained standing. He had been examining the walls with a patience that Zhāo Yàn found both admirable and slightly irritating. He would look at one section. Then move. Look at the next section. Move again.

Zhāo Yàn felt the need to narrate the process.

“The walls are too smooth to climb,” he offered.

Han Shān said nothing.

“I already tried.”

Nothing.

“Twice.”

Han Shān moved to the next section of wall.

Zhāo Yàn watched him. “Do you always think this quietly?”

Han Shān paused. Considered the question as if it deserved genuine consideration. “Yes.”

“Doesn’t it get boring? Inside your own head?”

“No.”

“What do you think about?”

Another pause. Longer this time. “Things that need solving.”

“What about things that don’t need solving?”

Han Shān looked at him like he was silly. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Things you like. Things that are interesting.” Zhāo Yàn gestured vaguely at the circle of sky above them. “We’re stuck here. We could talk.”

Han Shān appeared to weigh this option against his other available options, which were limited, and arrived at a reluctant conclusion. He sat down across from Zhāo Yàn, his back straight, his hands on his knees.

“Fine,” he said.

Zhāo Yàn’s tails perked up slightly. “What do you like?”

Han Shān thought about this for what felt like a very long time. “Snow,” he said finally.

“Snow.”

“The way it changes things. The way everything looks different after a heavy fall.”

Zhāo Yàn considered this. It was not the answer he had expected. He had expected something about fighting or hunting or training, the things most cubs his age cited when asked what they liked, as if liking something soft was a weakness to be concealed.

“I like the moment before a thunderstorm,” Zhāo Yàn said. “When everything goes still and the air tastes like metal. When you can feel it coming before you can see it.”

Han Shān looked at him. “Why?”

“I like knowing things before other people know them.” He shrugged, which hurt, which he ignored.

“That’s not the same as liking the storm.”

“The storm is just proof I was right.”

The snow leopard bit back a smile.

“What else?” Han Shān said.

“What else do I like?”

“Yes.”

Zhāo Yàn thought about it seriously, which was not something he was often asked to do. “Winning arguments. The good noodles my mother makes on cold nights. The way my tails feel when I run fast enough that they all stream out behind me.” He looked at his three tails, currently spread in the mud. “I’m going to have nine someday.”

“You said that before.”

“It’s still true.”

“Most foxes don’t reach nine.”

“I’m not most foxes.” He said it without posturing, without performance. Just as a fact, the way Han Shān stated facts. “You’ll see.”

Han Shān was quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly: “I’m going to lead the Northern Peaks.”

Zhāo Yàn looked at him. “You sound very certain.”

“I am certain. It’s my responsibility. My mother has no one else. The territory has no one else. I’m going to go back and I’m going to learn everything and then I’m going to be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“For all of it.” He looked at his hands. “Whatever all of it turns out to be.”

“That sounds exhausting,” Zhāo Yàn said.

“Yes,” Han Shān agreed simply.

“You should also like something fun.”

“I like snow.”

“Snow isn’t fun.”

“Snow is very fun. You’ve clearly never—” Han Shān stopped. The tips of his white ears had gone very slightly pink. He looked back at the wall.

Zhāo Yàn stared at him. “You’ve never what?”

“Nothing.”

“You were going to say something.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Your ears are pink.”

“They’re not.”

“Han Shān. Your ears are extremely pink right now. What were you going to—”

“I sometimes,” Han Shān said, with great stiffness, “slide down the mountain. When no one is watching. On the steep part, near the eastern face, where the snow is packed.” He paused. “It’s fast.”

“That,” Zhāo Yàn said, “sounds extremely fun.”

“It’s just training. For balance. And reflexes.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m not smiling.”

“Your mouth is doing the thing.”

“I don’t have a thing.”

“Everyone has a thing. Yours is very small and you clearly hate that it exists.” Zhāo Yàn’s tails had lifted entirely from the mud now, swishing with slow satisfaction. “You like sliding down mountains in the snow and you don’t want anyone to know.”

Han Shān said nothing.

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise,” Zhāo Yàn said.

Han Shān looked at him. Evaluating. The same look he had given the boar last night.

Then, very slightly, he nodded.

They sat in companionable quiet for a while. The afternoon moved. The light shifted.

“I have an idea,” Han Shān said eventually. He stood, brushing mud from his fur. “If I brace against this wall and you climb using my shoulders as a foothold, you can reach the edge. Then you pull me up after.”

Zhāo Yàn looked at the wall. Looked at Han Shān. “My ribs—”

“I’ll lift you to my shoulders first. You won’t have to jump.”

“And then I pull you up? You’re bigger than me.”

“You have three tails worth of cultivation.” Han Shān said it simply. “You’re stronger than you look. You proved that last night.”

“Fine,” Zhāo Yàn said, standing. “But if I drop you, that’s your own fault for being heavy.”

“If you drop me,” Han Shān said, moving to brace against the wall, “I’ll land on my feet.”

“Snow leopard arrogance.”

“Snow leopard fact.”

Zhāo Yàn almost smiled. He moved toward Han Shān, planting his foot in the offered hold, feeling the solid, unmoving stability of the other cub brace beneath him, and reached up toward the lip of the hole.

His fingers found grass. Found dirt. Found the edge.

He was almost there. Almost—

Hsssssssssss.

Both cubs went completely still.

The sound came from the darkness at the far end of the hole, where the shadows were deepest, where neither of them had looked because they had been looking at the walls.

It was not a small sound.

It was a sound that suggested the thing making It was very large and was in a foul mood.

Zhāo Yàn looked down at Han Shān.

Han Shān looked up at Zhāo Yàn.

In the deep shadow at the end of the hole, two eyes opened.

Vertical pupils. Yellow. Very large. The eyes of a beast that had not shifted into a human form in long enough that it had started to forget it had one.

The hiss came again. Longer this time.

Han Shān’s blue eyes were very wide.

Zhāo Yàn’s three tails had fused into one solid, puffed, terrified mass.

“Climb,” Han Shān said, and his voice was extremely calm for someone whose ears had gone completely flat against his head.

“I’m climbing,” Zhāo Yàn said, and he was, his arms shaking, his ribs screaming, hauling himself over the edge with everything he had.

“Faster,” Han Shān said.

The hissing intensified.

“I’M GOING AS FAST AS I—”

“FASTER.”

Zhāo Yàn’s stomach hit the grass. He rolled, spun, thrust his hands back down into the hole.

“GRAB MY HANDS—”

Han Shān grabbed his hands.

The snake moved.

“RUN,” Han Shān said, and for the first time since Zhāo Yàn had met him, the word came out at a very undignified volume, something that on anyone else might have been called a squeal, as he scrambled over the edge and hit the ground running.

“Run!!!!!!”

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