Chapter 27 - Into the Thundercloud Forest

Early the next morning, Ao Wen, Feng Xi and Tang Jin gathered outside the Thundercloud Forest. Autumn fog hung thickly on the hillsides making it look like the higher points of the forest were islands in a sea of fog. The sun had only just begun to rise above the horizon and of the three youths, only Ao Wen seemed fully awake and alert.

"You were training at this hour?" Feng Xi asked Ao Wen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Had to," Ao Wen said. "The desert is unbearably hot by midday. We complained only once. Teacher Xie said he'd be nice and let us sleep in. The next day, we started with the usual morning drills, only we did it in the late morning. He made us follow a whole day's normal schedule, just later in the day," she shuddered at the memory. "We never complained about early mornings again."

"Teacher Xie?" Tang Jin asked, curious about the person who'd trained her to fight in the brutal way he'd witnessed the day before.

"I'll tell you some other time," Ao Wen said. She didn't want to hide the parts of her life that belonged to her past lives… effectively, she'd lived those days. It really was her life that she was talking about. That didn't mean she'd explain about it to anyone other than Feng Xi though. Even her parents didn't know, and she intended to keep it that way. Tang Jin would just have to do with the pieces she felt comfortable sharing.

"Well, early isn't necessarily bad anyway," Feng Xi said. Pulling out a rough map she began to trace the route they intended to take hunting. "Father let me borrow a small cosmos bag," she said, gesturing to a bag that hung from her waist. "This one is made for hunters and it can only hold animal remains, but it preserves anything stored inside. This way, we can bring more home if we're successful. This ridge," she said, pointing out a feature on the map, "is about a two-day hike from here and a place that's known to have a den of Blood Rage Cougars. We probably don't need to get all the way there if we're just hunting for two and then leaving but…"

"You think we should do more?" Tang Jin asked nervously. As bravely as he'd spoken, he'd never gone on a real hunt. All of his sword practice had been with dull weapons in controlled bouts. He'd thought he could manage a simple hunt with Ao Wen here if it was just two Blood Rage Cougars they had to hunt, but more than that? "Aren't they the most dangerous when they're protecting their young? If there's been a recent litter of Blood Rage Cougars then the mother is sure to be aggressive and territorial."

"That's actually just part of the problem," Feng Xi said, repeating what she'd learned from her father last night. "Once winter ends, the young ones are likely to leave the den, looking for a range of their own. Five or six more Blood Rage Cougars in the forest is one kind of problem because there are already enough cougars with territory that the young ones will push towards Turning Leaf town and we'll have attacks on the people who work in the forest."

"There's a different problem right now," Ao Wen said, realizing the problem Feng Xi was pointing to. "Right now, we have a mother who is in her peak state, hunting to feed five or six additional cougars. At the moment, she's actually more dangerous than her young cubs will be. That's going to create a ripple as things try to get away from her."

"Exactly," Feng Xi said. "That's why Father thinks we ran into two Blood Rage Cougars together, and ones that attacked so aggressively. He thinks the new mother has overhunted her range and driven other cougars to search for scarcer food. He also thinks that for her to have overhunted the range this much, it's more likely that she had a large litter, at least five or six, maybe as many as seven. Litters of two and three don't disrupt the environment as much."

"You're talking about a Rage Queen," Tang Jin said breathlessly, finally recognizing the significance of the number of cubs they'd been talking about. "A Blood Rage Cougar at that stage can only be killed by second stage cultivators! We can't possibly get involved with that!"

"It's not as bad as you think,"Ao Wen said confidently. "First, remember that we have a second stage cultivator with us," she said, gesturing at Feng Xi. "Sister Xi may not be as strong in direct confrontation as her father, but she's very good at binding and controlling arts. She can weaken things enough for us to do the rest. Also, the goal is to deal with either the Rage Queen or the cubs, not to attack both at once. If we encounter her near the den on a hunt, then we deal with her alone. If we can reach the den while she's away hunting, we can deal with the cubs before they become a threat. If they're all together, we leave and call this trip a failure," she concluded.

