The western route gave us a week.

  Seven days of walking through country that resembled what villagers might call "pleasant" — rolling hills, streams that ran clear, forests where the undergrowth had thinned enough to allow passage without constant negotiation of branches and roots.

  Wei improved. The cough receded. His color stabilized. The altitude change — lower, warmer, wetter — suited a body that was still thirteen and still operated, despite the qi-enhancement, under the fundamental constraints of biology.

  His training continued in the margins. Morning breathing at camp. Qi-circulation while walking. Channel maintenance, flow regulation, the basic housekeeping of a cultivation practice that required daily attention. He was diligent. The stubbornness that had driven him through six months of village training was proving equally effective on the road — possibly more so, because the road provided no distractions. There was only the walking and the training and the woman who corrected his form when it drifted, which was often and said nothing when it was good, which was the rest of the time.

  He was getting used to that. The silence as approval. The Yun-dialect in which criticism was verbal and praise was its absence.

  On the fifth day, he caught a fish.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  This requires context. Wei had been attempting to fish since the second day of the journey. The results had been educational. He'd lost two hooks, broken a line, fallen into a stream and on one memorable occasion had succeeded in hooking a rock with sufficient force that the resultant tension had launched it from the water and struck him in the chest, leaving a bruise he carried for three days.

  But now, the mechanics aligned. A mountain stream, knee-deep, cold enough to numb his fingers in minutes. He stood. He waited. He cast — a primitive rig, handmade from cord and a stone chip he'd knapped into something resembling a hook. Fishing equipment that should not have worked.

  The fish took. A modest thing — three hand-widths, silver-sided. Mountain fish existed because mountain streams were too cold for anything larger and too remote for anyone to bother depleting the stock.

  He held it up. Grinning. The full grin — unreserved, unembarrassed. A boy who had achieved something measurable and wanted it witnessed.

  "Dinner."

  I looked at the fish. At the boy. At the grin that hadn't been calibrated for audience and was therefore entirely honest.

  "It's small."

  "It's MINE."

  He cooked it that evening. Over the fire, on a stick, with herbs from his bundle — the technique improving through repetition, stubbornness and the refusal to stop trying.

  The fish was good. I tasted it, but didn't say so.

  He noticed. The absence of criticism. The Yun-dialect speaking in its native tongue.

  He grinned again. Smaller. Private. He'd been heard in a language that most people can't speak.

  I watched the fire and pretended I hadn't noticed the grin.

  But I had.