“This medicine won’t cure you, but it’ll make you feel better,” Mia said.

“Very well. That’s exactly what I want. I’m not really sick, am I? The truth is, I’m not sick. My illness is a hallucination. The herbs will tell me the truth.”

“You’re remarkable. I can learn a lot from you. Why don’t you study medicine?”

Plum looked at Mia for a long time before saying, “Maybe I’m not strong enough. I’d rather be a patient. That’s also a good thing, don’t you think, Dr. Mia?”

“Dear, it’s my pleasure to have a patient like you in Deserted Village. I even think—I think you’re coaching me in the practice of medicine. Yes, that’s it.”

“Your herb hill has given me joy for a long time. My window faces your hill, and even in the daytime the herbs tell me about diseases.”

They parted reluctantly. Mia thought Plum truly understood herbs. She would come again soon, and they would be friends for life.

Mia began to miss Plum at once. “I gained a mentor and a good friend,” Mia sighed. Plum’s understanding of diseases and herbs was so sophisticated that Mia felt that she herself could not catch up with her. Several years ago, in a small courtyard behind a bamboo grove, Mia had seen Plum tending a few common herbs. As a young girl, Plum had been pale and weak but not at all melancholy. She said she had meningitis as a child.

“I didn’t deserve to die, did I? I struggled to survive. These herbs, I think, are always doing their best to help me. I’m not very strong, so I can only plant these few.”

In those days, Mia hadn’t understood what Plum was saying. Later, Plum took out a small bamboo chair and sat down with her. Stroking Mia’s hair, she whispered, “There’s a lot of vitality in your hair.”

Mia used to think this girl was a little strange and made a point of keeping away from her. Now, recalling this, Mia felt that she wasn’t strange at all; rather, she herself had been childish and hadn’t understood her. After all these years, she had come calling. This woman had a profound understanding of everything in the world. And she talked about illness in such an original way.

Mia felt a vitality awaken in her from her hair and from her heart. But in that earlier time, it was Plum who had smelled the scent of her own kind from her. She was remarkable.

Mia felt that Deserted Village, where she had lived for many years, was opening secret doors to her, one by one, and beyond them lay the landscape she had long thirsted for. Why hadn’t she noticed these doors before? They had been waiting quietly in their hidden places for her to discover. Maybe you had to stare hard at them before they appeared.

“Plum is actually my doctor, and I’ve been sick all along,” she said to Lohan.

“It would be better to say that she’s your soulmate. I sensed this even before she came to you.”