Chapter 26: The Little Girl in the Moonlight

Mo Jin took the ginseng root whiskers, brewed a medicinal decoction, and fed it into Lin Mo’s mouth.

After Lin Mo finished the medicine, she remained in a heavy, muddled sleep. Still worried, Mo Jin took off her outer robe, lay down beside Lin Mo, and pulled her into her arms. She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a wave of fatigue; she closed her eyes and, before long, drifted into a dreamland of her own.

On a winding mountain highway, a truck with a panda logo printed on its cargo hold was driving steadily.

Inside the driver’s cabin, dynamic music was playing. The driver wore a black baseball cap, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the steering wheel. Sitting in the passenger seat was a young man in a white lab coat, his eyes fixed intently on the mountain road ahead.

The driver curled his lips into a smile and let out a whistle, glancing at the young man. “First time out transporting a panda?”

The young man paused, looked down at the time on his wristwatch, but did not speak.

The driver comforted him, “Don’t worry, nothing will go wrong. It’s packed in such a sturdy cage; what could happen? If you’re really uneasy, I’ll pull over in a bit to have a smoke, and you can go back and check.”

Seeing the young man nod, the driver hit the brakes and pulled the truck over to the side of the road.

The young man opened the door, walked to the rear, fished the keys out of his pocket to unlock the cargo hold, and pulled it open with one hand. In the vast cargo space, there was only a single, lonely cage containing a weak little panda.

Lin Mo’s heart tightened. How did her little bear cub end up here?

She followed closely behind the young man into the cargo hold. Inside the cage, the bamboo shoots and water showed no signs of having been touched. The young man sighed, opened the cage, reached in to pick up the little panda, and stroked its head while using an instrument to take measurements.

He looked at the numbers on the measuring device and shook his head, muttering to himself, “The anesthesia dosage should have worn off by now. Why isn’t it waking up?”

He placed the little panda back into the iron cage, locked the door, secured the cargo hold, and sat back in the passenger seat.

Why did they give the little panda an anesthesia needle?

Isn’t anesthesia used for numbing pain? Does the little panda have a serious wound?

The cargo hold was pitch black. Lin Mo crouched beside the little cub, unable to see if there were wounds, but she could hear its shallow, steady breathing. There appeared to be no immediate danger to its life.

Lin Mo was puzzled. Wasn’t the little panda supposed to be in the valley? How did it suddenly end up in human territory, locked in a cage? Was it because it became too weak after being struck by the heavenly lightning, so it couldn’t escape when humans tried to catch it?

Sitting in the jolting truck, she listened to the conversation between the two men throughout the journey. It turned out a concerned citizen had found the little panda collapsed by the road. Thinking it was an escapee from a wildlife park, they called the local police, who then contacted a nearby wildlife park to pick it up.

Half an hour later, they finally arrived at the wildlife park.

As the little panda’s cage was unloaded from the truck, it was taken by a keeper who had been waiting. Many people were gathered in the park, holding cameras high from hundreds of meters away to snap photos of the little panda.

The click-click of the camera flashes made Lin Mo dizzy. Fortunately, the little panda hadn’t woken up yet, or it certainly wouldn’t have been able to handle this environment.

Lin Mo jogged along to follow them. She saw the little panda placed in a clean, spacious iron cage. Some clean bamboo shoots were placed in the feeding trough, and fresh milk was put in its bowl.

As soon as the keeper left, the little panda opened its eyes.

The cub is so smart; it knew how to play dead!

With staggering steps, the little panda walked to the trough, used its paws to push all the bamboo shoots out of the cage, and kicked over the bowl of fresh milk. Its eyes were watery as it walked back to crouch in the corner, looking extremely dejected.

Lin Mo felt anxious. If the little panda didn’t eat, it would surely starve.

After a while, the keeper came back to tidy up the food containers. Seeing that the little panda had kicked them over, she wasn’t angry. Instead, she said gently, “You’re injured. Once you’re healed, we’ll release you back into the wild.”

The little panda kept its head low, ignoring the keeper. The keeper, assuming the little panda didn’t understand her, finished tidying up and left.

