Qingxu Mountain has an ironclad rule: Anyone who descends the mountain to enter the world must offer free medical consultations every third, sixth, and ninth day of the month. Not a single coin may be charged.
At sixteen, the young Daoist Ye Wenyao descended the mountain with a bamboo basket of herbs on his back and a worn, smooth old copper coin in his hand.
His master gave him ten years.
Over those ten years, the cities he visited and the poisons he encountered showed him the full warmth and coldness of society, and the greed and anger in people's hearts.
Ten Years, Ten Volumes: Strange Cases of Human Nature
Year One, "Aconite": In Luoxia Town, a decade-old cold case involving a severed cliffside rope resurfaces. Fake medicine is switched for poison, and a single needle decides life or death.
Year Two, "No Umbrella in the Rain": Torrential rain, a desperate search for a doctor, and hearts colder than the wind and rain. Even in dire straits, the spirit of chivalry shines through.
Year Three, "Mercury": By the Blackwater River, a wealthy clan seeks false immortality. Ghostly knocks come at midnight, tearing open a tale of kin turning against kin.
Year Four, "Cinnabar Tears": Blood stains the cinnabar; passion, too, is a poison that pierces the heart. A scheme within a scheme, a case within a case.
Year Five, "Arsenic Snow": Arsenic is fiercely poisonous, eats into the bones to stop pain, and kills beneath the snow. The hardships of the world and the human heart: bitterness and deceit.
Year Six, "Aconite Fire": Aconite can revive the yang and rescue the failing, fiercely pungent and hot, moving through the body without lingering. The hardships of the world and the human heart: loyalty and abandonment.
Year Seven, "Datura": Datura is highly poisonous, numbing the senses and shutting the mind, making people forget themselves. The hardships of the world and the human heart: memory and forgetting.
Year Eight, "Honeysuckle": Honeysuckle is sweet and cool, clears heat and detoxifies, and does not wither through the depths of winter. The hardships of the world and the human heart: endurance and the refusal to endure.
Year Nine, "Heartbreak Herb": Heartbreak herb is highly poisonous and so like honeysuckle that the two are hard to tell apart. It first stirs the heart, then attacks the gut. At Baihao Ferry, it is worshipped as a life-saving divine herb. The two herbs are separated before everyone, revealing that they had put their faith in the wrong root. The hardships of the world and the human heart: trust and distrust.
Year Ten, "Licorice": Licorice is sweet and mild, neutralizes the poison of a hundred medicines, and harmonizes all remedies rather than fighting poison with poison. When the stone gate beneath the three-zhang cypress opens, the ten-year pact comes due, and master and disciple each settle their own accounts. The hardships of the world and the human heart: healing and carrying on.
After ten years away from the mountain, the copper coin is worn smooth.
With silver needles in hand and the Nine Palaces beneath his feet, he uses Chinese herbs to dispel myriad poisons and the art of divination to understand people's hearts.
Theme: Healing the world, with karma never forgotten; using Daoist medicine to heal people's hearts, and chivalry to bring light.
