by Grace Lin
CHAPTER
36
Minli was so tired that she could barely remember what happened when they entered the village. She hardly remembered the clamor of people gathering around them and the loud cheers as Da-A-Fu told about the destruction of the Green Tiger. And she vaguely remembered the big, soft hug of an elderly woman who pushed her inside a welcoming house. But she did remember the cozy, lovely feeling of falling into a bed, like holding a warm steamed bun on an icy day. And then Minli closed her eyes and slept.
When she woke up, three round faces peered above her like plump peaches. They were Da-Fu, A-Fu, and Amah, their grandmother. Each of the children, dressed in their red wadded-cotton outfits (the rip in Da-Fu’s pants was now patched), had little moveable stoves with them. With the heaters and all of them crowded in the room, Minli felt as if she were in a warm oven of kindness. She smiled.
“Good morning!” Amah said.
The children giggled. “Good night!” Da-Fu said. “You slept the whole day! Pretty soon it’ll be time to go to bed again!”
“Now Da-A-Fu, don’t tease the girl,” Amah said. “Obviously, she was very tired. Here, Minli, drink this.”
Amah poured some tea from a pot and handed Minli a cup. Minli sipped it gratefully. The steaming liquid slipped down her throat smoothly and seemed to fill every part of her with a fresh energy. She took another sip of tea and breathed in the tangy fragrance, which smelled familiar.
“This is nice tea,” Minli said. “Thank you.”
“It’s not tea!” A-Fu said. “It’s the medicine that cures the tiger’s poison.”
“It is tea as well,” Amah said. “It is good whether you have been touched by the Green Tiger or not.”
Minli stopped drinking. “Is there enough of this for the dragon?” Minli asked, remembering how A-Gong had asked them to bring more medicine. “Maybe we should take this to him.”
Da-A-Fu laughed again. “Don’t worry,” they said, “we have a lot of it! It’s made from the leaves of the flowering trees.”
“And Da-A-Fu already brought a large pot to your dragon friend,” Amah said, her wrinkled face looking kindly at Minli.
“Yes,” A-Fu said. “Your dragon is doing fine. He and A-Gong were talking to each other when I brought the pot, and he even said thank you for saving him from the Green Tiger’s poison.”
Minli sat back, relieved and cheered by their words. “What was the Green Tiger? Da-A-Fu said something about a magistrate?” she asked. “And how did you know this tea cured the tiger’s poison?”
“We found that out by accident,” Amah said.
THE STORY OF THE GREEN TIGER AND THE TEA
When the Green Tiger discovered us four moons ago, we quickly learned he was not an ordinary tiger. It was not his color or his size, it was the anger he had for us. First, he attacked our livestock—the sheep, the pigs, the chickens—but not to eat, just to kill. He taunted us with his evil, leaving the dying animals in a row outside our door. Whatever animals he did not kill outright, died within an hour or so from the vile poison of the tiger’s touch.
We knew it was just a matter of time before he caught one of us. We kept the children and whatever animals we had left inside. A-Gong, my husband, studied furiously, trying to find out more about this powerful monster who tormented us.
We were running out of food when A-Gong finally discovered what the Green Tiger was. When A-Gong was a young man, he had made a journey to the city south of here and bought an old book of history. That book, with our ancestors’ ancient texts, was how A-Gong discovered that the Green Tiger was the spirit of the magistrate our ancestors had tried to give the secret of happiness to, but had angered instead. During his life, the magistrate had filled his spirit with so much rage that when his body left, his spirit could not rest and instead turned into the Green Tiger. A-Gong learned that the Green Tiger searched for all those he felt had wronged him—the tiger would punish us for his imagined offense and then, when he felt the punishment was complete, destroy us; afterward he would find others who had wronged him and punish and destroy them as well. Who knows how many people he hurt before he came to us; perhaps we were lucky he only found us four moons ago.
In desperation, the men decided to form a hunting party to try to kill the tiger. But the Green Tiger was too powerful for us. Our swords and staffs were shattered by him. The hunting party returned, half of the men carried by the other half and almost all injured. The women and children, we tried to nurse the injured but they kept getting sicker and sicker from the tiger’s poison and I began to despair.
