Winter finally gave way to an uneasy truce with spring. Before long, the river began to swell and the trees shook off their coverings. In Songying, the time for cleaning had come, and not least for the granaries.

  “Thank you, boy! I cannot thank you enough!” an older man shouted.

  “No, sir, thank you!” said Huang Jin. “This is just what I needed.” A few boxes made squeaking noises behind him.

  Without Master here to confirm the safety of his products, he needed animals for testing. It was a horrible, horrible thing… but the Empire didn’t have the infrastructure required to avoid it. He gathered pests, rats already slated for extermination. He would keep them in comfort, avoid naming them, take steps to detach himself from the little animals and their grim destiny… but it would be hard on him no matter what.

  He loaded the boxes of rats into his cart, one of those little wooden two-wheelers typically pushed by a workman, and headed to market. After making a version safe for rats, he’d have to move on to other, larger animals.

  Fortunately, Songying’s bazaar was beginning to swell along with its river. Merchants from the South and West took advantage of the long and bitter White Mountain winters to fetch high prices from the city. Like bears, everybody needed everything after emerging from their forced inactivity. Songying’s thoroughfares were packed with every kind of peddler, making livestock abundant.

  The pig was far more likely to survive the process, given that the rats were going first. For this reason, Huang Jin only bought one, a juicy-looking fellow otherwise destined for the pot. The hefty animal oinked happily as Huang Jin placed a collar around its neck and attached the lead to his cart.

  Just as he turned to make his way back to the woods outside of town, he heard a disturbance coming from behind. First, the screams of panicked townsfolk. This was followed by a general commotion of crashing boxes and bolting animals. The prince snapped his attention toward the tumult. As soon as he stopped the cart, the pig flopped down on the ground as though it’d been waiting to do so all day.

  He put the pig and the rats out of his mind as he picked one word out of the chaos: “Tiger!”

  People fled past him as he closed in on the center of the bazaar. Stalls were broken and scattered, goods strewn across the ground, and every kind of farm animal from cows to ducks ran free in all directions. Rampaging in the middle of it all… was the most beautiful animal Huang Jin had ever seen in his life.

  It bore stripes of charcoal black and flaming red, balanced with milky whites. Its eyes, fierce as a summer storm, shone like jewels. Claws like curved knives warded off any who dared approach, and the sound of its voice tore through the confusion and drove the stragglers to their knees. The tiger lashed out aimlessly, darting in one direction and then the other, utterly disoriented. Not a spirit beast, despite its magnificence; and yet, how could a mundane animal be so perfect?

  The prince approached, while everyone around him either darted the other way or crawled about in confusion. The animal caught sight of him and charged forward, finally settling on a target.

  Then, it stopped. It froze mid-step, as though struck by a silent and invisible bolt of lightning. Fur that had been standing on edge settled, ears that were pinned back righted themselves. Even the animal’s claws retracted. The rest of the world faded away; only the child was now reflected in the tiger’s eyes.

  “Poor thing. I’ll bet you’re frightened, aren’t you? You’ve had a bad time. Come here, come here…” He lowered himself to the ground and sat with his legs folded. When he patted his lap, and the tiger padded forward.

  A few merchants, who had not been quick enough to flee, gasped. But the animal only flopped down onto the cobbles when it reached the child, laying its great head on his legs. Silent consternation rippled through the crowd, until one or two locals showed up.

  “Ah, that’s Lady Dahe’s boy. Close your jaw, fella, you get used to him.”

  The prince heard them, but ignored the chatter. His new friend’s head barely fit in his lap; a full-grown male tiger, likely from the bamboo forests far to the Southwest. It was a little over ten feet long, and had to weigh over five hundred pounds. His hand sunk deep into the tiger’s fur, feeling the layer of soft skin beneath and the iron-hard muscle underneath that. It purred like a giant kitten, with a noise like a continuously-falling tree.

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  This was love.

