The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 2 (Light Novel)

This time, he wouldn’t lose.

He rolled up his sleeves and began setting out his pieces.

The woman named Fengxian had her pride as a courtesan if nothing else. Perhaps it was because she had been born in a brothel. She sometimes said that she had no mother, only a woman who bore her—for in the pleasure district, courtesans could not be mothers.

Their acquaintance continued for years and years, and during their meetings they would focus on one thing only: playing Go or Shogi. Gradually, though, they saw each other less frequently. As accomplished courtesans grew more popular, they also became more reluctant to take customers, and Fengxian was no exception.

Fengxian was intelligent, but flinty and hard; this might not have appealed to most people, but there was a small cadre of diehards who ate it up. Perhaps there’s no accounting for taste.

Her price kept going up, until it was all he could do to see her once every few months.

Once when he went to the brothel to see her after a long absence, he found her painting her nails, looking as disinterested as ever. Red balsam flowers and some thin grass sat on a plate in front of her. When he asked what the latter was, she replied, “It’s cat’s paw.” A plant with medicinal properties, evidently, useful to counteract bug bites and some poisons.

Interestingly, balsam and cat’s paw shared an unusual characteristic: if you so much as touched the ripe seed pods, they would burst and send seeds everywhere. He picked up one of the yellow flowers, thinking that maybe he would try touching one the next time he had a chance, just to see what happened—when Fengxian said, “When will you come next?”

How strange—this from the woman who only ever sent the most impersonal notices to remind him her services were available.

“Another three months on.”

“Very well.”

Fengxian told an apprentice to clean up her manicure supplies, then began setting up a game of Shogi.

It was about that time that he first heard talk of Fengxian’s contract being bought out. Sometimes the price had little to do with a courtesan’s perceived value: some people would drive up the amount simply because they didn’t like one of the other bidders.

He had managed to earn some promotions in the military, but meanwhile, his position as heir to his family’s fortune had been usurped by a younger half-brother, and the bidding ultimately became impossible for him to keep up with.

So, what to do?

An awful idea entered his head, but he immediately snuffed it out.

It would have been unimaginable to actually do it.

Another three months, another trip to the brothel, and now Fengxian sat before him with two game boards ready to play, one of Go, one of Shogi.

The first words out of her mouth were: “Perhaps a wager today?”

If you win, I’ll give you anything you like. And if I win, I’ll take something I want.

“Choose your game.”

It was Shogi at which he held the upper hand—yet when he sat, it was in front of the Go board.

Fengxian dismissed her apprentice, saying she wished to focus on the game.

He didn’t know which of them had been victorious, but the next thing he knew their hands were intertwined. There were no sweet nothings from Fengxian. Nor did he feel compelled to offer any vapid words of sentiment. In that respect, perhaps, they were alike.

He heard Fengxian, cradled in his arms, whisper, “I want to play Go.”

Personally, he had been thinking about some Shogi.

The misfortune began after that. The uncle with whom he had been so close was dismissed from his position. The man never had known how to play the game, and Lakan’s father declared the uncle a disgrace to the family. The uncle’s misadventure had not in fact done any harm to the family, but Lakan now found himself persona non grata for having been too close to him; he was told to go on a long trip and not come back for a while.

He could have ignored this, but it would only have been a headache later. His father was in the military, too, making him not just a parent but a superior officer. At last, he wrote to the brothel saying he would return in half a year’s time. This was after he had received a letter saying the contract buy-out had fallen through.

Thus, for a time, he labored under the impression that all would be well.

Little did he imagine that it would be some three years before he came back.

When he finally returned home, he found a mountain of letters had been tossed carelessly into his dust-choked room. The branches tied to them were withered and dry, making the passage of time painfully evident.

His gaze fell on one letter that showed signs of having been opened. It was full of all the familiar banalities—but in the corner of the letter, there was a dark-red stain. He glanced into the half-open pouch beside the letter. It, too, was stained.

He opened the pouch to discover what looked like two small twigs, or maybe lumps of clay. One of them was tiny; it looked delicate enough to crush in his hand.

He was too late realizing what they were: he had ten of them himself. This gave new meaning to the term “pinky swear.”

He rewrapped the two twigs and shoved them back into the pouch, then raced for the pleasure district as fast as his horse would carry him.