Though it had not worked on any of the animals in the past, I thought perhaps hot water could wash away the poison from the wounds. So even though it was dangerous, I left the house to get water from the well. Just as I returned I saw the tiger!
He was standing in front of our gate, doing something peculiar. He seemed to be arranging things. I kept a far distance, behind the trunk of a flowering tree. He soon finished and left, not noticing me.
As soon as he left I carefully rushed to the gate. The tiger had left a strange array of objects. There was a piece of a broken vase with a moon on it, a mangled child’s jacket, and two deep claw marks scratched into the stone. I knew it was a message, but what did it say? The only person who would know would be A-Gong. But he was sick and dying from the tiger’s poison. My eyes filled with tears as I rushed inside.
It was hard for me to keep from crying and I was blinded by my own tears. So, it was only when the fragrance filled the air that I realized that the water I was boiling had leaves from the flowering trees in it. They must have fallen in while I was hiding from the Green Tiger. It was too dangerous to go and get more water—everyone was horrified that I had gone at all—so I used the hot leaf water to clean A-Gong’s wound.
And like magic, the poison began to melt away. I couldn’t believe it. I gave A-Gong some leaf water tea to drink, and immediately his hoarse breathing was soothed and his face relaxed. Quickly, we used the tea on all the men and by the time the last injured man was given the tea, A-Gong was sitting up in his bed with Da-A-Fu at his side.
“I was a fool,” he said to us, “I should have known we could not fight the Green Tiger with more anger. We just add to his power that way. His anger is his strength, but it can also be his weakness. His anger can blind him, and that is when he is vulnerable. Maybe if I can find who angered the magistrate the most, I can…”
“You are definitely recovering.” I had to smile. “Already you are making plans. But why don’t you rest for now?”
“No.” A-Gong waved away my concerns. “I must learn more, immediately, before the Green Tiger does more damage.”
I knew then that A-Gong needed to see the Green Tiger’s message right away. Da-A-Fu and I wrapped him in blankets and supported him as he hobbled to the gate. A-Gong looked grave as he examined the objects. Just as I thought, he knew right away what it meant.
“What is the Green Tiger saying?” A-Fu asked.
“It says if we give him two children every month, he will leave us in peace,” A-Gong said. “This is the start of his punishment for us—the way we are to pay penance for our ancestors.”
“How does it say that?” Da-Fu asked.
“Two claw marks next to a child’s clothes means he wants two children, and the vase is a symbol of peace, the moon on it means every month. So he offers us a month of peace for two children,” A-Gong said. “It matters not, we will not sacrifice even a baby pig to him.”
“But A-Fu and I had other ideas,” Da-Fu said, interrupting. “After A-Gong found out that the person who angered the Green Tiger the most was his own son—he was a king and he had banished the Magistrate Tiger from the kingdom—we made a plan!”
“Yes,” A-Fu said proudly, “we decided we would trick the Green Tiger into getting so angry that he would destroy himself in the well. And our plan worked!”
“It was also a plan that we did not approve of or agree to,” Amah said,
shaking her head at them, even though she could not help smiling affectionately. “But now young Minli, you have heard our story but we have not heard yours. We know your name and that you are friends with a dragon and we can guess you are far from home. Why don’t you tell us the rest?”
So Minli told them about Ma and Ba, their struggles in the muddy fields, the goldfish man and the goldfish. She told them about meeting the dragon that could not fly and the monkeys and the buffalo boy. She told them about the King of the City of Bright Moonlight and the borrowed lines. She told them about her whole journey.
And as she spoke, Da-A-Fu and their grandmother laughed and gasped and stared in wonder. Sometimes Amah shook her head, sometimes Da-A-Fu would look at each other in disbelief. But they did not interrupt once.
“So all of this is to get to Never-Ending Mountain,” Da-Fu said, finally. “We know where that is.”
“You do?” Minli exclaimed, sitting up in excitement. “Really?”
