A great book with star Number Ten Ox who comes from a village in which the children have been struck by a mysterious illness. He recruits Master Li (who has "a slight flaw in his character") to help find the cure and comes along to provide muscle.

The cure turns out to be the Great Root of Power which unfortunately has been broken into pieces and is located in 3 different places. The cure won't work with just one piece so our intrepid hero must deal with travel through a chinese landscape, deal with characters such as Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub, invisible monsters, maze-filled dungeons that guard incredible treasure and solve a riddle relating to an ancient wrong done to a goddess.