A Red String on a Snow Leopard - Chapter 2

Pulling the arrow took half an hour.

My hands were covered in blood, my knuckles numb from the cold.

The snow leopard did not make a sound.

Only when I sprinkled medicine powder over the wound did its tail lash out, nearly overturning my medicine chest.

“If it hurts, cry out. No one will laugh at you.”

It turned its head aside and refused to look at me.

I laughed from sheer irritation.

“You care about your dignity, do you?”

By the time I finished bandaging it, I found I did not have enough cloth strips, so I had to tear the red string from my own cuff.

My mother had left me that red string.

When she was alive, she always said the Northern Border snow was heavy, and red could hold down evil.

I did not believe such things.

But when one practices medicine alone, one needs something that lets the heart rest.

I wound the red string around the snow leopard’s hind leg and tied a knot.

“I’m lending it to you for now.”

It stared at that knot for a long time.

I packed up my medicine chest and prepared to leave.

I had only turned around when something tugged lightly at the hem of my clothes.

I looked down.

The snow leopard had my cloak edge between its teeth, golden eyes fixed on me.

I said, “What are you doing?”

It would not let go.

I tried to pull free.

Its teeth closed, and the edge of my cloak tore.

“…”

I took a deep breath.

“You had better not be trying to extort me.”

I did not bring it back to the convoy.

A snow leopard that large would have scattered everyone on sight.

I built it a temporary snow den on the lee slope, then left it half a packet of jerky and two bottles of medicine.

Before I went, I pointed at its leg and said, “No running for three days, no going down the mountain for seven, and the bandage comes off in half a month.”

The snow leopard looked at me.

I suspected it had not listened.

So I added, “If the wound rots, I am not coming back to collect your corpse.”

Its ear tip twitched.

As if it disliked that wording.

By the time I returned to the convoy, the sky was fully dark.

The medicine boy hugged my ginseng box and sobbed that he would support me in my old age.

I said, “Pay back the two qian of silver you owe me first.”

His crying stopped.

Early the next morning, the convoy continued south.

I sat in the carriage and lifted the curtain to look toward the mountain.

The lee slope was empty.

Only a few faint drops of blood and a drag mark remained in the snow.

I thought the matter ended there.

Then ten li later, a snow-white rabbit appeared on the carriage shaft.

Dead.

Its neck had been bitten through, and it had been placed very neatly.

The medicine boy screamed.

I stared at the rabbit for a long while without speaking.

That snow leopard.

It could not possibly be paying my medical fee, could it?

I reached the capital on the very day the Northern Border delegation entered the city.

Crowds packed both sides of the long street. Young ladies tossed scented sachets toward the procession.

I had no interest in watching.

The Ministry of War had delayed my father’s medicine payment for three years, and I had only seventeen taels left.

If I could not collect that money, I would have to sell the little medicine hut below Qingyan Mountain.

After waiting half a day, I finally entered a petty official’s duty room at the Ministry of War.

He flipped through the account book and smiled very politely.

“Miss Jiang, this account has no approval document.”