He was sitting on a flat rock by the stream at the village entrance, his gaze passing over the murmuring water and resting on the earthen road that wound away into the mountain hollow.

  They called him “Stone.” The name had stuck after a high fever at age five that nearly took him. Old people from the village came with their walking sticks and shook their heads; in the end his father set him before a black boulder on the back slope—a stone struck by lightning yet never split—kowtowed three times, and the nickname followed. The villagers said a humble name would pin down the misfortunes in one’s fate. His given name, however, was written in the primer and recorded in the county household register—Yun Che.

  The Yun family had once run two apothecaries in Qinglan City; prosperity lasted through Yun Che’s grandfather’s generation. His father, Yun Chengshan, was a younger son and took no part in the division of the shops; when the household split, he took the old house and a few thin fields on the outskirts, thirty li from the city, and moved out to what is called Xitou Village. Luckily he knew herbs and often went into the mountains to gather them; the skills of preparing medicines were passed down in the family. Though they were not rich, they had enough to eat.

  Yun Che was different from the other children in the village. He did not like wading in the water to catch fish, nor did he care to climb trees and fetch nests; instead, he was fascinated by the variously shaped leaves and grasses spread out to dry in courtyards. His father’s worn copies of the Herbal Illustrated Guide and the Qing Nang Handbook lay with their edges frayed; by seven he could make educated guesses from the pictures, and by ten he could recognize more than half the medicinal plants on the rear slope. Once, when his father returned from the city fretting that a certain Wulin Flower could not be procured and its price had climbed, Yun Che said nothing. Before dawn the next day, he had gone into the mountains and by evening came back with seven specimens, still dewed and in excellent condition. Yun Chengshan examined the stems long into the night and told his wife, “This boy’s eyes are keen, and his mind is calm—he’s a natural for studying medicine.”

  Now the stream chattered and the sun slanted west. Yun Che closed the volume of Preliminary Studies of Nanling Medicinal Stones, its cover worn and the characters rubbed soft, and exhaled quietly. Between the pages lay a dried leaf of star-veined grass; its veins gleamed like silver threads in the late light.

  Was there, beyond the mountains, more plants that his books did not show, remedies not recorded?

  “Stone, daydreaming again?” his father’s voice called from the path behind him. Yun Che turned and saw Yun Chengshan come up the slope, shouldering his hoe; the hem of his trousers was dotted with mud, and the carry-basket on his back was half-filled with newly gathered dig-root vine.

  “Father, I was looking at the road,” Yun Che said, rising and brushing a few blades of grass from his clothes. “The road goes over the mountain. What’s on the other side?”

  Yun Chengshan set down his hoe, drew out a brass pipe that shone from long use, packed in tobacco, and lit it. “The other side is still mountain,” he said. “Xitou Village can keep a man alive. What are you filling your head with, dreaming of far places?”

  Yun Che did not answer; he only glanced again toward the road’s end.

  “Come home for dinner,” his father said, without pressing the question, and shouldered his tools.

  Their supper was coarse rice porridge, a dish of pickled radish, and a small bowl of mushroom-and-meat stew left from midday. Yun Che’s mother pushed the meat into his bowl. “Eat more—you’re too thin. Reading uses the spirit,” she said.

  “Mother, is Third Uncle coming these days?” Yun Che asked, stirring his porridge and looking up.

  Her hands paused; she looked toward Yun Chengshan. The father drew a small breath and tapped ash from his pipe. “He said he’d be here in two days. I’ve bundled the dried bamboo shoots and bracken for him.”

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  “You know how hard it is for him,” his mother sighed, eyes distant. “Expenses in the city are steep, and the shops fight each other. Every time he comes he remembers to bring you books…”

  Their conversation was cut off by the sound of hooves and wheels grinding on the village stones from the road.

  Yun Che brightened, set down his bowl, and ran outside. A cart with a green cloth cover had stopped in the dust; the driver, a moderately aged man, leapt down. He wore a half-worn indigo cotton robe; his figure was lean, his eyes bright and kindly—Third Uncle Yun Qingmo.

  “Third brother!” Yun Chengshan came out of the house.

  “Chengshan.” Yun Qingmo smiled, and his gaze fell on Yun Che. “Stone, you’ve shot up since last time—then you only came to my chest.”