When he reached the brothel, which he found looking substantially more dilapidated than when he had seen it last, there were only Go stones there. There was no one who resembled balsam, although a woman came at him with a broom. It was the old madam; he could tell by her voice.

Fengxian was no longer there: that was the only thing the madam said to him. A courtesan who’d been abandoned by two important prospects, had dragged the name of her establishment through the mud, and was no longer trusted by anyone had no choice but to turn tricks like a common harlot. Did he not grasp what happened to such women?

A little thought might have revealed the answer, but his head was full of Go and Shogi and nothing else, and he had been unable to arrive at the truth. Throwing himself on the ground and crying, heedless of onlookers, wouldn’t turn back time.

It was all his fault for being so impulsive. All of it.

Lakan sat up abruptly in bed, gripping his still-throbbing head. He recognized the room he was in. Somewhere with a fragrant but not overpowering incense.

“Are you awake now, sir?” someone said gently. A face like a white Go stone appeared before him. He recognized her from the voice.

“What am I doing here, Meimei?”

Yes, he knew this courtesan of the Verdigris House. She’d been Fengxian’s apprentice long ago; the one Fengxian had ordered out of the room, in fact, if he recalled correctly. He’d seen her as an apprentice tentatively toying with Go stones from time to time, and so he had humored her with the occasional game. She always acted all embarrassed when he told her she was a pretty good player.

“A messenger from some noble brought you here and left you. My word, but you were a mess. I don’t know whether your face was more red or blue!”

Meimei was more or less the only courtesan at the Verdigris House who would entertain him. It was always her room to which he was shown on his visits.

“I sure didn’t think I’d end up this way.” He’d assumed that if his daughter was drinking it, the alcohol couldn’t be that strong. Then again, Lakan had never been very conversant with different types of alcoholic drink. Just a single swallow of this stuff had been enough to set his throat on fire. He grabbed a carafe of water from the bedside and drank lustily.

A bitter flavor spread through his mouth, and he spat the water out before he knew what he was doing. “Wh—What is this swill?!”

“Maomao prepared it,” Meimei said. He presumed she was smiling, for she covered her mouth with her sleeve. The drink was probably intended as a hangover cure, but the way it was delivered implied a touch of malice. Was it strange that, even so, he couldn’t keep a grin from his face?

Beside the carafe was a paulownia-wood box.

“Well, would you look at that...”

He had sent it along with a letter a long time ago, jokingly, as if it were loot. He opened it to find a single dried rose. He hadn’t realized it would retain its shape so well despite having dried out. He thought of his daughter, who reminded him of woodsorrel—cat’s paw.

After those long-ago events, he had come knocking on the door of the Verdigris House again and again, each time to be met with the madam’s recriminations. There’s no baby here, go on home, she would shout as she thrashed him with the broom. She could be terrifying indeed.

Once, as he was sitting, exhausted, with blood dribbling down the side of his head, he noticed a child rooting around nearby. There had been grasses with some sort of yellow flowers growing by the building. When he asked the child what she was doing, she said she was going to turn the grass into medicine. Instead of the Go stone he expected to see, he perceived an emotionless face.

The girl set off running with two handfuls of grass. She was heading for someone who walked with a limp like an old man. And his face, which might have been expected to look like a Go stone, instead looked like a Shogi tile. And not simply a pawn or a knight, but a dragon king, a powerful and important piece.

He knew now who it was who had opened the one letter out of all those he had received, and the dirty pouch. For here was his uncle Luomen, who had disappeared after being banished from the rear palace. The girl with the cat’s paw went trotting about after him; he called her Maomao.

Lakan pulled out the dirty pouch. It was even more worn than it used to be, since he carried it with him at all times. He knew the two twig-like objects would still be inside, wrapped in paper.

Maomao’s hand had looked unsteady as she moved her tiles. Partly that could have been because she didn’t play the game much. But partly it was because she was playing with her left hand. When he had looked at the red-colored fingertips, he had noted that her pinky finger on that hand was deformed.

He couldn’t blame her for hating him. Not considering all he had done. But even so, he wanted to put himself near her. He was tired of a life of nothing but Go stones and Shogi tiles. That had given him the incentive he had needed to steal back his birthright, to expel his half-brother, and to adopt his nephew as his own. Then, in the course of much negotiating with the old madam and over some ten years, he had successfully paid off an amount of money equivalent to two times the damages.

