“What do I look like? Tell me!”

“You’re dressed in black, and your face is covered by a large cloth hat.”

“Like the men in black from Blue Mountain? My goodness!” He asked again, “Why did Spoon dump me?”

“She’s struggling. You’ve struggled in the past, don’t you remember?”

“I see.”

He went into the kitchen to wash the dishes, and slowly started feeling less depressed. On the kitchen wall by the water tank a little green lizard was crawling at an imperceptible speed. Gray stared at it, deeply moved. He said to himself, “I must be as strong as it is . . . Today is Wednesday. Let me remember this day.”

“It’s getting late. It’s midnight already. Go to bed, Gray.” Dad’s voice came from his bedroom.

Gray was taken aback—how time flew! Would his own time go by faster and faster? This was the last thing he wanted! He had to rest now or he wouldn’t have energy to work tomorrow. Gray made up his mind: he would put aside all thoughts and feelings, and learn from the lizard.

After taking a bath, he went to bed. He forced his thoughts into the darkness, and after a while he fell asleep. At dawn he heard Spoon’s laughter and woke up with a start. He crept out of the house to the yard, and then he felt completely refreshed.

With a hoe on his shoulder, Gray went to Mrs. Yi’s herb garden to do some work before breakfast.

Gray’s parents stayed up all night. It was not until his father saw from the window that Gray had gone out that the couple breathed a sigh of relief and lay down to sleep. When they woke up, the first thing the mother said was, “Our Gray is a late bloomer.” The father replied, “That’s okay, isn’t it?” Then they started laughing.

At the same time, Gray was weeding in the herb garden. He looked up and saw Mrs. Yi.

“Spoon is gone,” Gray said.

“I know, she came by. Gray, you’re a grown man now. You’re one of the best-looking men in Yun Village. Mr. Yi and I were just talking about you.”

“Thank you for saying that. Don’t worry, I won’t be as shallow as before.”

After she left, Gray continued working for a while. His pain had vanished. “I’m very secure now!” he said to himself. He had weeded about half the herb garden.

On the way home, he heard someone talking about him behind his back.

“He was always good-looking but we didn’t notice him. He’s a barefoot doctor now. All of a sudden he’s remarkable.”

Turning around, he saw Dad.

“Dad, who’s talking with you?”

“No one. Perhaps you heard Yun Village talking? That’s good, Gray, that means you are very important now.”

“How can I be important?”

“Of course you are. Everyone in Yun Village should be. You’ve thought of yourself as a smashed pot. That’s why you weren’t important in the past.”

Gray laughed. Father and son stopped to look at the blue sky, which seemed a little different from the way it was in the past, surprisingly higher and farther away. And they could see beyond the sky. Gray asked Dad why he had acted that way in the past, and Dad said it was because he had not yet been exposed to herbs. Dad said that people who didn’t love plants and animals couldn’t know their own importance. Fortunately, Gray wasn’t that kind of person; he was just a late bloomer.