Beyond the hill outside of town there were the woods, stretching tight and tall and forlorn into the distance. Thick beset with thorns and briars, there was but one narrow road through it, though after it but few enquired. (At least, so said the Rhymer.)

Hong was not on that road. He wasn’t even near it; it was several li away.

He was facing the woods directly - or what had been the woods, only a few moments ago. Dense, and twisted, filled with the haunting yet comforting hoots of owls, with deep loam and crawling brambles criss-crossing the ground… yet now, stretching down from the fernie brae, the overseer of a bonnie road.

It had opened in the middle of the woods, a stream of cobblestones vanishing off into the dark and the mist. The trees had been pushed back to either side, their branches waving softly overhead.

There, advancing through the creeping fog towards him, was the source of the growl: a woman. Her robes drifted with the mists, her veil fluttering as she glided over the brambles. Her arms were tucked into her sleeves as she bowed to Hong.

“So it was you,” Hong said, his normally dull voice taking on a slightly amused tone. “I suspected as such, but the details just didn’t add up. My fault for being too meticulous - I must have confused the details of your case with those of another.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand. Who do you think I am, milord?”

“Please don't joke around. I heard you padding through the forest just now, and am perfectly well aware that you’re the dreaded cattle muncher I’ve been hunting down,” Hong bluffed.

“Been hunting, have we? Rather a rude sport, I should think,” the lady said, continuing to slowly stride towards Hong. Hong adjusted his stance, wary of surprise attacks.

“And yet I don’t hear you denying it.”

“My father never raised me to be a dishonest girl. Well… The timing is… inopportune,” Yue said, “but I suppose there's no help for it.”

And sinking to her knees, she began to transform.

Clothing turned to fur, muscles stretched and lengthened, sinews of flesh emerged from nothing to integrate seamlessly into her body. A maw full of snarling teeth appeared as her weimao vanished.

Hong waited in complete stillness, unmoving, as the weretiger finished her transformation.

She was a truly magnificent beast, so much so that from a purely aesthetic angle he was moderately upset they'd have to fight. He could not recall ever having seen such a striking shade of orange before, glowing like the flames riding the edge of a sunset. The black shadows twisting and sliding over her body were deeper than the darkest of the caves in which he'd cultivated. She even kept her whiskers in excellent shape, he noted with no small amount of mirth.

Hong quietly bowed, mentally making a note to paint the form of the tiger from memory later, and then assumed a fighting stance. His hammer swung idly in his right hand.

The tiger stretched her ten foot bulk before him, and roared, the verbal thunderstrike resounding against the Heavens. She too took a fighting stance (weirdly, a human one), balancing on the balls of her feet, front paws outstretched.

The two hurled themselves at each other, claw meeting hammer. The powerful muscles of the tiger flexed as she stopped Hong’s charge, forcing his hammer arm down.

Undaunted, Hong activated the Basic Noodle Shop Fighting Arts, Fourth Form: Punch. His body glowed.

The tiger was pushed back a foot as his fist connected with her chest, and growled at him before bringing her foot up in a vicious kick.

Hong danced to the side, maintaining his fighting structure, and brought the hammer around in a side blow. The tiger took it to the jaw, then headbutted him, streaks of fiery red and black qi following in her wake.

Hong returned the blow, then got the ten foot weretiger in a grapple, charging forwards and slamming her onto the ground. They went crashing backwards into the brambles.

The tiger snapped twice at his neck, her attempts to rip Hong’s throat from his body derailed by the arm holding her neck down. Eventually concluding it was a futile endeavour, she channelled her qi into her arms and shoved him.

Hong flew backwards, making a parabola through the air before crashing into the earth. He sprang back up, but the tiger got him in an arm lock, then judo slammed him into the ground. Hong hooked his feet around her legs and pulled; he successfully broke her hold and caused her to come crashing down, but the tiger would not be defeated so easily: she slammed both feet into Hong’s chest as she fell. He was shoved away, rolling until he landed in a heap midway up the hill.

The tiger leapt back onto her feet, reforming her stance. Hong was a little slower - he groaned as climbed off the earth and worked the kinks out of his muscles. The sun had set, and a luminescent full moon had just finished rising into the Heavens.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

There was a pop.

POP.

"Oh, snickerdoodles," said a very squeaky voice from the direction of the tiger. Hong turned his attention back to the tiger… only to realise there was no longer any tiger to be found. It was gone, vanished, disappeared, disapparated, vamoosed.

That glorious champion of the feline race had faded into the mist, and gone.

