On the second morning after Sia's upgrade, Xu Hao requested permission to go hunting without the Wang brothers.
Er Bao stared at him across the breakfast fire.
"No."
"You haven't heard my plan."
"I heard 'without the Wang brothers.' That was the interesting part."
Da Bao looked up. "If he wants to hunt, let him hunt. He's got a bow, he's getting better, and Sia could eat most of the creatures near the eastern meadow without chewing."
"Exactly," Xu Hao said. "Which is why I want to try something small and controlled."
"You have a remarkable talent for describing dangerous activities as if they were laboratory exercises," Er Bao replied.
Xu Hao accepted that as a compliment and continued. The meadow was near enough that the brothers could reach it quickly if something went wrong. He knew the trail. He had practised shooting at twenty paces, checked the dogs' recall responses, and learned not to pursue prey into unfamiliar terrain.
"I will take Sia. I will stay where you tell me. I will return before the sun reaches the top of the ridge. If I see a creature I don't recognise, I leave. If Sia alerts to danger, I leave. And if I shoot nothing, I will return with nothing."
Er Bao listened. His expression did not soften, but he asked where Xu Hao intended to stand and which routes he would use to return.
Xu Hao showed him on the scratched map. There were two paths from the meadow: one along the dry stones and another through the low pines. He could retreat by either without passing through the deeper forest.
"And if the great tiger appears?"
"I run. I also apologise to you for being an idiot if I survive."
Da Bao laughed. Er Bao looked towards Sia, who was lying in a patch of sunlight with all the menace of a very large cushion.
"One morning," he said. "No chasing. If the ground feels wrong, you come back."
Xu Hao nodded immediately, before his brother could recover his judgment.
* * *
They left with five arrows, a water skin and a cloth bag for carrying whatever he managed to catch. The sky was clear and the wind came from the north. Sia moved beside Xu Hao, occasionally lifting her head to scent the trees.
He didn't attempt to ride her. She was strong enough, but this was supposed to be his lesson, not an opportunity to let her do all the walking.
The eastern meadow looked as it had during his previous visits. Long grasses shifted beside the stones, and the lowest part remained damp from last week's rain. Xu Hao found the tracks of small hoofed animals and several narrow lines where rabbits had passed beneath the brambles.
He checked the direction of the wind and settled behind a fallen trunk. He had not seen another hunter's signs. No snares, no marks on trees, no fresh human footprints. Only the tracks of animals and a scattering of old leaves.
"We're here to practise," he whispered to Sia. "Try not to do anything dramatic."
Her ears turned towards him. He couldn't decide whether she understood, but she stopped investigating a promising hollow log.
The first rabbit came out after almost half an hour. It was a six-legged creature with a short horn and enough confidence to feed in the open. Xu Hao fitted an arrow, drew steadily, and waited for a clear line.
The rabbit turned. He lowered the bow.
It moved again. He drew, then lowered it a second time when a second animal emerged behind the first. He had learned not to fire when he couldn't account for what lay beyond the target.
He began to understand why his brothers returned from hunting trips looking tired despite making the work appear effortless. Waiting could be more exhausting than running.
The rabbits approached a patch of young grass. Xu Hao rose just enough to clear the trunk and drew again.
The arrow struck the ground where the first rabbit had been a heartbeat earlier. Both animals vanished into the ferns.
"A commanding opening," he told Sia.
She sniffed the shaft and looked back at him.
"Please don't start. Your brothers have enough to say about my shooting."
* * *
He waited again. Sia found fresh scent near the damp stones and followed it slowly until two rabbits appeared under a thorn bush. Xu Hao could have asked her to seize them. He was almost certain she could have caught both before they reached cover.
That wasn't the point.
He selected the farther one, waited for it to stop moving, then released.
The arrow struck its side. The rabbit tried to leap, stumbled and went still.
Xu Hao lowered his bow and stood motionless for a few breaths. He had killed a bird before, and he had helped prepare other animals. He still felt a small shock at the difference between a moving creature and the same creature lying quiet in grass.
He approached carefully. The shot had been clean. He recovered the arrow, wiped it and placed the rabbit in his bag.
"One," he said.
Sia wagged her tail. She looked pleased, though he suspected she would have been equally pleased by the arrival of breakfast.
He moved to a second hiding place and waited another hour. He struck one rabbit cleanly, missed two, and spent a considerable amount of time searching for an arrow that had lodged beneath a root.
