— The Emperor’s Imperial Record, Entry No. 15 —

  I should have expected this sooner or later, but there was no way to get out of this.

  Hunting somewhere else wasn’t an option. The only alternative was the rice fields far from the city, full of nothing but frogs and the occasional snake.

  Even if I could feed myself, I still had to bring back enough beavers for Azul and Big Randy, not including the silver I had to pay every month to fulfill my part of the investment.

  That wouldn’t work.

  The supervisor sank onto the room's only wooden chair, and the legs creaked under his weight. His stomach spilled over his belt, stretching the fabric of his tunic. It was tighter than the last time I saw him.

  I looked away from his eyes. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to start a fight with him. Unfortunately, my gaze fell on his grease-stained cuffs. In the meantime, his cronies flanked him, silent.

  "You’ve been doing well for yourself, kid.” He used a pick to pull a wet, long string of meat from his mouth, before eating it again, “But you’ve been cutting me out.”

  He leaned forward, the remaining bits of meat and oil he hadn’t picked out waving at me with every movement of his jaw, “When exactly were you planning to cut me in?" The tone of his voice made me think it wasn’t a question he meant for me to answer.

  “Even those gate guards have had some of your roasts. And I should sit there, content with only that small cut you were giving me? How long did you think it would take for me to find out how much you were making?” He spat on the mud floor, “At least you’ve got a friend in the butcher, eh? Wouldn’t tell me no matter how much I offered.”

  Huo Qianlei, standing beside me, spoke up, "I was there when you made the deal, supervisor. I remember what you agreed on. And those weren’t hunted on the fields, he was contrac—"

  “I don’t remember asking for your opinion. Hunchback.”

  Huo Qianlei winced, looking away from the field overseer and out the window.

  "Supervisor," I said, keeping my voice steady, "we had a deal. Huo Qianlei was our witness. I was contracted by Azul. You have no say in this."

  The field overseer shot me a look of genuine surprise as he tilted his head to the side. Looking at me like I was some sort of new specimen, “I have no say in—” He clapped his hands and looked around to his guards, “Hah!” then he laughed. He looked up at me, belly full of rumbling chortles, laughed at me, and then laughed even more.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, his teeth yellowed from his chewing leaves. “You think that matters? Huh?” He crossed his heavy arms. “What matters is coins.” He rubbed his fingers together in front of my face. “Coins. Copper, silver, gold. Do you understand that? You think throwing names around is going to help you? I control those fields. My word is as iron-clad as that of a cultivator’s.”

  Huo Qianling gasped in the background. It was very unlikely, but if any cultivator were passing and they heard that, not only the field overseer, but Huo Qianling and I would die too. Just for being associated with him.

  His men grinned too, sharp and ugly, like starved wolves baring their teeth.

  ‘Didn’t I also give them some of the roasted meats?’ I shook my head, but stopped myself as I realised the supervisor was watching me.

  “Anything past that and into the forest is my jurisdiction…Unless you would like to bring it up to the city lord?”

  I simmered; if I didn’t know better, I would have said I felt powder in my mouth from all the grinding my teeth were doing.

  “Now, you can give me my due, or you can just stop hunting.” He let the words settle in the air, eyes fixed on me. I was glad Huo Qianlei had made Huo Mei leave earlier.

  I kept my expression unreadable while on the inside, my mind raced, trying to think of ways I could outmaneuver this man.

  If I refused, I was sure I wouldn’t just lose hunting rights or be forced to make a living in the rice paddies. If that were all he planned to do, he wouldn’t have brought his enforcements.

  He’d make sure I lost much more.

  “Smart men pay their dues, kid.” The overseer added casually. “Foolish ones go far, far away.” He looked behind him at the guards, then back at me. “You understand?”

  The room instantly felt smaller, and his men angled themselves to look more menacing, bigger than they already were. Huo Qianlei swallowed but said nothing.

  I met the supervisor’s gaze.

