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daughter in his own garment. Bone Helmet looked incredibly small
     and helpless in a blue silk robe that was five times too big for her, and the irony of
     “longevity” that she had embroidered over it in gold thread was not very funny.
    Favorite toys had been placed near each child's limp hands, and the parents sat silent and
     helpless beside the beds. Mournful howls drifted up from the village, where lonesome dogs
     were searching for their young masters.
    Li Kao sighed and straightened his shoulders and beckoned for me to come closer. “Number
     Ten Ox, I have no idea whether or not a Root of Power is the same as a Great Root of
     Power, and for all I know the only use for such a thing is to mix it with glue and use it
     to repair sandals,” he said quietly. “Two things I do know. Anyone who tries to steal a
     valuable item from the Ancestress is begging for an unpleasant death, and I am now too old
     to attempt it without having some muscle to back me up. I have accepted your five thousand
     copper cash, and you are my client, and the decision is yours.”
    “Master Li, when do we leave?” I asked eagerly.
    I was ready to race out the door, but he looked at me wryly.
    “Ox, if the children die suddenly there is nothing that we can do about it, and if the
     textbook prognosis holds true, they should last for months. The worst thing that we could
     do would be to arrive at our destination weary and unprepared,” he said patiently. “I'm
     going to get some rest, and if you can't sleep, perhaps the abbot will be kind enough to
     expand your education on the subject of the quest. Ginseng is the most interesting as well
     as the most valuable plant in the whole world.”
    He yawned and stretched.
    “We'll have to go back through Peking to pick up some money, and we'll leave at the first
     watch,” he said.
    Li Kao lay down in the bonzes' bedchamber. I had never been so wide awake in my life. The
     abbot took me into his study for instruction, and what I learned about ginseng was so
     interesting that I was almost able to forget the children for an hour.
4. Root of Lightning
    No medicinal plant is quite so controversial, the abbot explained. There are eminent
     physicians who swear that it is no more effective than strong tea, and there are those who
     swear that it is effective in treating anemia, cachexia, scrofula, gastrointestinal
     catarrh, and malfunctions of the lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, and genital organs. Long
     ago when the plant was plentiful, peasants would mix the ginseng root with owl brains and
     turtle fat and smear the mixture over the heads of patients to cure insanity, or blend it
     with the powdered horns of wapiti deer and sprinkle it over the patients' chests to cure
     tuberculosis. Strangest of all is the viewpoint of the professional ginseng hunter,
     because for him it is not a plant but a religion.
    The legends are quite marvelous. Ginseng hunters refer to the plant as
    
    
     chang-diang shen
    
    
     , “the root of lightning,” because it is believed that it appears only on the spot where a
     small mountain spring has been dried up by a lightning bolt. After a life of three hundred
     years the green juice turns white and the plant acquires a soul. It is then able to take
     on human form, but it never becomes truly human because ginseng does not know the meaning
     of selfishness.
    It is totally good, and will happily sacrifice itself to aid the pure in heart. In human
     form it can appear as a man or as a beautiful woman, but more often it takes the form of a
     child, plump and brown, with red cheeks and laughing eyes. Long ago, evil men discovered
     that a ginseng child can be captured by tying it with a red ribbon, and that is why the
     plant is now so hard to find, the hunters say. It has been forced to run away from evil
     men, and it is for that reason that ginseng hunting has become one of the most hazardous
     occupations upon the face of