The morning sun stretched warm fingers across the garden patch as Xiulan crouched beside his cabbages, lips pursed in deep contemplation. A small pile of gold coin taels sat balanced on a flat stone beside him. His fingers brushed the soil thoughtfully.
"If spirit stones can make ginseng grow spicy," he murmured, "then surely… a coin made from gold might make the cabbage shimmer?" He picked up a tael and held it to the light, then pressed it gently into the soil beside a tiny sprout. "Gold essence cabbage. Grows glowing. Maybe tastes like sunrise. Or roasted chestnuts. Or victory."
He poked the soil again. "But what if it attracts dragonflies with expensive tastes…"
Just then, the bushes rustled, and Bo, one of the two long-tailed monkey twins, tumbled out in a chaotic flip, twirling midair and landing precisely on Xiulan's head with practiced ease.
"Morning, Leaf-Brother Lan-Lan!" Bo chirped. "Why are you burying your money again? You hiding it from us or hoping it sprouts into a money tree?"
Xiulan stood without flinching, Bo still clinging to his head like a very chatty crown. "I'm experimenting. What if gold coins make the cabbage noble?"
Bo leaned down until his nose nearly touched Xiulan's. "Noble cabbage? Sounds like something Baby Po would try to feed to a sleeping phoenix."
Xiulan paused. "…You've come to talk about him again."
Bo flipped and landed beside him with a dramatic sigh. "Of course. He's gotten strange again. Stranger. He was cooking all night—said he was trying to make 'salted mushroom pastries shaped like cloud beasts' because he dreamed one sat on his tail."
Xiulan's eyebrows rose. "Mushroom pastries shaped like beasts?"
Bo nodded furiously. "And then he said the shape affects the taste! That cloud beasts taste fluffier, and hedgehogs taste grumpy."
Xiulan nodded as if that made perfect sense. "He's trying to match emotion to flavour again."
"Also!" Bo pointed a finger skyward. "He tried to roast a spirit pumpkin inside a glowing lotus last night. Used it as an oven. It exploded. Woke up Elder Redcheeks, who now says he sees 'flaming vegetables' in his dreams."
Xiulan looked concerned. "That might be a sign of spiritual indigestion."
"Or spiritual madness!" Bo gasped. "He's even started fermenting silkworm threads to add into soup. For texture. Texture!"
Xiulan blinked. "…That might actually be delicious."
Bo threw up his arms. "No! No, you can't join him in his weird food cult!"
Xiulan calmly pointed to a rock where a mushroom was already wearing a small green ribbon. "Too late."
Bo flopped on his back in the grass and moaned. "Why are all my brothers so strange? One wants to stir-fry moonlight. The other buries coins to grow salad."
Xiulan lay beside him and added helpfully, "If it grows, I will name it 'Emperor Leaf.'"
Bo sighed, tail curling into a heart shape. "You're all weird. But fine. If weird means I get breakfast, I'll accept it."
Xiulan reached into the garden behind them and pulled out a radish shaped like a curled-up rabbit.
Bo blinked. "Did that grow like that?"
"Maybe." Xiulan offered it with a small smile. "Or maybe it was sleeping."
Bo stared. Then, with great solemnity, he whispered, "I'm never leaving this garden."
Xiulan smiled before his mind wandered off to a day about a single crushed moonflowers ago.
Xiulan was eight years and three crushed moonflowers old when he decided that Baby Po was most certainly not a wolf.
The forest had many types of wolves—ice wolves, moon wolves, even the occasional awkward thunder wolf that could not control its tail—but none of them squeaked when startled or had a tail that split into ribbons during seasonal changes. Baby Po, however, did both. And then some.
Xiulan had grown up on Baby Po's back, clutching handfuls of snow-white fur while soaring over tree roots and mushroom patches. His earliest memories were not of lullabies but of being serenaded by Baby Po's bedtime stories—which often featured himself as the misunderstood hero who defeated evil snake gods with soup recipes.
"Do you think I'm fluffy today?" Baby Po once asked, mid-air, as they jumped from one high cliff to another.
"You grew an extra ear."
"Oh, that's just for when I'm listening to gossip."
Xiulan nodded slowly and made another note in his diary, written on a dried lotus leaf:
"Baby Po is probably not a wolf. Definitely part wind, maybe some jellyfish. Species: unconfirmed. Dangerous level: Only when hungry. Might be celestial mistake."
He had noticed it early on. While Uncle Hei moved like a blade in the forest, a true hunter with pride curling in every paw step, Baby Po pranced. His paws barely touched the ground. His tail, which a respectable wolf would use for balance, often dragged lovingly behind him like a bridal veil. Once, he tied flowers in it. Once, it glowed. And once, it talked back to him.
"Your tail just argued with you," Xiulan had pointed out calmly while eating a sweet-roasted worm fruit.
Baby Po had sniffed. "Well, it has opinions."
Xiulan noted down, "And has a tail with opinions."
The evidence was piling up.
Real wolves did not drink dew collected from petals at sunrise for 'complexion glow.' Real wolves did not spend three hours convincing a sunbeam spirit to dance with them because "the vibes felt stale." Real wolves did not have panic attacks at the sight of an aggressive duck.
Baby Po did every single thing.
Uncle Hei had once said, gruffly and not quite under his breath, "That one is too soft for battle but too dramatic for peace. A strange egg, that one."
An egg.
Xiulan remembered staring at Baby Po after that.
"Did you hatch?"
Baby Po blinked. "Possibly."
Another addition.
Still, Xiulan loved him.
It was not about what species Baby Po was or was not. It was the way he sang to seedlings so they would grow faster. The way he dragged Xiulan out during moon rains just so he could laugh in the puddles. The way he called Xiulan his "baby blossom" and insisted on rubbing crushed peach leaves into his hair for "natural shimmer."
He was warm. He was odd. He was home.
Even if he might be the only wolf in history who had once sneezed and accidentally summoned four identical butterflies that refused to leave his shoulder for a week.
One winter, after a particularly embarrassing moment involving Baby Po bursting into spontaneous sparkles after hugging a tree spirit, Xiulan added to his leaf diary:
"Baby Po is many things. Most of them illegal in three heavens and four mortal realms (I have only known one forest and one mortal realms but the human cultivators taught this). But I love him. Even if his tail is… suspicious and has opinions."
That night, Baby Po tucked Xiulan into their moss nest, brushing stray pine needles from his hair.
"Goodnight, my little sky leaf."
"Goodnight, probably-not-a-wolf."
"Excuse you, I'm entirely wolf!"
"Then why do mushrooms grow on your tail?"
"…They like the ambiance."
Xiulan giggled until he fell asleep.
By the end of the week, he had narrowed the possibilities down to:
Celestial trial beast dropped from a heavenly basketReincarnated flirtatious cloudEvolved emotional parasite with good taste in soupLast but not the least, an egg that was dropped on it's head.
But until proven otherwise, he decided Baby Po was simply his—his not-wolf, his fluffy chaos companion, his star-brushed hug machine.
Species could wait.
Right now, there was tea to brew(Uncle Hei's new interest), herbs to plant, and one very dramatic not-wolf who insisted the new season's moss came with "spirit-chakra-cleansing properties" that must be harvested during baby goat moon.
Xiulan wrote in his diary that night:
"Still suspicious. Still sparkly. Still mine."
And under the pale moon, Baby Po's tail glowed gently... and then turned into five petals before returning to normal.
He hummed himself to sleep.
Xiulan stared up at the sky and whispered, "Definitely not a wolf."