Tang Jin just stood there for a few minutes. He closed his eyes and played through the scenes that Ao Wen described one by one. Truthfully, he had the greatest hope that they just fought cubs. Even if outnumbered, Ao Wen and Feng Xi could probably each take care of two or three of them alone. He wasn't so sure about fighting a full-grown Blood Rage Cougar by himself, but he felt that a cub or two wouldn't be a problem. He'd get his hunt, return with honor, and the risks would be small. If they encountered the Rage Queen, things might become desperate, but here again, he was hardly alone. Ao Wen's display of strength the previous day had made quite an impression on him and he believed that she wouldn't pick a fight she couldn't win.

"Okay," he said at last. "We can do this!"

"Good man," Ao Wen said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Let's get moving. Sister Xi, you said there's a good place to camp on our way?"

"Here," Feng Xi said. "It's an old hilltop fort from when Turning Leaf town was just Turning Leaf village."

"Wait," Tang Jin said, shocked at where she was pointing on the map.

"That's the one," Feng Xi said with a smile. "It belonged to the Radiant Mountain Lion tribe before they migrated to Turning Leaf Town and ceded the hills to the encroaching spirit beasts. I thought you'd like a chance to visit it."

"But isn't this taking the long way around? We might have to spend an extra night in the forest if we go this way," he said.

"So what," Ao Wen said. "When Sister Xi mentioned it, I knew we had to take you there. It's been abandoned for hundreds of years, but your ancestors likely lived there. Isn't that reason enough to go a little out of our way?"

Tang Jin found himself overwhelmed. Two days ago, he'd been trading insults with Ao Wen. Yesterday, he challenged her to a fight. Today, she and Feng Xi were going to take a detour to his ancestral home, just for a friend they'd only just made. Compared to Mo Yan and Zhang Bo, it was just too different!

Seeing his reaction, neither young woman said anything. To them, this was just what being friends meant. Without saying anything further, the trio plunged into the fog-covered forest.

In the outer areas of the forest, several well-worn trails could be followed for a number of li. The Thundercloud Forest took its name from the Thundercloud Plum Tree that grew so prominently in the forest. The tree could be considered a treasure for low-level cultivators with uses for everything from its fruits to its wood, even the leaves and bark could be refined into cultivation resources. In the autumn, the people of Turning Leaf town would march into the forest in droves to harvest the small tart plums that contained traces of lightning and thunder energy. In the spring and summer, woodcutters hunted for trees that had failed to survive the lightning baptisms of the winter storms, harvesting wood that held traces of not only lightning energy but fire energy as well. All of this meant that many people wandered the shallow areas, and travel for the first half of the day passed smoothly.

As the trio went deeper, however, trails became less numerous. The Thundercloud Plum Trees actively attracted lightning energy whenever there were sufficient storm clouds in the area. That energy gave rise to a number of dangerous creatures that might prove fatal to an ordinary mortal. A Horned Lightning Rabbit was the size of a small dog but it could leap with the speed of lightning and impale surprised townsfolk faster than they could blink. The Smoldering Ember Fox was even more dangerous, capable of both searing flesh and producing noxious clouds of smoke that poisoned the air and anyone who breathed it. These smaller spirit beasts were the prey of the Blood Rage Cougars, and the way the Thundercloud Plum Trees gave birth to this deadly ecosystem was the greatest reason why there were no Thundercloud Plum Tree orchards. No one dared cultivate this tree too close to their own homes!

The fog gradually became thicker, limiting the trio's visibility to fifty meters or less. Their footfalls became muffled as the heavy air absorbed sound, isolating them from the world as though they were wandering through the void. Finally, they left the safer outer area of the forest behind and entered the region where only cultivators dared travel.