Two years passed since Qiping came to Clear Water Mountain. In an idle moment Bixian brought up the prospect of leaving the Qiao, but Qiping yelled and raged so much the matter was immediately dropped.

Qiping told Xingxi the next day. The other girl looked pensive for a moment, before declaring, “No, you won’t,” and insisting they go hunting the next day. Xingxi had seen a white rabbit while flying with her father and was determined to catch it.

In the morning, the two of them escaped their studies, overseen by Yuanpo’s easily overwhelmed poet, and ran amok in the nearby woods. Xingxi moved deftly through the undergrowth, her mother’s old bow strung on her back and a quiver of newly made arrows at her side.

Qiping followed a bit behind, stumbling a bit through the wilderness. Her legs did not grow up running across the northern steppes; she was far more comfortable walking upon well-trod paths, listening to stories told at the kitchen table rather than elusive birdsong in the bushes. Still, she followed Xingxi with a blind puppy trust; ever since they first met, she had been smitten with the older girl.

The eagle child stopped and crouched down on the ground, motioning Qiping over. She followed, leaning down to see what Xingxi was examining. Her nose scrunched immediately at the odor and she recoiled. “That’s poop!” she exclaimed.

“Rabbit dung,” Xingxi corrected. Without any hesitation she picked up a piece and rolled it in her fingers. Qiping gagged. “It’s a little old, but there’s a lot of places for it to set up a warren. Come on.” She stood up with a grunt and continued further into the woods. Qiping followed, careful now to not step in any piles of rabbit dung underfoot.

It was easy for the two girls to keep up with each other. They shared a restless energy between them, which only multiplied when they were together into an unshakeable desire to go, to explore, to move around and never stay still. It made them both terrible babysitters, but as the oldest children of the Qiao clan they were often expected to look after the young ones. This duty was unceremoniously relegated to Xiongmu’s two sons, three years Xingxi’s junior, so she and Qiping could wander freely in the wilderness, answering to no one but each other.

“Why do you want the rabbit?” Qiping asked.

Xingxi shrugged, playing with the ends of her fur skirt. “It’s a surprise.”

They continued further, stopping occasionally when Xingxi’s keener senses observed something in the distance. She motioned for Qiping to crouch down and knocked back an arrow. The world held its breath; the prelude of a breeze played in the distance, a warning that the stillness would not last forever.

She released the bowstring and her arrow flew through the air into the underbrush, landing true on its target. A piercing scream rang through the forest, causing birds to scatter from their hiding places on the ground to seek higher refuge in the tree branches.

The cry was too primal, too human, and shook Qiping’s soul. She covered her ears long after the cry died, tucking her head against her chest. Xingxi ran in the direction of the arrow, and retrieved a rabbit by the ears, the arrow lodged in its side. It was no longer screaming, but still stared out in the world with frightened red eyes, its chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Qiping squeezed her eyes shut as Xingxi held the rabbit in her hands and snapped its neck.

She remained in that position for a while, curled up so small the rest of the world would not notice her. If she closed her eyes tight enough, she could imagine herself back inside the black box. A world where pain and fear were on the outside, and she was safe in the dark interior. She was fading into a primordial blankness, giving up her personhood in exchange for utter surrender.

Something touched her head—a hand, small and rough and warm—and brought her out of herself. She looked up to see Xingxi with a concerned look on her face.

“Qiping? Are you okay?”

The sight of her friend’s face, her favorite face to see next to her mother, calmed her, but then she glanced over to the white corpse tucked under Xingxi’s arm and the feelings of dread and disgust rose up again.

Qiping stood up and ripped herself away from her friend, taking large steps toward the direction she thought was home. She didn’t care much if it did lead her home or deeper into the forest; all she wanted was to get away from the scene of death, the sight and smell of it.

She wanted to walk away from the source of death, but Xingxi insisted on following her, calling out her name and placations without any care for how much noise she was making. The hunt was over, after all.

