The Snake Doctor

In the village of Willow Bend, by the Huai, there lived an old man surnamed Liu, skilled in the cure of snakebite, whom men called the Snake Doctor. Gentle of heart, he could not bear to slay even a venomous serpent; he would treat its wound and set it free. One day, walking by the ponds, he came upon a small green-and-white snake, cloven by a plough, its head and tail parted yet still writhing. Liu took pity, pounded herbs to bind the wound, joined the parts with thread, and laid it in the shade. In ten days it mended and slipped away. The next summer his mother fell suddenly ill, her heart gripped as in a vise, her breath a thread. Physicians shook their heads; medicine availed nothing. Liu was beside himself. At the dead of night, moonlight crept through the window, and Liu saw something crawling beneath it. He opened the door: it was the green-and-white snake he had saved. In its mouth it bore a jade-green herb with leaves of three prongs, unknown in all the village. It laid the herb down, raised its head, looked back thrice, and went. Liu brewed it and fed his mother. Before half a cup was drunk her pain fled; she slept, and at dawn took porridge. The snake and the herb were never seen again. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: Are serpents then without feeling? Yet bearing an herb in repayment, clear in debt and grace, they shame many a man who forgets a kindness. A merciful heart moves even the alien kind to return it; while those in silken robes pass by unmoved—is not that a disgrace?