6
Gray’s Abnormal Behavior

“I’m getting old,” Mrs. Yi said to herself. While she was delivering the baby for Aunt Yossi’s other daughter-in-law that morning she felt dizzy and nearly fell. Then, with great effort, she steadied herself. Not long before, she had been planning to teach Gray midwifery. Now should she consider Mia instead? But this girl hadn’t come to Yun Village for a long time. Perhaps she had fallen in love with someone, as Gray had? Or even gotten married?^* Life was unpredictable. For instance, she had never expected that the director of the training center would turn out the way he had. She had gone back to the training center several times before but had never seen him. Had he been hiding from her? Alas. She should visit him more often.

“Tell me, darling, will I ever have some days off?”

“Perhaps. Once you have an apprentice, you won’t get so tired. But woman, can you stand to be idle? I don’t know what’s going on with Gray. He might be a little confused by now,” her husband said.

“He’s not confused at all. He looked very happy. He’s a lucky man.”

“But I’m not sure about his girlfriend Spoon’s personality.”

“Why do you think there’s a problem? She’s so young. Don’t listen to what other people say.”

“Okay, I agree with you, Gray will be on the right track.”

“Absolutely.”

As they talked, it grew dark. Mrs. Yi sighed that time went by so fast in the country, and said she liked country life because every day was so full. Even if one made a mistake, it could be easily corrected. There was no time for regrets. Mrs. Yi had never complained about anything. For example, it was fine for Gray to come to her, and it was fine for him to leave. Whatever she experienced—the excitement she shared with Gray or the blueprint she had designed for his future—was fine with her.

“But I’m getting old,” Mrs. Yi said.

“Well. We need to groom a successor quickly.”

While the husband was lighting the kerosene lamp, his tall figure was reflected swaying on the wall. Mrs. Yi remembered a lot of the past. She suddenly wondered, If Shanbao were still alive, would he become a barefoot doctor?

Later that night, Mrs. Yi’s reading of the medical journal led her thoughts to the countryside far, far away. The journal introduced several rare herbs which didn’t grow on Niulan Mountain. One had to go early in the spring to the mountains in the northeast to pick them. These herbs were very potent, probably because they’d been isolated from people for so many years that they had accumulated a great deal of energy. She knew she could not go to the mountains in the northeast, but she was so fascinated by such things that she kept repeating and memorizing the properties and growth habits of those herbs, and the right season for picking them.

Her husband was asleep. While he was snoring, the weasel was making noise once more. It came almost every night. How tenacious it must be!