Xingxi had legs used to traversing through the forest underbrush. She was not distraught, just confused, and easily caught up to her friend. Grabbing the other girl’s arm, she yanked Qiping to a stop and turned her around so she could see her worried face. “Qiping, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

The younger girl’s eyes were full of tears, a streak of snot running down her nose dangling dangerously close to her mouth. As she struggled in her friend’s grasp, language half forgotten, the white rabbit’s body slipped from under Xingxi’s arm and fell onto the forest floor. It landed with a dull thud, barely louder than a footstep. Its body seemed so small; were rabbits always this tiny?

Her aversion giving way to sympathy, Qiping fell to her knees and cradled its dead body in her arms. Xingxi stared, dumbfounded, as her friend sobbed wildly at the death of such a little thing.

Finally, Qiping wiped her face on her sleeve and looked up at Xingxi, her eyes red from crying. “You killed it,” she accused.

“We were hunting the rabbit,” Xingxi protested. “I told you we were hunting it.”

Qiping stroke the rabbit’s soft fur, marveled at the thin membrane of its ears. One hand went to lift its eyelid, but the red eye remained unstaring.

“I killed it quickly,” Xingxi offered, and was met with another glare. Anger boiled inside her. She was an eagle, after all: her primary purpose was to hunt. Did her friend not see how flawlessly she drew the arrow back, how easily it found its mark? Her parents would have been proud. “Not my fault you’re a weakling,” she muttered, grabbing the rabbit off the ground by its ears and heading back home.

Qiping remained kneeling in the undergrowth. Xingxi looked back and took a few more steps away, hoping that her friend would come to her senses and follow. When the other girl still refused to move, Xingxi groaned and stomped back to her friend, grabbing her by the wrist and forcing her to follow.

Qiping wrested her hand away from Xingxi and remained where she was. Xingxi tried tugging on her a few more times before giving up. “You’re going to get lost without me,” she huffed, turning around and running, her legs eventually becoming wings and the white rabbit in her talons.

With her eyes shut and her face pressed against the earth, Qiping’s other senses sharpened. She could hear the rustle of each individual leaf, and the clicking of joints as insects burrowed in the ground and climbed on top of her, curious as to this strange giant in their midst. Still she didn’t sense the presence by sound or smell, but instead a feeling inside her chest that something was nearing her. Something dangerous, and large.

She looked up and saw Shuangtou the deer demon, who looked at her impassively with their large deer eyes.

“This is not a good place to sleep,” they said.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Qiping replied, scrambling to her feet. Her head reached the deer demon’s hip, right where dark brown fur became dark brown flesh. She quickly backed away from them. The adults told the children not to bother the deer demon of Clear Water Mountain.

“You’re not the one who comes out here often,” the deer demon said after sizing Qiping up and sniffing the air around her. “Though you have been around her.”

Qiping looked down. “I’m mad at her.”

“For abandoning you in the woods?”

“I didn’t want to go.”

Shuangtou gave a snort that almost sounded like a laugh. She turned to walk away, then after a few seconds looked back at Qiping. “Well, do you wish to return to the village?”

Walking behind the deer demon, Qiping could see the small tuft of white underneath Shuangtou’s tail as it swayed back and forth with each step. There was a silly part of her that wanted to touch Shuangtou’s soft tail, but Qiping valued her hands too much to act on the impulse. Shuangtou noticed her lagging and stopped, offering her their hand. Qiping took it, their palm a strange texture like the pads of a cat.

Neither of them felt a need for conversation, and Qiping enjoyed walking in the woods with this new protector. When they neared signs of Qiao village, its gold flag waving gently in the wind, Qiping reluctantly let go of their hand. Each time she glanced back, Shuangtou was still there, waiting for her to return to safety but refusing to come near the village.

She caught sight of Xingxi as she neared, wrestling with Xiongmu’s boys. The eagle child saw her as well, and her face quickly shifted from relief to anger, and she looked away, purposefully turning her back to Qiping.

