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Plant Specimens and Rubbings

“Sign it as ‘Liu Mingyi and Wei Lan co-authored!'” Wei Lan suddenly slammed the table, her voice loud enough to make the copper pestle in the mortar clang.

She was thinking to herself, isn’t the modern printed Compendium of Materia Medica just the color-illustrated version? If she could produce it a few hundred years ahead of time and put her name on it, wouldn’t that make her famous forever? How come she didn’t think of this earlier!

Liu Mingyi smiled and reminded her, “Color printing is much more complicated than monochrome printing. You need to carve several plates, one for each color, and you have to align them perfectly. A slight mistake and it will be a mess. Besides, the process is tedious and the cost isn’t low. How about we try making a hand-painted sample first?”

He added some water to the inkstone, watching the ink dissolve in ripples. This would work, he thought, at least for now, Wei Lan’s eyes were focused on the herbs and pigments, not the luxury and conflicts of some royal family.

Wei Lan flipped through the yellowed Compendium of Materia Medica, her brows furrowing tighter and tighter. “If we do all the illustrations by hand, just hiring the artists will cost half a year’s wages.” She picked up a brush, dipped it in ink, and made strokes on the paper. “Cinnabar costs two taels per two ounces, and indigo is even more expensive. The cost of one color-illustrated book might be ten times that of an ordinary book.”

Liu Mingyi stopped grinding the ink and said, “What if we only print the key medicinal herbs?”

“That would still need a hundred taels to start.” Wei Lan said, tapping the abacus with a snapping sound, the beads flying up and down. “Such an expensive book, who can afford it besides the Imperial Medical Institute?”

She sighed, her gaze falling on the dried licorice root on the table, her eyes becoming distant. In modern times, one could just take a photo with a phone to solve this problem, but now it had become a challenge standing in front of her.

“Got it!” Wei Lan’s eyes suddenly lit up, like a bolt of lightning in the dark. She grabbed a small knife and cut into the licorice root diagonally. Thin slices, as delicate as cicada wings, appeared, showing intricate patterns in the morning light, almost like a natural painting.

She quickly glued the slices onto rice paper with rice paste and held up the result, beaming with excitement. “Ta-da! This is called a plant specimen! We can stick the actual medicinal herbs into the book, no need for artists, and it will remain authentic.”

Liu Mingyi took the rice paper, held it up to the light, and examined it carefully, a slight smile flashing in his eyes. “Why not use rubbing techniques?” He turned around, grabbed a fresh licorice leaf, placed a thin cotton paper on top, and gently began to strike it with a stone pestle. As the strikes landed, the texture of the leaf’s veins slowly appeared on the paper, even the tiny serrations along the edges of the leaf were clearly visible.

“You have to do the rubbing while the leaves are still juicy.” His voice was calm, and he demonstrated again with a dried mugwort leaf. This time, only a blurry outline appeared on the paper, with no details at all. He looked up, his gaze gentle as he looked at Wei Lan. “See? Different herbs need to be gathered in different seasons, but this way, we save the effort of carving printing plates.”

Wei Lan looked at the rubbing pattern, nodding in satisfaction. “This not only cuts the cost but also makes the details of the medicinal herbs clear at a glance. We can rub all the common herbs and compile them into the book.”

The two immediately went to the medicine cabinet to try it out. Wei Lan pressed the mint leaf for a rubbing, and the cool juice soaked into the rice paper. “The vein pattern matches exactly what’s recorded in the Compendium!” She paused suddenly. “But what about flowers, fruits, and roots? Like Poria, which is a tuber…”

Liu Mingyi thought for a moment and smiled. “Isn’t that easy? Didn’t you just make a plant specimen? Slice the tuber, make a specimen, and then apply paint and do the rubbing, it will work.”

Wei Lan snapped her fingers. “Brilliant! This way, flowers, fruits, and roots can all be done. Our color-illustrated Compendium of Materia Medica will combine plant rubbings and plant specimens—surely it will be eye-catching!”

As they talked, they became more excited, and their ideas became clearer. They began discussing the specific steps and division of labor. Wei Lan would be in charge of collecting the herbs and making the specimens, while Liu Mingyi would handle the rubbings and the organization. They decided to start with common herbs and gradually perfect this new version of the Compendium of Materia Medica.

As the sun began to set, the table was already covered with over twenty different herb rubbings. Wei Lan held up the translucent cotton paper, and the feathery compound leaves of Angelica appeared clearly in the twilight, like a natural ink painting. She softly said, “We will organize it by seasons—spring for flowers and leaves, autumn for fruits…”

Just as Wei Lan and Liu Mingyi were focused on sorting the herb rubbings, the courtyard door suddenly slammed open. Aunt Zhou stumbled in, her hair half undone. “Have you seen my little Si? It’s already dark and he hasn’t come back!”

Liu Mingyi put down the Angelica specimen. “I haven’t seen him since after noon.”

When Wei Lan heard this, she became anxious and immediately asked, “Did you check the wasteland south of the city? He often digs wild vegetables there.”

“I’ve checked everywhere!” Aunt Zhou stomped her feet, her eyes filled with tears. “This child never misses a meal, something must have happened!”

Seeing that she couldn’t get an answer, Aunt Zhou hurriedly ran out, crying out, “My child, where are you?”

Wei Lan grabbed a riding whip and started heading out, but Liu Mingyi blocked her with his arm. “It’s almost dark. Where are you going to find him? If you can’t find him, you’ll get lost yourself, won’t that make things worse?”

