The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 11

There was one reason, and one reason only, that Rikuson wanted to destroy the family register—and that was because he felt a duty to Gyokuen

A high wall, however, appeared in front of Maomao. Thoom. Jinshi had risen from his seat and was standing smack in front of her.

“Yes, sir?” she asked. Jinshi continued to look less than pleased.

“It has come to my attention that this man with whom you claim not to be especially close recently proposed marriage to you.”

At least he was to the point.

Maomao.” She heard Jinshi from the other side of the curtain. “I think things are going to get tiring. I need a charge.” His hand poked through the drapes.

“A charge?” Maomao asked.

She studied the shelf Chue had indicated. She took a mooncake wrapped in paper from a basket on the shelf and pressed it into Jinshi’s hand.

“Huh?!”

The mooncake dropped to the ground. The paper came off and, sadly, it touched the floor. Maomao moved to pick it up, but her right hand was caught by Jinshi’s. She felt his fingers slide between hers as if to make sure she was there. The fact they were both using their right hands made it oddly awkward.

Jinshi’s long fingers pressed into the back of Maomao’s hand, while his palm pressed against hers. She could

For that matter, he did it to himself.

She glowered at that idiot even as she mulled the present circumstances over in her mind. So the people were upset with the Emperor’s younger brother, and Gyoku-ou intervened. He somehow managed to blame everything on the foreigners, and now Jinshi is going to perform some kind of ritual.

Personnel? How do you mean?” True, Gyoku-ou was clearly short-staffed, but just sending in new folks willy-nilly wouldn’t solve the problem. If he wanted more farmers, it would be better to teach the locals than bring in outsiders.

“I need soldiers,” Gyoku-ou said.

“Why? You need help suppressing bandits?”

Food shortages tended to make the gulf between the haves and have-nots especially apparent. As the poor began to starve, they would soon turn to crime. The whole reason Jinshi had hurried to provide extra food was to blunt that possibility, to fill people’s stomachs before they turned to violence.

Gyoku-ou gave Jinshi a smile that verged on a leer. It was an expression one would never have seen from his father. It was the look not of a merchant but of a soldier, of a man less interested in kindness and decency than martial valor.

A bureaucrat behind Gyoku-ou handed him a large piece of paper.

“I’d like you to take a look at this,” Gyoku-ou said, and placed the paper on

and he was taking little glances at Maomao.

“You seem oddly...accepting of that idea,” Jinshi said, looking mildly annoyed.

“No matter what the outcome, the Moon Prince will come home very tired. This calls for a medicinal brew that will whisk away the fatigue—ideally something not too bitter.”

The thought saddened Rikuson, but there was no avoiding it.

Had he really needed a charge? He seemed well in control of this situation.