The Heartbreak-Grass Prescription

Qingshi Town sat along the river, its old street running from the Medicine King Temple in the south to the ferry in the north. The Hall of Universal Relief stood midway down the street. The resident physician was Shen Jingzhi, sixty-three, a little stooped, but his hands were steady as stone. He never weighed herbs twice; one push of the brass weight and the measure was exact. Ah Fu, his assistant, had come to the shop at fifteen and was now in his twenties—bright-eyed, with a memory to match.

That autumn, Zhou Shichang, the owner of the town's silk shop, came in for medicine. Zhou was a round-faced man in his forties who laughed with all teeth and no eyes; everyone said he was easygoing. His wife, Liu, had long been frail and often complained of a pain in her chest. She had taken the old prescription on and off for two or three years. Shen read the script: nothing but salvia, lovage root, and a few other common things—perfectly ordinary.

But after the main herbs were gathered, Zhou lowered his voice and slid over a narrow slip of paper. "Master Shen, one more thing for the decoction—three measures of heartbreak grass, aged, the kind kept in the shade."

Shen took the paper, and his fingers paused. Heartbreak grass was viciously toxic; a touch to the lips and the bowels rotted. Folk used it only for sores and to drive off worms. As an ingredient in an internal brew it was unheard-of nonsense. He looked up at Zhou, who only kept smiling, as if asking for a handful of licorice.

"Shichang," Shen pushed the paper back, "heartbreak grass is poison. Your wife's chest pain wants none of it. What is this—"

"My wife insisted," Zhou dropped his smile, voice lower still. "A family remedy from her mother's side. Nothing else will do. Master Shen, just prepare it. If anything goes wrong, I take the blame."

Shen was silent a moment. Thirty years at the bench, and he had seen strange scripts—but a poison as a decoction guide, requested by the patient herself, never. He did not agree on the spot. He said the formula needed two small changes, and he would deliver it the next day.

At first light he took his case and went to the Zhou house himself. Liu lay in the inner room, pale, but clear-headed. She was not flustered to see him; she even smiled. "Zhou sent you, didn't he."

Shen sat by the bed, felt her pulse—weak and floating, the old chest complaint indeed. He weighed his words and mentioned the heartbreak grass. Liu went white, then gave a bitter smile. "He told you, then."

And she told the truth. Lately she had gone through the accounts and found her husband's private books did not balance. He had taken to leaving at midnight and not returning until dawn, claiming only shop business. She suspected a woman outside, and feared her own sickness made her a burden. She had asked for the heartbreak grass with no intention of swallowing it—she meant to test him. If he truly meant her harm, he would never dare place the poison in her hands; if he panicked and sought some other cover, the lie would show.

Shen listened, and another current rose in his mind. Twenty years before, another pharmacy in town, the Hall of Shared Benevolence, had met with trouble: an apprentice named Sun Gui was found dead in the storeroom one night, the bitter stink of heartbreak grass on his lips. The magistrate's men came, found nothing, and after half a year the case simply faded. Sun Gui had no family but one senior fellow apprentice—the second clerk of that shop, a man surnamed Zhou.

Back at the Hall of Universal Relief, Shen pulled the old ledgers from under the counter. On the yellowed pages recording the town's pharmacies, he found, in the entry for the Hall of Shared Benevolence, a thin line: "Zhou Shichang, entered the shop at the end of the Guangxu reign, apprenticed to Sun Mao, of the same school as Sun Gui." Zhou Shichang—the very silk-shop owner. And Sun Gui had been his junior brother.

Stranger still: Zhou's clerk, Mr. Qian, had suddenly asked leave some days earlier, saying he would visit his mother in the country. He had not returned. Ah Fu had asked at Qian's home; the family said he should have arrived long ago, but no one had seen him.

Shen laid these threads together. Liu had used heartbreak grass to test her husband, unaware that the man carried another account, twenty years old, on his back. Zhou's midnight absences might not be a lover at all—perhaps he was hunting the missing Qian, who was, in fact, the adopted son of Sun Gui, the apprentice who had died in the storeroom.

That afternoon Zhou came again, pressing for the decoction guide. Shen produced a small paper packet. "The guide is ready. Brew exactly as written. Add nothing else." Inside was not heartbreak grass but its near-namesake, the harmless bone-seeking vine—looked much the same to an untrained eye, but worlds apart in effect. He wagered Zhou would not tell the difference.

Zhou took it, thanked him, and hurried off.

Liu took the medicine; her chest pain eased. Zhou grew calmer too, and stopped slipping out at night. The town credited Shen's skill.

The day before the winter solstice it snowed. Ah Fu came back from outside the town and said he had met Mr. Qian at the ferry, boarding a boat south. On leaving he had asked Ah Fu to carry one message: the secret ledger his uncle Sun Gui left behind, he had burned it; let no one speak of it again. Asked where he was going, Qian only laughed and said the south was warm.

Shen nodded, asked no more, and sent Ah Fu to tend the fire in the back.

At night the lantern in the Hall still burned. Shen weighed herbs at the counter and heard, from the back court, a dry branch give way under the snow—a single crack. He stilled his hands and looked out at the dark street. The town was very quiet; the ferry light, far off, had gone out too.

Some old matters need not be made clear to everyone. He lowered his head and went on weighing his herbs.