Volume 1, Chapter 34: A Nocturnal Meeting with the Widow

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At the same time, the sky, which had been clear and cloudless only moments ago, was now blanketed in dark clouds. Lightning flashed and crossed overhead, yet not a single rumble of thunder could be heard.

“Master, what should I do?”

The Taoist ignored me. He merely glanced at me, his eyes filled with disappointment.

“Leave.”

“Leave? Where am I supposed to go?”

“Go back to your Earth God shrine. My temple, Old Ma’s little temple, is far too small to accommodate a true deity like you.”

His words made my face burn with embarrassment and shame.

After saying that, the Taoist treated me as though I were invisible. First, he stared at the moon for a long while. Then he carried the scalding medicine pot into the house with his bare hands.

For a brief moment, I caught the smell of scorched flesh.

I stood there blankly, at a complete loss.

Half an hour later, the Taoist walked out while repeatedly refusing something. The treatment must have worked rather well—the girl’s family had apparently tried to press money into his hands, but he had firmly declined it. He hurried backward toward the gate and said, “For the next seven days, she’ll be passing black water every day, and there’ll be a lot of it. Don’t be frightened. Once those seven days are over, your daughter will be perfectly healthy.”

Before the family could respond, the Taoist leaped onto his old bicycle and sped away.

The family glanced at me. Burning with shame, I gritted my teeth and chased after him.

The Taoist knew I was behind him. He deliberately slowed down, but whenever I drew near, he pedaled hard several times, always keeping twenty or thirty yards between us.

I had no idea where else to go, so I could only shamelessly continue following him. If this had happened half a month earlier, I would have turned around at once and gone as far from him as possible. But now, I sincerely wanted to learn at least a little of his craft.

When the Taoist returned home, he did not even light a lamp. He lay down and fell asleep. I curled up in the corner, filled with regret.

Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep as well. The next morning, I was once again awakened by a broom.

I immediately fell to my knees. “Master, I was wrong. From now on, I’ll listen to everything you say. Please don’t send me away.”

The Taoist gave a mocking snort and gritted his teeth. “Come on. We’re going up the mountain.”

“Up the mountain? What for?”

“Up the mountain at four o’clock. We agreed on it yesterday.”

Warmth spread through my heart. It seemed the Taoist no longer wanted to drive me away.

On the way up, the Taoist asked with a mischievous grin, “Were that woman’s breasts big yesterday?”

I froze for several seconds.

The Taoist continued, “Were they big?”

“Big—no, one was big and one was small. No, wait, one was small and the other was even smaller.”

The Taoist cursed. “You son of a bitch, you sure took a close look.”

I was too embarrassed to say anything.

The Taoist continued, “What about below?”

“N-No, I didn’t dare look.”

“At least you’ve still got some conscience. I thought about it last night. I can’t mold you into the kind of apprentice I want. I’ll have to teach according to your natural abilities, right?”

Seeing that the Taoist was in a good mood, I cautiously asked, “People always say that a great master produces a great disciple. Is that really true?”

“Of course. What kind of master you have determines what kind of disciple you become.”

“Then can an old pervert of a master teach a disciple who remains unmoved even when a beautiful woman is in his arms?”

The Taoist glared at me. “So that’s what you’ve been waiting to spring on me, huh? How did I become an old pervert? And look at you, using idioms now. Come on, tell me—what does ‘remaining unmoved with a beauty in your arms’ mean?”

“Where did you go the night before last?”

The Taoist’s eyes shifted in their sockets. “I went looking for medicinal herbs.”

“What medicinal herbs?”

“Dust from a widow’s bedside.” He said it with absolute seriousness.

I admired the Taoist from the bottom of my heart. Instead of simply saying he had gone to see a widow, he claimed he had gone to collect dust from her bedside. He really had a way with words.

I did not want to argue, so I changed the subject. “Master, if you know how to use the Five Ferocious Marshal Troops, why do you still need the Thirteen Ghost-Gate Needles?”

“You silly child, do you use a butcher’s cleaver to kill an ant? The Five Ferocious Marshal Troops are powerful, but they cannot be used all the time. I’ve already told you—you wouldn’t understand. Once you can use them yourself, you’ll know.”

