One day out on the Plainfield, he came across a panicked middle-aged man and, not far off, an old woman lying …
One day out on the Plainfield, he came across a panicked middle-aged man and, not far off, an old woman lying in a wheat field, barely hanging on.
They didn't ask for medicine—he could see, and so could the man, that there was no saving her.
The man asked him for some paper and a brush, but he only had a scrap of cloth in his pack. The old woman took it and, with shaky hands, drew out a recipe. She was already fading, her mind clouded, mumbling over and over about leaving a bowl of noodles for her son back home. As she wrote, her tears soaked the cloth, smearing the charcoal marks. It was a hard, painful farewell. She clearly didn't want to let go.
He realized it was a recipe for locust leaf noodles.