Once We Lived in Nanjing

First point, steady hands.

Ban Xia inhaled deeply, pushing the bow with her left hand and pulling the string with her right. As the oak limbs gently bent, the longbow opened to a one and a half arm's span, then held still, the tense limbs and bowstring having accumulated tremendous potential energy. They formed a fragile equilibrium with the girl's arm and shoulder, ready to release in an instant.

Ban Xia's gaze followed the shaft of the arrow, landing on the brush across the street. She heard a rustling from the bushes, sharp, yapping sounds like a dog's.

It was a muntjac.

Muntjacs are common in Nanjing City. They are a small deer species, usually active at night, though occasionally seen during the day. Compared to the larger horse deer, muntjacs are far easier to hunt.

This is a quality source of meat.

Muntjacs have three advantages: they are lightweight, tender-fleshed, and fall at a single shot.

With her index and middle fingers hooked around the bowstring, the taut string notched at the rear of the arrow, Ban Xia faced forward with her left shoulder, backward with her right shoulder, and her legs slightly apart. Her teacher once taught her the key points of archery: to be calm but not stiff, stable but not rigid, with relaxed shoulders. Without a doubt, Ban Xia was a good student; her archery skills were now unmatched in the world.

The girl was at least twenty meters from her prey. She knew how to hide her tracks and scent. Muntjacs are exceedingly skittish – the slightest disturbance sends them sprinting away. So, Ban Xia concealed herself behind a large tree, the wildly growing weeds reaching up to her waist. A breeze blew towards her from the front; she was downwind, and so the prey could not smell her.

Second point, still with steady hands.

The lush green shrubbery rustled. Holding her breath, the girl saw a pair of straight, brown-yellow ears emerge amongst the verdant leaves.

Then, a forehead appeared, with a black "V" pattern on its fur and two glossy, black eyes. Ban Xia recognized it as a female Red Muntjac since a male would have pointed antlers on its head.

Third point, hands must be steady.

There is only one chance.

An arrow once loosed cannot be recalled. A miss would startle the quarry. Such a vigilant creature as the muntjac would not offer a second opportunity after the first arrow misses its mark.

Once it darts into the lush, thick meadow, it would be as elusive as a phantom.

In the tenth year after humanity's disappearance, the city had become a natural landscape grown from the earth. The erosive power of nature is far stronger than anyone could imagine. In just ten years, human buildings became natural habitats for animals. For the creatures born in this era, the city is a natural part of the world, as much as forests, deserts, mountains, and plains, merely a unique geographical feature.

Fifteen years after humans vanished, the city had become one of the regions with the highest species diversity in the biosphere. The slower forces are the stronger; sprouting seeds can crack concrete, and any spot where sunlight shines or rain falls quickly succumbs to the tenacious life of weeds. Then, small rodents move in, followed closely by predators that feed on rodents. The high-rise buildings constructed by humans offered unprecedented spatial habitats for animals. Agile climbers like leopards learned to ambush from skyscrapers or overpasses. They are cruel and cunning predators and have caused Ban Xia a lot of trouble.

This is indeed a world gone wild.

In the food chain, all living beings play one of two roles: either prey or predator. Nature is both cruel and bloody. In the era of greatest human civilization, people often overlooked this because humanity has been divorced from the role of prey for far too long. They had not seen, for a long time, the bloodied remains of their kind.

Ban Xia took aim.

With this arrow, the female muntjac will die.

After killing the prey, Ban Xia will process it on the spot, skinning it, removing the entrails, and cutting off some of the best pieces of meat like the backstrap or thigh to take with her. She won't take the entire animal back; that's troublesome because then she would have to transport the remaining guts and skin to dump them far away to avoid attracting fierce scavengers.

For safety's sake, Ban Xia never hunts within a three-kilometer radius of her place of residence.

Suddenly, the bushes rustled again.

Ban Xia was startled.

She heard a second muntjac, a sound fainter and more delicate.

