Chapter 32: A Tiny Croton Seed

“Really?”

It was the first time the girl had spoken so much to him, and now she was giving him the squirrel too.

“Thank you! Don’t worry. I’ll treat it now.”

He put down the medicine chest and took out instruments and wound medicine. After cleaning the cut, he applied the medicine and examined it.

“Not too deep. It should be all right. A few changes of dressing should do.”

She smiled and nodded.

He offered a finger. The squirrel put out its tongue and licked it, tickling him.

“It’s hungry. What should I feed it?”

“Walnuts, chestnuts, pine cones.”

“Oh, I see.”

She shifted the pole on her shoulder, smiled at him and continued uphill.

Soon her clear singing drifted through the mountains again:

I love you, brother;
I seek your footprints on the slope.
In rain or sun, I go to find them;
to see your footprints is to see you.

The song went through him like a bowl of honey poured from head to foot. He wanted to answer with a song of his own, but could find neither a tune nor words.

The girl was disappearing uphill. His father and the child’s family were already far down the path. He could delay no longer.

“Thank you!” he called after her. “When you’re in town, come and rest at Guizhi Hall. Have some water!”

He had little confidence behind the invitation. After New Year’s Eve, would Guizhi Hall still be theirs?

He carefully tucked the squirrel inside his jacket and hurried after the others. On the way, he gathered plenty of pine cones for it.

The child kept coughing as they descended. His spasms had not fully resolved; his throat remained constricted. He could produce only little, weak coughs, not enough to clear the phlegm.

Before they reached the foot of the mountain, his face had turned the dark purple of liver. His eyes began rolling upwards. He was suffocating badly.

His parents panicked and called a halt.

“Doctor! He’s dying. Please save him!”

Zuo Shaoyang too was alarmed.

If nothing else worked, he would have to open the windpipe at the front of the neck and suck out the phlegm through a tube. But where could he get a tube? Plastic was impossible. What could replace it?

Neither tube nor blade would be sterile. What if infection followed? Without a local anaesthetic, what if the pain brought on shock?

There was no choice. First get the phlegm out; worry about the rest later.

He was looking about for a pumpkin vine to use as a tube, preparing himself to operate, when Zuo Gui asked the mother firmly, “Have you needle and thread?”

Women generally carried a sewing pouch. Unsure what he wanted it for, she hurriedly handed hers over.

He crouched beside the chest and took out a croton seed, ba dou. He pricked it several times with the needle, then passed thread through it and tied a knot so it hung suspended.

He brought it to the child’s mouth.

“Here, swallow this.”

The boy struggled to swallow the seed. Zuo Gui held his cheeks, pulled the thread and drew it back out.

The coughing intensified, accompanied by dry retching. Nothing came up.

He made the child swallow the seed again, then pulled it out once more. After several repetitions, the boy coughed up a great mouthful of thick phlegm.

At once his cough sounded clearer. The rattle in his throat almost vanished. He lay panting in his mother’s arms, his colour much improved.

“How do you feel? Better?”

“Yes…” He nodded between breaths. “Brought the phlegm up. I can breathe…”

“My poor child!”

She held him and wept with relief.

Zuo Shaoyang relaxed too. He was puzzled by his father’s technique. Perhaps croton oil irritated the throat, but he did not know the precise mechanism.

“Father, why does swallowing the seed and pulling it back make him cough up phlegm?”

Zuo Gui chuckled and leaned close.

“I saw your grandfather—your grandmaster—do it for someone who couldn’t clear his phlegm. That’s how I learnt it. To be honest, I don’t know why it works either.”

Zuo Shaoyang admired him inwardly.

Ancient physicians possessed many effective clinical tricks. This simple method was beyond him, yet moments ago he had been contemplating surgery. How ridiculous.

There was much to learn from these men. They might be unable to explain the theory, but their methods had real effects.

The child’s phlegm was out, his fever lower, his limbs gradually ceasing to jerk. His mind cleared enough to speak with his parents.

They praised Zuo Gui’s miraculous medicine and thanked him for saving their son.

He stroked his grizzled beard with pride and offered modest replies, though he scarcely understood what he was proud of.

The croton method he knew and trusted. But why had those casually chosen Three-Ingredient White Pills revived the child, reduced his fever and stopped the spasms? Yesterday a purgative had delivered a dead baby. That was stranger still.

Two emergencies, two formulas he had selected almost at random, and both patients recovered easily. The medicines should have done no harm, certainly, but neither should have produced such marked effects.

He had trained his son himself, and the boy had little skill. Secret help from that quarter never occurred to him.

Had a blind cat caught two dead mice, or was Heaven taking special care of him?

An hour later, they reached the foot of the mountain. After another stretch, they reached Shijing, the prefectural seat of Hezhou, as the sun sank in the west.

The child could now lean against the couch and talk to his mother between coughs. Children did not pretend: illness and health, severe and mild, were plain to see.

Hearing that the family meant to visit Doctor Ni at Huimin Hall, the two Zuo men took their leave. The father bowed repeatedly, asked where Guizhi Hall stood and promised to call with thanks once the boy was well.

They watched the party go. Then Zuo Shaoyang took out the purse and handed it to his father.

“I wonder how much they gave us. I hope it covers the rent.”

Zuo Gui felt it and shook his head.

“Doubt we’re that fortunate.”

He hoped to be wrong. Opening the purse and checking that no one was watching, he emptied it into his son’s palm.

One string of a hundred coins, with loose coppers besides.

A little over a hundred wen.

Excluding the bracelet, it was more than Zuo Gui had ever earned from a day’s consultations. Still, they could not help feeling disappointed. It was nowhere near enough.

Just as they were putting it away, Zuo Shaoyang noticed an inner pocket.

“There’s something else!”

His father reached inside.

“Silver!”

Zuo Shaoyang leaned closer. Several bean-sized pieces of broken silver lay in the old man’s hand. It was his first sight of silver used as currency here. The dull grey pieces were not especially pure. Left in a corner, they would have looked like pebbles.

They needed money so badly that he swallowed.

“How much does it weigh?”

Zuo Gui judged it in his hand.

“Over a tael, perhaps.”

Joy rose in Zuo Shaoyang. The three thousand five hundred wen was due at noon the day after tomorrow. This thousand or more brought them a great step closer.

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