Tears welling in her eyes, Qiping ran straight home.

She headed for the well, pulling up a bucket of water and washing her hands raw, trying to rid them of the memory of death. When her skin was scrubbed red and raw, she ran back inside and stripped off all her clothing, kicking them to a pile in the corner. Despite it being early evening, she crept in bed, covering her head with the covers. Desperate to return to the dark place she was before, desperate to forget the sight of the dying rabbit.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed. Perhaps she slept, perhaps she simply closed her eyes and lost herself in the blanket’s warmth. From the muffled outside world, she could hear her mother calling for her. Her stomach rumbled, but she only shuffled a bit under the covers. She heard footsteps draw near her on the wooden floor, and the rustle of clothing as her mother sat down near her.

Bixian acted as a mother should and did not try to pry Qiping out of the covers. Instead, she reached under the blanket and found Qiping’s head, which she patted gently, slowly undoing her pigtails and running her fingers through her adoptive daughter’s hair.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

Qiping held in her breath for a second, and then let it out in a puff. She wasn’t in the mood for words.

“Do you want dinner?”

She shook her head.

“I saw Luo Feiyi’s daughter fuming in the courtyard. Is this about her?”

Qiping didn’t answer. Bixian withdrew her hand and folded them in her lap. The conversation from before ended terribly, but now with Qiping fighting with her best friend, the strongest connection she had to Clear Water Mountain, it seemed to be her best chance of asking again.

“About earlier,” she hazarded. “I know this is a big ask, but do you think you may be happier elsewhere? We could leave Clear Water Mountain and find you a place among other mortals.”

At this, Qiping finally moved the covers to look at her mother. Her eyes were red from crying, tears and snot staining the blanket where her face was pressed against. Beyond the sadness and anger, however, was a clear refusal of the proposition. Even as she almost hated Xingxi, she would not leave Clear Water Mountain for anywhere else.

Her mouth was dry as if filled with cotton as she searched for the words lost deep in the dark of herself.

“This is home,” she insisted.

The following days, Qiping avoided Xingxi as best as possible. It was easy, as the other girl seemed to be doing the same, either roaming the nearby forests alone or hunting with her father. As for herself, Qiping relieved Xiongmu’s boys from babysitting duty, and focused on pipa lessons with Lady Liuying in her free time.

Despite giving up on the bamboo flute entirely, Qiping enjoyed playing the pipa. The strings were fun to pluck, and even if she could not strike a chord she could at least produce a sound. She had hated how awkward it was to blow into the flute, how sometimes no sound emerged except her pathetic puffs of air.

Lady Liuying insisted on teaching from the fundamentals, which Qiping found intolerable. She had heard the songs the snake demon played, either solo or in a duet with her mother. She wanted to do what Lady Liuying did, fingers flying across the frets easing out complex melodies from the four strings. Instead, Lady Liuying insisted that she practice scales and the same simple melodies every day, which drove her insane. She would find herself humming the same melodies while doing her chores, and immediately stop, as she did not want to think about more work while she had to scrub dishes or mend clothing.

This time, however, she gave herself fully to the melodies and found a soothing liberation in them. At the end of their lessons Lady Liuying would nod and smile, dismissing Qiping with an airy “That’s all for today.”

Once, Auntie Tangyou stopped by to listen in and give her praise. “Be proud of your hands,” she said as she held Qiping’s hands in her own, running her thumbs over the girl’s calluses.

Xiongmu’s sons tired of the responsibility of childcare and resumed their usual mischief. With Xingxi finding any excuse possible to disappear into the forest, the duty of watching the younger children fell onto Qiping. Most of them were capable of being on their own, it was mostly Liya, Yuanpo’s quiet daughter, and little Liuruo who needed watching, and both required less energy to watch than the boys older than them. Liya was perfectly content to be put in a corner somewhere with a quiet task to do, and little Liuruo was not very fast with her fat snake body.

