“Uncle, Uncle!” Jianyu’s young niece and nephew cried as they tumbled into the circle of firelight.

“Yes, yes — I am your uncle,” Jianyu slurred with a drunken grin, though his smile betrayed the truth of his heart.

His niece, a bold seven-year-old already dreaming of becoming a warrior like her grandmother Zhenya, held up a small rabbit by its ears. “Look what I caught — all by myself!” she boasted, chin high.

“I helped!” her four-year-old brother piped up, eyes bright.

“You almost scared it away,” his sister shot back, sharp as a dagger.

Jianyu chuckled, genuinely surprised they’d managed to find a rabbit at all. The hills, though still beautiful, were no longer rich with life the way they once had been. The famine had begun to hollow even the forests.

“Woah!” Jianyu exclaimed, crouching to her level with mock awe. “Look at our little huntress!”

The girl’s chest swelled with pride at her uncle’s praise, her small hands tightening on the rabbit as though it were a trophy of war.

Jianyu looked down at his precious niece, and for a rare moment of sobriety said, “I’ll trade you this sweet rice cake for your rabbit.”

His clan brothers chuckled — they already knew what would come next.

The girl’s eyes lit up like stars. “Yes!” she cried, thrusting the rabbit into her uncle’s hands and snatching her reward.

His little nephew — with a single tear that always seemed to cling stubbornly beneath his eye — gazed at Jianyu with open hope.

“And yours…” Jianyu said, pressing another cake into the boy’s small hands. The child twirled with delight before running to bury himself in his mother’s arms.

“You can’t keep spoiling them little brother,” came the scolding voice of Jianyu’s sister-in-law, wife of his second brother.

“I paid for their labor— fair trade!” he chuckled, flashing a crooked grin that softened her rebuke.

But Jianyu had no intent to stew the rabbit — nor to set it free. “Off to your pen, brother?” Jiyun asked over his lute.

“Sure am,” Jianyu replied, rising from the stump where he’d been seated. He walked toward the pens with an odd gentleness, his broad hands cradling the rabbit as though it were treasure.

For some time, Jianyu had grown curious about the land itself — the forests, the rivers, the balance of things. Long before the famine showed its teeth, he had noticed the change. Game grew scarce; fish no longer swarmed in the streams. Something was happening to the land, and he could not look away.

Years ago during a raid, Jianyu found himself inside the mansion of an old scholar. He lingered — not over silver or jade but over shelves of scrolls and books. Much to the old man’s dismay, Jianyu carried away half the library on his back. While his brothers boasted of jewels and coins, Jianyu’s spoils were words.

That kid has a sharp nose…

— ✦ —

Next Episode — Deadly Precision

Between laughter and steel, Jianyu hones the art that will one day make even legends hesitate.