***** Vol.5 Chap.9 The third guardian-to-be *****

Doctor May-Ling Chen and her husband Doctor Haw-Ting Tsai founded the Tsai-Chen Clinic in a poor section of the town in Xilon, China. May-Ling specialized in acupuncture treatment. While treating some patients, she accidentally discovered two meridians in the body that perhaps corresponded to the yin and yang life forces. Pressure points on one meridian caused patients to be docile while pressure points on the other meridian caused patients to be violent. However, the effects of the acupuncture treatments were only temporary, lasting at most a week. Patients must come back for treatment repeatedly.

May-Ling’s father was an herbalist and had collected a host of stories about a legendary village where there was no violence among the villagers. His untimely death from a gang fight causes his life work to pass to May-Ling who promised her father to finish his work. Due to a tragic accident at the clinic, her husband passed away after they had founded the clinic for five years. Heartbroken, she decided to pursue her father’s dream to locate and study the villagers of this legendary village purported to have no violence.

After studying the journal left by her father, she thought she had located the legendary village and proceeded up the mountain but was captured by a gang midway. From the boss and everyone around her, she was told that no one was allowed to leave the gangster’s den.

She was spared her life in exchange for her willingness to stay and serve the gang as their doctor and maid. While serving as a kitchen maid, she tasted a strange tea with a special blend that calms and soothes her insides.

It turned out that one gangster had been her patient before. One night, he came to see her and agreed to rescue her so she could continue to ascend the mountain to locate the legendary village. Avoiding further capture, she finally located the famed village.

Her arrival at the village caused a stir among the villagers. As good hosts, they cleaned her up and offered her hospitality as an honored guest. In meeting with the elders of the villages, indeed she detected no violence among the villages and was convinced that this was the legendary village she was seeking.

Unfortunately, for the survival of the whole village, the elders decided that she must returned and was not allowed to stay at the village seeing that she escaped from the gangsters. She volunteered to return to the gangsters’ den

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However, before returning, she asked if she could explore a cavern where the flowers in making the special tea favored by the villagers were harvested. During the exploration, she fell through some kind of trap door and disappeared mysteriously.

When May-Ling finally came to, it was still dark all around her. She had no idea how long she had been out. More importantly, she did not know where she was, how she got there, and much less how to get out of there.

She shouted as loud as she could, but there were no replies. She shouted some more, still no reply. Her heart was pounding fiercely within her.

There were no echoes to her shouting. She tried shouting a single word: “Help” and then listened intently. No echoes came back. She tried it again, and again no echoes came back.

As her consciousness slowly returned, she felt pain. Her head hurt. She felt around her head with her hand and felt a goose bump on the top. She must have landed on her head. It was a good-sized bump. Fortunately, no skin was broken. Immediately, her medical training caused her to rub and massage the bump gently. This made her feel a little better.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw the walls of her prison. The rocks are jagged. She felt it with her hands. They are rough. Perhaps this was why no echoes came back. The jagged rocks made the cavern into an anechoic chamber. She felt around the walls. Nothing but rocks.

Her eyes were finally adjusted to the darkness. She looked up towards the ceiling of the cavern. She thought she saw a wonderful display of colors shimmering on the roof. The colors were not bright but dazzling; more like colorful twinkling stars in the night sky. It was dim yet beautiful and mesmerizing. She deduced they must be fluorescent rocks. What a stupendous display. Some rocks gave a dim but constant color. Others seemed to flash with brighter colors. She stared at the rocks for a long time, wondering at the marvel she was seeing.

Slowly, her mind registered that the color display was not random, but exhibited a distinct pattern like a rudimentary arrow pointing towards a particular corner of the room. She tried walking around the cavern. But no matter where she stands, the V shape display always seemed to point to the designated spot. Her curiosity was piqued as she approached to investigate.

Guided by the overhead display, she gingerly approached the indicated corners. When the cavern ceiling got lower, she had to stoop down and eventually crawled on all fours. When she got to the end of the cavern, a gust blew past her making her hair flew up with the current.

A breeze inside the cavern?

She felt around the rocks.

Click!

Another trapdoor opened and she slid down another long slide. Before she could gather her wits, the slide flattened, and she came to a soft landing.

Stunned.