She didn’t expect to be bothered by Xingxi’s little brother, Xingbei. The boy was usually glued to either his mother or sister’s side, and rarely sought her out personally. He surprised her with a plucked camellia and a paper-wrapped pastry.

“You want something,” she said as she bit into the pastry, savoring the red bean paste inside.

Xingbei rocked back and forth on his heels. “Stop fighting with my sister.”

Qiping would have spit out the bite she had taken, but it was so thoroughly chewed she worried it would dribble down her chin. Instead, she swallowed angrily and handed the gifts back to Xingbei. “She says sorry first.”

“She will,” he promised, shoving the gifts back towards Qiping. “She’ll say sorry now if you follow me.”

Qiping sighed and decided to follow him to Uncle Feiyi and Auntie Yildun’s house. “You could have lied,” she offered. “Said Xingxi was already sorry.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Did you lie about her now?” When he didn’t respond, Qiping groaned and shuffled away in the opposite direction. “Don’t waste my time,” she muttered.

“Wait!” Xingbei called, grabbing onto the edge of her sleeve. “I did lie, so you need to tell on me. Tell on me to my mom, she’s right there!”

True enough, Yildun was at the doorway looking on at the children’s scuffle. In her attempts to shake Xingbei off, Qiping had dropped the pastry and stomped on the camellia. His grip was firm, however, and soon there was a loud tearing sound as part of her sleeve ripped. Angrily, she pushed him away and stomped up to his mother.

“Your son lies,” she whined.

Confused, Yildun looked between Xingbei and Qiping, at the petals trampled on the ground and the red bean paste smeared over both children’s clothes. “Xingbei, is that true?”

“Yes, ma,” he yelped, letting go of Qiping to hide at his mother’s side. “But it’s because I want her and sis to stop fighting. They’ve been fighting for days!”

Yildun sighed and gently pat him on the back. “Go see if they need help in the storehouse,” she said. “Otherwise, you can go and play.” As Xingbei ran off, she turned to Qiping. “Come in and we’ll fix your shirt.”

Qiping reluctantly followed her inside and sat down on a rug. Their house was more cluttered than Bixian’s, full of knick-knacks strewn about on shelves and many bows hanging on the wall, next to an intricate tapestry of blues and gold. It felt strange being in the space without Xingxi next to her, chattering excitedly as they helped with whatever chore Yildun needed done.

The house had always smelled of leather and sandalwood, but for the first time Qiping noticed how much death was present in the house. From the bows on the wall to the fur rug she sat on, the house was filled with mementos of death and dying.

She drew her legs toward her chest, trying to minimize contact with the rug.

Yildun returned from the kitchen with a bowl of candied nuts. She set them in front of Qiping, then gestured for the girl to take off her shirt so she could fix it. Qiping put a handful of nuts in her mouth before unbuttoning her shirt and handing it over, shivering now in her wool undershirt.

“So why are you fighting with my daughter?” asked Yildun as she began to mend the sleeve.

Qiping looked away and chewed loudly.

Yildun chuckled. “I see. So this is the silent treatment you’re so famous for. Well, I can wait.” She continued to sew, humming a song as she did. Despite herself, Qiping began tapping along to the melody. As she did, Yildun smiled and opened her mouth to sing out the words of the song in a language Qiping did not understand. Or at least, she assumed it was words; the syllables that came out of Yildun’s mouth were soft and smooth, as if she hesitated to give any of them a definitive sound.

She could understand the last refrain, however, as Yildun sang in their shared tongue:

“Fortune guide my arrow

Let it fly true

I will bring home the Winter Stag

And we’ll have a feast for two.”

She held the final note as she pulled the final stitches and tied off the thread. She cut the thread with her teeth and handed the shirt back to Qiping, who had by then finished eating all the candied nuts in the bowl.

Qiping heard Yildun stand up and move as she pulled her shirt over her head. When she was able to see again, she saw something laid out in front of her. Soft and white, about the length of her arm.

