When Old Onion said this, Gray smelled the fragrance of honeysuckle on his body. He remembered having smelled this fragrance in the past in the early morning sun. The old man’s thin figure in the light-blue shirt was full of life.

“Grandpa Onion, I’m the selfish one. To tell you the truth, Dad asked me to help you with acupuncture, but I refused because I’m not interested in patients.”

The old man burst out laughing, startling several large birds, which flew out of the woods with a loud crackle. Just then, Gray noticed the python lying motionless in the distance.

“I’m so sorry . . . ,” murmured Gray.

“Gray, you are really a good boy!”

“But I’m world-weary sometimes.”

“That’s because you’re too young. When you become a barefoot doctor, you’ll be just fine.”

In the dense, dark woods, Gray suddenly heard Onion saying good-bye to him. Before he knew it, the old man was gone. All at once, Gray felt nervous. Just then, the ancient mountain dragon in his basket stirred and made a rustling noise. What lively herbs! Where were they so impatient to go? The herbs calmed him. Suddenly he saw the familiar path where he had walked with Dad when he was a child . . .

“Gray, you are very much like a real herbalist now!”

His dad greeted him at the door—something he had never done before.

Gray set the basket down. Lying on the bamboo recliner, he felt relaxed from head to foot.

His father looked through his herbs and commented, “Niulan Mountain was generous to you.”

“Dad, I plan to go to the mountains every other day.”

“Really?” Dad looked at him. “You can only do what you can.”

“I know. I don’t feel tired at all. I want to exercise my will.”

“Exercise the will? Are you really going to do that? This is frightening!”

Gray didn’t dare look at Dad. He didn’t understand what Dad meant. He had only blurted out that he wanted to exercise his will—why was Dad making such a fuss? Were there dangerous wild animals in the mountains? He’d never heard that.

In the evening, lying in bed, Gray recalled his adventure with Onion on the mountain. Was it a real python? Of course it was. But when he saw it for the last time, the wounds on its body had seemingly healed completely. What kind of self-healing ability was that? Somehow as he thought and thought, he felt that the old man and the snake had some kind of mutual understanding. Gray envied Old Onion because he could walk back and forth in the dark forest like an immortal. No wonder Dad had asked him to do acupuncture for Onion. Perhaps Dad was giving him an opportunity to learn from Onion?

The next day, Gray went to the mountain again. With no difficulty, he collected a lot of dominoes. This spooky herb was a cure for tuberculosis. Gray attributed his success to his liking the shape of this plant. He was particularly attracted by the mysterious little dots on its leaves. Could the dots be the historical records of Yun Village and Niulan Mountain? And they could actually cure disease! This sort of thing aroused infinite reverie in him.