Where it had stood there was now another creature of an altogether different cast… one that had a small, burnt orange, vaguely canine shape.

The embarrassed looking fox was still in her fighting stance.

"Sorry, I forgot it was that time of the month."

Hong realised he was still in his fighting stance, so great was his surprise, and his ensuing attempt to compose himself lacked perhaps a bit of the grace expected from a true master of cultivation. He coughed a couple times to distract attention from his jerky and unbecoming movements, casually asking, "so, does this happen often?"

If the fox could get any redder, he had no doubt it would. He could sense the mortification oozing off it in waves. The fox also coughed a couple times to distract attention from her state of embarrassment.

"My father, a weretiger, turned every full moon; my mother, a Huli Jing, could turn whenever she wanted to. I inherited both their abilities but, sad to say, backwards - I can become a dreaded monster, 'red in tooth and claw,' whenever I so choose, but am forced into the form of a fox every full moon."

Hong winced. "Man, it would suck if that happened in combat."

Yue nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's my worst nightmare.”

Then she froze. “Wait a moment…"

The fox gave him a withering glare. "I can still fight. I'll have you know I'm a master of the straw sword."

And so saying, she proceeded to whip a piece of straw out of midair, entering a martial kata.

Hong stood stock still, unmoving, as Yue launched her attack. It seemed the polite thing to do.

Her form was perfect, the execution flawless, the blade a veritable work of art as it glided through the air, delivering a crippling blow to his abdomen… or at least what would have been a crippling blow, had she been using anything more than a straw.

Hong looked unperturbed as the straw crinkled.

"When will you be able to resume your proper form?"

She couldn't meet his eyes. "Sunrise."

Hong chuckled. Typical - things never went as you'd expect. He thought for a moment, nodded to himself, then sat down. He reached into a storage pouch and pulled out a wooden Go box.

"Care for a game?"

The fox froze. “I… beg your pardon?”

“You said you can’t resume your proper form until sunrise, no?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“It would be dishonourable to fight your foe when they’re down - and downright unchivalrous if they happen to be a lady.”

Hong began setting up the pieces. The fox sighed, and sat down. She supposed a game of Go wouldn’t be too bad as they waited for her to resume her more fearsome form.

“So we’ll settle this in the morning, then?”

“In the morning?” Hong looked confused. “I should hope not. We’ll settle this now.”

Hong placed a stone on the table. “And we’ll settle this through Go.”

The fox looked at him, flummoxed. Hong returned the look and shrugged.

“I vowed to myself that I would end this problem tonight - I’ve wasted more than enough time on it. The case of the cattle muncher ends tonight, and if honour won’t let it end through violence then a board game will work just as well.”

The fox supposed this made sense. She put down a rock.

The two played for a few minutes, with the only noise the clacking of rocks. The mist drifted about them, silent forms moving through it as the animals of the night went about their moonlit business.

At last Yue cleared her throat. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You already have.”

Yue looked unamused. “Har har, very funny.”

“You are welcome to ask again,” Hong deadpanned. Yue scoffed, but asked her question.

“How’d you know it was me? I could have sworn I put you off the path by saying I’d only lived here two years.”

“I had access to the city archives. Your records said four,” Hong replied without missing a beat.

If a fox could blush, Yue would have.

“The positioning of the moon indicated it was some sort of were creature, so I knew it was human; the fact that they were covering the cost of the killings indicated they were wealthy; and the fact that they killed the cattle first indicated that they were reasonably benevolent (for someone who ate the raw organs of cattle after midnight).”

Hong clacked another rock on the board.

“All three factors indicated that I was looking for a recent arrival to the valley with an unusually high amount of money, no record of violent crimes, and no alibi for the nights of the killings. From there it was a matter of pouring over the records and interviewing people until I found someone who matched. Your household was the only one that matched the build: you’d arrived recently from outside the Great Xuan, were wealthy, and nobody could trace your footsteps because you claimed to be spending all your time writing hard scifi.”

“Oy oy oy,” said Yue angrily. “I’ll have you know I’m not claiming anything: eating the raw organs of cattle is my hobby; writing hard scifi is my passion.”

“And yet you’ve never formally published anything. ”

“Curses,” Yue swore. It was just her luck to be hunted by a scholar who only cared about traditional publishing; she had a very lively following on the Cultivator Spirit Web, thank you kindly.

She had occasion to curse yet further some forty minutes later, when Hong utterly crushed her. It was a brutal sweep.

Alas for the poor fox - you see, she was an immigrant, and understood the rules of Go about as well as the Author.