“I’ve had plenty of free time lately,” Yildun smiled, “and this was easy to sew. It was almost like it wanted to get made.”

Hand shaking, Qiping reached out to touch it; her fingers barely brushed against the fur, but she instantly knew what it was. The white rabbit, skinned and made into a winter muff.

With a cry she swiped the ghastly garment away, too shaken to move her other limbs. Yildun leaned over to pick the muff off the floor and held it in her hands.

“I thought as much,” she sighed. “Xingxi was angry when she came home with the rabbit. Barely touched the stew I made, and insisted I make you the muff as soon as possible. Of course she had talked often about making you a matching fur skirt, but she insisted I get this done quickly.”

Qiping clenched her fist. “She killed.”

“Was this your first death?”

She immediately shook her head. Of course she had witnessed death, far away as it was while she was within her dark place. The walls couldn’t muffle the screams completely; she was left alone with only her rampant imagination until the door was opened by the woman she would eventually call Mother. As she stepped out of the isolation chamber she could smell smoke and iron in the air. Death witnessed by sound and smell, but not yet by sight. The screaming returned in her dreams. Even if everyone was alive when she was sent into the chamber—for the paltry offense of falling asleep during class—and then disappeared when she came out, not even bodies present as witnesses to their lives.

Qiping was no stranger to death. She just didn’t expect to witness it happen at the hands of her best friend.

A hand touched her shoulder, bringing her out of her ruminations. She looked up into Yildun’s light brown eyes, filled with compassion and concern.

“Remember that Xingxi is an eagle,” she said. “Eagles need to hunt to survive. It’s in her blood. You’re fully human, like me, but there are things about being animals that we will never understand.”

Qiping looked away. “You hunt,” she accused.

“I do. And you eat meat.”

“I don’t have to.”

“But Xingxi does,” Yildun countered. “Would you rather my daughter starve?”

“Why can’t she be a good demon? Like Auntie Yuanpo,” she paused, “or Shuangtou.”

Yildun barked out a laugh. “Do you think deer do not eat meat, child? I have seen a herd devour a wolf carcass in winter.”

Qiping shuddered, the image of Shuangtou’s fluffy tail and the feeling of their strange, callused hands no longer bringing her comfort. She kept her eyes to the ground.

Yildun sighed and bit her tongue. She was being careless with her words; her time with the Qiao had loosened her tongue. She was once so careful, borrowed languages sitting neatly on her tongue for tithes and traders. Living next to demons made her insensate to death, the promise of warm meals and a storeroom to last the winter enough to keep the inevitability at bay.

What could she say to a girl grieving, not just death but the loss of innocence? How did she feel the first time she had helped with a slaughter, holding the sheep down as her older brother approached with a knife?

“Once,” she began, “there was a bad harvest year. I was probably your age, maybe younger. My family was large, and we had several horses. One of them was born that previous spring. Of course, I didn’t get that horse to ride; I had an old, old stallion that wouldn’t move faster than a canter no matter how much I whipped it.” She smiled at the recollection. “I loved that horse. But we were out of food, and hunger won out in the end. Was I wrong to choose survival?”

Qiping was silent but shook her head. If Auntie Yildun had starved that winter, Xingxi would have never been born.

Yildun reached across the table and offered her hands. Hesitantly, Qiping took them. Both of their fingertips were calloused, one from music practice and the other from decades of labor. Only one pair of hands had ever killed.

“I was inconsolable for days afterwards,” Yildun continued. “But my grandfather sat me down and told me this: every living thing exists in a cycle of birth and death. The people you are close to, even the animals, you may meet them again in a different life. And it made me happy, thinking that I may one day meet my horse again. Or, far into the future, if I may become the horse and my horse would be my rider. Rabbits, birds, even stones and streams: I think about the lives they led before, and when they end I wonder what they will become. Death is just a gateway to becoming something new.”

Qiping squeezed Yildun’s hands. “Death is a gateway to becoming,“ she repeated.

