My name is Taogu. This peach orchard belongs to my family.
"Belongs" loosely — there's no deed. Our branch of people has planted peaches on this foothill for more generations than we can count. The trees grow older each year; the pits renew each season. Tao Yuanming once wrote the Peach Blossom Spring — a fisherman slips through a cave and finds a hidden valley where people's ancestors fled the chaos of the Qin. The townsfolk like to tease me: Taogu, did your family come out of that valley?
I don't laugh. Because in our old telling, my ancestors really did "hide away" from something.
From what, the genealogy doesn't say, and the oral line broke. All that's left is one rule: under the oldest tree at the orchard's west end lies an old road buried in weeds. Nobody walks it. Nobody points it out to strangers. As a child I asked my grandfather where it led. He said: to the place your ancestors ran from. I asked: if they came from there, why can't we go back? He took a long pull on his pipe and said: a place you can go back to isn't called running.
This plague year, the orchard's been restless. First, peaches vanished at night — whole branches stripped cleaner than any human hand could. Then one dusk, Dandan the peddler saw the thing at the orchard's west end: bigger than a monkey, faster, crossing the treetops without a sound.
That spot isn't far from the old tree.
I reported it, and passed word to Xiangshan the hunter and young Shigandang on patrol. If you've taken the bounty notice, come to me before you enter the woods. I'll show you the paths the xiao favors and which trees it visits. Only one thing —
Stay away from the old tree. Not for your safety. For what you might bring out.
Peaches aplenty — every guest in my orchard eats free. The old road stays closed.