Lin Mo stayed with the little panda until late at night. The little panda remained in the same position, motionless. Moonlight fell upon the iron bars, casting a cold glow, when a black shadow suddenly appeared on the frozen floor.

The little panda looked up to see a massive tortoise. The tortoise’s shell was high and rounded, with clear growth rings on the light brown plates. It had yellowish vertebral scutes and deep green costal scutes. Its head was somewhat pointed, and it wore a tiny straw hat, poking its head curiously into the iron cage.

The tortoise opened its mouth and spoke in human tongue: “New neighbor, my name is Angonoka. I live next door. Why haven’t you eaten anything?”

The little panda silently turned around to face the other wall, ignoring the tortoise entirely.

The tortoise had been lonely for a long time. Having finally waited for a little friend to arrive, it couldn’t help but chatter on: “I’ve been here for many years. The benefits at this zoo are quite good. If you stay here, you’ll have endless bamboo shoots to eat.”

The little panda wiped the tears from the corners of its eyes and turned around. “I don’t want to eat bamboo shoots. I only want my bamboo. I want to go find my bamboo.”

Lin Mo felt a pang in her heart. The little panda had left the valley specifically to find the bamboo that had saved it. But the bamboo had already turned to ashes—where could it possibly find it?

“Is that bamboo… edible?” the tortoise asked.

The little panda replied righteously, “The bamboo is my best friend; she cannot be eaten. My bamboo was struck by lightning to save me. I must find her and go home together.”

“Is the bamboo you’re talking about a spirit? But can it still live after being struck by lightning?”

“Yes. I can smell her scent. It’s nearby.”

Scent? Lin Mo remembered Mo Jin mentioning before that she could smell the Lynx. So her sense of smell had been that sensitive since she was young?

“Then, do you want to go out and find your friend?”

“Yes. I must find my bamboo.”

The tortoise understood. “Do you know how to turn into a human? If you take human form, you can leave this place. I used to turn into a human often to go out of the zoo and buy the vegetables I like.”

The little panda asked in confusion, “What is a ‘human form’?”

Bathed in the moonlight, the tortoise shook its body and transformed into a kind-looking little old man, stroking his beard. “This is a human form.”

“But it’s very old,” the little panda noted.

The tortoise then transformed into the appearance of a child, acting with an air of sophisticated maturity. “Is this small enough for you?”

The little panda blinked its bright eyes. “I want to learn this.”

The tortoise gave a great yawn and turned around, saying earnestly, “To learn this, you must absorb plenty of moonlight every day like I do. It took me several hundred years to learn how to shapeshift. You’ll probably need at least five hundred years to learn it.”

“Eep, I think I’ve turned into a human.”

The tortoise whipped its head back, looking with disbelief at the little girl standing a head taller than itself. “Are you the little panda from just now?”

The girl was carved from pink jade, her features like a painting. Though she was still very young, one could vaguely see the shadow of the adult Mo Jin.

The girl gave a soft “Mm.”

The tortoise’s mouth fell open. After a moment, it beat its chest and stamped its feet. “Why am I not as good-looking as you when I shapeshift? And why did you manage to do it so early?”

The girl thought for a moment and replied seriously, “Maybe it’s talent.”

The tortoise felt even more unbalanced, nearly losing its temper on the spot. It was a radiated tortoise, after all; its talent wasn’t poor. In the entire zoo, it was the only tortoise that had developed spiritual awareness and cultivated into a spirit.

The little panda’s human form only lasted for a few minutes before it reverted to its original shape. It sat on the ground; its cultivation wasn’t stable yet, and it wasn’t skilled at walking upright, so it had to stop and rest.

Seeing the little panda return to its beast form, the tortoise’s self-confidence returned. Even if you can shapeshift, you can’t maintain it as long as I can. You’d definitely get caught if you went out to buy candied haws.

“Eat first. Nourish your body. Only after absorbing enough moonlight will you have the strength to find your bamboo.”

Without checking if Mo Jin had heard, the tortoise turned and returned to its own burrow next door.

The little panda stood up, walked to the edge of the cage, picked up the bamboo shoots she had thrown away earlier, and began to eat in large bites.

She had to get better quickly so she could go out, find her little bamboo, and protect her well.