Everyone in the Lin Kuei recognized that there were two truths when it came to the little Cryomancer, Kuai Liang: he was a terrible klutz, but even still he was somehow an astonishing hunter for his age. At least once a week, he escaped his rigorous training in the temple compound, leaving it in solitude carrying his bow and a quiver of arrows, and always returned with a prize. He commonly bagged deer, tahrs, mountain goats, eagles, and choughs, but his most impressive kill to date was a snow leopard. Nobody, least of all his father, An Zhi, would have believed he'd accomplished such a feat as uncoordinated as he was, but he'd returned with the carcass and the claw marks on his arms to verify his story.
One evening, Kuai Liang tracked a wolf. As he stepped through the dark woods, scarcely able to see, he tripped on something large and shifting. The boy landed squarely on his knee, and as it stung and wept blood through his black ninja pants, he heard the clattering of metal spilling onto the forest floor. He grimaced and held his knee with both hands for a moment, gradually chilling it with his powers to dull the sudden pain, and then he felt around for whatever it was he stumbled on. His short fingers immediately felt round coins spilling from a leather purse. Kuai Liang quickly found a match packed into in a compartment built into his quiver – the compartment housed other tiny survival items as well – and he lit it to reveal a small mound of gold money lying in the dirt. Someone must have dropped it while travelling through the forest.
Cool! Kuai Liang thought with excitement. He practically drooled when he thought of how much hard candy he and Tomas could buy in Xiao-Ping's store in Tingri with all this money. They'd be set for life! He gathered up the coins and shoved them back in the pouch before he hid it inside his black shirt.
He got to his feet and resumed his journey. The wolf's cry led him to a very large yurt on the outskirts of Tingri that was surrounded by a towering wall. When he reached it, the eight-year-old assassin-in-training thought nothing of it. He quickly found a crack that was concealed by thick shrubs, and he assumed the wolf must've slipped through it to get inside. The passage was so narrow that he had to shove his bow and quiver through ahead of him, and even still he nearly got stuck, but his tiny body finally squeezed through.
When he got inside, Kuai Liang noticed that in addition to the yurt, there was a small barn as well as henhouse inside the stone wall. But he was excited to see a large well near the henhouse; he had been hiking through the forest for hours, and had drank the last of the water in his canteen a while ago, so he was terribly thirsty. Keeping his eyes peeled for the wolf, he darted across the yard through shadows cast by the pale moonlight, and rushed to the well for a drink.
It was large and deep, with two buckets that could be raised and lowered into the depths to draw up water. It was very old as well, the mortar between its bricks crumbling and in disrepair. He set his bow and quiver to the side, and reached for the rope. Even though some of the stones wiggled under his body, Kuai Liang still leaned across the wellhead to grab the bucket, vaguely observing the faint glow of the moon on the water far below. Small for his age, the little Cryomancer couldn't quite reach the bucket, so he scooted his body further out and waved his hand around to try to grasp it. Suddenly, a segment of bricks shifted under his body's weight and threw him down. He free-fell forever, it seemed, before he finally hit the water with a huge splash.
It took a moment for Kuai Liang to realize what had happened. He was stuck in a well filled with ice cold water, and as he floated in it, his teeth began to chatter as his body temperature plummeted. The boy quickly swam to the wall and tried to get a foothold in a tiny crack, but it was just too small and slippery, and he promptly fell back into the water, sinking under momentarily before resurfacing. In frustration, he summoned his powers to his fists and tried to form ice daggers like his big brother, Bi-han, would've, hoping that he could stick them into the cracks and use them to climb up. But the only thing Kuai Liang accomplished was making his hands icy and cold.
As he tread water, he thought about calling for help, but decided that would be his last resort. Grandmaster Oniro, he knew, disapproved of his Lin Kuei underlings engaging with the locals in any way. The punishment for associating with outsiders was harsh; the offending warrior would be flogged with a cat o'nine tails, a terrifying whip with nine leather straps attached to a thick handle, and tiny hooks sewn into the end of each one. Kuai Liang had seen it used only once on an adult warrior named Ryoma because the man had been caught interacting with a woman in Tingri. If the Cryomancer boy called for help, it would certainly get back to Oniro, and he would be beaten so hard that chunks of skin would be ripped from his back.
On the other hand, Kuai Liang had no clue how he was supposed to get out, and he couldn't stay down here forever. That would be just as bad as getting flogged. Hypothermia would eventually set in the longer he floated in the frigid water. Just because he had the power to control the cold didn't mean that he was invulnerable to it.
