Song of the Silk Road

by Mingmei Yip

  He went on. “Snow lotuses are extremely rare and hard to find, for they only grow between cracks of ice and rocks at very high altitude.” He gave me a glance, his expression serious. “You stay here and I’ll go get them. Believe me, it’s too dangerous for you to come with me. You’ll be much safer here.”

  I could tell from his tone that this was an order, not advice.

  After my herbalist friend threw down a “Be careful, I’ll be back soon” and disappeared from sight, I took out my camera and began to walk around, looking for anything interesting to shoot.

  Many hours later and Lop Nor had not reappeared. Had something happened? My imagination saw him losing his grip on the cliff and plunging to his death. Or falling so that he was wedged and crushed between rocks.

  But I had no idea how or where to find him. There was not a soul around to ask for help, and I didn’t think I could even find the route back to civilization. Just when I felt my heart almost jump out of my chest, a loud, harsh Quuuuiiiiik! penetrated my eardrums. I looked up and saw a huge hawk slashing the sky with its wings like two sharp blades. Just as I was wondering what to do, the bird plunged toward me.

  “Ahhhh!” I ducked to avoid a possible hit and run. It was indeed a hit and fly, albeit the prey was not me, but my camera!

  The damned bird made another triumphant Quuuuiiiiik! then disappeared into the distance, the camera between his talons. I picked up some stones and hurled them at the air the hawk had flown through, but they landed pathetically with defeated thuds.

  I dropped to my knees, covered my face, and started to cry. Was Lop Nor dead? Would I also soon join his family in death?

  I didn’t know how long I’d been crying when I felt a touch on my shoulder. I looked up and saw the herbalist’s flushed and worried face.

  Involuntarily I flung myself at his big torso, laughing and crying. “Oh, Lop Nor… I’m so glad you’re back—and alive!”

  But as soon as I felt the stiffness of his body and his awkward embrace, I disentangled myself, muttering a not-very-sorry “Sorry.”

  He took out something from his backpack. To my surprise, it was my camera!

  “Where did you find it?”

  “It fell on my head when I was on my way back.”

  “You’re hurt?”

  “A little,” he said, massaging his scalp.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. A hawk snatched my camera, then dropped it on Lop Nor’s head, maybe to ask him to take it back to me? While I was fearing that he was plunging to his death, actually he was hit by my plunging camera!

  “Is this something funny?”

  I nodded, and we both laughed.

  Some silence passed, then Lop Nor took out a package from his bag and spread open the sheet of rice paper upon which were nestled a few very big, white flowers with green leaves. “Here are the special snow lotuses you need.” He lovingly caressed the plants. “These are extremely precious, their price astronomical.”

  “Thank you so much, Lop Nor,” I said, admiring the flowers.

  He went on. “My grandfather was a very knowledgeable herbalist. After he died, he left me his secret recipes—including how to cook these snow lotuses—which many people covet but I have never shared.”

  “Is it because they are bad people?”

  Lop Nor nodded. I knew he was not a selfish man.

  “Is that the reason you’ve been hiding yourself in this remote village?”

  He didn’t answer my question, but said, “Miss Lin, I am about to ask why you need this. This special kind of snow lotus can cure some very rare diseases, not to mention prolong life. I fear this may end up in the hands of bad people, because only they can afford it. And that’s why I do not share any information about this plant with anyone.”

  “Then why were you willing to find it for me?”

  “Because I can tell that you’re a good person. And because you’re healthy, so it must be for someone who really matters to you and who desperately needs it—is this person very sick, dying?”

  I was really surprised to hear this. Was this Uyghur also a fortune-teller?

  “So are you saying that if this person is evil, I should not give him this herb but let him die?” I deliberately let Lop Nor believe that this person was a “he” instead of a “she”—my aunt Mindy Madison.

  “You’re a good woman, so maybe you’ll be able to change this person’s heart.”

  “Lop Nor, I don’t think I have that kind of power.”

  “Whether this person is going to die soon depends on his karma, not yours.”

