The nineties of the last century. The ninety-year-old pharmacist in Changbai Mountain said: Wolves travel thousands of miles and eat grass!
I was stunned by the old pharmacist with a childish face, and asked puzzledly: Didn't it say that wolves travel thousands of miles to eat meat, and dogs travel thousands of miles to eat?
The old pharmacist said, "When you say this, you are talking about the ability of a wolf and the ability of a dog, that is, the nature of a wolf and the nature of a dog." What I'm saying is that if a wolf wants to live, it has to eat grass even if it travels all over the world.
Wolves eat meat, sheep eat grass. This is the way of heaven. How did it become "wolves travel thousands of miles and eat grass"?
The old man sat on a wooden chair under the gourd trellis and told me the story of "wolves traveling thousands of miles to eat grass".
★ The old pharmacist accidentally saved the she-wolf
One day, the old pharmacist went into the mountains to collect medicine, and saw a she-wolf lying in the forest, dying. The healer was benevolent, but the old pharmacist hated hungry wolves, glanced at the pregnant she-wolf, shook his head and sighed.
After three or five steps, the she-wolf behind him whimpered. The old pharmacist looked back and saw that the she-wolf's eyes were open, as if to pray. The old pharmacist couldn't bear it, knowing that if the she-wolf died, all the wolf cubs in the womb would die, so he squatted on the ground to check her pulse, and then carried the wolf home with a basket on his back, and personally cooked herbs for the wolf to adduce. Three days later, the she-wolf came back to life. Within a month, the she-wolf was back to normal.
Since then, the she-wolf has been nostalgic for the old pharmacist's house, and has followed her family in and out like a dog.
The old pharmacist knew that the she-wolf was still weak and still needed to continue to take medicine for treatment, so he instructed the she-wolf to chew a certain herb raw in the medicine garden according to the characteristics of the beast.
Unexpectedly, the she-wolf is very skillful, picking leaves, chewing stems, and eating grass medicine. The old pharmacist suddenly remembered that his grandfather and father had said that wild animals would search for herbs to eat and cure their own diseases.
After the she-wolf fully recovered, the old pharmacist drove the wolf back to the mountain. The she-wolf is reluctant to give up. The old pharmacist said, after all, you are a wolf, not a dog. If you are in my house, the sick will not dare to come to the door.
The she-wolf was obedient, and although she was reluctant, she finally howled a few times one night and hid in the mountains.
★ There are wolves peeping at the medicine garden
The old pharmacist lived at the west foot of Changbai Mountain, and the fifth generation was a doctor, and the hanging pot helped the world. People come to see a doctor if they have money or not. People who don't have money can dig up some herbs in Changbai Mountain and replace them with medicine.
Changbai Mountain is vast and sparsely populated, located in the cold temperate zone, growing ginseng, codonopsis, sand ginseng and other exotic herbs are innumerable, the world is known as "there is Yunnan-Guichuan in the west, there is Changbai Mountain in the east" said.
The old pharmacist inherited his father's business, sat in the hall in the afternoon for consultation, and got up early in the morning to go into the mountains to collect medicine. Li Shizhen traveled all over the mountains and rivers to collect medicines, and wrote "Compendium of Materia Medica", while the old pharmacist wrote "Changbai Yaotong".
There are many rare medicines in Changbai Mountain that are difficult to pick, so the old pharmacist built a medicine garden, transplanted the scarce herbs on the mountain to the medicine garden, planted in spring and harvested in autumn to make up for the scarcity.
Old pharmacists often find that the herbs in the medicine garden are often looted. One day, I made a covert observation, and finally found that several sika deer had come to eat herbs. They don't eat much each time, and after eating, they leave, and they don't stay or trample. The old medicine man was even more convinced that the beast would also seek out herbs to heal itself.
Soon after, the family reported that the sika deer had not come for a long time, and even the roe deer no longer visited. When the old pharmacist was wondering, the neighbors and the patient told him that it had been common for several wild wolves to sneak around the medicine garden recently, and the gentleman must be careful not to be injured by the hungry wolves.
The old pharmacist suddenly realized: it turned out that the hungry wolf was sick and wanted to eat my herbs. However, the wolf is cunning, and he is afraid that my medicine is poisonous, so he lingers, so that the roe deer and other herbivores do not dare to come to collect herbs.
★ How did the wolf beast know about the medicine garden?
I had a doubt, and I immediately solved it: the Changbai Mountains are vast and full of all kinds of herbs. Since the beast knows herbs, won't they eat casually in the mountains, so why should they risk going to the village medicine garden to steal your herbs?
The old medicine man said that the birds and beasts in the mountains all know the herbs in the mountains. Birds, beasts, and humans, like others, suffer from various diseases in addition to external injuries. Birds and beasts also have their own traditional self-treatment methods, or to bathe in various waters, or mud baths, or to expose the sun to kill viruses and insects.
The cure for diseases in the abdomen is to eat herbs, or branches, or leaves, or flowers, or fruits, or tree bark. In short, birds and beasts know a lot of herbs and eat them on their own.
