Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/48

 there came to it frequently a learned man named Lu-yien who was a scholar, a magistrate and an alchemist whose fame has survived in the voluminous manuscripts he has given unto the world. For myself, I would not be worthy of the term drug-merchant had I not committed his works to memory. His grass characters are the very life-blood of alchemy. Thus does he write: 'Would you seek the golden elixir, it is not easy to obtain. The three powers, sun, moon, and stars, must seven times repeat their footsteps; and the four seasons nine times complete their circuit. You must wash it white and burn it red; when one draught will give you ten thousand ages, and you will be wafted beyond the sphere of sublunary things. Everybody seeks long life, but the secret is not easy to find. If you covet the precious things of heaven, you must reject the treasures of earth.'"

Dr. Shen Fu stopped quoting abruptly. "Shall we have some tea?" he asked.

"Tea? Tea?" cried Ah Chow angrily. "This is no time for tea!"

"There is always time for a cup of liquid jade."

"But the elixir! The elixir!"

"It is not for those who gloat over the treasures of earth."

"But I will renounce wealth!"

"It would be more seeming for you to renounce life. Be tranquil. Think of the precepts of the Old Philosopher, 'Life follows upon death. Death is the beginning of life. If, then, life and death are but consecutive states, what need have you to complain?'"

"I am rich," burst out Ah Chow. "I have jades and pearls that an Emperor might cherish, and all will be yours for a Golden Pill of Immortality!"

"When a man owns the sky it is easy to give away stars."

"I fail to understand your meaning."

"Nothing is more involved than simplicity. However, this is no time to indulge in intricately embroidered sentences. When a man knows he is to die it is amazing how much he can accomplish in a short time. He is frugal even with words. Lao Tzu has written indelibly on the minds of our people, 'Govern a country as you would cook a small fish.' Alas, I am not an Emperor, so I cannot govern a country, but I can teach you much about cooking a small fish."

"Fish!" cried Ah Chow in anguish. "What care I for fish when I am dying?"

"They are very nutritious," said Dr. Shen Fu blandly, "but more important to you, is the fact that I shall use a few small fish in an experiment with the Immortal Elixir."

"You would waste that which is a thousand times more precious than jade upon fish!" "For the advancement of alchemy. I would have you view their reactions under intense heat. Let us go into the garden."

N THE garden of the drug shop, a fire had already been lighted under a wrought bronze pot, a pot so huge that it might have contained rice for all the poor of the province. But it was not food that was cooked in its enormous interior but broths to alleviate pain. In one corner of the spacious grounds a herd of deer was fenced off, for the deer supplies many remedies for the pharmacopeia of China. Its skin, horns, bones, hoof and viscera are used.

Dr. Shen Fu led the way to the bronze pot. A fire had already been kindled under it. They mounted a few steps to a platform from which they could get a good view of the interior.

"It is filled with boiling oil," said the Doctor, "to be used in our experiment." A servant came forward carrying a