Volume One, Chapter Thirty-Seven: Escape from Certain Death

In the vast expanse of the forest, the flying squirrel’s body was frail, with little fat to spare. Even in the tropics, once the chill of night descended, he had to find a hollow sheltered from the wind, line it with dry leaves, and only then could he lie down, shivering, to rest.

The forest at night was utterly silent—so still that only the wailing of tree toads and frogs in the pools could be heard in intermittent chorus, and the rasping whisper of leaves stirred by the breeze. It made his skin crawl.

The cold of the night was a harsh antidote to fear, granting the flying squirrel one of those rare, dreamless nights. Without the aid of alcohol to lull him to sleep, even as dreams began to form, he would be jolted awake by the freezing air.

If it wasn’t the biting cold that kept him awake, it was the horde of tropical flower-legged mosquitoes. Any brief spell of sleep was broken by these bloodthirsty insects, whose bites roused him in pain.

After the rain, the mosquitoes multiplied. Their “straws” for sucking blood were not like the straws used for drinking water, but rather a bundle of six needle-like parts—upper lip, mandibles, tongue, lower jaws, and lower lip—the last acting as a sheath for the others. These needles formed part of the mosquito’s mouth structure. After feeding, the mosquito would withdraw its “needle bundle,” but in the act of biting, it injected formic acid into the skin, causing the furious itching and swelling.

By morning, the flying squirrel’s body was covered in swollen bites. No matter how unbearable the itching, he dared not scratch them; any break in the skin would attract daytime flies. These swarmed in groups, descending on any wound the moment one’s attention lapsed. The bacteria they carried could cause rapid infection and festering.

The flying squirrel had endured harsher wilderness training than this; finding food was the least of his worries.

Bamboo worm pupae thrived in the bamboo groves on the lower slopes. The tropics abounded in bamboo, and bamboo worms were plentiful. He picked up a thick bamboo stalk someone had cut down, split it open, fashioned a bamboo knife by grinding it on a stone, and searched the grove for bamboo bored by the worms. Splitting it open section by section, he uncovered the pupae inside.

Sometimes, a single segment would yield a handful. He would tip the wriggling larvae into his mouth, the sensation indescribable. To force them down, he conjured memories of the exquisite sashimi from his homeland.

There were, of course, ingredients whose taste was naturally good. In the tropical jungle, he could feast on a large, yellow-and-black banded spider, known as the patterned web-spinner, as big as a thumb. He hollowed a hole in a half-rotted pine log with his bamboo knife, started a fire using a stick as thick as a chopstick, some slender rattan, and dry leaves. He roasted the spider over the flames, and after its skin peeled away, its aroma surpassed that of grilled meat.

There were other, less palatable sources of nutrition he was forced to eat. He dug up the pupae of the “dung beetle,” known in the Jingpo tongue as “Qi Ke,” from underground nests. These pupae were large, two or three times the thickness of a thumb. He unearthed the white pupae and, despite their fishy taste when raw, swallowed them for their rich protein, forcing himself to endure for the sake of energy.

Ant eggs were a rare delicacy in this wild journey, though they came at a price. He called it “cold-tossed ant eggs.” Using a large banana leaf as a plate, he collected the pea-sized eggs, which tasted much like pork kidney. Gleaming white and delicate under the sun, each egg was wrapped in a thin membrane—pleasing to the eye and, when bitten, exquisitely fresh.

Yet, ant eggs were hard to find. Only the large yellow ants that built nests in the trees produced them. Climbing to harvest them meant enduring the ants’ relentless bites.

Among the Tai people, there was a saying: “Only the strong may eat ant eggs.”

All these were the mountain folk’s delicacies, dishes the flying squirrel had never dared try in a restaurant—now they were his lifeline.

In the dense woods on the hillside, the sound of a stream gurgled continuously. Following the sound, the flying squirrel cupped his hands to drink the cool water, savoring its sweetness.

Sunlight on the plateau was harsher than on the plains. By the next day, he had lost all sense of time, knowing only that he must leave the primeval forest before his strength failed.

On the third morning, the flying squirrel finally crawled out of the ancient woods.

The rising sun bathed the hills in gold, dewdrops slipped from the leaves, and the joyful calls of tropical birds rang out across the mountains. It was the vibrant season of the rainforest. Exhausted, clothes in tatters, the flying squirrel slumped beneath a great tree and gazed down at the mist-shrouded city of Yadu.

Throughout the journey, he had checked the wound on his lower back. Soaked in water, it had, against all odds, begun to heal on its own—though the flying squirrel had always possessed remarkable powers of recovery.

This was the wild land he had read about as a child in “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” where Zhuge Liang captured Meng Huo seven times. Without a compass or the essential machete to hack through the low jungle, the flying squirrel had traversed, barehanded, a region rife with snakes, insects, and poisonous miasma—the perils were beyond words, but now none of it mattered.

Relying on his experience and willpower, he had survived. More importantly, he had escaped the pursuit of Ru Aya.

Yadu was the earliest developed region in Saro, with a history stretching back over two thousand years. It was the land of the ancient Ailao Kingdom; its capital, Mengzhang, stood on the site of present-day Yadu.

The city lay in a basin, which the locals called “the Valley,” encircled by the southern reaches of the Hengduan Mountains, the highest point being a peak of the Gaoligong range.

Now, from his vantage point, the flying squirrel beheld the three great international rivers—the Lancang, the Nu, and the Irrawaddy—spread out below.

Seated atop the mountain, he picked up a branch and scratched out plans in the dirt. He began to devise his tactical strategy for entering Yadu.

His mission was accomplished; he could have simply vanished.

But the flying squirrel believed that someone had to pay an even greater price. From this moment on, it would be his own, more terrible, reckoning.