His back ached. His fingers were sore. Yet he had two rabbits in the bag and the ability to keep practising without someone telling him when to shoot.
Before leaving, he tried one final position beside the broad stones. Two rabbits were feeding at the edge of the clearing. He lined up a shot, checked behind them and waited for the nearer creature to turn.
It did.
He released.
At the same instant, the rabbit jumped sideways. The arrow passed through empty grass and disappeared towards a stone. Sia lunged, wind rising faintly around her paws. She caught the rabbit before it reached the brambles, jaws closing around its neck with a swift, economical movement.
It was over before Xu Hao lowered the bow.
He stared at the place where his arrow had vanished, then at the rabbit in Sia's mouth.
"That wasn't quite how I intended it."
Sia carried the prey back and placed it at his feet. Xu Hao thanked her and inspected the wound. The rabbit had died quickly. The arrow, which he'd feared lost, lay a short distance away with its tip broken against the stone.
He began to laugh.
"So much for becoming an accomplished hunter. My dog has saved my reputation."
* * *
By the time they started home, the bag was considerably heavier. Sia had helped catch three more rabbits near the far edge of the meadow, while Xu Hao had used his remaining arrows with mixed results. He knew precisely which two creatures had fallen to his shots, and which had been caught by a huge animal whose new abilities made the work almost unfair.
There were six in total.
Xu Hao contemplated leaving one behind to spare himself the inevitable interrogation. That would have been a ridiculous waste of food.
He carried them all.
Da Bao was waiting beside the campfire when he returned.
"Little brother! You came back before noon. Empty-handed?"
Xu Hao set down the bag. The rabbits slid out one after another.
Da Bao counted them, then counted again.
"Six?"
"Six."
"You shot six?"
"I brought home six. I didn't say I shot all of them."
Er Bao came over from the supply sacks. He knelt, looked at the wounds and nodded at two neat arrow marks. Then his attention moved to the others, where the damage was rather less tidy.
"Sia helped," he observed.
"An invaluable assistant."
Da Bao picked up the rabbit from the stones and examined its neck. There were clear tooth marks around the place where Xu Hao's broken arrow had passed close by.
"What happened to this one?"
Xu Hao considered the question. The truth was perfectly respectable. Sia had caught it. He had intended to shoot and missed. Nobody would have blamed him for that.
Unfortunately, Da Bao was wearing the expression of a man who had just been handed a wonderful opportunity to tease his little brother.
"A remarkably difficult shot," Xu Hao said gravely.
Er Bao looked up. "You shot it?"
"I released an arrow at exactly the moment it turned. There was considerable confusion."
Da Bao narrowed his eyes. "Then where did the tooth marks come from?"
Xu Hao folded his arms. "Perhaps it tried to bite the arrow. I wasn't close enough to ask."
For a full second Da Bao looked genuinely confused. Then he roared with laughter so loudly that Little One abandoned her nap and came running.
"The rabbit bit the arrow! Er Bao, he says the rabbit bit the arrow!"
"I said perhaps. One must allow for uncertainty."
Er Bao turned the rabbit in his hands. "And Sia happened to be nearby?"
"She is frequently nearby. A very loyal animal."
"I see," Er Bao said, failing to hide his smile.
Xu Hao watched the brothers laughing and decided he had succeeded in something important. He had come back on time, with food, after a morning in which he had remembered to stop when the shot was unsafe. The hunting had involved a great deal of luck and one exceptionally helpful dog.
Judging by their faces, the brothers knew that already.
Da Bao wiped tears from his face. "Next time the rabbit will catch your arrow and throw it back!"
"Then I'll ask Sia to fetch it. She's better at these things."
* * *
They prepared the rabbits for supper. Xu Hao cleaned the two he had shot and helped with the others, working carefully and washing his hands afterward. Da Bao offered extravagant advice about seasoning. Er Bao checked the packs for the journey.
The mood was warm until Er Bao set aside his knife and looked at the brothers across the fire.
"Before we leave for Hibiscus Town," he said, "there's something we need to tell Xu Hao."
Da Bao's smile faded.
Xu Hao looked from one to the other. He recognised the change immediately. Whatever Er Bao meant to discuss was not the price of salt.
"What is it?"
Er Bao rested his hands on his knees.
"The reason our family was destroyed."