Time passed. She still couldn’t walk, and her clothes were drenched.

“Hi, woman, is that you?”

The sound of Mr. Yi’s voice lightened her heart.

“Hurry and help me. I slipped.”

Mr. Yi helped her slowly down the mountain. How strange—as soon as her husband came to help, she could walk by herself. She had heard people say that heaven never seals off all the exits. Tomorrow she would deliver the medicine to Grandma Mao. “The rain can’t stop me,” she said to herself.

“Ask Mia to make your deliveries for you tomorrow, okay?” Mr. Yi suggested.

“I’ll think about it. I have to do some things by myself, you know.”

After they got home, she changed clothes and dried her hair. Then she counted the herbs she had picked that day. She heard some wild thing making a noise behind the house, and asked her husband about it. He said it was a weasel trying to steal the chicken.

“I was worried for a moment on the mountain because it seemed my inspiration had vanished. I’ve always relied on inspiration to find herbs. I’ve never told you that, have I?”

“I knew that. So was it better without Gray?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell. I just know that I haven’t lost my inspiration. On the mountain, my thoughts about Yun Village were particularly clear. And when I looked up in a trance, I saw these herbs. They were so beautiful. They were stretching out their greeting to me.” Mrs. Yi grew excited as she talked.

“I wish I could share the moment with you, darling. But it’s impossible.”

They ate glutinous sorghum buns for dinner. The freshly steamed buns dipped in white sugar tasted delicious. While eating, Mrs. Yi thought, The weasel didn’t get the chicken. It must be very disappointed. The poor thing will be hungry on a rainy night like this.

“What are you thinking of?” her husband asked.

“The weasel. If only it had inspiration.”

“I agree.”

“Grandma Mao will be better off for a while.”

“With you in the village, she has hope.”

Both husband and wife brightened when thinking of helping Grandma Mao. This time last year, Grandma Mao had attempted suicide because of intolerable pain.

It had been raining hard. The weasel had probably left long ago, and the chickens were resting quietly in the cages. Her idea of having a successor was shattered, perhaps because barefoot doctors were burdened with worries, and it was human nature to seek an easier life, Mrs. Yi thought.

In the dark, while her husband was sleeping, Mrs. Yi began to roam the mountains. She didn’t know exactly where she was going. The plants and the rocks were always illuminated by faint light that came from nowhere. Tonight she reached an unfamiliar place on the hillside where there weren’t many trees. She felt that the herbs were all around her, some even right under her feet. She squatted down, and sure enough, she touched a poria mushroom. She harrowed the roots out. What a nice smell! Looking out by the moonlight, she saw porias everywhere. She kept digging. Suddenly she saw a dark hole in front of her. She was scared. Sitting on the ground she looked again: next to the hole was a grave. A giant spirit mushroom—Ganoderma—stood at the edge of the dark hole, emitting a faint light. She didn’t dare touch the Ganoderma, so she picked up her basket and left. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. She got up in the dark to change.