Mrs. Yi gradually got used to Gray’s personality. She decided to let things take their course. After making this decision, she calmed down. She was going to observe these two young persons, Gray and Mia.

One time in the middle of the night, Mr. Yi happened to see Gray sitting in the pharmacy: he had opened all the herbal medicine drawers, and lit a bundle of herbal moxa cones, which he knew were used in moxibustion therapy. A strong medicinal smell filled the room. The air was almost suffocating.

“Are you sick?” Mr. Yi whispered to him in the dark.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Yi! No, I’m fine. I just wanted to dream about herbs, and I came here on an impulse. I did fall asleep for a while just now, but I didn’t dream of herbs.”

“Maybe it isn’t your time yet. When it is, you’ll be with them every night.”

“Really? Is that true for you and Mrs. Yi?” Gray asked eagerly.

“Basically so. If you miss them, they’ll miss you, too.”

“How can they miss me? They aren’t human and have no thoughts.”

“Nothing to do with thoughts. You love them, and they know.”

“I just love them. I can’t help it.” Gray frowned.

He got up and left for home. In the moonlight, Gray suddenly looked like an old man, walking as if a little lame.

“I know he’s different from us, but I still like him.” Mrs. Yi suddenly spoke up from the dark corner where she’d been standing all along.

“He’s a deep young man,” said Mr. Yi.

Returning to their bedroom, they shone a flashlight on the wall clock. It was three in the morning. They heard a sad song in the north wind.

When Gray neared his home, he ran head-on into the deceased Uncle Ma. Gray’s heart was pounding.

Ma made a strange gesture as he passed by Gray. Gray smelled herbal medicine on Ma’s clothes.

“Uncle Ma, wait a minute!” Gray shouted desperately to the white figure.

But Ma did not even turn his head.

When Gray got home, the living room was dark.

“Did you see him, Gray? I mean Uncle Ma,” his mother asked.

“Yes,” Gray answered softly.

“He wanted to talk to you, but he couldn’t. He probably wanted to repay Mrs. Yi’s kindness to him.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I’m not cut out to be a doctor.”

“So you’ve changed your mind again?”

“Not yet. I’m going to bed, Mother.”

“Go to sleep. Niulan Mountain will bless you.”

Gray took off his clothes and then put them on again because he heard the weasel stealing his chicken. He raced out and grabbed a big bamboo broom. The weasel ran away. When he went to close the coop, however, the old hen pecked him hard on the back of his hand. It bled, and Gray froze, puzzled. What did this mean? The old hen could not possibly regard him as a weasel, for he was the one who often fed it. Did it resent him for meddling?