The Peddler and the Tiger

In the time that it took for Father to completely heal, Mother had made several dozen Huanglian Shangqing Pills. Each pill was small and circular, only the size of the first joint of my pinky, and they all fit neatly into a porcelain jar that Mother tucked away in the cabinet for future use. Once the jar was filled, she no longer made any more medicine. 

All of the dried herbs that she had dedicated a lifetime to collecting, a thousand leaves and roots and flowers, were gathered into a heaping pile beside the stove in our outdoor kitchen. Mother worked methodically. She took one basket of herbs at a time, dumping one after another, until the pile of herbs was as tall as me. Then she grabbed two handfuls of herbs, tossed them in the hearth, and started the fire to heat the stove. Once the flame ignited, she poked the hearth underneath the stove with a long metal stick and started cooking.

"Mother, the herbs! Why did you throw them into the fire?" I asked.

"These herbs have no more use as medicine," she said. 

"But there was ginseng in there! Didn't you tell me ginseng was valuable?"

"These herbs only bring us bad karma. Better to use them as kindling."

I was going to protest more when someone called out Mother's name. "Lianhua, Lianhua!"

It was Auntie Pei's voice. I rushed out to find her panting at the front of our house. Her face was red from running. 

"What's the matter? Why are you in such a rush?"

"My husband's wart! It started growing so much larger, and the color keeps changing. And now he's constantly tired. Please, can you get your mother to treat him?"

"I will try." 

I darted back inside. "Mother! Auntie Pei said her husband's wart has grown and that he is fatigued. Can you please check up on him?"

"No more medicine at our house," she said calmly, her eyes not straying from the stove.

"Please, Uncle Pei could be seriously ill."

But this time, Mother did not respond. I grew frustrated with her. She had the ability to save someone's life, but instead she insisted on cooking.

"Why are you being like this? You always told me to help others when you can."

She still did not respond.

"If you won't help him, then I will."

At that moment, Mother raised her hand and slapped me across the face. "You will not!" she yelled.

My cheek stung. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I pursed my lips together to keep myself from crying.

Without saying another word, I ran off.

I didn't understand why Mother didn't want to treat patients and prescribe medicine anymore. She was knowledgeable about herbs and medicine, well known throughout Shuangyu Port for her skills, and she had always been so willing to put her knowledge to use. But now she was like a fish who refused to swim. 

My face grew wet with tears, but I quickly wiped them away with my sleeve. Mother had always taught me that crying did not help solve the problem at hand, so instead, I racked my brain, trying to remember everything I had learned about medicine from Mother. A growing lump that changed colors, if I remembered correctly, Mother had once said that there was a phenomenon where evil qi can grow and spread within the body. But my heart sank when I recalled what she had told me about such a condition.

"This kind of evil qi generates a great deal of wind-heat in the body, but unfortunately, there is no cure for such a phenomenon. The evil qi causes a person a great deal of pain, so the most that I can do is prescribe medicine to decrease the wind-heat in the body."

Upon remembering this, I crept quietly to the cabinet Mother kept the Huanglian Shangqing Pills, and I poured a handful into a small pouch before heading outside where Auntie Pei was anxiously waiting. 

"What did your mother say?" she asked.

I raised a finger to my lips. "Quiet."

Auntie Pei looked confused for a moment but still lowered her voice. "Will she help treat him?"

I shook my head. "Such a condition is incurable. At most, we can only relieve the symptoms."

Her face dropped. "Are you sure? There has to be a way."

"My deepest apologies," I said, handing her the small pouch. "One pill of this a day will make the pain less. I wish I could help more."

She accepted the pouch from me and thanked me, but her face remained glum. Her eyes were downcast as she turned her back towards me and slowly treaded back to her house. When her stout figure was out of sight, I dragged my feet back inside. I had done what I could to help, but still I felt useless.

Later that week, we received news that Uncle Pei had passed away.

*****

"Father, why won't Mother help the sick anymore?" I asked.

Father was working at the forge as usual. An eye patch now covered his left eye. "She must have her own reasons," he answered.

"But I don't understand. She always taught me that helping others is good karma."

Father placed down his hammer and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Come, let's go on a walk."

As we headed out of the workshop and through the barracks of Baldy Li's men, Father told me the story of a man who had saved an injured tiger. 

"There was once a peddler who sold little trinkets for a living. One day, he decided that the village he lived in did not have enough children to sell little trinkets to. So he decided to embark on a journey to find another village where there were more little kids who would want to buy toys from him. The road he took led him through a dense forest where he encountered a tiger caught in a hunter's trap."

"The peddler thought that the tiger was pitiful," Father continued. "So he released it from the trap and bandaged its broken leg. Once that was done, he continued to traverse the forest. But the forest was dense, and he lost his way. He spent several days and nights trudging through the forest before he finally found his way out and stumbled across another small village. Excited, the man started running to reach the village more quickly, but when he arrived, all he saw were bloody, mangled corpses."

"He wandered through the village, trying to find another living soul. Yet all he found were the bodies of men, women, and children, all bloody and misshapen. When he examined one of the bodies, his heart sank. Claw marks stretched red across the corpse's face, and several of the corpses had chunks of flesh ripped from their bones. He realized that the villagers had all been killed by a tiger."

Even after Father finished his story, we continued walking together in silence. We walked through the market at Shuangyu Port, and continued our way east. As we walked, I remembered what Father had once told me. Behind every tale was a lesson. I thought of the meaning behind the story.

After a while of contemplation, I said, "Do not help bad people."

Father nodded. Then he stopped walking. I had been so deep in thought that I hadn't realized that we had travelled into the forest east of Shuangyu Port. We stopped in front of a tall oak tree.

"Zhuhua, you are young, so there are some things that you may not completely understand."

"I'm not that young!" I protested. "I'm already ten years old!"

"Then, let me ask you, what do you think of Baldy Li?"

"He hurt you, so he's a bad man," I said. "Like the tiger in your story."

"I'm afraid that things are not as simple as that," Father explained.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you see this tree here?" Father asked.

I studied the tree in front of us and saw that there were three hash marks carved into its trunk. "Did someone carve these into the tree?" 

"It was your Mother."

"Why would she do that?"

Father walked over to a nearby boulder and sat down. Then he patted the spot next to him, motioning for me to sit.

"Let me tell you another story…"