Li Kao turned and trotted back out the door, and we followed like sheep as he started back toward the monastery. I was learning that there were many sides to Master Li, and I listened with fascination.
“I had to turn their brains to butter with strong wine, and every morning I pried my eyelids open and glared at red-bearded barbarians who were snoring in puddles of vomit,” he said. “They had the constitutions of billy goats, and it was a month and a half before I was able to persuade them that silk is extracted from the semen of snow-white dragons that breed only in caverns concealed in the mysterious Mongolian glaciers. Before sailing away with the sad news, their leader came to see me. He was an oaf named Procopius, and the wine had not improved his appearance. ‘O great and mighty Master Li, pray impart to me the Secret of Wisdom!’ he bawled. A silly smile was sliding down the side of his face like a dripping watercolor, and his eyeballs resembled a pair of pink pigeon eggs that were gently bouncing in saucers of yellow wonton soup. To my great credit I never batted an eyelash. ‘Take a large bowl,’ I said. ‘Fill it with equal measures of fact, fantasy, history, mythology, science, superstition, logic, and lunacy. Darken the mixture with bitter tears, brighten it with howls of laughter, toss in three thousand years of civilization, bellow kan pei—which means “dry cup”—and drink to the dregs.’ Procopius stared at me. ‘And I will be wise?’ he asked. ‘Better,’ I said. ‘You will be Chinese.’ ”
Li Kao led the way back to the infirmary and slowly walked up the long line of beds. Weariness bowed his shoulders, and in the bright morning sunlight his wrinkled skin was nearly transparent.
The children of Ku-fu looked like wax effigies. Fang's Fawn had always been pretty, but now the bone structure was showing beneath her smooth skin. She was exquisite as a carving in white jade is exquisite, without warmth or life. On the bed next to her was a woodcutter's daughter named Bone Helmet, a thin, plain girl who had been gentle and loving. Since she had been old enough to thread a needle, she had worked on her father's burial garment, and he had proudly worn it at every festival, and now the heartbroken father had dressed his daughter in his own garment. Bone Helmet looked incredibly small and helpless in a blue silk robe that was five times too big for her, and the irony of “longevity” that she had embroidered over it in gold thread was not very funny.
Favorite toys had been placed near each child's limp hands, and the parents sat silent and helpless beside the beds. Mournful howls drifted up from the village, where lonesome dogs were searching for their young masters.
Li Kao sighed and straightened his shoulders and beckoned for me to come closer. “Number Ten Ox, I have no idea whether or not a Root of Power is the same as a Great Root of Power, and for all I know the only use for such a thing is to mix it with glue and use it to repair sandals,” he said quietly. “Two things I do know. Anyone who tries to steal a valuable item from the Ancestress is begging for an unpleasant death, and I am now too old to attempt it without having some muscle to back me up. I have accepted your five thousand copper cash, and you are my client, and the decision is yours.”
“Master Li, when do we leave?” I asked eagerly.
I was ready to race out the door, but he looked at me wryly.
“Ox, if the children die suddenly there is nothing that we can do about it, and if the textbook prognosis holds true, they should last for months. The worst thing that we could do would be to arrive at our destination weary and unprepared,” he said patiently. “I'm going to get some rest, and if you can't sleep, perhaps the abbot will be kind enough to expand your education on the subject of the quest. Ginseng is the most interesting as well as the most valuable plant in the whole world.”
He yawned and stretched.
“We'll have to go back through Peking to pick up some money, and we'll leave at the first watch,” he said.
Li Kao lay down in the bonzes’ bedchamber. I had never been so wide awake in my life. The abbot took me into his study for instruction, and what I learned about ginseng was so interesting that I was almost able to forget the children for an hour.
4. Root of Lightning
No medicinal plant is quite so controversial, the abbot explained. There are eminent physicians who swear that it is no more effective than strong tea, and there are those who swear that it is effective in treating anemia, cachexia, scrofula, gastrointestinal catarrh, and malfunctions of the lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, and genital organs. Long ago when the plant was plentiful, peasants would mix the ginseng root with owl brains and turtle fat and smear the mixture over the heads of patients to cure insanity, or blend it with the powdered horns of wapiti deer and sprinkle it over the patients’ chests to cure tuberculosis. Strangest of all is the viewpoint of the professional ginseng hunter, because for him it is not a plant but a religion.
The legends are quite marvelous. Ginseng hunters refer to the plant as chang-diang shen, “the root of lightning,” because it is believed that it appears only on the spot where a small mountain spring has been dried up by a lightning bolt. After a life of three hundred years the green juice turns white and the plant acquires a soul. It is then able to take on human form, but it never becomes truly human because ginseng does not know the meaning of selfishness.
It is totally good, and will happily sacrifice itself to aid the pure in heart. In human form it can appear as a man or as a beautiful woman, but more often it takes the form of a child, plump and brown, with red cheeks and laughing eyes. Long ago, evil men discovered that a ginseng child can be captured by tying it with a red ribbon, and that is why the plant is now so hard to find, the hunters say. It has been forced to run away from evil men, and it is for that reason that ginseng hunting has become one of the most hazardous occupations upon the face of the earth.
The ginseng hunter must display the purity of his intentions right from the start, so he carries no weapons. He wears a conical hat made from birch bark, and shoes of tarred pigskin, and an oiled apron to protect him from dew, and a badger skin attached to his belt, on which he sits when the ground is wet. He carries small spades made from bone and two small pliable knives that are quite useless for defense. Along with a little food and wine, that is all he has, and his quest takes him into the wildest mountains where no men have dared to pass before. Tigers and bears are his companions, and the hunter fears strange creatures that are even more dangerous than tigers—such as the tiny owls that will call him by name and lead him into the Forest of Oblivion from which no man returns, and the bandits that are more brutal than savage bears and who crouch beside the few paths in order to murder an unarmed hunter and steal his roots.
Ginseng hunters, when they have thoroughly searched an area and found nothing, will mark the barks of trees with kao chu kua, which are tiny secret signs that tell other hunters not to waste their time there. Hunters would not dream of deceiving each other, because they are not competitors but fellow worshippers. Where a find has been made a shrine is raised, and other hunters who pass will leave offerings of stones, or scraps of cloth. If a hunter finds a plant that is not mature enough he will put stakes around it with his mark on them. If other hunters find the place they will pray and offer gifts, but they would rather cut their throats than take the plant for themselves. The behavior of a man who makes a find is very strange.