“Yes, Never-Ending Mountain is nearby,” A-Fu said. “About a day’s journey.”
Minli looked at them in shock and no words could come out of her mouth. A day’s journey! After all their days of traveling, Minli couldn’t believe they were so close.
“As soon as your dragon friend is well,” Amah said, “Da-A-Fu will take you there. And then you can return to your parents.”
Minli smiled gratefully, but as she looked at their comfortable, round, pink faces—how both A-Fu and Da-Fu leaned against their grandmother with devotion and how she rested her hands on their heads with tenderness—Minli suddenly thought of Ma and Ba. A wave of longing washed through her and a dryness caught in her throat that the tea could not moisten.
CHAPTER
37
The next morning, Da-A-Fu shook Minli awake.
“Wake up, sleepy!” Da-Fu said, pulling her up. “Come on! We want to show you something.”
“Yes,” A-Fu said, “hurry!”
Minli followed them out of the house and through the streets. It was almost as if there were a parade, for all the family were coming out of their houses and following. Minli hadn’t realized Da-A-Fu’s family was so large. There were aunts, uncles, cousins—the home behind the red gate doors was really a village of relatives. As Minli ran around through the open doors, she stopped and grinned. Because there, waiting out on the stone ground, was Dragon!
He was strong and smiling, sitting straight and alert. There was no daze in his eyes and no foul blackness on his body—in fact, except for four pale raised scars on his arm, he looked exactly as he did before they met the Green Tiger. “You’re okay!” Minli said as she hugged him.
“Of course,” Dragon said to her, grinning with happiness. “I told you that dragons heal quickly.”
“Yes, they do,” A-Gong said from beside her. “After the poison left him, his wounds healed almost immediately.”
Minli was so happy to see the dragon that she didn’t notice that most of Da-A-Fu’s family were surrounding them in awe.
“A dragon,” she heard one small boy whisper, “a real one.”
“We told you so,” Da-A-Fu murmured to their cousins. “See!”
“Unfortunately, friend dragon,” A-Gong said loudly so that all could hear, “you are too large for us to show you proper hospitality inside our home.”
“That’s okay. We should leave soon, anyway,” Minli said, and turned to Da-A-Fu, “if you will still show us the way to Never-Ending Mountain?”
“Of course.” They grinned and Amah said, “Yes, you should leave as soon as you can. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return to your parents. That would be for the best.”
A-Gong nodded when he heard Amah’s words. “Breakfast, then,” he said, “and then we will see our new friends off.”
So even though the rocky land was cold and windy, the family brought their breakfasts of warm rice porridge out to eat. No one wanted to miss a moment of looking at a real dragon.
Amah led a large iron pot, rolled in on a rough wood platform by two of Da-A-Fu’s uncles, in front of the dragon. The pot was steaming and full, and Minli recognized it as the medicine tea. An aunt carried cups of the tea on two trays balanced on her shoulders with a stick for anyone to take. Minli carefully reached for a cup; the fragrant aroma was too tempting to let pass.
“We should not call this drink medicine,” an uncle said. “It is too delicious and now that there is no more Green Tiger, there is nothing for it to cure.”
“Maybe we should call it Well Tea,” A-Fu laughed, “since the Green Tiger is down in the well.”
“No,” A-Gong said, “we want to remember our friends, not our enemies.”
“Then we should call it Dragon Well Tea,” Da-Fu said, “because it made the dragon well!”
The family all cheered at that, and there was a look of softness in Dragon’s eyes that Minli had never seen before. He was unused to kindness, she realized. He had spent most of his years alone and trapped by his flightless body.
Too soon, breakfast was over and Minli was packing her possessions into the yellow silk bag the king had given her while Amah tied supplies onto the backs of A-Fu and Da-Fu. “Just in case,” she said, slipping in their simple food of rice wrapped up in leaves and salted boiled eggs. “Bring Minli to Never-Ending Mountain and then come right home.”
A-Gong put his hands on Minli’s shoulders and said, “You’re a brave girl, Minli, quick and clever. But you have been away from home too long. Go as quickly as you can.”
