Qing Liao fully intended to keep the promise he'd made to his parents and visit during the equinox festivities each year. However, unlike in past years, he had no desire to simply journey through the vast farmlands of Mother's Gift. He could not remain within the bamboo forest while doing this, but he did not wish to abandon his sojourn in the wilderness entirely. Instead, he decided to take a path around the western edge of the hidden land, forming a vast circle through the rough and unsettled terrain in the shadow of the mirror boundary that marked the edge of this plane. It would take longer, even rushing along using the Stellar Flash Steps, but in that way he would remain in the rugged terrain of hills and forests that shrouded the edge and preserved the steady mindset of the farmers.

  Despite the significantly greater distance, the combination of the movement technique and his vastly increased endurance meant the journey would take no more than a few days in each direction. He found that an acceptable delay, thinking of it as a chance to measure his ability to transcend the difficulties of the wild, at least in familiar environments. He would continue to utilize only that which he had made using his own hands: stored gathered food, self-made clothing, and basic weapons of stone and wood.

  He had even, in preparation for this trip and out of a desire to look more like a cultured sect member than a wandering wild man, produced a pair of ground stone daggers with deer antler hilts. These slate blades took much more effort to produce than the knapped versions, but presented a fine, smooth edge that, while unable to match the sharpness of a metal blade, appeared outwardly similar. Properly oiled and sheathed, they could not be told apart at a distance. Worn on his belt, they appeared similar to knives made by a blacksmith. That should suffice to fool the members of his home village for a few hours; offer the illusion of a proper sect-raised warrior.

  He doubted he would display the knives to anyone but his father, who he would receive them as a permanent gift.

  For the journey Liao wore his best clothes, furs topped by his lamellar coat, freshly oiled. He added his bow, blades, and arrows, but left other tools behind to hide their simplistic nature. Most could be replaced swiftly, with a few hours of hammering at most, so there was no need to cart them about in any case. He carried food in a small sack he tied to his back. There was no reason to bring anything further. Water was abundant in the hills, and as a cultivator he could drink from any source completely without fear by coating his mouth in a film of qi much the same as was done to block the demon plague. Nor did he require a bedroll and blankets, for the nights were sufficiently warm still that his partially annealed body remained proof against their chills.

  Beginning in the morning, three days before the equinox, Liao started out slowly. He intended to spend the first day walking the full length of the bamboo forest, including the most remote areas directly beneath the curving dome edge of the boundary that he had not yet visited. Even as a cultivator, he found being too close to that mirrored edge-less wall played havoc with his senses. It was largely a diversion, but he thought it possible he might find new herbs or creatures along the way. His little camp he left completely in the open. If some animal ravaged it or some thief made off with his tools that would simply be an excuse to move and begin again, empowered by the knowledge learned during the first attempt.

  Sayaana was quiet as he departed, something Liao well expected. She generally avoided talking while traveling. The cultivator believed his remnant companion devoted her full attention to new sights and vistas during such times, one of the few variations she was able to experience given her bodiless state of existence. That was fine, as he largely preferred to walk without another voice chattering around inside his skull, for that left him able to listen and feel his surroundings properly, unhindered by distraction. This greatly improved his ability to uncover and detect the unusual.

  Such as the strange noise he encountered shortly before midday.

  This sound emerged in the depths of the bamboo forest, on the slopes that marched along the very edge of Mother's Gift, where the stalks, fed by the light reflected off the twisted spatial dao, grew tall and thick. It was a strange crackling, gnawing noise, the sounds made by teeth tearing through some solid, wooden material. A beaver gnawing upon a tree, that was the first possibility that came to mind, but this forest lacked the proper waters and hosted none of those large rodents. Though intermittent, the noise continued to crackle along steadily. Not a woodpecker, Liao rejected that thought despite the similar cadence. He knew that noise and it did not match. This was too deep and powerful to come from a small bird. It reminded him of woodcutters, splitting bamboo stalks with their flails, though he knew humans almost never ventured this close to the edge. They feared the boundary and its palpable demonstration of incomprehensible powers.

  Curious, he diverted from his intended path to follow the sound.

  The first piece of evidence uncovered was a trail smashed through a ruin of young bamboo, the stalks knocked aside by the passage of a heavy-bodied animal. Not deer, the path was too broad and the scent wrong, and not a boar either. There was no sign of rooting about at the base for young shoots. Liao suspected a bear, despite their rarity. Thick moss-dominated undergrowth obscured any tracks, but there were numerous scratch marks on the bamboo that could have come from sharp and heavy claws, if oddly angled. Bears, however, were not loud animals. Even when gorging on berries, as they did at this time of year, they were remarkably quiet for creatures of their size and bulk.

  Whatever gnawed on the bamboo was quite vocal, and moved about garrulously, for many bamboo poles could be seen shaking in the distance, knocked about by something with both strength and leverage.

  Liao discovered the source in a hillside clearing where some old poles had been smashed flat by high winds. The resident had widened this clearing considerably, chewing away a grand space that drew many birds to the sunlight and exposed the mossy earth with its countless insect larvae to their hungry beaks. Much mud had been stirred up, and tender young shoots lay in a pile, gathered up for the feast by the lazy-seeming, bumbling occupant.

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  Standing atop an exposed boulder left behind by an old landslide, Liao looked out and saw the truth with eyes wide and mouth open. His gaze fixated on a legend, something glimpsed in paintings and carved images but that he'd never though to glimpse in the flesh. Silently, he offered a prayer to the Celestial Mother for the blessing.

