Thick drops of blood fall from the tip of her tail, blooming into winding plum branches across the blue stone slabs.

Yun Cangyue clenches the blood-stained strip of underskirt fabric between her teeth.
The honeysuckle embroidery along the edge scrapes against the root of her tongue, making it go numb.

Each step of her left forepaw is like treading into a heap of live embers.
The broken bone pierces through flesh, matting her silver-gray down into dark red clumps.

The clapper of the third watch drifts in from the south of the city,
yet she runs hard toward the sound of a copper bell.

At the eaves of the Liu ancestral home, a newly tied gold-thread bell sways lightly in the night wind—
the one Xiyu had climbed a bamboo ladder to hang with her own hands before the Lantern Festival.

—If you ever get lost, just follow the bell and come home, hear me?

Back then, the girl had kept hold of her paw, murmuring on as she did.

“Hrr…”

The breath forced from her throat startles the feral cats at the end of the alley,
their green-glinting pupils flashing beneath the tiled eaves.

Yun Cangyue presses close to the wall and turns into a dark side lane,
where rotting vegetable leaves and the bodies of rats choke the way ahead.

She tries to leap the obstruction—
but as her hind legs tense, a sudden spasm runs through them,
and her whole body slams into the slick brick wall.

Her forehead scrapes against the moss on the wall.
An icy touch briefly presses down the dizziness.

The blood-soaked wad of cloth slips from the corner of her mouth.
She hurriedly pins it in place with her right paw.
When the pad of her paw brushes the character “Yue” Xiyu had embroidered into the lining, her ear tips tremble beyond her control.

That person always liked stitching tiny characters into hidden seams of her clothes,
saying she’d learned it from Western merchants as a way to mark authenticity.

The watch drum draws closer again.

As she passes through the back alley behind the rice shop,
the lingering warmth of the steamers, wrapped in the scent of glutinous rice, washes over her.

She stumbles—her footing slips—
and she crashes into the clutter piled against the wall.
Bamboo sieves tumble, white powder flying everywhere.

Squinting through the haze as she tries to get her bearings,
she sees Xiyu coming toward her through the powdery snow, a rabbit-shaped lantern swinging from her hand.
The jade-green hem of her skirt sweeps across the sugar-frosted ground.

—Ayue, look!

The girl lifts the lantern high, gold-thread tassels brushing her nose.

—I drew the pattern from the scratches you left in the account book yesterday. Doesn’t it look like…

Crack—

A bamboo sieve beneath her feet lets out a sound of breaking.
The vision shatters in an instant, scattering into shards of light.

She jerks her head and bites into the tip of her tongue,
iron-scented blood and powdery dust are drawn into her airway.

Her right paw digs deep into the cracks between the bricks.
Using the leverage, she drags her battered body and squeezes out of the narrow alley.

A branch of the moat stretches across before her,
with a rotted wooden bridge spanning it, creaking in the night wind.

The bridge piers damaged by last year’s flood still lie submerged in foul water,
tangled with torn fishing nets drifted down from upstream.

Staring at the blurred patch of silver-gray reflected on the river’s surface,
she can no longer tell whether it’s the ripples that are wavering—
or her own unfocused pupils.

Something cold presses against the back of her neck.

“Where’d this lame beast come from?”

A night watchman lifts his lantern to shine it over her,
the sole of his boot grinding down on her tangled tail fur.

“Rare coat. Skin you and it’d fetch half a month’s drink…”

Yun Cangyue suddenly arches her back and hisses.
Blood-smeared fangs tear through the leather of his boot.

In the instant he recoils in pain and loosens his footing,
she hurls herself into the foul river water.

The needle-cold chill stabs into her wounds,
and instead sharpens her muddled mind just a little.

Her claw hooks into a tear in the fishing net for leverage.
Each stroke through the water is like her meridians being torn apart.
Foam streaked with blood trails behind her in a long line,
and in her daze, the line almost sketches the outline of the Liu family’s eaves.

—A copper bell can carry across three streets.

But now, the rippling water crushes it
into tremors too faint to hear.

She kicks her hind legs wildly.
Her broken claw catches on a tear in the net, ripping loose a swath of down.
Silver-gray fluff blooms in the foul water like dying sparks.

By the time she hauls herself onto the bank,
the eastern sky has begun to tint with crab-shell blue.

The back gate of the Liu family’s ancestral home is within reach.
A mugwort rope knot winds around the door ring, woven by Liu Xiyu herself—
said to ward off evil during the Dragon Boat Festival,
but in truth meant to keep her from sneaking out to nibble the peonies in the garden.

The blood-stained bundle of cloth drops from between her teeth.
She nudges the door panel with her head, the copper ring knocks against the wood, alerting the gatekeeper.
In the instant the old servant lifts his lantern and peers out,
she finally loosens her clenched claws.

“Miss’s bunny is back!”

“Get help—this paw’s injured down to the bone…”

“Sir! Sir!”

“The young miss’s rabbit came back carrying blood-stained…”

A rush of jumbled footsteps pounds against her ears, making her eardrums ache.

Forcing her eyes open, she sees Liu Father’s ink-dark brocade boots shatter the morning light, hurrying toward her.

she pushes the blood-stained strip of underskirt fabric forward, inch by inch, to the boots before her eyes.

The gold thread of the honeysuckle embroidery has long been smeared into a dark brown by blood,
yet the single character “Yue” that Xiyu stitched into the lining still lets through faint traces of gold—
so much like the sugar-frost signature hidden in the corners of her account books.

“How could the young lady’s underskirt be stained with pu’er dregs?”

The old household servant pinches up the scrap of cloth, exclaiming.

