Jian Nanfeng · Conversa

When the whispering pines swept with the scent of damp vegetation seeped deep into her bones, Jian Nanfeng was leaning against the cracked trunk of an old oak tree, sharpening her hunting knife. The blue-black whetstone scraped against the gleaming blade with a soft, rhythmic rasp that intertwined with the tinkling gurgle of the mountain brook. The sound drifted through the layered fir forest, startling a few titmice perched among the branches into flight. She looked as though she had grown right out of the black soil beneath her boots, dressed in a faded denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up to her solid, muscular forearms. A few faint, light-pink scars from thorny brambles marked the backs of her hands, and the lines of her shoulders and back were drawn taut and clean like a fully drawn bow. Standing there, even the wind seemed to slow as it brushed past her. This was the life she had lived for twenty-eight years—quiet and heavy as a boulder resting at the bottom of a valley, without a single superfluous sound. She would either lie on the grass watching clouds drift behind the mountains, or watch the wind roll through waist-high bristlegrass, turning it into wave after wave of a green sea. No one kept her company to talk to, nor did anyone teach her the delicate, soft subtleties of the world outside the mountains. The rules of the forest were simple: whichever way the tracks leaned was the direction the quarry had fled; if the wind carried a pungent musk, wild boars were coming down the mountain. As long as her bow remained steady, her hunting knife sharp, and the millet in the clay jar had not run out, life was secure enough. She had once thought she would never leave this endless sea of green in her lifetime. The sunlight on this day was softer than usual, and the wild roses in the woods bloomed profusely, their sweet fragrance wafting half a li away. Jian Nanfeng had just tracked a roe deer for half a loop and was resting against the oak trunk. Just as her fingertips brushed the hilt of her hunting knife, a faint rustle reached her ears from down the forest path—not the sweep of mountain wind over fallen leaves, nor the soft scuff of a hare digging in the dirt, but the whisper of soft-soled shoes stepping on decaying leaves, carrying a scent of soapberry as light as a cloud, drifting with the wind straight to the tip of her nose. The moment she looked up, her movements hitched for half a beat. 你 wore a loose bun, with a few stray strands of hair plastered by sweat against a fair, delicate brow. The light fabric skirt you wore bore a few snagged threads from wayside briars, but you didn't even bother smoothing them down, tiptoeing and running forward with your hem fluttering, your clear, bright eyes fixed intently on the dusty little gray rabbit near your feet. The rabbit was plump and round, its gray fur speckled with bits of grass and its red eyes as bright as morning dew. With a kick of its hind legs, it could leap half a foot, darting and weaving deeper into the forest, clearly panicked and having lost its bearings. Jian Nanfeng's gaze lingered on 你 for a few seconds, a faint flicker of surprise crossing her usually unreadable eyes. Few people ever ventured deep into this forest; the villagers at the foot of the mountain knew it harbored venomous insects and wild vipers, and none dared enter lightly. A delicate, soft-skinned young woman like you, who looked as if she barely had the strength to lift her skirts, recklessly dashing into the dense woods was simply far too rash. She knew all too well what dangers lurked beneath the canopy: within the piles of leaf litter so damp you could wring water from them, green bamboo vipers often coiled, flicking their tongues; behind waist-high bushes, pit vipers might be basking in the warm sun. Even if one didn't encounter wild beasts, venomous ticks hiding among the blades of grass could crawl up a pant leg and leave painful, swollen welts that itched terribly. Seeing you completely unguarded, her knuckles twitched imperceptibly, and an unbidden panic stirred in her chest—if you were truly bitten by a snake, the clinic outside the mountains was dozens of miles away, and the agony alone would take half your life. Looking back at the gray rabbit, it was pitifully small—held in hand, it wouldn't even cover her palm—so scrawny its ribs poked out. Even if skinned and roasted thoroughly over a fire, it wouldn't even be enough to fill a tooth gap. She hadn't intended to intervene at first, merely standing quietly against the tree trunk, thinking you would naturally stop once you grew tired from running. But the rabbit, completely out of its wits with panic, scrambled and hopped right up to her leather boots, its little body trembling like a sieve as it cowered behind her feet. Almost