Green Donkey carried the Daoist Priestess, who was about to retire into seclusion, along a barely discernible animal trail, moving unhurriedly into the depths of the mountains.
Wei Xun followed behind, dragging his feet and repeatedly glancing back to make sure Baozhu and the others remained within sight.
"Can't you just copy the recipe out for me? I can read some characters now," he complained.
"Be patient. You spent so many years desperately searching for this medicine. You ought to understand the whole story behind it."
Weariness tinged Daoist Qingyang's calm voice as she slowly began, "The story of this Elixir Recipe starts in the ninth year of Tianbao. More than fifty years ago, the Great Tang still enjoyed an age of peace and prosperity unmatched before or since. The peoples of all four frontiers bowed in submission, and song and dance celebrated the peace. One day, your Grandmaster, the Barefoot Daoist, suddenly ordered all four of us down the mountain to complete our final trial before leaving his tutelage. The question posed by that trial was-what is a happy land?"
"The ninth year of Tianbao." Wei Xun frowned, then blurted out after a moment's thought, "That was five years before the An Lushan Rebellion broke out."
Zhou Qingyang nodded slightly. "Yes. It was only when war suddenly erupted five years later that we realized Master had already glimpsed heaven's secrets. The Tang court's strength lay outside its heartland, leaving its center weak; its flourishing age was bound to be broken by foreign rebels. That calamity was inescapable. He mended the roof before the rain, sending us down the mountain early in the hope that we might lessen the suffering of lives trampled underfoot in the coming chaos.
"But we knew nothing of that at the time. Full of enthusiasm,