“This moldy smell—it’s clearly third-grade aged tea…”

Liu Father pauses for a fraction of a moment, then drops to one knee,
the hem of his robe pressing a sharp crease into the stone floor.

“Save them first.”

A few strands of gray have slipped loose at his temples.
The hand that has always been steady as bedrock tightens briefly,
then he scoops up the rabbit—his movements urgent, yet sure.

Blood-stained silver-gray down clings to the hangzhou silk of his sleeve,
blooming into red plum blossoms against the deep teal fabric.

“Old Chen, slice the century-old ginseng from the cellar—
the moment Physician Li arrives, take it straight to the West Warm Pavilion!”

Before the servants can respond, he lifts his gaze,
his voice turning colder still.

“A-Wu, go to the stables.
Prepare twenty fast horses, and fetch the layout maps of every warehouse in the south of the city.”

The lamplight inside the room wavers; outside the door comes a rush of hurried footsteps.

Liu Mother lifts the gauze curtain, its corner swaying with the night wind.

“Dear—” Her voice trembles.

Before the words can leave her mouth, her gaze is seized by the blood-stained rabbit in the man’s arms.

She stands at the doorway, a handkerchief still pinched in her fingers—
one meant to wrap tea-scented pellets,
now wrung into creases between her fingers.

“Let me hold her. You’re heavy-handed—don’t jostle the wounds.”

A warm, yielding embrace closes in,
heavy with the dampness of calming incense and tears.

Ginseng juice mixed with bloody froth spills from the corner of Yun Cangyue’s mouth.
Liu Father swiftly presses the medicine bowl he has been keeping warm in his arms against her gradually chilling body.

“Every time Liu’er has to drink bitter medicine, she always asks for three pine-nut candies.”

He wipes the dried blood from the tip of her nose with his thumb,
the touch gentler than when he works the abacus during account checks.

“When that girl comes back,
we’ll have her make it up to you with every jar of sweets she’s been hiding.”

With trembling hands, Liu Mother pries open her jaw,
the powdered medicine, mixed with tears, dripping onto the root of her tongue.

“Snowball… be good now.
Swallow this mafeisan—it won’t hurt anymore…”

Yun Cangyue, however, clamps her teeth tight around the porcelain spoon.
Her amber-colored eyes lock onto the storehouse diagrams laid out on Liu Father’s table,
a broken, tuneless whimper slipping from her throat.

Her blood-stained tail tip suddenly sweeps toward the tea dregs,
dragging a winding trail of blood across the tabletop.

“You’re trying to say Liu’er is in a tea storehouse?”

Liu Father presses down on her spasming hind leg,
his voice heavy, as though soaked in cold water.

“There are seventeen abandoned storehouses in the south of the city.
Every one of them has at some point been used to store third-grade pu’er—”

The discussion is still underway when an arrow cuts through the air
and buries itself in the vermilion-lacquered main gate.

A strip of cloth tied to the arrow’s tail is soaked through with tea stains.
The old gatekeeper, his hands trembling, unfastens it.

“Sir! It’s a letter from the kidnappers!”

The old servant staggers as he cups the arrow still embedded in the door,
the strip of underskirt fabric tied to its tail soaked with blood.

Liu Father unfolds the letter with hands steady as bedrock;
only when his fingertips brush the final stroke of the character for “workshop” does he pause.

That stroke juts upward too abruptly,
just like when Xiyu was small, practicing her writing—
always twisting the character for “bing” into a crooked “workshop.”

He closes his eyes for a moment.
The image from three years ago suddenly sharpens:
his daughter hopping about, holding up a sheet of xuan paper—

Daddy, look! This is my newly invented anti-counterfeiting fancy script!

He spins around at once,
the hem of his robe sweeping a teacup from the table.

“Prepare the horses.”

At that moment, Yun Cangyue struggles out from beneath the medicine blanket,
the blood-soaked silver-gray bundle of fur rolling onto the floor.

She bumps into the maid trying to stop her,
snatches up the torn scrap of underskirt fabric in her mouth,
and hobbles forward, brushing her way to the edge of Liu Father’s boots.

The dark red tea stains on the cloth
are identical to the mold blotches along the edge of the letter.

“…the Bing warehouse.”

Liu Father clenches the letter,
a hoarse murmur forced from his throat.

From the stables comes the neighing of twenty swift horses,
yet Yun Cangyue suddenly bites down on the hem of Liu Father’s robe.

Morning light reflects in her amber eyes
as she nudges the blood-stained piece of cloth toward the south,
a strained, urgent sound rising from her throat.

“No.”

Liu Father brushes her aside,
yet the moment his palm touches her fur, his strength eases.

“You can’t even stand steady.”

Yun Cangyue arches her back in a flash and springs upward,
crashing into the gold-transport chest amid startled cries.

She curls herself into the padded compartment inside,
hooks her claws deep into the seams of the wooden boards,
and refuses to loosen her grip no matter who pulls at her.

Liu Father watches the trembling silver-gray bundle in silence,
then abruptly unfastens his cloak and throws it into the chest.

“Protect her.”

The words are meant for the driver,
yet his gaze settles on Yun Cangyue’s bandaged ear tips.

“If even half a strand of fur is missing,
bring your head to me.”

As the wheels roll over the bluestone paving,
the gold-threaded character “Yue” that Liu Xiyu embroidered on the inner lining of her underskirt
rests right against Yun Cangyue’s chest.

She buries her nose into it.
The scent of honeysuckle mingled with a rusty tang slips into her nostrils,
and for a moment it feels like the warmth of that person’s embrace.

Fine snow begins to drift outside the carriage.
Liu Father’s back astride his horse stands like a range of ink-dark mountains.

Only when a muffled cough sounds from inside the chest
do the veins rise along the back of the hand gripping the reins.