It must have been around that time that he was finally allowed back into the rooms. Meimei naturally took on the role. Perhaps she was paying him back for teaching her Shogi all those years before.

Lakan continued to visit, time and time again, because the only thing he wanted was to be with his daughter. Unfortunately, one talent Lakan decidedly lacked was the ability to grasp how other people were feeling, and again and again the things he did seemed to backfire.

He tucked the pouch back among the folds of his robe. Maybe it was time to give up, at least this time. Somehow, though—call it stubbornness—he couldn’t bring himself to let the matter drop completely.

And besides, he didn’t like the man in her company. He stood much too close to her, and during their match, he had touched her shoulders no fewer than three times. Lakan had been peevishly pleased to see his daughter brush the hand away each time, though.

All right, how to make himself feel a little better? Lakan picked up the carafe and drank down the foul-tasting medicine. However disgusting it might have been, his daughter had made it herself.

Maybe he would spend some time deciding how to knock the bug off his flower. His thoughts were interrupted when the door flew open with a slam.

“Finally had enough sleep, have we?” a Go stone cried hoarsely. He could tell from the voice that it was the old madam. “So you’re looking to buy one of my girls, are you? You ought to know by now that a couple of thousand silver isn’t going to cut it.”

Still a skinflint, as ever. Lakan held his pounding head, but a wry smile appeared on his face. He put on the monocle (which he only wore for effect). “Try ten thousand. And if that’s not enough, how about twenty or thirty? Admittedly, a hundred might be a bit of a stretch.” Lakan winced inwardly as he spoke. They weren’t small sums, even in his position. He would have to beg from his nephew for a while; the boy had some side businesses he ran.

“Well, all right. Come this way, and make it snappy. I’ll even let you choose, whichever one you like.” He let the madam lead him into the main room of the brothel, in which there stood a whole row of gaudily attired Go stones. Even Meimei was mixed in among them.

“Hoh, I could even pick one of the Three Princesses?”

“I said whichever one you liked, and I meant it,” the madam veritably spat. “But you can expect to pay for it.”

Even with this dispensation to choose freely, Lakan faced a unique problem. However fancy the girls’ dresses, to him they all looked like nothing more than Go stones. He could practically hear the women smiling. He could smell their sweet fragrances. And the kaleidoscope of colors that was their outfits nearly blinded him. But that was all. He felt nothing more than that. None of them moved Lakan’s heart.

He had been told to choose, though, so choose he must. Once he had purchased the girl, he could do as he pleased with her. He had enough money to keep a lady, and if she was unhappy with that, then he would give her some cash and set her free to do as she wished. Fine; surely that would be fine.

With that in mind, he turned toward Meimei. He supposed it was guilt that induced her to be so kind to him. If she hadn’t left them that day, perhaps none of this would have happened. It would be well and good, he thought, to reward her decency.

At that moment, Meimei spoke. “Master Lakan.” He could hear a small smile in her voice. “You must know I have my courtesan’s pride. If I am your desire, then I will have no hesitation.” So saying, she pattered over to the great window that looked onto the courtyard and opened it. The curtain fluttered, and a few stray flower petals drifted into the room. “But if you’re going to choose, then choose with your eyes open.”

“Meimei, I didn’t give you permission to open that window!” the madam exclaimed, rushing to close it again.

But Lakan had already heard it, distantly. Laughter. Like a courtesan’s chuckle, but somehow more innocent. He thought he caught the words of a child’s song.

His eyes widened.

“What is it?” the madam asked suspiciously. Lakan gazed out the ornate window. The singing drifted to them in snatches. “What are you doing?!” Becoming increasingly agitated, she tried to grab his hand.

But she was too late. He jumped out the window and hit the ground running, dashing single-mindedly toward the source of the voice. He had never regretted his failure to exercise more bitterly than he did at this moment. Yet he ran on, even as his legs threatened to buckle underneath him.

For all the times he had been to the Verdigris House, he had never been to this particular part of it: a small building, almost a storage shed, at a distance from the main house. He could hear the song coming from within.

Trying to keep his heart from pounding clear out of his chest, Lakan opened the door. He caught a distinctive odor of medicine.

