The September sunlight in New York was just right. Even in the afternoon, the sun still hung in the sky with plenty of power to spare.
The two boys crossed the bustling streets of Queens and arrived near Chinatown. They soon reached Chen Clinic.
"Master! Are you here?" Lin Hai did not see Chen Bing when he entered.
Chen Bing soon came in from the backyard to the front hall. He saw Lin Hai organizing his things and Peter, who was sitting on a stool and seemed rather lively. "Good afternoon, Xiao Lin. School's out, huh? And this is?"
"This is Peter, Peter Parker, my classmate. We sit together too. After hearing about our Herbal Plant Shop, he wanted to come take a look at the plants here." Lin Hai looked at Peter, who seemed a little reserved around strangers, as he spoke.
Chen Bing naturally noticed as well. Smiling, he said, "Then head next door. I don't need your help here. Just take him over."
"Then we'll head over, Master." Lin Hai nodded and called for Peter to follow him next door.
Lin Hai pushed open the wooden door of the neighboring Herbal Plant Shop. The wind chime by the entrance tinkled as the door swung open, and a rich, complex herbal fragrance rushed over them—sweet, bitter, refreshing, all sorts of scents woven together in a strange and wonderful blend.
Peter sneezed, and his lenses instantly fogged over. The plants always filled the shop with plenty of moisture as they breathed. "This smell is even more intense than our chemistry lab!"
"You'll get used to it." Lin Hai hung his schoolbag on a hook behind the door. "Welcome to my workshop."
"Wow!" Peter wiped his lenses clean and put his glasses back on, then let out a sigh of amazement. He looked up at the unusually lush leaves. "These plants are way too healthy."
The inside of the Herbal Plant Shop felt like another world. Several rattan chairs and small tea tables sat by the windows, while a small tea stove steamed in the corner.
The most eye-catching things were the potted plants placed throughout the shop—every one of them was exceptionally vibrant, their glossy leaves almost reflective.
"This place is so cool!" Peter was like a kid in a candy store, touching this and looking at that.
Lin Hai smiled and led him to the small work area behind the counter. "The really good stuff is over here."
Several plants of different shapes sat on the workbench, alongside a mortar, a small scale, and heaps of jars and bottles. Lin Hai picked up a blue-and-white porcelain pot. Inside grew a vine, its tuber exposed above the soil and shaped like a curled-up little person.
"Look, this is called Fo-ti," Lin Hai said proudly. "It's nearly a hundred years old. Even in Huaxia, it's rarely seen." Peter leaned in for a closer look, his glasses nearly touching the plant. "Oh! I've heard of this. Can it really turn hair black?"
"Ordinary Fo-ti has to be taken over a long period to have some effect." Lin Hai gave a mysterious wink. "But this hundred-year-old Fo-ti, after receiving my 'special care'..."
He gently placed a finger on the Fo-ti vine. Peter's eyes widened—the vine actually curled around Lin Hai's finger.
"Oh my God! That's not scientific!" Peter exclaimed, fumbling to pull a notebook from his schoolbag. "That violates biological principles!"
Lin Hai smiled and withdrew his hand, and the vine immediately became still again.
"So—you can really 'talk' to plants?" Peter Parker stood beside the pot of Fo-ti, pushing up the glasses that had slipped to the tip of his nose. His face was practically screaming, "This isn't scientific."
Lin Hai casually watered the Mint on the windowsill with half a cup of water. "Not talking. It's energy exchange. Like..." He thought for a moment, then raised both hands and made a gesture of electricity flowing. "You get it, right?"
"I do, like bioelectric signal transmission!" Peter immediately grew excited and began writing in his notebook. "What about frequency? Do you have data? Is the plant's feedback a chemical signal or physical vibration?"
Lin Hai opened his mouth, suddenly realizing that bringing this science fanatic into the shop might have been a mistake.
"How about a direct demonstration?" He sighed and pressed his palm against the Fo-ti vine.
Almost instantly, a lustrous green glow spread across the brown vine, and its leaves visibly unfurled a little.
"Wow!" Peter lunged closer, his nose nearly poking the leaves. "That doesn't conform to the law of conservation of energy! What form of energy are you outputting? Wait—"
He suddenly grabbed Lin Hai's wrist. "Those glowing fingers are the conduction pathway? Can we measure the resistance? I brought a multimeter!"
"Stop!" Lin Hai decisively shoved a cup of chamomile tea into his hands. "Drink some tea. Calm down." Peter held the cup, but his gaze drifted toward the Datura in the corner. "Can that thorny one interact too?"
"It can, but I wouldn't recommend trying." Lin Hai had taken his master's warning to heart. "If its toxins invade your body, with your current build, you'll be lucky to make it home tonight."
"Plant venom!" Peter's voice jumped an octave. "This is way more exciting than dissecting frogs in biology class!"
"Want to try something even more amazing?" Without waiting for Peter's answer, Lin Hai headed toward a row of herbs by the windowsill. One pot of Mint was especially lush, its leaves a full size larger than ordinary Mint.
"This is Mint I cultivated with a 'special method.'" Lin Hai plucked a leaf and handed it to Peter. "Want to try it?"
Peter skeptically put the leaf into his mouth. The next second, his eyes went round, and he looked like smoke might rise from his head. "Holy crap! It feels like someone set off a mint bomb inside my brain!"
Thankfully Captain America was not here, or he would have shouted at Peter, "Watch your language!"
Lin Hai burst out laughing. "It's twenty times more stimulating than normal Mint. When you get sleepy in class, have one. You'll stay awake until school lets out."
Peter stuck out his tongue and fanned his mouth, but his hand honestly picked another leaf and tucked it into the inner fold of his notebook. "I need to analyze its composition. There has to be some compound with an abnormally high concentration."