  “I already gave you a cut.” My voice was flat as I struggled to keep the trembling out of it. I looked him up and down, “Look at you, you’re not starving. Anything more, and this wouldn’t be an equal relationship. I’ll basically be working for free.”

  He laughed and swiped a greasy thumb across his lips, crusty bits of things I didn’t want to know off fell from the corners of his mouth.

  “Equal relationship?” His eyes gleamed, and he laughed some more. He wiped his thumb clean on his tunic. “I want more.”

  I didn’t break eye contact and kept trying to look for any weakness. It was enlightening, humans were like animals that way, how much of them you could know by just watching.

  From what I saw, I knew I wouldn’t be getting anywhere by fighting.

  – 玄 –

  Lesson 2: There are times you must notice you are outmatched and accept loss. In such situations, do not cling to your pride, even a lion will go hungry beneath The Skies

  To yield is not to surrender The Dao

  Those who do not learn to do this will find themselves always at war in new battles. Wondering why they must always fight.–––This is known as The Art Of Withdrawal

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The Second Teaching

  – 玄 –

  “Fine, what do you want?”

  He broke into an even larger grin, this one more sincere, and yet somehow far more predatory, “Aah, my good hunter, you had sense in you after all.” His men chuckled in agreement as he smacked his thick hands together. A habit I was growing to dislike.

  “For that, I’ll be nice to you. Those beavers fetch a pretty silver. I want ten of them. Same quality you give that high on his nose tanner.”

  “Ten!” Was this man mad? Was this considered to be nice? I was already exhausting my efforts with Azul and Big Randy, and now he asked for ten!

  “Ten is too much, I canno-”

  “I wasn’t asking.” His grin had instantly been replaced with a serious demeanor.

  Immediately, I remembered that I wasn’t the one with the upper hand.

  One Week Later…

  There was nothing else I did but hunt, catch, and trade. The rest of the time, I got leftover from that was having fits of sleep or preparing for my next hunt.

  My eyes had sunken into deep caverns of darkness, but my tasks still had to be done. Nature was unforgiving, and men were even crueler.

  I might have gotten away with not providing the beavers to Azul, or even failing to hunt enough for Big Randy, but I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t get the field overseer’s beavers, and my promise to get Big Randy his beavers wouldn’t let me go back on my words.

  So, I forced myself to keep going.

  I barely felt the cold anymore. My breath still fogged in the early morning air, but the chill didn’t bite like it used to.

  There was too much at stake. I was managing. Barely, like a horse with too much weight on its back, I was trodding along. And day after day, I kept going.

  But something was off.

  *******

  Even as the sun rose, I could already feel the exhaustion creeping in, the nagging need to push myself just a little bit further to fulfill the deals I had made.

  Today, I had a list of things to check: resetting traps, searching for new beaver spots, and a stockpile of beavers to inspect.

  I made my way toward one of my hidden caches, praying that this time, the carcass would be whole. But as I neared, a sick feeling churned in my gut.

  It was a coincidence at first, an escaped beaver here, another predator stealing my catch there; it was all to be expected, so I ignored it.

  But then it started happening more often, like consistently noticing your door was unlocked at night, or that the food you kept hidden in your pantry kept on going missing.

  The traps weren’t just empty; they’d be snapped. Chewed through, with claw marks everywhere. Whatever was taking my beavers, it took them with a fight.

  I decided to trap less and hunt more, to look for whatever was taking my kills. But day after day, I got nothing.

  Then, one night, I decided to check my stockpile deep in the woods. Beavers, I had kept for later. They were hung from a tall tree, hidden in the shade. I had even gone around the tree and marked it with fox urine.

  And it was destroyed.

  Ruined.

  There were deep, curved marks on the bark of the tree, and the rope that was used to keep the beavers hanging to the tree was torn off.

  Something had climbed the tree and gotten to my catch.