Inside was an emaciated woman. Her hair ringed her head but had no luster, and her arms lay atop her like withered branches. She reeked of illness. And there was something else: her left ring finger was deformed. Lakan could only stare in amazement. He realized then that he felt something on his cheeks.

Gaoshun explaining this, that, and the other thing, Maomao felt a peculiar prickling along her neck. She shot a glance behind her to discover

Gaoshun explaining this, that, and the other thing, Maomao felt a peculiar prickling along her neck. She shot a glance behind her to discover

Gaoshun explaining this, that, and the other thing, Maomao felt a peculiar prickling along her neck. She shot a glance behind her to discover

Gaoshun was in the room along with Maomao, as was a lady-in-waiting in the first flush of old age. They were the only ones allowed here, and Maomao could understand why. A woman might be driven mad with lust by what Maomao was currently seeing, and even a man might forget the boundaries of gender. This esteemed personage, she concluded, could be downright sinful.

He’s like a bug in heat. Some female insects produced exotic scents to attract mates. A single female could draw dozens or hundreds of males. Maomao herself had been known to take advantage of this characteristic to collect insects she needed as ingredients.

From that perspective, Jinshi’s constitution might be considered extremely interesting. If I could capture that subtle aroma and turn it into an incense, I bet it would sell. Such was the mindset with which Maomao regarded her potential love-potion ingredient—ahem, that is to say, Jinshi. It was an unfortunate fact that when Maomao was focused on a particular thought, something not having to do with the situation at hand, her attention tended to wander from the present moment. It frequently prevented her from following conversations going on around her, a tendency that was compounded by her habit of nodding along whether or not she was actually listening.

“If you wish, I shall have a new room prepared for you.”

Huh?

Jinshi, looking inordinately pleased with himself, was requesting more porridge from Suiren. She was one of just a few ladies-in-waiting ever to have served Jinshi. From her looks, Maomao guessed she was well past fifty. Suiren’s face remained impassive as she doled out a new bowl of porridge, topping it with black vinegar.

Maomao hadn’t exactly followed the conversation, but Jinshi seemed to be saying that he was willing to give her a nicer room; that much she understood. Then, though, her eyes met those of Gaoshun, who had his head in his hands again. Jinshi’s ever-weary aide seemed to want to communicate something to Maomao, but she only cocked an eyebrow in response.

If he wants to tell me something, he has to say it, she thought. I’m not a mind reader. She refrained from saying this out loud, though, because she knew that she herself frequently failed to be articulate enough.

“Perhaps a stable near a well, then,” she offered, and there it was: her true desire was out in the open.

“A stable,” Jinshi repeated.

“Yes, sir. A stable.”

She had been assigned a relatively nice room for the quarters of a live-in maid, but there was no getting around the fact that it was still a little cramped. Really no bigger than her quarters in the rear palace. The difference was that at the Jade Pavilion she had been able to ask for permission to use the kitchen, and combined with the abundance of available resources, producing her concoctions had been a simple matter—all of which had taken the sting out of the size of her accommodations.

What to do, what to do? Maomao regarded the paulownia chest she’d placed carefully on top of her wicker trunk. Tucked inside the chest, which was sealed with a silk cord, was the herb that grew from an insect. It was called dong chong xia cao—winter worm, summer weed—otherwise sometimes known as caterpillar fungus, and Jinshi had brought it with him along with the money when he came to the pleasure district. The mere sight of it had induced Maomao to sign the contract without a moment’s further reflection, but now she wondered if she had let herself go too cheaply. She could never have overcome her desire for this uncanny herb, though.

She opened the lid and looked at the fungus within, and an unconscious smile spread over her face. It turned to a grin, and her cheeks veritably started to twitch.

No, no, must stop. The day before, she’d let the twitch turn into such a great yawp that her neighbors two rooms over had come pounding on her door to object. Apparently you weren’t supposed to go shouting in the middle of the night. Allegedly, people were trying to sleep or something.

Maomao pressed her fingers into her cheeks to relax the smile, then lay down on her bed. A serving woman’s work started early, even before the cock crowed. The person she served might have been missing something very important, but he was still gorgeous and still of high station. One ought not to displease him.

Maomao pulled up her thin sheet along with several layers of outer clothing that doubled as bedding and closed her eyes.