  People began to calm down, enough to watch and to begin organizing the wreckage, but not quite enough to approach the child and the quarter-ton predator mewling on his lap. One man did manage to overcome the fear and draw close: a foppish merchant in a brightly-colored suit, wearing a Southern-style top hat. He crept up on the two and swallowed hard. “Oh… oh, Kepa, you naughty, naughty-”

  The cat’s eyes opened like doors being kicked in. It rolled half onto its feet, claws extending. Only Huang Jin’s steadying hand on its cheek kept the animal from immediate violence.

  The newcomer sprang back, hands raised palm-outwards. “Wait! Wait!” He jumped so quickly that he fell flat on his backside. “Good Kepa! Be good!”

  The prince considered the cowering man for a moment. “How much?”

  “Wh, what?”

  “If I am not mistaken, you are a trader of exotic animals. I’ve passed your pavilion before. How much are you asking for this tiger?”

  The merchant tore his eyes from the cat and looked to the boy. Something like hope shone in the depths of those eyes. “You mean, part with our beloved Kepa? Oh, that would be a great loss…”

  “Bite it back, Peng, the animal’s gone.” Another stranger entered the scene. This one could not be more different from his associate. He was tall, dark-skinned and clearly not from the Empire. If this ‘Peng’ wore a Southern-style hat, every stitch of clothing on this man was Southern. The prince had seen his Master in such outfits; a ‘cowboy getup’ she called it, but this man appeared to wear it without any joke or irony.

  The tiger gave the man a look, though not with any great hostility. Taking off his hat, the Southerner bowed at the waist. “The name’s Clive, Clive David, of Lucky Qu’s Exotics. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, kid. I think you just saved us a whole mess of trouble.”

  He wore a smooth smile that Huang Jin could not quite trust. The prince gave him a nod in reply, prompting him to continue. “This big fella here, he’s watchya call a ‘loss leader.’ Folk come to see the tiger, maybe they make a purchase when we’ve got ‘em looking. But once an animal’s escaped…”

  “They’re more likely to get away again,” finished the boy comforting the escapee. “No blood on his teeth or claws… your people were lucky this time, but it still won’t look good.”

  “Yeah. Thanks to my fine associate Peng here, we’ve got to go into damage control or pack it in, head for the next town.” He gestured to ‘Kepa.’ “I can tell you’re a shaman- er, ‘cultivator’ as they call ‘em up here. There’s a lotta ways a man could die in this situation.” He shrugged. “And hey, if you didn’t get him, we coulda been deeper than we are. Consider our cat friend here a reward, and we’ll call it square.”

  Huang Jin considered this. “I think I’ll take you up on that. Thank you. In all likelihood, I’ll have to rely on you further going forward, not least for meat in bulk.” There was a formation to turn melons into a kind of indistinct animal flesh, but it was qi-intensive.

  The man agreed to this, and thus the prince acquired Kepa, or as he would be known going forward, Tiger.

  It took a lot of effort, not to convince the animal to come with him, but to convince him not to eat the pig. He had similar issues after he’d gotten the science animals settled, when he brought Tiger to meet Dog.

  The great formation overhead emitted a reddening light to simulate sunset. “Now, you two get along. Be friends! We’re all in this together, from here on out.” He held Tiger by the scruff of the neck, allowing Dog the chance to sniff doubtfully at the quarter-ton apex predator. He did not appear appreciative, hackles raised and continuously backing off.

  Dog’s reaction to Tiger was repeated in reverse when Ox came sniffing around. Perhaps Tiger had seen elephants before in his homeland, and certainly he’d borne witness to cows… but a bull the size of an elephant was too much. Huang Jin laughed, in spite of himself, watching Tiger’s eyes bulge at Ox’s swordlike horns.

  And what of Rabbit? A very brief investigation took place, in which Rabbit showed her new companion the iridescent emitters under her long ears. That ended any threat of conflict from that quarter.

  Once the animal had recovered from that nasty experience, his new owner got down to the business of making him comfortable. He kept Dog near at all times and spoke softly as he prepared a den fit for a tiger outside of the alchemy shed’s blast radius. Eventually, Tiger managed to settle in and the prince could turn to other matters.

  A pig pen, rat enclosures, bacterial collection, preparations for the chemical trials, and he couldn’t let any of his regular tasks such as sword forms and garden work lapse either… So much to do!