After we returned home, the Taoist began explaining the Compendium of Materia Medica to me in order to prove his innocence. He claimed that the book contained a medicinal substance called dust from a widow’s bedside.

A widow living alone would eventually have a thin layer of dust settle beside her bed. I asked the Taoist why dust would accumulate there. He answered vaguely, but I understood what he meant.

An ordinary married couple would certainly be active beneath the covers every few days. The movement of the quilt would stir up the air and scatter the dust beside the bed.

A widow was different. Living alone, she would not thrash about beneath the covers, so the dust beside her bed would remain there for some time, until it was cleaned away.

Even today, some places still use a folk remedy like this. If someone suffers a minor injury, sprinkling a little dust directly onto the wound is said to speed healing.

In fact, this remedy supposedly evolved from dust gathered beside a widow’s bed. Ancient medical texts recorded that it was highly effective in treating wounds, abscesses, and inflammation.

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The Taoist solemnly recited the text to me, and I solemnly nodded along as I listened. In any case, I could not read, so whatever he said had to be true.

After all that, he was merely trying to prove that he had visited the widow to collect dust from her bedside, rather than to pursue anything improper.

With a sharp snap, the Taoist closed the book. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

I nodded, then shook my head like a rattle drum. Realizing that seemed wrong as well, I hurriedly said, “I believe you, I believe you. Whatever Master says, I believe.”

The Taoist snorted. “Then I’ll explain it scientifically. The dust beside a widow’s bed is actually mold dust. Mold contains penicillium, and penicillium contains penicillin. Penicillin inhibits and kills bacteria. Without bacteria, the wound does not become infected. Without infection, there is no inflammation. Without inflammation, the wound heals.”

I had no idea whether what he said was true, but it sounded perfectly reasonable.

The Taoist continued, “Our ancestors discovered the effects of this dust long ago. Foreign countries did not recognize penicillium until the late nineteen-twenties. It was not until the nineteen-forties that they turned it into medicine. You’ve seen films about the War of Resistance, haven’t you? The penicillin that appears so often in those movies is exactly what I’m talking about.”

At that point, I finally understood. Still puzzled, I asked, “Don’t pharmacies sell penicillin? Why not just buy it? Why go to a widow and ask for dust from her bedside?”

The Taoist froze.

He stood there stunned for nearly half a minute before suddenly slapping me across the face and cursing, “You’re the one who talks too damn much! Hurry up and learn to read!”

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Seven days later, one quiet morning, the peaceful mountain village erupted with the clamorous blare of suona horns.

The Taoist had cured the family’s daughter, and her family was not stingy with their thanks. They invited a large number of relatives and friends, beat gongs and drums, and brought the Taoist a huge fat pig.

A fat pig could be considered the highest possible form of gratitude in the countryside.

The Taoist declined several times before finally accepting it.

I’m not bragging, but the moment I saw that plump, freshly washed pig, I had already decided how to eat every part of it. The ribs would be stewed and dipped in garlic sauce. The pork belly and blood sausage would go into a proper slaughter-day stew. The pig’s knuckles would be simmered until tender enough to pull apart by hand. And the tenderloin would be stir-fried on its own.

The family said they had prepared a modest meal and invited the Taoist and me to join them at noon. A four-wheeled tractor would come to pick us up.

After everyone had left, the Taoist wore a smug expression. He flicked me on the forehead and said, “See that? When you have a real skill, people will respect you. You’d better study hard.”

“Oh. Next time, tell them not to play the suona when they come to deliver something. I thought someone had died and we were going to a funeral feast.”

Where I came from, people played loud pop songs at weddings. Suona horns were for funerals.

The Taoist glared at me. “You little bastard. Nothing good ever comes out of your filthy mouth. Damn it, stay home. I’ll go to the feast by myself.”

Even after saying that, the Taoist still took me along to the family’s house. The hosts were certainly modest: they had claimed to have prepared only a simple meal, but in reality they had set up five tables, each one crowded with dishes piled upon dishes, all of them rich and substantial.

The family’s relatives and friends came, along with the men who had helped slaughter the pig and the nearby households who were close to them.

The villagers all talked at once, praising the Taoist to the heavens.