“Better than just waiting!” Wei Lan shot him a frustrated glare. “Little Si is very obedient and won’t wander off. Aunt Zhou has been so kind to us, and little Si is so cute, how can you be so cold and indifferent?”

Liu Mingyi frowned, “I’m not indifferent, I’m just worried about your safety. Stay home and wait for me, I’ll go search.”

“Wait!” Wei Lan calmed down. “Aren’t you good at fortune telling? Why don’t you predict where little Si is? See if he’s in danger?”

Liu Mingyi’s throat moved slightly, and he helplessly said, “Lan, don’t make me seem so magical. I know a little about the I Ching, but that’s just scratching the surface. Not everything can be predicted.”

Wei Lan, however, clearly didn’t believe him. Since Liu Mingyi had predicted the fall of the Ming Dynasty, her attitude toward fortune-telling had shifted from skepticism to half-belief. She always felt there was something hidden about Liu Mingyi, and those secrets seemed to be related to the I Ching.

“Predicting the fall of the Ming Dynasty was easy!” Wei Lan stepped closer, her nose almost touching his chin, her eyes staring intently at him. “Look me in the eye and tell me, you really can’t predict?”

Liu Mingyi felt uncomfortable under her gaze, his eyes wandering. Seeing him like this, Wei Lan was even more certain he was lying. Knowing that pressing him wouldn’t work, she switched tactics, her eyes narrowing into crescent moons as her voice became soft and coaxing. “Mingyi gege, you definitely know, right? Right now, people’s lives are at stake, please help me predict, okay?” She raised herself on tiptoe, clasped her hands together, and made a pitiful gesture.

Liu Mingyi, caught off guard by her sudden coquettish behavior, flushed slightly and turned his face away. “Fortune-telling is not magic, how can it be so accurate…”

Seeing that her charm and cuteness didn’t work, Wei Lan grew even more anxious. She stamped her foot, turned, and hopped onto a horse, smacking the horse’s back, causing it to neigh and ready to run. She called out to Liu Mingyi, “I’ll go find little Si!” Then she shouted to Aunt Zhou, “Don’t worry, I’ll take you to find him!”

Aunt Zhou quickly shouted, “Doctor Wei, you can’t! I’ve troubled you too much already.”

But Wei Lan had already ridden out, grabbing Aunt Zhou and pulling her onto the horse. “Hold on tight!”

As they rode, Wei Lan comforted Aunt Zhou, “Don’t worry, maybe little Si is just playing somewhere and forgot the time. He’s usually so well-behaved, he’ll be fine.”

They rode through the entire city of Changsha, asking street vendors and pedestrians along the way. The old man selling pancakes said he had seen little Si with a handful of wildflowers, hopping eastward around the time of the shen hour. The town crier, however, said he saw a child in a blue robe by the West Gate around the you hour. By the time they reached the vegetable market in the west of the city, all they found were wilted cabbage leaves swirling in the wind.

The sky grew darker and darker, the twilight thickening like ink, and little Si was still nowhere to be found. A sense of unease slowly crept into Wei Lan’s heart. Could he have left the city?

Her grip on the reins tightened, sweat forming on her palms, making them slippery. In the distance, the mountain contours slowly devoured the last light of day, and the eerie cry of an owl echoed from the woods, breaking the silence of the night. The night in the mountains was fraught with danger, and little Si was only five years old…

As Wei Lan turned the horse back towards home, the sky had already been swallowed entirely by the night. She gritted her teeth, making up her mind to take Aunt Zhou into the mountains to search. She hurriedly returned to the courtyard to gather torches, preparing for a night-time search.

Just as they were about to set out, Liu Mingyi stopped them at the corridor. His expression was calm. “I just asked the diviner.”

He pulled out a crumpled yellow piece of paper from his sleeve, gently unfolded it, and said, “This is the divination.”

Aunt Zhou grabbed the paper and looked closely at the lantern light. The freshly written “Grave Mountain” seemed like two sharp blades, stabbing into her heart. She trembled, collapsing onto the stone steps, tears soaking her clothes. Her voice quivered, “Yes… Yes! He’s gone to find his father…”

It turned out that when the flood came, Zhou Gui had been swept away while trying to rescue cloth that was washed away by the flood, and his life or death remained unknown. Aunt Zhou, grieving deeply, built a tombstone outside the city in the mountains, using his clothes as a memento.

Seeing this, Liu Mingyi quickly comforted her. “Aunt Zhou, don’t worry. I’ll go look for him right now.” With that, he mounted his horse and rode off into the night.

The cold moon above the grave mountain illuminated the newly piled earth, and little Si lay curled beside the stone tablet, sleeping soundly, his small hands clutching a bunch of wildflowers, with tear stains still on his face. Liu Mingyi gently wrapped the child in his cloak, and the wildflowers fell, scattering on the grass near the grave.

On the way back, little Si slowly woke up, rubbing his sleepy eyes, and sleepily asked, “Mingyi gege, what does it mean when someone dies?”

“Like…” Liu Mingyi tightened the reins, avoiding the branches by the roadside. “Like a fruit falling from a tree, the fruit might rot, but the seed inside it buries itself in the ground.”

Little Si tilted his head, somewhat understanding but not fully, and asked, “And then will it grow into a new sprout?”

“Yes, your father is now a seed.”

Wei Lan and Aunt Zhou waited at the city gate, until they saw the white horse and two figures coming through the mist. Little Si was sleeping in Liu Mingyi’s arms, his face flushed red from sleep.