The Fragrant Medicine of the Journey Home

The Memory Jigsaw / A Contradictory Bond / A Gentle Family Chronicle

Sixteen-year-old Lin Jianshen loses his memory in a bizarre accident and is brought back to a strange family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, where he struggles to understand who he is. His three older brothers, each with a very different nature, try in their own ways to make up for the sixteen years they missed: the stoic Lin Qibai, as calm as ancient jade; his rational adoptive brother Lin Xiuyuan, as sharp as a scalpel; and his third brother, Lin Jianxing, a fraternal twin whose jealousy is matched only by his tenderness.

Torn between two bloodlines, Lin Jianshen finds that the Western-style freedom his adoptive Zhou family gave him is etched into his muscle memory. His second sister in the Zhou family, Zhou Jinglan, once held his hand as he struck a fierce death spiral in a Paris fencing hall. Yet the ancestral teachings passed down by the Lin family pierce him like silver needles. Whenever his third brother guides him through tai chi sword forms, the tip of his blade slips out of control, tracing the sharp lines of Western fencing. Zhou Jinglan's scolding voice rings in his ears in French, yet there is no “older sister” in the Lin family tree. The smoke of moxibustion mingles with the sweet scent of macarons, and he cannot even remember which “strange older brother” brought him the pastries.

When the memories he had buried finally break through the earth, he learns that muscles can betray you and blood ties can lie. His true home is in the sighs and regret of three men answering at once when he mixes up the word “brother.”

Only when Zhou Musheng's white suit is soaked in blood does Lin Jianshen understand the patterns of those altered memories: a last message more bitter than angelica root.

“Stay by his side for me, just like back then...”

“A healer may search all three thousand meridian points, but cannot call back a lost soul.”

The brass bell on Lin Jianshen's wrist will forever be frozen at 21:47, the moment the pocket watch stopped, and the curse that made old friends forget one another.