The Forest Monkey Boy

High in the mist-veiled ranges of the Tibetan frontier, where pine needles whisper secrets to the wind and monsters drift through the dark like forgotten gods, a boy laughed.

He wasn’t supposed to be there.

Not because the trees forbade him — oh no, they seemed to welcome him like an old friend — but because no human child had any business leaping from canopy to canopy like a drunken squirrel on festival day.

“Wheeeeee!” the boy howled, flinging his scrawny body through the branches of a towering red pine, his bare feet slapping bark, his little hands gripping moss-slick wood with alarming ease.

He wore a tunic that had once been white, but now was a mosaic of dirt, grass stains, and suspicious claw marks. A leather cord wrapped tightly around his waist, securing a pouch that jingled faintly whenever he landed — which was often and rarely quiet.

Somewhere down below, a group of villagers carrying baskets full of mushrooms and early spring herbs stopped in their tracks, staring up into the tangled canopy with faces frozen somewhere between awe and impending bowel movement.

“Did you see that?” one whispered. He was a portly man named Duyi who had lost three pigs to a Monster last spring and now flinched at his own shadow.

“No,” said the elderly herbalist beside him, though her squint suggested otherwise. “But I heard monkey noises.”

“That's no monkey,” murmured the third — a tall, thin man named Lao Gong with a voice like cracked bamboo. “That’s the Demon Child.”

“Demon?” Duyi hissed. “Don’t joke like that! I still have two pigs left!”

Up above, the so-called Demon Child — whose real name was Lin Yu — had settled cross-legged on a thick branch, munching happily on a half-eaten plum he'd stolen from someone's orchard two days ago. His cheeks were flushed with exertion, eyes sparkling with the same mischievous glint seen in most thunderstorms.

“Dumb villagers,” he muttered through a mouthful of plum. “If I were a demon, I’d already be riding a Monster. With a saddle.”

He leaned forward and peered through the trees. Below, the villagers debated whether it was safer to finish foraging or simply accept starvation.

Then, a twig snapped behind Lin Yu.

He froze.

Something moved.

Something big.

The branch behind him creaked, slowly, like a door in an abandoned temple. Lin Yu turned his head. A black-furred creature — taller than any ox, its eyes glowing a sickly jade green — was crouched on a higher limb, licking its teeth.

Monster.

“Uh oh,” Lin Yu whispered. “You’re not one of the good ones, are you?”

The Monster grinned, drool dribbling down its chin. Its breath reeked of rot and bad decisions.

Then, Lin Yu did what any six-year-old without formal training but a lot of bad ideas would do — he kicked the Monster square in the nose.

To its credit, the Monster was more confused than hurt.

Lin Yu took that half-second of shock and used it to launch himself backwards, somersaulting through the air, bouncing off a branch, ricocheting off a trunk, and finally crashing into a bush with all the grace of a goat falling off a temple roof.

From the bottom of the hill, the villagers heard the crash.

“Did… the demon just fall?”

“Sounded like it.”

A pause.

Then Lin Yu burst out of the bushes, leaves in his hair, scratches on his cheek, and an enormous smile on his face.

“Hi!” he chirped. “There’s a Monster in the trees! It's probably hungry!”

The villagers screamed and scattered like rice thrown at a wedding.

Lin Yu blinked. “Huh,” he said to no one. “That’s weird. I thought they’d be more excited.”

And somewhere far above, that jade-eyed Monster licked its nose and began climbing down — slowly, deliberately — like it had all the time in the world.

Lin Yu tilted his head, eyes narrowing, plum forgotten in the dirt.

“All right, ugly,” he whispered. “Let’s see if my Qi’s strong enough to punch your face inside out.”

He held out his tiny hand. The air shimmered faintly around his palm — golden threads of light barely visible to the untrained eye. His body thrummed with something raw and untamed. Latent energy.

He grinned.

“Chapter One,” he declared to the trees. “Lin Yu punches a Monster.”

And then he ran straight at it.

With zero plan.

And entirely too much confidence.

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