  I said flatly, “Actually I don’t really know this person.”

  “Then why are you giving him this rare herb?”

  “I’d like to tell you why, but I can’t. It’s just too complicated.”

  “Then be very careful.”

  “I will, and thanks for helping me so much, Lop Nor.” What more could I say? I was definitely not going to tell him, nor anyone, about my aunt, my Silk Road trip, and my upcoming fortune.

  To prevent him from asking more questions, I changed the subject. “So, where are we going next?”

  His gaze was penetrating. “Miss Lin, will you walk along the lake with me?”

  But what did he have in mind? A strange feeling crept down my spine. Was he trying to seduce me? Or tell me something heart-wrenching? A love story, or a ghost story—or both? Either one would be welcome and would give me a chance to practice seeing with my yin eye, which had been asleep for a long time.

  My friend’s voice interrupted my thought. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

  10

  The Black Dragon Pond

  Lop Nor and I walked back down to Heavenly Lake Guest House. He had suggested that we retire early to rest up for the next day’s hiking. In the hotel dining room we shared a rich meal of roast lamb washed down with fragrant tea to dilute the grease. After that, we went to our separate rooms.

  Early the next morning we hired a car, which drove us along a pothole-filled mountain road between tall pine trees. When we arrived at the edge of the lake, only a few people could be seen. Lop Nor led me through a stone archway into a deep chasm with rust-colored rocks jutting out as if ready to attack. We treaded cautiously along a wet, tortuous path, repeatedly ambushed by splashing water. Just as I began to feel impatient and ill at ease, we reached an opening leading to a flat expanse.

  The lake was like a crescent moon—luminous, silky smooth, and elegantly curved. If you are a man in love with a woman, you’ll look at the lake and think of her sensuous curves. If you are a woman in love with a man, you’ll see the lake as his strong, protective arm, which would shield you from life’s wind and rain, storm and thunder.

  Though I had read about the crescent-shaped Heavenly Lake before I came to China, I was not prepared for what was before my eyes. The huge, moss-green lake was surrounded by lush pine trees, snow-capped peaks, and oddly shaped rocks. The water looked crystal clear since its source was melted snow from the mountain peaks. In the distance, a herd of sheep was slowly moving across a meadow strewn with flowers. Several boats glided on the lake, accompanied by an exotic melody floating from afar, completing the lake’s fairy tale atmosphere.

  I lost myself in appreciating the lake and its reflections of the peaks, trees, and rocks. Lines from a poem by the scholar Guo Moruo came into my mind:

  The lake bottom appears like a submerged ink stone, Its pines above like the bristles of a calligraphy brush.

  Just as I finished silently reciting the poem, Lop Nor said, “Miss Lin, what I want to show you is not Heavenly Lake, but another. Follow me.”

  We walked for about an hour through dense vegetation interrupted by waterfalls before we reached the other lake.

  Lop Nor stared at the water, so clear that it seemed that you could see to its very bottom. “This is the Immortals’ Pool.”

  Then my friend’s voice, now turning sad and dark, added, “But later evil gangsters took it over so now it is
called Black Dragon Pond.”

  Suddenly the bottomless lake looked ominous. A chill came over me and I shuddered. When I looked up, to my surprise, Lop Nor had dropped to his knees facing the lake. In the distance, a few tourists turned to stare at this strange sight. As I watched, my friend put his hands together and muttered a fervent but unintelligible prayer. When finished, he stood up to face me. Tears brimmed in his dark, sad eyes, about to spill and join the vast expanse of water.

  He locked my eyes with his for a few moments, then pointed to the middle of the lake. “My family’s there.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean? There’s no one on the lake.”

  He wiped another tear with his sleeve. “They’re not on the lake, but under.”

  Goose bumps rose all over my body. “They’re dead?!”

  “Yes, murdered.” His voice was soft as if he were talking to himself, a small child, or a spirit.

  “What? Why?” Now my head felt as if it were being gnawed by hundreds of ants.

