Five-Stone Powder was a powdered Chinese medicine invented by Zhang Zhongjing, the renowned physician of the Eastern Han whom later generations revered as the Sage of Medicine. Its principal ingredients were stalactite, sulfur, white quartz, purple quartz, and red halloysite, hence its name. Hot and drying in nature, it was used to treat cold damage, but no one knew who had first discovered another of its effects: "Taking Five-Stone Powder not only cures illness, but also makes the spirit feel clear and bright." With the endorsement of He Yan, the celebrated handsome man and master of Xuanxue, taking Five-Stone Powder had become fashionable among the great houses of the Wei-Jin era. Supposedly, after taking it, the body alternated between cold and heat, producing a brief, strange pain, after which the mind entered a mystical state of utter self-forgetfulness, floating as though ascending to immortality, transcending the mundane much like the "Free and Easy Wandering" of Zhuangzi-
"Wonderful beyond words, wonderful beyond words!"
After returning to Peach Grove Cottage, Ding Chunqiu was still talking with relish about He Zhu's elegant way of walking off the powder's effects. He even asked Chen Caozhi and Liu Shangzhi whether they wanted to try taking it together.
Liu Shangzhi said, "Five-Stone Powder is very expensive. They say a single dose costs five thousand coins-"
"This isn't a question of whether it's expensive," Chen Caozhi interrupted. "Taking the powder is tantamount to taking poison. Master Zhichuan's Jade Casket Prescriptions mentions its harmful effects. Countless people have broken out in abscesses and sores and died as their flesh ulcerated because they failed to disperse its effects properly. Huangfu Mi, the great scholar of the Wei-Jin era, was himself a skilled physician. He wrote the Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion and was admired by Master Zhichuan. Yet