The housed no longer smelled of death, and the hands that held her own were not those of a murderer. Instead, they were hands that felt familiar to hold; perhaps it was as Yildun said and the two of them had met before in a previous life.

Yildun squeezed back and let go, hand reaching over to the white muff.

“I won’t wear it,” protested Qiping quickly.

“I’m not asking you to,” Yildun responded. “I’m asking you to forgive my daughter for her choices, even if you don’t agree with them. She misses you.”

As if on cue, Xingxi and Xingbei burst into the living room. “Uncle Jin gave us some yams from the storeroom. Do you need help with dinner, Ma?” Xingxi called out, then froze immediately when she saw Qiping sitting at the table. Her expression darkened, as it often did lately when the girls crossed paths, but now Qiping realized it was less an expression of anger than of sadness. Of regret.

Xingxi recovered first and leapt towards the table, grabbing the rabbit fur muff and cradling it in her arms. The shock of the sudden movement made Qiping realize that the two of them had previously been engaged in a stare-off.

“You can help me chop vegetables,” Yildun said airily, placing a hand on each of the two girls’ shoulders. “Qiping is staying for dinner.”

Dinner began as a quiet affair, until Uncle Feiyi returned from his errands. He burst in like a warm spring wind, picking up Xingbei and throwing him in the air. Xingxi’s dourness dissipated as she ran up to her father, babbling about the things she saw in the forest that day. Feiyi’s laughter was loud and raucous, even as he took a seat at the table, refusing food stating he already ate while hunting.

He made a point to sit next to Qiping during dinner and focused the conversation on her. It was probably just a matter of hospitality, but he managed to draw more words out of her than she thought she was capable of. More words than she had said all week. Even though he knew nothing of music, he let her ramble about her lessons with Lady Liuying and the song she heard Yildun sing this afternoon.

Luo Feiyi laughed. “If only our children inherited her voice instead of mine.” He belted a few notes in demonstration, harsh and shrill like an eagle’s call.

“That’s a lie, Ba,” Xingxi chimed up, back to her usual energetic countenance. She sang back a scale in response, still a bit sharp but less cacophonic than her father.

Her father moaned out and covered his ears in mock pain. After a moment’s hesitation, Xingbei copied his father’s position. Yildun merely laughed.

“I think it’s good,” Qiping mumbled, then bit her tongue. Xingxi had been speaking to her father, not Qiping. Perhaps her input was not welcome.

But Xingxi beamed at her, reaching out across the table to grab her arm. “At least my best friend has my back.” The warmth of her touch told Qiping that all was forgiven. The rift was mended; let them never fight like this again.

Yildun instructed Xingxi to walk Qiping back home after dinner. The autumn sun had set early, and the last cicadas of summer filled the air with their dying words.

The two girls walked back home, drifting closer and closer until Xingxi took Qiping’s hand. The same warmth, the same love, but Qiping did not want to forget what happened in the forest. Even so, she squeezed her friend’s and and did not let go.

“Thank you,” Qiping muttered. “For the muff. I don’t want it, but it mattered to you.”

Xingxi sighed and looked away. “When I first came here, Ma had made me a rabbit skin cloak. I wanted you to have one, too. Even a small one, before you left. Because if you had one, maybe you wouldn’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” insisted Qiping. “Mother can beg me eighteen times and I’ll always say no. You’re my best friend, Xingxi.”

“Even if I’m a killer?”

“I talked with your mom,” Qiping said. “Death is a gateway to becoming.”

Xingxi looked down and kicked at a pebble. “I’m sorry for calling you a weakling.”

“But I am,” Qiping said, giggling slightly as she nudged her friend’s shoulder with her own. “That’s why you’re around to defend me.”

Xingxi squeezed Qiping’s hand. “And if we’re ever apart, I’ll find you,” she promised. “I’ll fly across the entire continent, across five hundred seas, just to find you.”

Young Arguments