Quickly, a tiny deer's head poked out of the brush, pale yellow, soft fur, erect ears, glossy black eyes, with two small bumps on its head. It was not yet half the size of the previous one, likely a young male muntjac, not fully grown.

This was a mother Red Muntjac with a young fawn.

Ban Xia held the bow drawn, aiming the arrowhead at the smaller one.

The smaller ones taste better, the meat is more tender.

Kill it and bring it back to roast and eat, it's been a long time since I had roasted meat, just thinking about it makes me crave it, Ban Xia loosened her fingers, and the bowstring snapped back violently.

With a whooshing sound, the arrow left the bowstring at lightning speed, traveling twenty meters and lodging into the ground by the feet of the young Red Muntjac.

Both the adult and young deer were taken aback, turning their heads to stare at the wooden arrow stuck in the grass, the air still for a second, then their bodies sprung up like springs, fleeing into the bushes in a panic and disappearing from view.

Ban Xia stood on her tiptoes, adjusting the straps of her backpack, shading her eyes with her hand, she looked into the distance and after a moment noticed birds taking flight.

They sure ran fast.

The girl strolled over leisurely, pulling the arrow from the ground, and slipping it back into her quiver.

"My hands are out of practice," Ban Xia scratched her head, "What bad luck, the meat that was almost in my mouth flew away."

She thought she would need to practice her archery once she returned.

Well, it can't be helped, if I can't hunt it down, I can't hunt it down, Ban Xia stretched lazily, "What will be, will be—what's not meant to be, no need to go after fervently—!"

She pulled a pocket watch from her pocket, glanced at the time, it was half-past three in the afternoon.

That concluded today's hunting; it was time to check if there was any catch in the traps and animal traps she had set.

The girl emerged from the bushes, back onto the wide road, taking off her long-sleeved jacket and draping it over her shoulder, wiping the sweat from her face and neck.

Such scorching weather was torture when one has to wear a long coat.

But going without it isn't an option; there's everything in the bushes, including nasty caterpillars and even more terrible blood-sucking insects, just brushing against the skin with these things is unbearable.

The teacher said the caterpillars are green stinging moth larvae, you can occasionally see them under the oak leaves, flipping over the leaf in the shade reveals several of them, all green with spines all over, in clusters, Ban Xia isn't afraid of caterpillars, but she hates these creatures, a touch on exposed skin causes large areas of redness and swelling, painful enough to make one consider amputating the affected area, it is hard to say whether they or the hidden-winged insects sting worse.

The blood-sucking insects are not commonly seen, but after rain, they appear suddenly, Ban Xia doesn't know where they come from, these things hang on the leaves, and when an animal passes by, they jump on to suck blood, and they can't be removed easily.

Silk stockings are an important survival supply for the apocalypse; she puts them on her head and hands when navigating through meadows.

Later that afternoon at six o'clock.

The black moon is about to rise, it's time for Ban Xia to head back.

She checked all the traps and animal traps she had set, unsurprisingly coming up empty.

Looks like she didn't catch anything today, she'd have to continue hunting tomorrow.

Ban Xia stepped through the gates of Meihua Villa, carrying a backpack and holding a bow and arrow, humming an old song as she walked down the small paths of the complex.

Suddenly, the girl felt a shiver down her spine.

Her steps halted, almost instinctively she drew her pistol and turned to aim.

She felt it again.

Something was watching her.

That gaze was mad and bloody, sharp like the fangs of a predatory dog, Ban Xia intuitively thought that it was a fearsome predator, but she couldn't locate it, her eyes sweeping over the lush bushes under the cover of night, no movement to be seen.

Ban Xia held her breath, keeping composed, taking slow steps backward, backing into the small gate surrounded by electric fences, one hand holding the gun aimed forward, the other closing the gate of the electric fence.

She kept moving back into the apartment building, flipping the electricity circuit breaker on the wall, sparks flying.

After doing all this, the girl finally leaned against the wall to slowly sit down, breathing heavily, she touched her clothes, drenched in a cold sweat.