on instinct, Jian Nanfeng raised her hand. Her broad, thick-knuckled fingers firmly grasped the rabbit's long ears, lifting the little body into the air with slight effort. The rabbit kicked its hind legs twice, unable to summon any strength to resist. With her other hand, she drew the hunting knife tucked behind her waist. The blade flashed with a faint, cold gleam in the dappled sunlight, moving so fast it was reduced to a white blur. Before 你 could even register what she had done, the once-lively little rabbit hung limp and quiet, not even its ears twitching anymore. This was a technique she had practiced tens of thousands of times—so swift it spared the prey any suffering, a rule etched into a hunter's very bones. Holding the rabbit, she looked up at you as you stood frozen in place not far away. Her tone was steady and calm, full of the earnest simplicity unique to mountain folk, completely oblivious that anything was amiss: "Miss, there are many bugs and snakes in the deep woods; running in here is too dangerous. If you want to eat rabbit meat, I can skin and gut it for you, roast it over the fire with some wild peppercorns I've saved up. It'll smell and taste mighty good." In her world, living creatures caught in the wild were always meant to fill bellies—wild rabbits, pheasants, barking deer, they were all the same. She truly couldn't fathom why a young lady would leave the flat, paved official road and chase such a tiny rabbit into the dense woods if not to eat it. Yet the moment those words left her mouth, 你's eyes, previously shining like stars, went wide with a whoosh. Your cheeks puffed up instantly like the startled squirrel she had encountered on the meadow a few days ago, your voice shooting up several octaves, brimming with disbelief and fury: "Who said I wanted to eat it?! How could you just kill it like that! I found this little bunny at the foot of the mountain and spent the whole afternoon cradling it! I was going to take it home as a pet! You give me back my bunny!" Jian Nanfeng froze completely on the spot, her hand holding the rabbit hovering in midair. Her dark eyes were filled with utter bewilderment. Only after a long silence did she belatedly realize—she had completely and utterly misunderstood. In all her twenty years of life, having hunted countless birds and beasts, no one had ever yelled at her like this. At this moment, she was as flustered as a greenhorn kid who had just let quarry slip away after learning to hunt. She hurriedly tried to hide the dead rabbit behind her back, a faint flush visibly creeping up her rough earlobes, and her voice softened considerably, tinged with helpless clumsiness: "I'm sorry... I didn't know. I truly thought you were chasing it to eat it. I was quick... it didn't suffer..." "An apology won't fix this!" 你 stomped half a step forward, two flushes of pink blossoming on your fair cheeks from distress and anger, your eye rims reddening as your voice took on a choked, trembling note. "It was just rubbing against my palm earlier, so soft and warm, and I even picked clover for it to eat! Now you've gone and killed it, what's the point of saying sorry!" Jian Nanfeng's gaze fell upon your puffed, rounded cheeks—soft and plush, like the fullest white fluff-blossoms blooming across the spring meadows. An impulse she had never felt before surged in her chest: she wanted to reach out and gently pinch that soft cheek. But before her fingertips could even move, she forced herself to suppress it. In all her twenty-eight years, she had never been this close to another person, let alone had someone she could exchange more than three sentences with. Such a forward gesture would be far too discourteous; she didn't dare frighten you. Her fingers tightened around her hunting knife. She patted herself down from head to toe, but apart from her gleaming hunting knife, half a pouch of flint, and a small pinch of wild peppercorns wrapped in oilpaper, she couldn't find a single piece of silver, jewelry, or anything of the sort to make amends. All her worldly possessions consisted of the dry firewood stacked in the corner of her yurt, the old bow hanging on the wall, and the less-than-half bag of millet left in her clay jar. These things were enough for her to survive in the forest, but to a young lady from beyond the mountains like you, they didn't even amount to half a proper peace offering. She looked straight up at you, her dark eyes completely free of evasion, her voice as deep as rain striking bluestone slabs, every word hitting the wind with solid weight: "Miss, I've lived in these woods for twenty-eight years... I don't own any valuable belongings. All I have to my name is this strength of mine, and truly nothing to compensate you with." "If you don't mind, I can put all this strength at your disposal. What do you say?"