Tangxue strutted down the market street, a stray cat’s swagger that owed no kin or courtesy. Her eyes skittered like dragonflies; everything sparked curiosity. She clutched Aunt Ina’s little coins, bought a heap of skewers, and ate as she walked, steam ribboning up like silken banners.
These days the Forest Capital pulsed with noise, a hive under the leaves. The homes built upon foliage were packed to bursting, and the grass-level bazaar nearby showed elf and Beastkin shadows crossing day and night, like ant trails braided by moonlight.
Tangxue was in the bazaar now. Lunch hadn’t filled her, so she’d come out for snacks, stomach humming like a warm drum. She didn’t notice the tiny black shadow tucked in a corner, a mouse behind a beam, watching.
“Uncle boss, another bowl of fish soup!” Her voice chimed like a bell shaken in sunlight.
“You got it!” The owner answered, hope flaring like a lantern in wind.
Stalls in side alleys drew little foot traffic, and this half-Beastkin uncle was selling fish soup inside the Elven Dominion—his mood had been mud-heavy for days. A customer who knew good soup felt like spring rain after drought.
Oddly, meat had turned cloying for Tangxue lately, grease thick as candle wax; but fish slid easy, like clear water over stone. Maybe fish fat stayed quiet.
She sat on a high chair, legs swinging like willow catkins. Bowl after bowl, she poured fish warmth into her belly, then a round burp popped like a bubble rising from a pond.
“Haven’t eaten this happy in ages. That old fossil keeps warning me to stop at seventy percent full. All day, I never get to feel what full really is,” she sighed, like wind leaking from a reed pipe.
“What? Even among elves there’s someone that stiff?” The fish-soup uncle bristled, smoke in his eyes. “Girl, listen—kids need to eat more! If you don’t, how’s your body going to grow?”
“Exactly!” Tangxue tapped the table lightly, approval bright as a spark. “I’m still growing! How can she make me eat like an old person on a bland diet? What if I don’t develop right?”
“Boss! Three more bowls!”
“Right away!”
Two Beastkin swaggered in, boots thumping like drums on planks. They scanned the room—hawk eyes circling—then eased. They grabbed a table and shouted, mouths wide as gongs, “Hey! Boss! Two portions of water-poached live fish! Make it fast! We’re starving!”
“Coming!”
The boss replied and began the boil, steam flowering like white blossoms. The two Beastkin switched to a tongue Tangxue didn’t understand, their voices clattering like pots. She had to slip on her earmuffs; elves bruise on noise, even a notch louder feels like nails on glass.
They also lit tobacco. In human lands it’s common—smoke gives a warm buzz like dusk wine—loved by humans and Beastkin alike. In the small space, smoke coiled like gray snakes. The scent smothered the fish’s fragrance; Tangxue frowned and sipped her bowl to the bottom, one careful swallow after another.
The boss brought the poached fish, hands steady as oars. He glanced at Tangxue’s pinched look and tried, gentle as rain, “Guests, no smoking in here. And there’s a child.”
“Shut it!” A Beastkin shoved him, a bear’s paw sending the man sliding back a dozen steps. Tangxue caught him, quick as a sparrow landing, and saved a stack of bowls from crashing.
She gave the boss a small shake of the head. “I’m fine.” She hopped back on her chair and finished her remaining two bowls, slow and precise, like snow melting into a cup.
The boss could only sigh, crest fallen like a flag in dead wind. Two bull-headed guests—no way to win.
Worse came. The Beastkin finished eating and slapped the table, calling for the check. When it was time to pay, their faces wrinkled, pears gone sour. They hadn’t brought currency that worked for Beastkin and the Elven Dominion.
“Ahem. This should cover it, right? Don’t say we’re skipping out!” They saw the boss was a lowly half-Beastkin and tried the bully’s game, tossing foreign coins like stones into a well.
“This… this isn’t…” The boss stared at the odd coins, bitterness spreading like bile. He didn’t dare speak.
They turned to leave. Tangxue slipped in, quiet as frost, and grabbed one’s shoulder, stopping them cold.
“You haven’t paid yet, have you?”
Seeing a kid barely past knees blocking them, the man flared, a wolf ready to kick. The boss shouted a warning and rushed to shield Tangxue, but to her, this attack wasn’t even a scratch.
Before contact, Tangxue lifted the man like a sack of rice and reversed him. She spiked his head into the floorboards, wood cracking like ice on a lake.
His partner stared, thunderstruck. Once his mind rebooted, anger snapped. He swung a hand to teach the girl a lesson—Tangxue’s backhand punched him clean through the door, ten meters out, body rolling like a barrel in a stream.
The boss stood slack-jawed, a fish gasping on shore. He never thought this harmless cub fought like a winter storm.
The one planted headfirst braced hard, pushing the boards, trying to pull his skull free. Tangxue almost added a kick—her heel itched like a hawk’s talon—but the boss’s odd look cooled her down.
The Beastkin heaved and finally yanked his head out. Something seemed jammed—like a mask caught on a nail.
Breath hit him like new air, then wrongness crawled in. His color drained, moon-white. A mirror flashed; his disguise had slipped, edges tearing like old paper.
“How strange… Where’d the Beastkin go? Why is a human wearing Beastkin clothes here?” Tangxue squinted, amusement a cat’s tail flick.
“Aaaah!!” The not-Beastkin shrieked, mind tipping, and bolted for the door. Tangxue wouldn’t let prey flee under her eyelids. Ice climbed his limbs like ivy, sealing his motion into a blue statue.
“Suspicious.” Tangxue narrowed her eyes, a blade’s line, and said, “I think you’re one of the spies Aunt Ina mentioned, mixed into the Forest Capital. Whatever—drag you back first.”
She remembered there was another. By the time she turned, that one was gone, wind-scattered without a trace.
“Damn, he’s fast!”
Tangxue glanced at the hole she’d punched into the floor, sheepish as a child caught with jam. “Sorry, boss. I broke your floor. Here’s the money—should cover it, right?”
The boss nodded fast, grinning like a split peach. He didn’t even count.
City enforcers arrived, boots clicking like beetle legs, and carted away the despairing statue of a man. Tangxue got summoned by the old fossil again.
…
“Ancestor, is that one already dead?”
“Mm…” Hualuo Jingqing sighed, a reed bending to wind. “Their hands were too fast. Before I could act, they tossed him into a temporal rift and killed him in the turbulence.”
“So something serious has infiltrated the Forest Capital. We need to stay sharp in the days ahead.”