  “It is a sad story. Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded, and Lop Nor led me to sit down on a boulder and began his story.

  When Lop Nor was six, his father was killed in a fight with another Uyghur man in whose eyes the father was a traitor because he’d abandoned his own religion and married a non-Muslim Chinese woman. Since then, although a Uyghur, Lop Nor was raised and educated in the Chinese way by his mother and her father, a respected herbal healer.

  As a boy Lop Nor, instead of playing with toys, spent his time with plants. What he liked best were his mountain outings with his grandfather. While the grandfather was identifying and collecting herbs, he would let the little boy roam freely among trees and boulders to look for playthings—twigs, flowers, rocks, plants, insects, little animals.

  At seven, Lop Nor developed a rare skin disease. Whenever he drank milk, a painful rash would burst out over his entire body. His mother was warned never to let him touch milk again. But one day during another outing with his grandfather on the mountain, Lop Nor accidentally downed some discarded milk and was soon writhing with pain. The boy, in hysteria, grabbed a nearby plant and chewed on it. Miraculously, the rash subsided.

  The grandfather deemed this herb a miracle sent from heaven. So, instead of just letting his grandson play on the mountain, the old man decided to train the boy to be an herbalist so one day, when he took over the herbal store, he would repay heaven’s generous gift by curing his customers.

  From then on, Lop Nor’s mountain trips with his grandfather were solely plant oriented. The old man would teach him not only how to identify and differentiate herbs, their functions, and locations but, most important, how to use the correct angle and force when picking them.

  A gifted child, Lop Nor learned fast, absorbing the knowledge of natural remedies like a desert soaking up a blissful downpour. At fifteen, he began to work as an apprentice at his grandfather’s shop. Five years later, the old man let him have his own patients, and when another five years had passed he had won both respect for his power to heal and a beautiful Uyghur woman who bore him a handsome son.

  Soon Lop Nor’s fame spread to a shaman who also claimed to have healing power, though not by herbs, but with exorcisms. Jealous, the shaman demanded that Lop Nor give him his precious herbs and secret recipes. Lop Nor refused, well aware of the shaman’s evil deeds—kidnapping baby boys for sale and even, according to rumors, killing baby girls for offerings. From then on, to avoid the shaman, Lop Nor frequently moved his family while protecting his herbs and recipes.

  Later, the shaman tracked down the family and, with the help of his disciples—a group of Kazakh bandits—invaded Lop Nor’s store, ransacked his house, and killed his whole family—his mother, grandfather, young wife, and son. Their bodies were never found, but rumor had it that they carried the bodies up to the Black Dragon Pool and threw them in, each tied with a rock. As superstitious as he was evil, the shaman believed that only by submerging their bodies and suffocating their souls could their ghosts be prevented from coming back to haunt him.

  Lop Nor’s life was spared. On that day he was out collecting herbs on the Mountains of Heaven and a few of the most precious herbs and their recipes were safely tucked inside his bag. Some believed that the shaman had in fact deliberately spared Lop Nor’s life, afraid of offending the gods by killing a healer who might, someday, save his life.

  After he had lost his whole family, Lop Nor changed his name to the one he used now and came to this remote village. Here, no one knew his past and he was respected as the healer sent from heaven. In the ten years that had passed, Lop Nor had been basically left in peace, though never in happiness.

  After my friend finished his story, I was saddened beyond words. Looking at the leathery, tragic face in front of me, I felt tempted to pull him into my arms and rock him like a mother with a sick child. But I only patted his hand to show my sympathy.

  He said, “I continue to live only because many people’s lives depend upon me. If I die, I waste not only my grandfather’s teaching but also heaven’s gift.”

  Lop Nor healed people’s diseases, but there was no one to heal his broken heart. Even the rarest herb would not do that.

  I sighed inside, recognizing the source of the vacuity and chill I had felt in my little cottage and even more now at Black Dragon Pond. I was filled with his immense sadness and emptiness.