  She, and the beast was recognizably female as she lay on her back amid a pillow of bamboo fronds, was bear-like in many ways, but the fur on her skull and chest was pale white, save for black patches about the eyes. The claws possessed a knobby thumb that made them resemble hands and allowed her to grasp the bamboo in a grip no bear paw could manage. Powerful teeth chewed away at thick green stalks as the female rolled about with comical lumbering ease, a body large as any bear but completely lacking in predatory menace.

  A giant panda, the legendary beast of bamboo. Docile and clowning, they were often featured in comic interludes that broke up the great battle scenes of the ancient sagas of the old world. Liao had not known that any could still be found in Mother's Gift.

  “What a funny looking bear,” Sayaana appeared to his right. Green eyes flashed with an expression of interest that Liao had never before seen on the green face. Bark-like highlights tightened across the remnant soul's projected face as she focused the full force of an immortal's attention upon the panda. “I've never seen such a thing. It eats bamboo? A bear that thinks it's a cow?”

  The young cultivator stared at the forest-shaded woman. This was, he thought, the very first time he'd encountered something that the immortal had never seen before. A very strange sensation indeed, to know something a being over a thousand years old did not. “She's a panda,” he whispered, not wanting to spook the beast. He did not think he'd been noticed, but who knew the capabilities of the rounded little ears atop that skull. The creature might be far more canny than it's rolling lope appeared. “I did not think any still survived.”

  He wondered at her prior statement. “You've never seen one before? Not in the lands beyond Mother's Gift? They live among the bamboo.” It was merely an assumption that such creatures persisted in the Ruined Wastes.

  “I never did, but I did not see much of this region,” Sayaana sounded little interested in the question. Her eyes remained glued to the animal, still steadily munching away at the bamboo. The panda appeared perfectly content, an expression truly rare to observe in the animal world. “So strange,” the remnant soul noticed this at once. “It seems free of fear. Does nothing hunt them?”

  The panda did appear truly jovial, carefree in a way no deer nor boar would every be. If it feared any creature of the bamboo forest, its body betrayed no sign of it. Liao stared at the beast, noting that it possessed the size of a full grown bear and a similar highly muscled build. “Too big for another bear, or a wolf.” The claws wrapped around the green stalks might be made for prying open thick poles, but they were sharp as any wood-splitting axe blade. Anything that sought to feast upon this gentle creature would face a grim toll indeed. “So perhaps not.”

  “A tiger could do it,” Sayaana whispered. She sounded almost hungry, as if she desperately wished to witness such a clash. “But there are no tigers here,” the addition sounded far away, wistful for other places and times. “Not in this farmer's pen.”

  Liao nodded. Before today pandas and tigers alike had been creatures known only from stories. It seemed the remnant soul's assessment was true, much as he wished otherwise. This wild patch was a mere fragment, a forgotten border at the edge of farm, not a true untamed wilderness. He considered how far the bamboo forest stretched against the size of panda. Not far, not nearly far enough. He doubted more than a dozen of the animals survived.

  There was a terrifying finality attached to that calculation.

  “Will you kill it?” Sayaana asked. “The hide is unique. That fur pattern has marvelous potential.” There was no malice in her words. It was simply the suggestion of one hunter to another, the exploration of possibilities presented by the game.

  And she was right, that fur truly was a marvelous thing. Sharp boundaries between black and white in a soft and thick fluff, it would suffice to make a coat from a single piece with unparalleled color contrast. The options were nearly endless, and the result would be something no one else, not even the Grand Elders, possessed.

  Despite such realizations, Liao made no move to remove his bow from its carrying place on his back.

  “It's too cute, is that it?” the coquettish tone that inflected Sayaana’s voice was rare, but not unknown. For a being who'd lived over a millennium, she could be remarkably free-spirited. “It is cute,” she admitted, snickering. “And I bet the cubs are impossibly so, but I thought that didn't affect you.”

  “It doesn't,” Liao remained stock still. The panda was cute, that was eminently true. Her delightfully innocent expression especially, that stood out as incredibly rare, perhaps unique, among all animals he'd ever seen. Few creatures had such bright eyes after leaving childhood behind.

  Though not blind to this truth, it did not move the young cultivator. A trapper learns to suppress such impulses, otherwise their life is impossible. Had he a reason to slay this panda he would not hesitate.

  But he did not have a reason.

  This discovery surprised him. The beast was there, a hide that could be utilized in countless ways. He could craft almost anything he desired from it, mold it into whatever form he chose.

  Except, it would be a weak thing. This realization, the true source of his hesitation, came to Liao as he watched the panda roll over onto her belly and tumble down the hill. She did not move like a bear, did not have the hide of a bear, and his knowledge even of bears was rudimentary. Strike down this panda, today, and it would only ever produce a practice piece, one further limited by the need to leave curing unsupervised as he continued the trek north. Whatever he made would be simple, unable to do more than express the base properties of the fur.

  “My cultivation is unworthy of this prize,” he told Sayaana. The first layer of the vitality annealing realm, it represented a limit to his ability, to his power to craft anything truly grand. An animal of such rarity deserved better than his crude touch, it needed the hands of an elder, at least. “In the old stories,” he remembered aloud. “Pandas were kept in the courts of the great sect leaders. If I am to sacrifice one for my craft, my hands must be able to fashion a piece worthy of such a person.” Rare creatures, with so few known, could not be spent on frivolity.

  To his surprise, Sayaana raised no objections, despite being an ever-enduring hunter to her core. “I don't think black and white is a suitable color for any of the sisters,” she noted with deep amusement. “But if the white takes blue dye...”

  They laughed together as the panda rolled down the hill. When the humble beast found a new strand of bamboo at the bottom and resumed devouring, Liao moved on to the north. He could wait. One day, he resolved, he would be equal to that challenge.