***** Vol.2 Chap.57 The cave *****
She expressed her appreciation to Ah-Tong’s wife for the generous hospitality. As they left the house, the elders were already outside. She thanked them sincerely for their wise decision, even to the extent of sending Ah-Tong with her. In turn, they thanked her for the visit and apologized for not being able to do more.
Ah-Tong mentioned they would stop by the cave before they leave and secured the approval of the elders.
Ah-Tong started off on a trail up the mountain and she struggled to follow. Halfway up the mountain, they arrived at a small cave entrance. One could easily miss the entrance because of the thick surrounding overgrowth.
He told her to get on all fours and crawl. The entrance was quite low but opened quickly into a small room. After starting a small torch that dimly lit the way, he lit another torch for her.
“This is the entrance. We will follow this corridor. It will lead to a larger cavern later. Follow me.”
“I am right behind you.”
“When we first discovered the cave, there were many flowers near the mouth of this cavern. But since we have been harvesting the flowers, we now must go deeper and deeper into the cave. No flowers remain here anymore.”
“How sad.”
“The cavern ended in a narrow passage. Not far into the passage is another small cavern. Again, there are no more flowers there. Recently, we must keep going further and deeper along this passage to another cavern. Follow me. The path is very treacherous.”
She followed him to another cavern. At the extreme edge, she noticed a few flowers, some are bluish and some are reddish. In appearance they were similar.
“Ah-Tong, are there two different species of flowers?”
“Yes, one is blue, the other red.”
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“Oh?”
She was about to pick a red flower closest to her for examination.
“Don’t touch the red ones!” Ah-Tong shouted with alarm.
She retracted her hand in awe.
“Red ones will cause you to go crazy!”
“Really?”
“Blue ones will calm you down.”
A bell rang in May-Ling’s subconsciousness. Yin and Yang.
Could this be the herbal answer to her acupuncture of activating the yin and yang in a person’s body?
“So, you harvested the blue flowers for the tea?”
“Yes”
“I see even the red flowers had disappeared as well?”
“Lately the Boss also wanted a weekly shipment of both the blue and red flowers as well.”
“How strange.”
“May I look at this small cavern?”
“Sure, why don’t you wait for me here while I go further to harvest a few flowers?”
“I will wait for you here.”
“Don’t go anywhere otherwise you will get lost among the caverns.”
“I won’t.”
May-Ling explored the small cavern and examined the wall, which was rough and jagged. The cavern was not very large. The front of the cavern was barely five feet tall and tapered down to the ground at the far edge of the cavern. She pushed on the wall. It was solid and cold. She held out the torch and saw nothing special about the rocks. Of course, she would not know the difference between one type of rocks from another type of rocks. Geology was never her strong suit.
As she was exploring the cavern, she thought she saw a flower at the edge of the cavern. It was a small flower, and the petal was metallic in appearance. The tip of the petals was blue while the base of the petal was dark blue. She wondered how such a beautiful flower could grow with such vivid color in a dark cavern.
Attracted to the flower, she lay her torch down to shine the way and crawled towards the flower. She had to stretch to reach the flower. The petals appeared to be metallic to the touch. As she pulled on the stem of the flower, the surrounding ground seemed to break open like a trapdoor. Sliding down a narrow corridor, she landed on her feet in another enormous cavern.
Everything went dark.
Ah-Tong heard the scream and rushed over from the other cavern. He found her torch though she was nowhere in the cavern. He called for her but heard no response. Totally at a loss, he searched the nearby caverns, but found no trace of her. He exited the cavern and searched all the neighboring woods but could not find any clues as to her whereabouts.
At the end, he ran back to the village and reported the results.
The villagers immediately sent word to the Boss at the gangsters’ den. Both the gangsters and the villagers mounted a massive manhunt. But they could not pick up any clues or locate her anywhere.
After three days of extensive search in all the neighboring areas, they abandoned the efforts and returned to their normal daily duties. The Boss left strict instructions to the villagers that if she was ever found, she should be apprehended and delivered to him immediately. He knew that if she was hiding, eventually she had to come back down the mountain and must pass through the den again.