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To catch their prey, one must be nimble, precise and imperceptible. To wait for the right moment, then strike mercilessly, not allowing the target a single chance to elude your grasp — that is what one must strive for.
Which is why Quan Yizhen had been concealing himself in a bush for what felt like at least half of an eternity, staring fixedly at the creature before him: a small, slick, perfectly still brown frog.
It was minute, smaller than Quan Yizhen's palm. And it was sitting on the grass near the training grounds, unmoving, its vacant gaze directed at the blinding afternoon sun above, or perhaps somewhere beyond it. Either way, that was hardly what mattered.
What mattered was that this tiny brown animal was undoubtedly, unequivocally, unmistakably a frog.
Quan Yizhen had only been part of the sect for a few weeks. These weeks, he had decided, were by far the best of his life — how could they not be, when he now had a warm bed, delicious food, and most importanly, he was learning how to fight from the world's best shixiong? Nonetheless, there had been one thing plaguing his mind throughout this time — the appalling lack of frogs!
So of course, he wasn't going to let this one slip away. He watched as it shuffled its feet, turned its head slightly to the right, and, apparently deciding it was safe, prepared to leap. But that was the wrong move.
Quan Yizhen streaked out of the bush, jumped, arms outstretched, rapidly closing in, and... fell flat on his face. The frog merrily hopped away.
He instantly sprung back up to his feet, and, having exhausted his reserves of patience for at least the next week, bounded after it carelessly, which resulted only in its leaping to the side and disappearing from view.
But Quan Yizhen was not one to give up so easily. He inspected every possible hiding place, checked again, and again, and again, until he spotted a miniscule dark shape hopping into the field beyond the boundaries of the sect.
He chased it through the grass as it weaved in and out of view. Where is it going? he wondered vaguely, and he ran and ran as the colours around him slowly grew darker and the sky turned pink, then purple. Half-running and half-rolling, tearing through branches and foliage, he hurtled down a hill and finally came to a halt, his face once again planted in the mud.
Croak.
Croak.
Croak.
If Quan Yizhen could prick his ears (he had tried, and really, it was a shame that he couldn't), they would be pointed straight at the source of the sudden sound. He quickly pushed himself up and spun his head around. Then his eyes went wide with amazement.
He was sitting only two or three steps away from an edge, beyond which unfolded an expanse of muddy water, with interspersed clumps of reeds and clusters of leaves floating on the surface. And from somewhere inside the patchwork of browns and greens sounded a vibrant chorus of croaks.
Quan Yizhen picked up a long branch which lay near him and stretched his arm out to touch the water. Ripples spread, and a few bubbles came up from the cloudy depths.
Interesting.
Branch held firmly in his hand, he stood up and threw a glance at the still surface of the swamp, then kicked off from the ground and jumped!.. right into a thicket of cattails.
A cloud of white exploded around him. He shut his eyes and spat and coughed, flailing his arms around, but that only seemed to make new chunks of fluff burst into his face, so he soon adopted a different strategy: he ran.
When he had at last escaped the treacherous reeds, still coughing and covered in fuzz, he found himself up to his torso in water. Resolving to ask his shixiong about the strange plants later, he shook his wet hair out of his face and looked around. The croaking, which had stopped after Quan Yizhen's intrusion, gradually resumed.
Just to see what would happen, he extended the branch again; there was a disturbance beneath the surface and something small leapt up and out of sight. Quan Yizhen tilted his head. Then, abruptly discarding the branch, he streaked forward, tripped, fell with a loud splash and emerged, spitting out a mouthful of muddy water, just in time to notice a multitude of miniature brown shapes springing in all directions, like pebbles flung outward from the same spot.
Quan Yizhen's eyes lit up: he had found his treasure trove.
☆.𓋼𓍊 𓆏 𓍊𓋼𓍊.☆
Where in the world was that child?
Yin Yu had been quite busy since morning, so he knew nothing of his shidi's whereabouts. However, he certainly had not expected this to be the case for everyone else in the sect! According to Jian Shi, the boy had missed afternoon training, which was exceptionally odd, as training seemed to be his favourite part of life at the sect, and perhaps of life in general.
"You haven't seen him since then?"
"Nope. And no, he's not up in a tree, we checked this time."
Evening had already fallen, and yet he had not been found. With mounting anxiety Yin Yu approached his fellow disciples, his shizun, anyone he happened to encounter, until finally, one of his shidis said he had last seen Quan Yizhen near the edge of the sect's territory.
"He mumbled something about a frog."
Yin Yu thanked him, sighed inwardly and hurried to the place the disciple had mentioned.
He could just barely distinguish a trampled trail in the grass.
Oh no.
