With all that crashing noise, I expected a bull, or a couple of pigs that got loose, or a goat or a horse. But the creature rising above the tea plants ...
Even with everything I've encountered, I've never seen anything like it. A humongous white bull with four deadly sharp black horns like scimitars. I'm not sure which is redder, its flaming eyes or the blood dripping from its snout. A pungent odor of rotting flesh surrounds it. Head down, it plows through the tea trees, uprooting them and snatching up one of the tea pickers in its path. It proceeds to--
God.
I think i'm going to vomit, but I can't. I'm the emperor.
The tea pickers all scream and scatter, ducking beneath the tea leaves and crouching low to the ground. Pu-erh, a frozen statue in coarse farm clothes, stands staring at the monster.
Jiggling her arm like it's a stuck lever, I manage to get her un-frozen and pull her to safety. I mutter to Daji, "What is that thing?"
