5 4. The Mushroom Boy

{The Past-- December, 1941..., Yunnan China}

A young boy approached Robert Smith. He had a long wooden stick with him, tapping the ground before each step.

Robert observed the boy's careful movement and his face. He realized— the boy was blind.

"Hello," Robert greeted the boy in English.

The boy stopped.

"Tao, speak Chinese to him through me!"

"I don't know how to."

"Just try, please!"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Tell him I am a pilot who got shot down by the Japanese and now trying to go to Kunming."

"Fine," Tao then started to speak in Yunan dialect, louder than usual.

Robert tried to cover his ears since it was so much louder in his head, but by covering them, the voice actually was echoing more.

The boy just stared blankly. He seemed to be thinking.

"I don't think he heard me. I'm only in your head," Tao said.

"Hello, my name is Robert," Robert tried again. He wanted to ask the boy if he knew where Kunming was.

Suddenly, the boy spoke in English. "I can hear your voices in your head. I know some English. I can't see you, though. I am blind and partially deaf."

"Oh Lord in Heaven, he can hear us talking," Tao exclaimed.

"Yes, I know. He just said it himself." Robert said.

The boy then spoke calmly, "Did you eat some snow? I am the first person to discover the magic in the snow you ate."

"What?" Robert was shocked. How did he know he had some snow? He almost forgot about it.

"Do you not know? The snow is the reason you hear voices in your head."

"The ghosts in my head?"

"Yes."

"Well, one of the voices, Tao, he said they died nearby and somehow got attached to a tree, and now attached to me. Like, I'm possessed. I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing here." Robert said this to the boy, but he found what he said ridiculous anyway.

"Yes, their spirts wandered in the mountains and attached to the Great Ancient Tree. The Tree is full of memories and experiences of those spirits. And the snow you ate was from under the Tree. The dew on the tree contained some spirits, too, and they dripped into the snow. So, by eating the snow, you take on the excessive spirits of the Tree."

"I guess we were the excessive spirits in the dew. There have been too many spirits attaching on the tree, we were the overflows," Tao laughed.

"Wow. OK," Robert scratched his head, "I guess that's why I had three voices of spirits in my head?"

"Right. And, if you help each spirit leave you, you can hear all other sprits floating around when you want to."

"Hum," Robert made a noise. He didn't know what to make of all this information. Last night, Tao told him they were ghosts. Robert had since tried to go along and live with that, although he still thought he had suffered some temporary mental disorder.

When Robert was in college taking flight lessons, he had heard that the lack of oxygen in brain or having a concussion could cause some unexplainable illusions. Some people might even have a change in personality.

But nothing was this trippy. What are they going to tell him next? He should have some mushrooms to get high and hear more voices?

At least now he knew, the snow was toxic so he was getting strange hallucination.

The long pause from Robert prompted the boy to explain further, "I am telling you all of this because I experienced the same thing."

"You ate the snow, too?" Robert asked the boy.

"No. I ate some Ganoderma on the tree, which is much more powerful than the snow."

"What's Ganoderma?" Robert asked.

"Ganoderma are like mushrooms. Fleshy fungus growing on a tree," Tao explained for the boy.

Ha, mushrooms! Robert laughed out loud. Just as he suspected, he was hallucinating. If this boy in front of him was for real, then he was probably intoxicated, too. Wow, some really strong fungus got into the snow. That was why the snow tasted so weird.

OK. He had some bad snow. He wondered how long it would take for the effect to die down. Did he even see the Chinese lady who slapped and kicked him?

The boy didn't understand why Robert laughed about the mushroom comment, so he continued, "After eating the Ganoderma of Thousand Years, I could stay warm even in the mountains in the winter. I don't have to sleep anymore. I can sense things from far away even though I am blind. I may get wounded but I would immediately heal. I don't feel pain anymore."

Robert thought about how he didn't feel anything when the Chinese woman hit him.

"I also had some voices in my head after I ate the Ganoderma. That's how I learned English, too. One of the spirits was just like Tao, he studied in London and could speak English. I then helped each spirit's voice leave. I believe because I helped them, I can hear other spirits and gain information that normal people don't know about."

"O-K…," Robert was still skeptical.

But, Robert indeed felt that his body was full of energy and he wasn't cold last night. He also seemed to be able to hear things from a far distance—Similar to what the kid described.

"Kid, what is your name?" Tao asked.

"My name is Chao Jian. Ironically, 'Jian' means to see, but I can't see anymore."

"Well, it sounded like the magical ancient mushroom has made you stronger physically, then why hasn't it helped you regain your vision?" Robert asked. He tried to contain his disbelief in his tone.

"I wondered about that, too. I lost my eyesight and part of my hearing during Japanese's bombing of Chong Qing. That's where I used to live. They've bombed us day in and day out since 1938. I was only 13 then. Some of the bombs were bio-weapons, it had bacteria. I got bad infection after being exposed to the bio-weapons. And that was about three years ago before I came up here and came across the Great Ancient Tree. I can only guess my eyesight is long gone before I had the mushroom."

Robert was now feeling indignant. He wanted to go back to his air base this instant, so he could continue to fight in the war. The Jingoism needed to be stopped.

"So, big brother," the boy smiled, addressing Robert, "Whatever I tell you, you should not tell others. I don't want evil people to come here and steal the Tree. I have since been living here to protect the tree. So far, only me, you, and Mr. Duan know about this secret."

"Who's Mr. Duan?" Robert asked.

"He is a tea farmer who hiked here once and came across me. He pitied that I was an orphan and offered me to live with him and his wife. He wanted to help me. I could see he was a good person, so I told him the secret. I wasn't sure if he believed me, so I told him to take some snow accumulated under the Great Ancient Tree. The dew of the Tree had seeped into the snow, it should have enough power to make him see what I said was true. He did bring a lot of snow with him on his wooden barrel. He said he could use it in his cellar."

"Whoa! I must have been saved by Mr. Duan. I woke up in a cellar with the funky snow."

"Yes. I've been watching over the Tree, and no one had any snow or any part of tree other than Duan. That's why, when I heard the voices of spirits in your head, I believed you must have gotten the snow from Mr. Duan."

"Yeah." Robert nodded.

"How's Mr. Duan?"

"I don't know. I have not seen him." Robert scratched his head.

"Then how did you get the snow?"

"I don't know. I was shot down and the next thing I know, I woke up in a cellar with the snow. Duan must have hidden me there and left."

Robert could guess the boy wanted to find Duan. Although Robert didn't know what happened to Duan, he had a feeling that Duan got in trouble with the Japanese for saving him—The house was empty when he woke up. Duan may never be recovered, just like the boy's eyesight.

Robert felt infuriated thinking about what happened to the innocent civilians in China. He tightened his fists.

Robert said to the boy, "I think the best thing we can do for Duan is to fight against the enemy. I think you should utilize your new skills to fight. And I must go back to my air base. Do you know how to get to Kunming?"