Chitons

Chitons are rare creatures whose place in the narrative joins folklore, traditional medicine, and the care given to Rong Jinzhen during his illness. Their reported use as a remedy is treated as a belief and a personal hope, not as a confirmed medical cure.

Description and Folklore

The accompanying explanatory note describes Chitons as marine molluscs that survive among mountains and rocks, and characterizes them as a kind of soft-shelled turtle. It also says that they are rare and credited with many medicinal properties. The same note corrects a folk legend that attributes their origin to the mating of a toad and a snake: that story is explicitly identified as false.

Use as a Folk Remedy

In a passage concerning a stomach ailment, the narrator reports that Chitons are considered effective in folk treatment, including for illnesses regarded as incurable. A woman had spent a full day collecting them in the mountains, an effort the passage acknowledges as difficult. The account conveys the narrator’s hope that the creatures might help bring the ailment under control, but does not establish that they did so.

Narrative Significance

Chitons enter the narrative through both a concrete act of care and a cluster of inherited claims. The long search to gather them gives the folk remedy a human cost, while the correction of the legend distinguishes popular explanation from the note’s account of the animal. Their role remains carefully bounded: they represent a hoped-for treatment in the face of illness, not evidence of a successful cure.