  I stood there, staring at the carnage, a slow dread settling in, trying to make sense of what had happened. I walked around the whole tree, even climbing the branch I had hung the beavers from, to see what had happened.

  There was no other reason I could think of. Only one thing could have done this. The spirit beast.

  I stared at the carnage, letting the realization sink in. My first instinct was to run, then the next was to keep hunting and let the problem fix itself somehow. Maybe if it ate enough of them, it would stop stealing them.

  But this wasn’t something I could just walk away from. I’d been a hunter too long not to recognise the patterns.

  To recognise when a predator was hunting.

  And I was the prey.

  A sharp breath pushed through my teeth. There was no way to ignore it, to keep my head down and just work around the problem. This wasn’t something I could out-hunt. This wasn’t something I could fix with more traps or more effort.

  The realization made my skin crawl.

  I exhaled slowly, forcing my tired legs to move. Each step back toward my makeshift camp felt heavier, like I was dragging the weight of those ruined carcasses with me. My breath came out in short bursts, the cold air doing nothing to cool the fear sinking into my body.

  That afternoon, I found myself in the forest again. I had more traps to set, more beavers to catch.

  ‘Maybe I can just hide from the spirit beast?’ It sounded like folly the second I thought about it. But I was scared. Foxes, I could handle. Wolves, bears. I had hunted them all before. Sometimes, when I was prey, and they were the predator.

  But this situation was one I had never been in before.

  I fumbled with the trap, fingers numb despite the sweat slicking my palms. The knots that used to take me seconds to untie now felt like locks forged by a master smith. I was heaving.

  The pressure was growing. The supervisor was stepping on my neck, demanding more and for them faster.

  But it was hard to focus on anything with the gnawing feeling of being watched hanging over me. I could feel it. The beast was out there, watching, waiting for me show weakness. I couldn’t stay strong for long.

  I crouched beside a trap, my hands moving on instinct as I reset it for the third time. The night before, the beast had destroyed half my traps and taken another beaver.

  *Twack* I heard a snap. My heart leapt into my throat, and I raced to check what it was.

  It was a trap that had gone off, but I found nothing. No beaver, no creature.

  I cursed under my breath, the fear and the frustration coming together like allies in a war against me. Every step I took forward, the beast made me take two back. I was always behind. Losing.

  As night fell, I set up an ambush near a clearing where I’d seen the beast’s tracks earlier that day. It was a foolish decision, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to catch it.

  That terrible feeling in my head that I needed to prove myself. I’d been out hunting for hours by then, and it was starting to feel like pushing a mountain up a hill, trying to stay alert.

  My eyelids grew heavier, my limbs more sluggish. ‘Maybe I should go back?’

  Suddenly, there was a rustling sound, low and quick. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my heart raced.

  I was being stupid. ‘I should leave.’

  The air smelled wrong. It was musky, damp, with a faint metallic tang that I couldn’t place. ‘Where do I recognise that smell from?’

  The whole place had gone quiet. The usual night sounds were gone. No crickets. No wind rustling the leaves.

  I felt it before I saw it. A weight in the air. A presence. Then, a blur. It cut through the darkness faster than my eyes could follow.

  It was the spirit beast. Its silhouette appeared out of the shadows, sleek and predatory. Before I could draw my weapon, it was gone.

  My breath hitched. The damn thing was toying with me.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and sagged against the tree, my exhaustion threatening to take over completely.

  ‘How much longer can I keep going?’

  Later that night, as I dragged myself back to camp, the weight of my ambitions and the deals I had made tormented me. The traps were ruined. I was behind; the spirit beast had eaten far too much of my catches. The field supervisor wasn’t going to care. Neither was Azul.

  As I reached my tent, I stopped cold.

  There, right outside, was a fresh carcass. Beheaded.

  The blood hadn’t even dried.

  My fingers curled into a fist.

  Enough. This had to end.

  I wasn’t going to keep cowering in fear. I was going to hunt it down.