  Yun Che beamed, ran back into the yard for their sturdiest bamboo chair, and scrubbed its seat with his sleeve until it shone, then placed it under the old locust tree.

  “Ah, the sun's risen on the west today—you’re so industrious?” Yun Qingmo teased, amusement in his eyes.

  Yun Chengshan snorted but smiled. Yun Qingmo produced a small green cloth bundle with care and unwrapped it: two neatly bound thread-stitched books—Miscellaneous Notes of Yun Ji and A Brief Record of Shan-Hai Scenery and Things. Yun Che’s fingers brushed the fresh cover and the faint smell of ink; his eyes caught an illustration of a strange three-tailed fish and would not leave it.

  After supper the lamp burned low. Yun Che’s mother cleared the bowls while the three men talked quietly under the locust tree. Night air was cool, smelling of soil and herbs. Snatches of their conversation drifted to Yun Che’s ears.

  “…Xuan Shuang Sect… rare chance… quota…”

  Yun Che’s hand paused on the teapot. His father’s voice trembled with disbelief. “Xuan Shuang Sect? The one said to have immortal masters who ride swords and fly the heavens?”

  “That’s the one,” Yun Qingmo said steadily. “Our family was fortunate to receive a recommendation for a trial. My own boys are no good for it—one buries himself in the imperial exams, the other in fighting. I thought of you, Stone. You are calm, your eye is sharp; you understand grasses and the sky in a way most lack. Perhaps there is a thread of chance.”

  Yun Che’s mother stood in the kitchen doorway, cloth still in hand, and her eyes shone. Yun Qingmo turned to Yun Che with a rare solemnity; the oil lamp caught in his face.

  “Stone, those who enter the sect live by dawn and dusk, taste the mist and drink the dew, perceive the laws of heaven and earth, command wind and thunder, and study the arcana of life and death. Their world is as different from ours as a cloud from mud.”

  That night Yun Che lay on his creaky wooden bed and could not sleep. His parents’ low voices and the occasional clink of cups came from outside. Moonlight fell through the window paper in a pale grid. Inside him, something stirred like a pebble dropped into still water—widening rings of emotion. He was anxious, yes, but more than that there was a small, hot thrill he could not name.

  At dawn Yun Qingmo hitched the cart.

  “Brother, sister-in-law, the sect’s summons are tight,” he said apologetically. “I must take him to the city today. The Immortal Master will conduct the initial selection in the clan hall tomorrow morning.”

  Yun Che’s mother had already tucked a blue-cloth bundle into his arms: two new sets of clothes, durable rations, and a small packet of his favorite osmanthus candies. Her fingers trembled as she clutched his sleeve. “Stone, listen to your third uncle. Don’t be stubborn; be more yielding. If you miss home, eat a candy… ”

  She could not finish; she turned away.

  Yun Chengshan removed the pipe he had worn at his waist, rolled it in his fingers, and finally patted Yun Che on the shoulder with a voice thickened by emotion. “Go. If you succeed, it’s your destiny. If not… come home. My medicine basket still needs someone to shoulder it.”

  The cart rolled away, wheels crunching over the stones. Yun Che knelt on the bumping carriage floor and craned back to watch. His parents at the locust tree grew smaller and smaller—his mother lifting a hand to wipe her eyes, his father like a silent statue. Mountain ridges swallowed the village and the place he had lived for fifteen years until it vanished into the bluish fold of hills.

  Wind rushed through the cart, carrying a strange, far-off scent.

  For a long time Yun Qingmo drove in silence. When the village had finally disappeared, he spoke in a low voice, swallowed by the wind. “Stone, you have a cousin—Yun Han, the only son of the eldest uncle. He has an innate spiritual sense and has already been noticed by an outer attendant of the Xuan Shuang Sect. He is nearly certain to be selected. You will likely face cold looks.”

  Yun Che said nothing. He hugged the blue bundle to his chest.

  “But I trust you,” Yun Qingmo continued. “You have always seen what others cannot—which stem will wither, which cloud hides rain. That gift may be closer to the Way than ordinary talk of spirit roots. Take this chance. Show your parents, and yourself, how big the world beyond the mountains can be.”

  Yun Che turned his face in the direction the cart advanced. Beyond the layered ridges, on the horizon, a white peak stood out—cold and majestic, its summit seeming to pierce the clouds, its surface glinting like crystal in the noon light.

  That was the direction of the Xuan Shuang Sect.