Quan Yizhen must have forgotten everything in his pursuit of the animal, as was his wont. And he really was always like this, wasn't he? He would make his boredom and disinterest abundantly clear, but when something interested him, he would jump in headfirst, give it his undivided attention, sink every last ounce of energy into it and disregard all else. This tendency of his was the cause of his swiftly improving martial skills, but also his obstinacy and disobedience, it seemed. Troublesome child, thought Yin Yu as he followed the freshly made path through the field.
Of course, this was not fair to him — the boy had spent his life out in the streets, and it would take time for him to adjust to a completely different lifestyle.
Yin Yu just hoped he was okay.
The sun had almost set by the time he reached a disheveled clump of bushes with a few pieces of cloth hanging on their broken branches. Upon closer inspection, he also noticed a lock or two of dark hair.
Oh no.
He rushed down the hill, nearly tripping multiple times on the rocks which jutted out from the steep incline, and all manner of worries whirled around in his head. Could Quan Yizhen have fallen down? Was he hurt? How long had he been there? Was he—
When he reached the bottom, Yin Yu suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
"Y... Yizhen?!"
At the very least he did not appear to be injured.
What he did appear to be was soaked from head to toe, covered in various forms of plant life, his hair made even bushier than usual by the clumps of cattail fluff entangled in between the strands, and standing up to his torso in dirty and cold swamp water.
"Shixiong!"
"You— How could you just—"
"Look!"
Quan Yizhen splashed his way over to him and held out a large bag of sorts, which, as Yin Yu quickly realised, had been fashioned from his outer robe. The bag was filled with ominously lumpy shapes.
Moving shapes.
"Yizhen, are those... frogs?"
Quan Yizhen nodded eagerly, apparently oblivious to Yin Yu's expression of utter disbelief. Yin Yu did not know whether to laugh or cry.
"Is-Is this why you... What do you even intend to do with them?!"
"I'll bring them back."
"To the sect?.."
Another nod.
Yin Yu took a deep breath.
"You can't do that, Yizhen."
"Why?"
"Well, are you just going to let them run around everywhere? They'd... They'd probably disrupt training, and—"
"How?"
"Well, for starters, they'd distract everybody." More specifically, you, he refrained from saying. "You ran all the way here for just one! And by the way, you can't do that, either! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!"
"Why?"
Sincere puzzlement showed in his wide-open eyes. Yin Yu took a moment to collect his thoughts, then crouched down to Quan Yizhen's eye level and continued, making an effort to soften his tone:
"No one knew where you were, and you could've got lost or hurt. You're still very young, which means you're not allowed to leave the sect without supervision from your elders."
Quan Yizhen frowned. "But I'm fine. I don't need anyone watching me."
"I know this is all very unfamiliar to you. But these are the rules, and you'll have to follow them so you can stay." Quan Yizhen was still frowning, so Yin Yu went on: "You're a part of the sect now, and we care about you, which is why we need to know that you're safe. And..." he hesitated. "If you want to go somewhere outside our territory, you should tell me first."
"So we'll come back here together?"
This was definitely going to be the cause of some headaches in the future, but...
"I... suppose we could, just..." He carefully took the makeshift bag from Quan Yizhen's hands. "Let's free your frogs first."
Quan Yizhen, apparently placated by the vague prospect of returning, dutifully began to help him with unwrapping the layers of cloth and releasing his diminutive victims.
"I caught a lot," he said seriously.
"You did," Yin Yu replied with an incredulous half-smile — the boy looked so absurdly proud!
Thankfully, his outer robe was not completely ruined. It would have to be cleaned thoroughly, though, much like the rest of Quan Yizhen's clothing, as well as Quan Yizhen himself.
Yin Yu would need to explain to him why he shouldn't simply enter any body of water he spots, and why he should be more careful about getting his clothes wet in autumn, and why it's ill-advised and unsanitary to—
"Oh, I want to show you something!"
Quan Yizhen sharply tugged at his leg, and Yin Yu, who was still crouching at the edge, preoccupied with his own thoughts, lost his balance and...
"Wh— Yizhe—"
SPLASH!
☆.𓋼𓍊 𓆏 𓍊𓋼𓍊.☆
Lantern in hand, Jian Shi slowly took in the tall figure standing before him in the darkness: dripping wet, weeds and fuzz stuck in his hair, an apologetic smile pasted on his face.
"What... Where in the three realms have you been?!"
"It's fine, we're fine," Yin Yu assured him hurriedly. "I'm sorry for making you worry."
Jian Shi opened his mouth to speak, closed it, stared, then furiously gestured for Yin Yu to come inside.
But before either of them could move, a smaller drenched shape came out from behind Yin Yu's back, holding something in his hand. Jian Shi froze and cast a bewildered glance at him, then back at Yin Yu, whose smile grew stiffer and somehow even more apologetic.
The "something" uttered a muffled croak.