Amah wrapped her warm arms around Minli, then brought out a warm jacket. “For you,” she said. “We made it while you were sleeping. Your dress is too thin for the mountain. ”
The jacket was multicolored, made of large patches sewn together—some dark blue, some deep purple, a few bright red. Minli smiled thankfully; already the cold wind was chilling her but she was hesitant to ask these people for anything since they had already given her so much. As she put it on, she marveled at its warmth. The fabric looked like plain cotton, but she felt as warm as if she had put on a thick fur.
“Let’s go then!” Da-A-Fu said, and the boy swung up his arm in excitement. It was only then that Minli noticed a large gash missing from his sleeve. She looked at the sleeve of her new coat and the bright red patch that made it and she gasped.
“Goodbye!” Da-A-Fu’s family waved. As they waved, Minli saw each of them had missing material in their sleeves. Her goodbyes froze in her throat as she realized her warm coat was made of pieces cut from the family’s own clothing.
“Come on,” A-Fu said, her white hand slipping from her notched sleeve to pull at Minli. “Hurry up!”
“Yes,” Dragon said, “we should go so the twins can return to their village as soon as possible.”
Minli nodded—and as she waved a grateful goodbye to the village, a sea of ruined sleeves fluttered back at her.
CHAPTER
38
As Minli and Dragon followed Da-A-Fu up the harsh landscape, the wind blew wildly. But traveling was not difficult. Dragon carried them over any large cracks or openings; Minli had forgotten how enjoyable it was to travel with him. And Da-A-Fu, laughing with pure delight as they rode Dragon, looked like two ripe hawthorn berries. Their merriment and the brilliant red color of their clothes and of Dragon himself seemed to warm the cold landscape. It was only when Minli’s hands poked out of her sleeves into the icy air that she realized how cold it really was.
“It’s not much farther,” A-Fu said to them after they had walked some distance. “We should be able to see Never-Ending Mountain soon.”
“You’ve never seen the Old Man of the Moon though?” Minli asked. “Has anyone?”
Da-A-Fu shook their heads. “No one has ever seen him,” Da-Fu said. “No one in the history of our family or village.”
“Though we do know he is the one who moved our ancestors here,” A-Fu said.
“The Old Man of the Moon brought your ancestors here?” Minli asked. “How?”
> THE STORY OF DA-A-FU’S ANCESTORS
Even though our ancestors did their best to please the magistrate, they were not able to make him happy. One day, a neighbor rushed to our ancestors’ home, his horse panting from running.
“I have just returned from the city,” the neighbor gasped. “I rushed all the way here to warn you. The magistrate is convinced the answer you sent him was a trick and you are keeping the real secret from him. He is coming here to punish you. He plans to destroy your home and family! Run away while you can! There is not much time—his soldiers will be here tomorrow!”
Our ancestors cried with fear. The large family—the many sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, and children and grandchildren—could not help being scared. But Ye Ye, the great-grandfather and head of the family, raised his hand for attention.
“It looks as if misfortune is coming,” he said, “and there is nothing we can do. We will not run. The soldiers would easily find us and the magistrate would be even more brutal. And I do not want to spend our last moments together in panicked flight.”
Ye Ye looked at the bright blue sky and sun shining on the mountain beyond their home. It was hard to imagine the coming trouble. “Little ones,” he said to the children, “go fetch your favorite kites.” Then Ye Ye turned to the adults. “Sons and daughters,” he said, “prepare the finest picnic you can, with enough food and tea for all. We will not waste this time we have together. We will spend it as we always have, in happiness.”
The family nodded at Ye Ye’s wise words. Quickly, they rushed to do as he asked. They brewed large pots of their best chrysanthemum tea and filled special baskets with golden cakes and custard tarts, boiled chickens, crispy pork, fluffy steamed buns, and tea-stained eggs. And their brilliant kites, in the shapes of bugs and butterflies, were dragged out of storage and into the sun.
Ye Ye smiled at his family as they finished their tasks. He carried his favorite books of poetry, stories, and songs in a bag. “Come,” he said, “let us climb the mountain.”