"Next is this." Lin Hai picked up a small flowerpot containing several slender green plants with pale purple blossoms. "Lemon Balm. It's somewhat like Mint, but compared to Mint, its flavor is more suitable for most people here."
He plucked a leaf and gently crushed it. A fresh fragrance immediately spread through the air, carrying a honey-like sweetness if one smelled carefully. Peter took a deep breath, and his expression became remarkably relaxed.
"It feels like my whole body is soaking in a hot spring." Peter's voice turned lazy.
"It relaxes the nerves and improves sleep. The elders in your family should like it." Lin Hai pushed the pot toward him.
Peter snapped out of his daze and hurriedly recorded the phenomenon. "This isn't just a smell. Is some volatile substance directly affecting the central nervous system? That's incredible!"
Lin Hai then showed him an enhanced version of the Sensitive Plant that could curl up on its own—one touch and it would jump up to smack his hand—and Marigolds that changed color with the sunlight, living weather vanes.
"So," Peter asked after taking a sip of chamomile tea, "do you sell these special plants to ordinary people?"
Lin Hai shook his head. "The most special ones aren't for sale. Some with particularly good effects are only sold to special friends. Ordinary customers get normal versions."
He gave a sly wink. "Though sometimes I give an elderly lady with insomnia some 'enhanced' Chamomile, or Honeysuckle with special potency to children with colds."
"Mysterious Eastern herbalist." Peter looked at Lin Hai and said in a movie-like tone, "How many secrets are you hiding?"
"Oh, my dear friend, I'm sorry, but I cannot answer that question, because I don't know myself," Lin Hai replied in the same tone.
He really did not know all the secrets he carried, such as that cluster of Seven-Colored Essence in his mind.
After their laughter died down, Lin Hai still carried out his daily work in an orderly fashion. During Lin Hai's school hours, his master had helped him finish a small portion of the work that could not be done in the afternoon, but most of the plants still needed Lin Hai's care.
As for their chatty classmate Peter, with his "slight" hyperactivity, he followed Lin Hai around in circles, looking at this and that. After hearing Lin Hai's warnings about Datura, he still did not dare touch the unfamiliar plants carelessly.
Outside, the sun sank toward the horizon, stretching the two boys' shadows long. One chattered nonstop, constantly spouting technical terms no one understood. The other occasionally fed energy into the potted plants, making them perform "accelerated growth" or "stiffened stems and leaves."
Until—
"Boys." Chen Bing had somehow appeared in the doorway to the inner room, two bags of medicinal ingredients in his hands. He continued in English, "If you keep messing with my herbs, you can both stay tonight and help repot them."
Of course Chen Bing could speak English. Otherwise, he could not treat the New York residents around them. It was just that when he was with Lin Hai, there was naturally no need for two people from Huaxia to speak a foreign language.
The two "troublemakers" fell silent.
"I think I should head home." Peter quickly closed his notebook. "Aunt May said she made my favorite dinner tonight."
Lin Hai held back a laugh as he walked him to the door, but Peter suddenly turned around and lowered his voice. "Can I come again on Saturday? I have an idea about enhancing photosynthesis..."
"Of course, but remember to bring some Chinese pastries. They sell them at the nearby street stalls, and you can buy some to try yourself if you're interested." Lin Hai winked. "Master likes to have some with his tea."
Understanding dawned on Peter's face. He made the furious Korean-man "OK" gesture, waved to Chen Bing and Lin Hai, then hurried away.
Watching his friend's skipping figure disappear into the distance, Lin Hai turned back toward the shop—Mint swayed gently in the breeze, as if it were secretly laughing too.
Lin Hai watched the setting sun dye the wooden floor of the shop gold. In this unfamiliar world, having a friend with whom he could share his secrets felt wonderful. Even if he would meet more people in the future, the first would always leave the deepest impression.
After seeing Peter off, Lin Hai stood at the entrance and smiled as he shook his head. That chatty science fanatic had been like a whirlwind, sweeping away the Herbal Plant Shop's usual tranquility.
He turned and went back inside, beginning to tidy up the plants Peter had "studied." He straightened the Dendrobium Orchid board Peter had knocked askew, gently smoothed out the Fo-ti vines he had tangled, and fed Datura a little more energy to soothe its mood.
"That kid is interesting." Master Chen stood before the medicinal cabinet, rolling a piece of Licorice between his fingers. "Like wild Mint that goes crazy the moment it sees sunlight."
Lin Hai smiled as he wiped the leaves of the Seven-Leaf Lotus. "He's just too curious. He wants to explain everything with scientific principles."
"Science?" Chen Bing snorted softly, tossing the Licorice into the teapot. "Modern science still can't clearly explain the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. The concept of 'qi' alone is enough to keep them studying."
His master shook his head with a scoff and handed him a cup of calming tea. "How did your first day of school feel?"
Holding the warm cup, Lin Hai suddenly realized that he had not felt sleepy all day. "Better than I expected. The chemistry teacher sounded like a lullaby, but I brought a little Mint plant. Smelling it kept me alert."
He paused at that, the corners of his mouth lifting unconsciously. "And I met Peter."
"Making friends is a good thing. Now hurry back. Your parents should still be waiting for your call." His master patted him on the shoulder.
After returning to his apartment, Lin Hai called his parents and told them everything that had happened that day. His father was happy that Lin Hai had quickly integrated into daily life at Midtown High School and made a friend who sounded pretty good.
Compared to that, Lin Hai's mother was more concerned with nagging him about food, clothes, and daily living. Did he have enough clothes to change into? How was the food in the school cafeteria? Had he cleaned the apartment? Was the route to school safe? Things like that.
Lin Hai had been smiling the whole time, because this was his mom and dad. This was the home that gave him warmth and strength.
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