Chương 22: "Did you really think it would be as easy as that?"

Ch 22: "Did you really think it would be as easy as that?"

Zhen's mind went blank. The panda's gaze hadn't shifted from Shuo, but his presence filled the clearing and pressed down on Zhen regardless. Shuo, impossibly, smiled.

"Hello, Baolao," Shuo said.

"Good to see you again."

"I wish I could say the same."

"Don't be like that." The panda's attention remained locked on Shuo, and Zhen felt like an intruder witnessing something deeply personal.

"Surely you're not still heated up about that little fire?" Shuo asked, though his forced lightness couldn't quite hide the mild panic in his eyes.

"It was decades ago, old friend." Baolao's thick fur rippled and an aura of oppressive, wood-aligned qi surged through the clearing. The panda took a heavy step forward, and the ground trembled.

"Months of realigning the streams of qi," Baolao growled.

"Months of burning my own life-force to nurture those charred valleys back to a point where anything could start to grow again." His massive head lowered.

"And what did you do? You vanished. When you didn't return, Ruo-Chen was heartbroken. Years, Shuo. Years before she stopped looking across the plains every morning." Another step. The pressure in the air intensified, and Baolao's growl took on a dark, lethal tone.

"So if you've crawled out of your hole just to break her heart a second time, old man, you're going to have to get through me first." Shuo's posture shifted. The mocking facade evaporated, and his grey eyes suddenly looked tired.

"That's not why I'm here. I know what I did wasn't right." His rasping voice dropped lower.

"But I had to disappear after helping Mei-Bao and Gang escape." Baolao snorted.

"Well, that's something at least. When that pair came by a few months afer you disappeared, they explained what happened." The panda's eyes narrowed.

"Ruo-Chen understood. Didn't mean she was happy about it."

"I don't imagine she would be." Shuo's shoulders sagged.

"Nothing good came from that situation."

"So if you're not here for Ruo-Chen, why have you come back?" Shuo's hand shot out, gripping Zhen's shoulder and pulling him forward.

"This young man is Zhen. He's in need of spirit hickory to make handles for his new hammers, and you have the best there is." Baolao's attention swiveled to Zhen for the first time. The panda's eyes examined every inch of him as the silence stretched out. Then the panda's eyes went wide.

"Is this…"

"Yes, it is." Shuo's interruption came swiftly. He stepped forward, his voice taking on a gravity Zhen had rarely heard.

"You understand, don't you? No one must know we were here." Shuo held the panda's gaze.

"The Folded Shadows are already hunting us. We need to stay out of their clutches." Baolao nodded, the animosity draining from his posture.

"It's in no one's interest that the Patriarch gets hold of the boy." The panda's massive head dipped.

"Of course I won't say anything." Shuo clapped his hands together, the sharp sound breaking the tension.

"Well, excellent then. Now we've cleared all that up, if we can just have a branch or two of the hickory, we'll be off." Baolao gave Shuo a flat look.

"A couple of branches. Just like that?" Baolao pushed Shuo aside with his enormous head, sending the old cultivator stumbling back several steps. Then the panda lumbered closer to Zhen.

"I am Baolao, guardian of this glade." His voice took on a solemn tone.

"Anyone who wants an offering from the sacred tree must first defeat me." Zhen's gaze traveled up the panda's form, taking in the razor-sharp claws and the rippling muscle beneath the fur. Up close, that fur looked thick enough to stop any blade. The creature stood twice his height, and those massive paws could crush his skull with a casual swipe. He examined Baolao with the Eye, but found no weaknesses to exploit.

His mind raced through possible strategies, but nothing Shuo had taught him would work against a monster like this. Baolao turned around and headed back toward the tree, and dropped back into a seated position. He picked up another immense bamboo cane and bit into it with a loud crunch. His paw gestured to the ground beside him. Zhen glanced at Shuo, who offered only a shrug. If sitting delayed the inevitable beating, Zhen would take it.

He crossed the clearing and settled onto a moss-covered log next to the massive guardian. Baolao took his time with another bite, methodically chewing while Zhen waited. The panda swallowed, then turned his dark eyes toward Zhen.

"Over the years, I grew bored with fighting the challengers who came for the hickory." He gestured around the clearing with his bamboo.

"I always win, and it takes forever to clean up all the blood afterward." Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Zhen's stomach tightened.

"So I came up with another test." A crafty look crossed the panda's face.

"If you want a length of the spirit hickory, then you will have to answer these riddles three. If you refuse or fail even one, then we fight."

"You know it doesn't make it more impressive to say 'riddles three,' don't you?" Shuo called from across the clearing.

"Three riddles' works just fine." Baolao's head swiveled toward Shuo, and Zhen was glad he was not on the receiving end of the look Baolao threw at him.

"As I was saying," Baolao continued, voice rising, "before I was so rudely interrupted …" He returned his attention to Zhen, and the crafty expression returned.

"Young Zhen, if you want the spoils without violence, then you will need to answer these riddles three." The panda leaned forward slightly.

"Do you accept this challenge?" Zhen blinked. Riddles from a monstrous panda in the middle of a forest was something of a surprise, but while the proposal threw him off balance, he was also relieved. If he could substitute words for violence, he would take that deal every time. He ran through the possibilities in his mind. Growing up in the village, he had spent countless afternoons trading riddles with the other children.

When it was too hot to play in the middle of the day they would sit in the shade behind his father's forge, trying to stump each other with increasingly obscure puzzles. Some he had been good at. Others had left him frustrated for days until someone finally revealed the answer. Still, riddles beat getting crushed by a panda twice his height.

