Catching Nian

It turns out that Rui Ning did end up taking Geriel to lunch, just like she’d joked about when they first met. Thankfully, Geriel made no comment on the irony of this.

Rui Ning imagined the bowl of noodles before her was Madam Li’s face, and jabbed her chopsticks into it. “I think it’s the Li family,” she said to Geriel.

“Just because they yelled at you?”

“Because they’re being very suspicious. Why not let us talk to Xiaodan? He’s the last person who saw my brother—of course I’d want to see him.” Rui Ning shoved another slice of meat into her mouth. “Besides, they’ve never liked my family.”

Geriel shook her head. “That’s not enough to prove them guilty. And don’t forget, they have an alibi.”

She was right. Rui Ning and Geriel had questioned the Lis’ housekeeper about her employers’ whereabouts the night before. The housekeeper had been tight-lipped, though a few yuanbao managed to loosen her tongue. The master and mistress never left the house, she said.

Rui Ning groaned. Her chest still burned with anger against the Lis, but she knew she couldn’t let feelings cloud her judgement. You’re seeing what you want to see, said her father’s voice in her head. Look past your feelings. Seek the truth.

“Anyone else behaving oddly these days?” asked Geriel.

Rui Ning scanned the busy streets. “There. The man in blue, at the mantou stall. With a wispy moustache and receding hairline. You see him?”

It didn’t take Geriel’s huntress eyes more than a second to place him. She nodded.

“That’s Master Zhang, the butcher. He wasn’t in town yesterday, though his wife didn’t say why. He usually lets his son go on business trips.”

Geriel said nothing, only took another mouthful of noodles. To any passerby, they would look like two young women enjoying a meal at a roadside stall instead of listing out suspects in a boy’s kidnapping. “Anyone else?”

“Well.” Rui Ning folded her arms. “There’s you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Madam Li was right. Ming disappeared at the exact same time you showed up in our village. What are the odds?”

Geriel’s nostrils flared. Rui Ning found her anger especially entertaining. One had to occupy oneself, of course, when one’s brother was missing and her father became an unresponsive heap of gloom.

“I am helping you find Ming,” Geriel gritted out. “You do realise I could just leave?”

“And pass up eight hundred yuanbao?”

Geriel took a deep breath and muttered something in Mongol. A prayer for patience, perhaps, or for her gods to strike Rui Ning with boils on her bottom.

“There is something else,” Geriel then said in Putonghua. “The beast.”

Rui Ning scoffed. “You believe that Nian nonsense?”

“Not the Nian. But a lion, maybe. They’re common enough in these parts—ZhuangXi isn’t that far from the mountains. And it’s winter. Wild animals might wander into civilised areas if the woods are too frozen for game. We should look for claw marks near the toymaker’s shop after this,” Geriel added. “Xiaodan wouldn’t just make up a story about a beast—”

“He would if he was guilty.”

“And why would he hurt your brother? You said it yourself: they were close friends.”

Rui Ning twirled strands of her dark hair between her fingers. “Maybe not on purpose. An accident. Ming could’ve tripped and fell into the river, and Xiaodan is worried people would say he pushed him.”

Geriel’s brows rose. “You seem very calm about the idea that your brother might be dead.”

Was she? If Geriel could look into her mind, Rui Ning imagined she would see a mess, like the jumble of numbers and words in her father’s notebook when he was struck by a new idea. Or she would see a raging furnace, anger that burned so deeply for her brother’s loss. He didn’t deserve this. He was innocent. Mischievous, yes, but what eight year old wasn’t? And another deeper, darker anger: Baba is not here, again. Just like when Mama died.

But she couldn’t let all that show on her face, so Rui Ning simply shrugged. “We all die eventually.”

Geriel’s eyes narrowed. She suspects me, Rui Ning thought. She thinks I have something to do with Ming’s disappearance, because I don’t seem upset enough. But Rui Ning was already making a list of suspects and the evidence against them in her mind, and so far, Geriel topped that list.

One, the huntress showed up right before Ming vanished.

Two, she approached the village chief about finding Ming.

Three—and most importantly—she has something to gain from Ming’s disappearance.

What would one do for eight hundred yuanbao?

Suddenly the table felt far too small, the distance between Rui Ning and Geriel too short. Rui Ning could not look at the Northerner the same way again. Did that knife on her belt slit my brother’s throat? Or an arrow from her quiver? Those long fingers are capable of skinning animals—what could they do to a boy of twelve?

“So,” said Geriel, snapping Rui Ning back to the present. Those dark eyes held her steadily, and Rui Ning had the uncomfortable sense that Geriel could read her thoughts. “A beast, Zhang and Xiaodan. Those are our suspects for now. But we’ll have to find more evidence against them.”

“You forgot Master and Madam Li.”

“I honestly don’t think it’s possible,” said Geriel. “The housekeeper said they were home all night—”

“She could be lying.”

“And why would they knock their own son unconscious?”

“Maybe they didn’t. It’s not that hard to pretend to be unconscious.”

Geriel blew out a breath; it stirred the wisps of hair that escaped from her hat. Rui Ning had thought the foreigner’s hair was black, but now, in the weak sunlight, she saw that it was a reddish brown. Even her eyes had softened to hazel, as if daylight erased some of her starkness.

“You still suspect them,” Geriel said. “And nothing I say is going to change your mind, is it?”

Rui Ning grinned. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

Geriel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. But if one of us is going to poke around their house for clues, it’ll be me.”

“Because they love you so much?”

“Because they hate you. They’d never let you in. I, on the other hand, am hired. It’s my job to question every person in this village.”

Rui Ning sighed. The Northerner was speaking sense. Again. She hoped this wasn’t about to become a habit.

“Well, hurry up, then.” Rui Ning slurped down the last of her noodles. “You only have a few hours till sundown, and a whole village to interrogate.”

“Question.”

“Whatever you say, huntress.”

Then, without looking, Rui Ning stood and knocked into a passerby.

“Hey!” said the man. Rui Ning had spilled soup all over his right sleeve. Heavens, she thought. I hope he doesn’t expect me to buy him a new shirt.

“Yuan lao ye!” she said, trying her best to sound apologetic. “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault. I’m clumsy and foolish and—”

“It’s all right, girl,” said Master Yuan. He gave her a tight smile, mumbled something about being late and was on his way.

Next to her, Geriel sharpened. “Scratches,” she said.

Rui Ning turned to look at her. “What?”

“Scratches,” she said again.

“Are we just throwing out random words now?”

“No, idiot. Didn’t you see the scratches on his arm, when he rolled up his sleeve?”

She hadn’t. Rui Ning cursed herself for missing this.

“So?”

“So,” said Geriel, “what if he’s the one who took Ming? I saw him in the Dragon Tavern the morning after your brother went missing. He had dark circles around his eyes, like he hadn’t slept all night.”

Master Yuan was a tailor who had offered to mend Rui Ning’s clothes for free. He worked hard, which could explain his lack of sleep, but as far as she knew, he didn’t work with any animals that could give him scratches on his arm. Another suspect. Yuan was friendly enough, but Rui Ning had reached a point where every neighbour looked like they could’ve pushed Ming off a cliff and carry on as if nothing had happened.

“Six suspects, then,” she said to Geriel. The Li couple, Xiaodan, Zhang, a beast, and Yuan.

The huntress nodded. “We’d better get to work.”

Seven, actually, Rui Ning thought, stealing a glance at Geriel. And I know which one I suspect the most.