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The moths didn’t satisfy the hungry dragon. Hua seemed to understand that Kai would need more food now that they didn’t have a goat to provide milk. He scurried off again and a little while later returned with a bird’s egg in his mouth.
    “Hua! You know what I want even before I do!” she exclaimed.
    The rat put the egg down in front of the dragon. Kai sniffed it and rolled it around with his nose. Then squawked unhappily at Ping.
    Ping laughed. “Give it to me, Hua.”
    Hua brought the egg over to her. She looked into the rat’s bright blue eyes. She could see a glimmer of understanding that was missing even in the eyes of some people she had known. There would be useful knowledge inside the rat’s furry little head, she was sure of that.
    “If only I knew what you were thinking,” Ping said.
    She broke the egg into a bowl and Kai ate it raw.
    Perhaps Danzi had sent the rat to help her. He might not have had the strength to fly all the way back from the Isle of the Blest. She tried to picture the old dragon healed and happy on the Isle of the Blest, sitting in the sunlight, eating peaches of immortality, sipping on the water of life. Whatever the reason, she was glad Hua had returned.
    After breakfast they went outside. The walls of the hut were constructed from saplings and bark. The roof was made of neatly woven bundles of grass held in place with rocks. It was well built and Ping was sure it would keep out wind and rain. Around the side of the hut, under the shelter of the eaves, was a spade and more neatly stacked chopped wood. From the way the sheepskins and food store had been carefully packed away, she suspected the hut belonged to a shepherd who had taken his flock back to his village for the winter.
    The hut was built on a narrow terrace that had been cut into the hillside. The shepherd had chosen the position well. A meadow for grazing sheep sloped gently down the hill in front of the hut. From the door there was a lovely view of two mountain peaks. In the narrow space between the peaks, Ping could see the plain reaching to the horizon. She could just make out a small village. Perhaps that was where the shepherd lived.
    Behind the hut, was a steep hill. Behind that was another hill, steeper and higher than the first. The peaks of Tai Shan were beyond that. It was good to have the dark mountain at a comfortable distance, not looming over her every move as it had done at Black Dragon Pool. They had walked a long way.
    The few clouds kept their distance from the sun and Ping was enjoying its warmth. Her fear had disappeared with the fog.
    “I’m sure the shepherd won’t be returning till spring,” Ping said to Hua. “We can spend winter here. But we have to be much more careful than we were before.”
    She went back inside and put out her little fire. “There might be someone in the village keen-sighted enough to see the smoke. We’ll have to leave lighting a fire until after dark.”
    She picked up her bucket. “Come on, Hua. Let’s go and explore. We need to find water.”
    Kai squawked plaintively when she set off.
    “You can come too, but I’m not carrying you.”
    The little dragon followed her.
    In summer, the meadow would be studded with flowers, but this morning it was covered with small snails, coaxed from their hiding places by overnight rain. Kai liked snails. Ping collected some for him.
    She could see no sign of a pool or stream. To the west of the hut, an outcrop of large rectangular rocks scarred the smooth green slope. It looked as if a piece of the mountain had broken off a long time ago, and tumbled all the way down to this slope where it had lodged and become part of the landscape.
    “Perhaps there’s a stream over there,” she said to Hua.
    The rocks were taller than Ping. A path led through them to a flat rock platform. In the middle was a hole that was full of water.
    Ping smiled. “I knew the shepherd wouldn’t have built his hut far from water.”
    The pool was much