If only he could reach one of those buckets!
He peered up at them, hating them for dangling above him, teasing him. As he swam there shivering, pondering on ways to get one of the buckets down, he heard the wolf howl once more. That was immediately followed by the sound of a large animal sneaking into the henhouse and startling the fowl awake before abruptly silencing them. He knew the creature had killed his prey.
To Kuai Liang's surprise, however, a red-clad figure appeared and looked down in curiosity. He held a bloody white bag over his shoulder, and feathers stuck out of his tunic and jet-black hair. The Cryomancer immediately recognized his greatest tormentor.
"Jiao-long!" he called. "So you're the wolf." Oniro's son could imitate a wolf quite well.
The teenager laughed cruelly. "Kuai Liang, is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me!" he called. "Why are you pretending to be a wolf?"
"I'm tired of eating yak and deer meat, so I decided to catch some poultry for once," the other replied. "Didn't want my father to find out, though, so I thought it'd be best to let these dumb peasants think a wolf was prowling around. That way, they could blame the wolf for their dead hens." He looked down on Kuai Liang with a devilish grin. "I thought I recognized your bow. Too bad you were hunting me. You have to be smarter than your prey, you know."
"Um, okay," the Cryomancer replied, uncertain where he was going with that.
"I always liked this bow," he said, holding it up. "Didn't Hydro make it for you?" He paused. "Guess it's mine now."
"No it's not! Give it back!"
"Or what? You'll splash me?"
Kuai Liang thought about it. A wicked expression crossed the bully's eyes, and the little Cryomancer knew he was on his own. There was no way Jiao-long was helping him out of the well, even if he pleaded. But then again, maybe he would help him out.
"I only left my bow up there because I was searching for gold down here," he called up. Kuai Liang felt through his shirt for the purse. Underwater, he gripped several coins in his hand. "Look what I've found," he said, holding it up so that the moonlight shone on the precious metal. It glittered, casting sparkling rays on the stone walls.
"Are you serious?" Jiao-long asked. "Where did you get that?"
"Down here," he lied. "The people who live here are sitting on a fortune. I think that's why they built the stone wall around their house. They don't want people to find all this gold."
"I don't believe you," the other replied. "That's not real gold."
"I'll prove it to you! Send down the bucket and pull me up."
"All right, you little maggot, I will!" Greedy for gold, Jiao-long churned the handle and lowered the bucket. When it reached Kuai Liang, he gripped the rope tightly and hoisted himself up, using the container as a foothold. When he was safely inside, the red-clad teenager turned the handle once more, this time in reverse, and brought him back to the surface. "Let me see that!" he yelled at the younger boy as he snatched the pile of coins from his palm.
As Jiao-long examined the treasure, Kuai Liang looked at his bow in desperation. He loved it, not only because it was a trusty tool for hunting, but because his Sifu, Hydro, secretly gave it to him for his birthday. The Lin Kuei did not celebrate birthdays, and even his father didn't care to observe it, so the gift was special to the young Cryomancer. He wasn't about to let his nemesis take it from him. With a grunt, he ripped it from the preoccupied teenager's hands, then whirled around in an arch with it, and promptly swept his legs from beneath him. Jiao-long fell onto the crumbling wellhead with a startled yelp, and then screamed in fright as it collapsed beneath him. He flailed around for something to catch, but it was no use. He fell into the well with a noisy splash.
"Get me out of here!" he roared at little Kuai Liang.
"I don't think so!" the angry Cryomancer yelled back. "Have fun down there. And by the way, Jiao-long, the only gold down there is fool's gold!" With that, he took his bow and ran away as the Grandmaster's son loudly thrashed around and yelled for help.
When Jiao-long finally returned to the Lin Kuei temple late that night, Kuai Liang, Tomas, and Bi-han peeked around the corner and spied on his upbraiding by Oniro. Jiao-long had been beaten, and sported large goose-eggs on his face and arms, gifts from the farmer who pulled him from the well, the three boys learned. Oniro screamed at him in disgust for stealing hens like a common thief, and then for getting caught so shamefully. The Grandmaster would hear nothing of why it happened, but neither did he order that his only son be flogged. Rather, he sent the teenager away in disgrace, declaring that his dishonor was punishment enough.
After that, Jiao-long was always trying to get back at Kuai Liang – but those are tales for another time.