Poetry in the Jungle (Xiangrun/Zhigong/Hengxiang)

Sakurai Sho crouched down and continued speaking to Ahuang:

“Ahuang, I hear the wolves in the mountains have woken up. The dogs’ good days are probably over.”

Cats probably won’t fare any better.

Everyone in the village was saying that the river across the way had been filled with dead cats last night.

The sight was truly horrifying.

Sakurai couldn’t sit still. Before dawn, he hurried to the river to fish around, look things over, and sit and think. Then he went deep into the mountains to dig for herbs.

After all those delays and trips back and forth, it was already getting dark by the time he returned to the little pharmacy.

He pushed open the courtyard gate. The blood on the stone steps had congealed into a thick paste, spread in great swathes, a shocking sight.

Sakurai feared he had come back at the wrong time. Could the other person still be saved, or were they already well and truly dead?

A weak voice came from inside the room, muffled by the heavy curtains:

“If you stand there for another moment, I’ll be completely dead.”

Sakurai Sho’s heart clenched, and at last he rushed into the room.