"I'm ready," Zhen said. Baolao straightened, his massive form shifting with evident pride. He cleared his throat with a rumbling sound that vibrated through the ground.

"Here is riddle the first. I call this one The Paradox of the Three Strides. Riddle me this." The panda puffed out his chest and his voice took on a dramatic cadence.

"I walk on all fours in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening. What am I?" Baolao smirked, crossing his arms with the supreme confidence of a mastermind who had just delivered an unsolvable mystery. Zhen stared flatly at the guardian.

"Well, the answer is a man." He couldn't quite keep the confusion from his voice.

"Everyone knows that one. It's so well known it's not even really a proper riddle anymore, is it?" He glanced toward Shuo for support, but the old cultivator had turned away, his shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter. Zhen turned back to find Baolao looking distinctly less pleased.

"Harrumph." The panda shifted his weight, bamboo cane tapping against the ground.

"Well, yes, that is correct as it happens, but I was just warming up with that." His voice gained force.

"Here is my second, and don't expect it to be easy this time." Baolao drew himself up, projecting an air of renewed confidence.

"I always run but never walk, I have a bed but never sleep. I have a mouth but never…"

"River," Zhen interrupted.

"The answer is a river." A loud snort came from Shuo's direction, but Zhen kept his focus on Baolao. The panda's fur ruffled. His expression cycled through several emotions before settling on something between grumpy and determined.

"Fine." The word came out flat.

"Here is the last one: I am always hungry, I must always be fed…"

"The finger I touch will soon turn red?" Zhen finished the rhyme.

"The answer is fire, right? I don't mean to be rude, Master Baolao, but these are riddles that children have been telling each other since Shuo was young." He paused.

"Has anyone ever actually gotten these wrong?" Baolao's ears drooped. The absolute certainty had vanished from his face. The massive guardian looked down at his paws, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost its dramatic edge.

"Actually, I haven't tried them on anyone else yet. I thought they were rather tricky." Zhen felt a stab of guilt. Then Baolao's head snapped up, his eyes brightening.

"Well, actually, there is one more you have to answer." He waved his bamboo cane with sudden excitement, the thick stalk cutting through the air.

"I've just invented it. No one has heard it before." The panda leaned forward, his voice dropping to what he probably imagined was a mysterious tone.

"Riddle me this, if you're so clever. I am long. And green. And tasty. And if I hit you, it hurts." Silence filled the clearing. Zhen glanced at the cane in Baolao's paw, then at the partially eaten one on the ground beside them, then back at the one the panda was currently holding aloft. He cleared his throat gently.

"Is the answer bamboo?" Baolao subsided, his massive shoulders sagging.

"Yes," he muttered.

"Yes, it is." The panda stood on his rear legs, towering even higher than before. Without looking, he swiped at one of the hickory tree's lower branches. His claws slashed through the wood like paper, and a section of branch as thick as Zhen's arm crashed to the earth. Baolao dropped back to all fours, picked up the branch in his jaws, and carried it over. He set it at Zhen's feet with surprising gentleness.

"You've earned it true and fair." The words came out flat, empty of their earlier pride.

"Now take it and go. I think I would like to be alone for a while." Zhen picked up the hickory. The wood was light and strong and it carried a subtle warmth, like metal fresh from the forge. He could feel the dense, vibrant, wood-attuned qi thrumming through it. He used the Eye on it and it was flawless. Even after a few moments he could tell it would be perfect for his hammers. He bowed to Baolao, but the panda had already turned away.

Zhen collected Chul, and together with Shuo they headed toward the edge of the clearing. His boots pressed into soft moss as they walked beneath the canopy's shadow. The weight of the branch rested comfortably on his shoulder, yet something nagged at him. He glanced back. Baolao had sat down again, his enormous frame hunched. His head bowed low between his shoulders, the picture of dejection. He suddenly looked much smaller.

Zhen stopped and looked at the panda's drooping ears The panda looked lonely, no, more than that, defeated. Baolao had put his whole heart into crafting a grand trial of intellect, only for his masterpiece to crack on its very first exposure to the world. When he was twelve, his father had let him make a chopping knife for the local butcher entirely on his own. He had hammered, filed, and ground for days. He had been so proud. But when he plunged the blade for its final quench, it cracked down the spine.

In that moment of failure, he had truly believed he lacked the talent to ever be a blacksmith. If his father hadn't pulled him out of his despair and gently brought him back to the anvil to start over, he wouldn't be a smith today.

"Wait." Shuo paused mid-stride, raising an eyebrow, but he took Chul's reins as Zhen handed them to him. Zhen turned and swiftly crossed back through the clearing. He knelt in the grass before the massive guardian, setting his hickory aside.

"Master Baolao." The panda's head lifted slightly.

"Can I share some better riddles with you? Ones you haven't heard before." Baolao looked at him properly, and his eyes widened.

"You would do that?" Zhen smiled.

"Of course." He glanced over his shoulder. Shuo stood at the clearing's edge, Chul's reins loose in his hand. The old cultivator's expression was unreadable, neither disapproving nor approving. He watched with sharp grey eyes and said nothing. Zhen turned back to Baolao. The panda had straightened, his earlier enthusiasm cautiously returning to his posture.

"I know quite a few," Zhen said.

"Some from my village, some from travelers who passed through. If you'd like, I could share them. Maybe we can even try to come up with some new ones together." Baolao settled onto his haunches, his bamboo forgotten.

"Really? I would like that very much."