But some herbs are scarce and not easy to find. However, there are many scarce medicines cultivated in my medicine garden. Come here and you can eat the herbs it needs. Think about it, why don't they come to me?
I asked: birds, beasts and wolves, how do you know that you have the medicine they need?
The old pharmacist smiled and said, "It's very simple." All herbs have a special smell or flowers and fruits of different colors. Beasts have a much more sensitive sense of sight and smell than humans. So they quickly follow the smell.
It's even simpler for birds, they fly in the air, get a bird's-eye view of the ground, and find things extremely easily.
In addition, birds and beasts have words, and they will also transmit information to each other.
★有狼吃草药，有狼糟践草药
The old pharmacist said that at first, the villagers were afraid that wild wolves would hurt me and my family, so they used to gang up to secretly drive wolves for me day and night. After I learned about it, I immediately stopped it: wild wolves are also life, as long as they don't hurt people, then the herbs in the medicine garden, let them eat!
When the wolves found out that the people were no longer driving them, they went to the medicine garden and plundered the herbs to eat. Because they are afraid of being driven away by human muskets, they often eat and spoil at the same time. The herbs that trampled on the ground were distressing.
The old pharmacist said, "I have studied the medicine garden that the wild wolves have fed many times. They prey on herbs that specialize in treating bloating, indigestion and stool. There are also predated grass tips and grass hearts on the grass next to them, indicating that they need a variety of nutrients and weed fibers to help digestion just like humans eat vegetables.
Especially wolves that have eaten a belly full of meat need to be supplemented with grass fiber and certain herbs in time to help digestion. You must know that a wolf can eat twenty or thirty catties of meat in one meal, and then not eat it for a few days. That's why it's called Hungry Wolf. Therefore, after the wolves are full, they need to eat grass in time. That's why I said "wolves eat grass even when they travel thousands of miles".
★ Wolves scuffle for herbs
The old medicine man said that wolves are greedy and domineering. Once a place is occupied, it is seen as its territory.
Ever since the first wolves arrived, my medicine garden has often seen wild wolf scuffles. It was probably that the later wolves also wanted to come to the medicine garden to take medicine to cure the disease, but the wolves who came first were resolutely refused. So wolf wars broke out constantly. The wolves howled every night, and the neighbors were uneasy.
To this end, the villagers organized several expulsion activities to expel wild wolves. Helplessly, the wolf has already regarded my medicine garden as a place to save his life, and he is willing to withdraw? So between wolves and wolves, between men and wolves, there is a constant war.
In fact, I knew that the medicine garden was the culprit, so I uprooted all the herbs with my neighbors. But the wolves who first occupied this place still refused to retreat. In desperation, I had to resort to the last resort - luring the wolf into the house.
★ Lure the wolf into the room to protect the medicine garden
The old pharmacist continued, "The next day, I went to the place where I had collected medicine to save the she-wolf, and let go of my voice and roared. I'm sure she-wolf will be familiar with my voice.
Sure enough, I soon heard the she-wolf's desolate and eager response, and the voice roared as it approached me. Then, the roars of several wolves sounded in the vicinity, some long and some short, some thick and some fine, which made people feel uneasy.
Soon after, the female wolf I had rescued came alive with an arrow and threw herself into my arms, almost knocking me to the ground.
Soon after, eight big wolves came in a row, all of them with fierce eyes, fierce and vicious, and majestic, and I could see that my head broke out in a cold sweat. If the wolves get angry, there will be no scum left to eat in the blink of an eye.
However, the wolves did not attack me, but just watched coldly as the she-wolf was playing like a dog beside me. The she-wolf had enough affection, and only a few short roars. All the wolves who were eyeing me immediately looked at me with a gentle look, and they put their tails between their hind legs, bowed their heads, drooped their ears, and even bowed their heads to the ground to show their submission to me.
I led the wolves back to the Chinese Medicine Hall, and then carefully inspected the herb garden that had been trampled by the wolves.
The old pharmacist said, "I said to the she-wolf, 'There are wild wolves that have invaded my medicine garden and have taken possession of this place. I can't practice medicine anymore. There is no way to find you. If you can't do it, don't be embarrassed, I'll think of another way.
The she-wolf probably understood what I meant, and immediately howled into the air.
The other eight wolves also howled in unison. I know they're saying that this has always been their territory. From tonight onwards, no wolf pack will be allowed to step into it! Otherwise, the Nine Wolves will never agree!
For three nights, wolves howled continuously, but there was no scuffle. Probably just wolf language fighting.
Three days later, no other wolves were heard howling. The next day, I resumed the medicine garden and began to bury roots and seedlings......
I finally understood: In fact, a wolf that eats meat, even if he walks thousands of miles, needs to eat grass!(About the author: Wang Tianxiang, a senior journalist and writer, has published 42 novels and other monographs, written more than 200 episodes of TV dramas, created dozens of special TV films on history, culture, scenery, documentary, etc., published hundreds of articles in various newspapers and periodicals, and published more than 1,000 online articles. ）