Just the World

In the autumn of the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, the 76-year-old Xian Yu Enchen of Longyou Township retired from office after 40 years and returned to his hometown. He spent his life savings to establish Zifu Tang on Shiban Street and hired Fang Laoli, a famous doctor from Lanxi Medicine Gang, as the shopkeeper. On the opening night, the fourth-generation great-grandson of the Yu family was born. This baby, born on the same day as Zifutang, was Yu Shaosong, who would become a master of calligraphy and painting. The story unfolds from then on, spanning the long years from the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China to the Anti-Japanese War. Zifutang was established with the philosophy of "one more work, no less effect". Three generations of people have adhered to the ancestral motto of "benevolence and justice to help the world". Fang Laoli practiced medicine in the hall, regardless of remuneration, and often donated generously to help the poor; Yu Shaosong grew up in the fragrance of medicine, and gave cakes to dock workers' children at the age of six. When he was a teenager, he witnessed the warmth of neighbors working together to help after a fire in the medicine shop. The waiters in the medicine shop weighed the medicinal materials and also weighed the hearts of the people - here there was the arrogance of the rich, the tears of the poor, the footsteps of the wanderers returning home, and the mutual help between the Lanxi Medicine Gang and the Longyou Merchant Gang that spanned hundreds of years. However, the storm of the times will eventually hit. The smoke of the Northern Expedition, the iron hooves of the Japanese army, and a man-made arson... In 1942, Zifu Hall collapsed amid the war. The descendants of the Yu family were scattered in all directions, leaving only a piece of scorched earth and a city full of sighs. But the medicinal fragrance has already penetrated into every crack of the stone street, and penetrated into the memory of several generations. The novel takes the rise and fall of Zifutang as its classic story, and the fate of four generations of the Yu family as its weft. It interweaves the legends of real historical figures such as Fang Laoli and Zhuge Qiang, and salvages a bygone era through a medicine, a pulse, a cup of tea, and a sigh. This is not only the century-old vicissitudes of an old medicine shop in Longyou, but also a story of the human world.