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“Listen to me,” Ying hissed. “The men should fear me far more than any ghost. Tell them to stop digging immediately. They will ALL spend their time stripping the armor off the dead soldiers like I ordered. Then you and the men will build carts to transport it. It will take you a very long time to complete this task. You will bury no one.”
“But—”
“But what?” Ying said.
“There is something else, sir,” Commander Woo said, his eyes wide. “The men are convinced they are being watched. That is all they keep talking about. I believe them, too. I feel it myself. The men think that some of the dead have already become hungry ghosts, and that they are watching—waiting for us to go to sleep so that they can devour our souls.”
“Then tell the men to stay awake!” Ying shouted. “NOW GET TO WORK!”
Ying turned away, shaking his head. Superstitious fools, he thought. For a moment, Ying considered telling Commander Woo that he was right to believe something was watching because he felt it, too—and he was pretty sure he knew what it was. In the end, however, Ying decided against it. He didn't want his men to be any more distracted than they already were.
Fu tossed and turned on the chilly, damp ground, stuck somewhere between awake and asleep. Each time his mind sank below the waves of consciousness, the same three questions would arise and his brain would bob back to the surface.
Why did Ying do this?
Where are my brothers?
What should be done with the scrolls?
The questions were relentless. Nothing in his previous training had prepared him for this. He had always relied on instinct, reacting to outside forces. Never before had he battled forces within himself. And never before had he been in a position to choose his own path. Even though he hated it, a course had always been laid before him by Grandmaster. But Grandmaster was gone. Fu would have to forge a path of his own.
“Always remember, you represent Cangzhen.” That's what Grandmaster had said back at the temple during the attack. Fu knew that Cangzhen meant “hidden truth” and that Cangzhen's founders had once been wanderers like he was now. Wherever the founders traveled, they had been the defenders of Truth and the deliverers of Justice. Fu realized that he was obligated to do the same.
But where should I go? Fu wondered. What should I do next?
Fu pleaded to his ancestors for some kind of sign, and as his mind sank into the depths of unconsciousness one more time, he thought he heard an answer.
Somewhere in the distance, a tiger screamed and men cheered. Fu awoke instantly, springing to his feet, his large, bald head narrowly missing the low rock outcropping that had sheltered him while he struggled with sleep. Someone was torturing a tiger. He could hear it. He could feel it. And he wasn't about to stand for it. After all, he was a Cangzhen warrior monk. It was his duty to defend Truth and deliver Justice. With the sun just beginning to show itself above the treetops to the east, Fu checked to make sure the scrolls were secure in the folds of his robe and raced down the rocky mountain slope back into the heavy forest.
Fu was well aware that knowing your enemy is often the key to victory. As he ran, he struggled to remember what little he knew about tiger hunters. Hunters—if they could be called that—would dig a large pit in the middle of a tiger trail, line it with sharp bamboo stakes secured deep in the ground, and cover the pit loosely with brush. Then they would set up a “drive.” Armed with long spears, the hunters would walk in a group along a tiger trail, making a tremendous commotion. Tigers preferred to steer clear of people, so the tiger being hunted would run ahead of the group in an effort to stay out of the way, usually sticking to the path it routinely followed. If it wasn't careful, it would fall into the pit, landing on the spikes, impaled and stuck at the bottom with little or no mobility. The hunters would come running—but not to end the animal's suffering. Instead, they would slash the tiger repeatedly with the razor-sharp metal tips of their long spears, tormenting the tiger for hours until it slowly bled to death.
Men did this simply to make themselves feel powerful. They called themselves “sport” hunters. Fu was not about to let any man make himself feel powerful at the expense of an animal. Especially a tiger.
Before long, Fu was close enough that he could hear men talking. He slowed down. There seemed to be three men and a boy—one of the voices was quite small. Two of the voices were so loud and brash, Fu thought half of China could hear their boasting. Those two were certainly hunters.
“How strong you are, good sir, standing before the beast's offspring so calmly,” the first hunter said.
“And how brave your son is at your side, wielding his spear,” said the second hunter.
