“Gray, are you still awake? Who are you talking to?” he heard his dad say.

“Second Aunt.”

“That’s good, go on talking with her. She’s a little lonely in the mountains.”

“So you know she’s in the mountains.”

“I’ve known this right along. Now that you’ve become a barefoot doctor, you’re going to the mountains all the time . . .”

Dad’s voice grew thin, as if he had gone far away. Where was he talking?

In the end, Gray couldn’t keep his eyes open. He threw himself into bed and fell asleep. By daybreak, Auntie still hadn’t let him go. She kept talking to him.

11
Something That Mrs. Yi Can’t Forget

With Yun Village’s wonderful natural environment, why were there as many sick people there as in the city? Mrs. Yi had been giving this question a lot of thought. In fact, the Yun villagers paid attention to hygiene and had never eaten poisonous mushrooms. Although they were poor, their lives were not boring: all the villagers had their own hobbies and pursuits. But the diseases, mostly chronic diseases, did not leave them alone. People in Yun Village were optimistic. If they had no acute pain, they didn’t think of these chronic afflictions as serious diseases. They thought of them as minor problems that most people had.

Mrs. Yi slowly figured out what caused the villagers to be sick: some people got sick because of hardships in their lives. They lacked time and the right conditions to protect their health. But most didn’t have particularly hard lives. They got sick because they had been longing for something. They often wanted to achieve a certain level of success in their endeavors. Though they couldn’t explain what success was, everyone understood it. Communicating with each other stimulated everyone to demand more of themselves. Whatever they were doing—farming, making tofu, hairdressing, or building houses—the villagers worked so hard day and night that their health gradually deteriorated. It was only after getting old that they started paying attention to their health. Some of them took a turn for the better. The only thing others could do was change their attitude toward aging and live in peace with disease, as though they were living with friends. As Mrs. Yi saw it, those old people, such as Uncle Ma, Aunt Yossi, Tauber, and others, had the air of the ancient saints. When she delivered herbal medicines to ease their ailments, she often had pleasant, illuminating chats with them. She felt lucky: it was inspiring to be around such wise people. She used to ask herself, “What did they think of that thing?” Later she found the answer: they had kept it in mind all their lives, they had never allowed themselves to forget it. It was the precondition for every day’s activities, and gradually they came to a thorough understanding of it. It was through associating with these elderly patients that all the doubts in her mind were resolved, and she found her own solutions in her early middle age. She probably would never fall seriously ill, yet because of benefiting from these people’s experiences and wisdom, she was at ease with that thing. She felt blessed.