  From his backpack, Lop Nor took out a thermos, unscrewed the top, and poured hot tea inside, then handed it to me.

  I meditated on his story while sipping the fragrant tea. “Lop Nor, I know nothing I say can alleviate your pain.”

  “Miss Lin”—his eyes searched mine as he rubbed his white jade pendant—“you’re a gift sent by heaven to hear my story. I have nothing more to ask.”

  A long silence developed between us while I felt the steam from the tea warm and moisten my face. “Lop Nor, are you sure your wife and son are dead?”

  “Of course they’re dead!” he exclaimed, then paused to think for a moment. “If they’re still alive, why don’t they come back to me?”

  That made sense. However convincing this seemed, I sensed something quite different had happened.

  Lop Nor looked at me curiously. “What makes you ask such a question?”

  “I have the yin eye, sometimes.”

  With one raised brow, his leathery face showed, for the first time, a sign of hope. “So you sense maybe they’re still alive somewhere?”

  I nodded. “When I felt the warmth of the tea on my face, I felt a presence.”

  “Please tell me what you saw.”

  “I didn’t exactly see anything. When I go home I’ll try to channel my energy better.”

  “Please.”

  “Lop Nor, don’t get your hopes up yet. I may be wrong.”

  He nodded pathetically.

  There was one question I was dying to ask him but had no heart to bring up: If his family was buried in the lake, why did he visit the graveyard in my village?

  I feared another sad tale would spring up like a poisonous snake to strike. Were there more murdered relatives?

  Lop Nor said little to me during the wearisome trip home. So the next morning, still wondering why he frequented the graveyard when his relatives lay at the bottom of the lake, I decided to ask him.

  When I arrived at his store, for once it was closed. Two small notes were pinned to the door, one in Uyghur and the other in Chinese. The latter read:

  Miss Lin, I have gone to look for my wife and son. I won’t be back until I find them. Please take care. Lop Nor.

  I felt a sharp pang of regret that I had told Lop Nor his wife and son might still be alive. Now he’d left to look for them! But what if I was wrong?

  That evening I did something I had always feared—I headed to the cemetery during the yin hours, the only phase of the day when the dead dared to come out to “play” in the yang domain, which belongs to the living. In the past, I’d only gone
there early in the day so I could feel the place without risking being swarmed by what I would rather not name. But tonight was different. I wanted to focus on channeling, hoping I could at least sense, if not “see,” something from the other world—someone from Lop Nor’s family.

  I wore a thick jacket and hat, wrapped my face with a long scarf, and brought a flashlight and a knife just in case there were robbers or whoever, or whatever. A chill choreographed down my spine as I tried not to imagine what the “whoever or whatever” might be.

  I wandered around, casting light on the markers and studying each carefully. After that, I walked to a corner, then sat on the ground facing north, which Chinese believe is the direction from which spirits enter. A pile of rocks hid me from sight in case anyone came in from the main entrance. Arranging myself in meditation posture, I soon fell into a trancelike state.

  I became fully aware of my surroundings—the slightest sound, the faintest smell, the smallest movement. But nothing came, no vision, no vibration, not anything like a ghost….

  After another fifteen minutes, I still heard only the ubiquitous howling wind, “singing” of the sand, scurrying of small animals, and occasional cries of distant birds. I opened my eyes but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Why couldn’t I sense anything? This was a graveyard and I was supposed to have the yin eye….

  Just then, in my peripheral vision I saw something move. I disentangled my limbs from the meditation posture, then crouched down to watch. There was a series of scraping sounds, which I suddenly realized were from a being of the yang world, not the yin one. I strained my eyes to look, and to my surprise saw a man digging up one of the graves.

  I quickly realized that this man was a grave robber. Chinese put pearls, jades, and other valuables in the coffin so their dead relative could bribe his or her way to a smooth passage to the other world. I once read that at a funeral home in Hong Kong, a staff member stole a big, expensive jade from the mouth of a rich man’s deceased wife. He was caught because her son noticed her sunken cheeks.