“Is your current room not somewhat small?” the gorgeous eunuch inquired over breakfast.

Maomao blinked, then replied, “I dare say it’s more than generous for a serving girl like me.” Even she understood that she could hardly voice her true feelings. (“Yes, it damn well is small. If possible, I’d like to request a room with a generous fireplace, located next to a well.”)

“You mean it?”

This time she simply didn’t say anything.

The eunuch had just woken up and hadn’t entirely made himself up for the day yet as he enjoyed his breakfast. His otherwise tousled hair was held back with a simple tie. It was a bit problematic, how lurid it looked.

The ladies of the outer court were something like secretaries. Cleaning was certainly not part of their portfolio, and there was no need for them to do it. But that didn’t mean they shouldn’t. The government had ceased to own slaves during the time of the former Emperor, and bureaucrats began hiring menservants and maidservants to do odd chores instead.

Maomao was now such a maidservant, serving directly under Jinshi.

In Maomao’s experience, women who served in the rear palace were widely referred to as palace women, while those who worked in the outer court were frequently called court ladies. She might or might not have been exactly right about that, but it was a distinction Jinshi and others like him seemed to observe when they spoke.

All right, what’s next? She turned toward Jinshi’s office. The room was large but not luxurious; in fact, it was quite spare. Its chief occupant was a busy man; once he left his office, he rarely returned to it quickly. That made it easier for Maomao to do the cleaning, but there was one problem.

“Excuse me, but what precisely do you think you’re doing?”

She registered that a number of unfamiliar ladies had surrounded her. They were all bigger than Maomao; one among them stood a full head taller than her.

The better they eat, the bigger they get, Maomao thought, her glance unconsciously taking in both the girls’ height and their bustlines. The one who had spoken to her was noticeably tall, implying an excellent upbringing.

“Are you listening to me?” the woman demanded while Maomao entertained these somewhat untoward thoughts.

In a word, the ladies were upset that Maomao was serving Jinshi personally; they wanted to know why she should have received such a privilege. Unfortunately, she wasn’t privy to the inner workings of Jinshi’s mind; she only knew that he had hired her. If Maomao had been a well-connected foreign gentlewoman like Gyokuyou, or if she had been as luscious as Lihua or as sexy as Pairin, no one would have objected, nor would they have had grounds to. But Maomao looked like nothing more than a scrawny, befreckled chicken. The girls couldn’t stand it. It drove them mad to see Maomao by the side of the gorgeous eunuch; they would have given anything to trade places with her.

Hrm, Maomao thought, what to do now? She was hardly the world’s fastest talker; often, in fact, she would think hard but ultimately leave her mouth shut. But silence seemed likely to irritate these ladies as much as anything Maomao might actually say.

Her chuckling older sister looked a bit like the old madam who ran the place, Maomao reflected. A girl had to look out for herself to survive in this line of work.

Ultimately, Maomao found herself sent on her way with a large bundle packed to bursting with clothing and cosmetics. She worked her way back to her simple house, stumbling under the load.

The day when the gorgeous noble had appeared in the pleasure district two weeks after Maomao’s departure from the rear palace was still fresh in her memory. The eunuch, with his very particular proclivities, had—thankfully—heard the words Maomao had spoken half in jest and taken them in earnest. He had confronted the madam with more than enough money to cover Maomao’s debts and had even had the decency to bring a rare medicinal herb as a gift. It hadn’t taken even thirty minutes to stamp the contract.

So it was that Maomao was to resume her employment at that most renowned of workplaces. She was somewhat reluctant to leave her father again to go live in her place of employment, but the conditions imposed by her new contract were, as far as she could tell, much more lenient than before. Moreover, this time, she wouldn’t be simply disappearing without a trace. Her father had told her with a gentle smile to do what she wished, but then his face had briefly darkened when he looked at her contract. What had that meant?

You’ve got a plum job now. Save up all the money you can make.” The wood-strip-flinging woman of a moment ago was gone, replaced by Maomao’s sweet, caring older sister. She stroked Maomao’s cheek with a manicured hand, tucking some errant hair behind her ear.

Ten months before, Maomao had been kidnapped and sold into service as a maid in the rear palace. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that after successfully making her way back to the pleasure district, she would once again go to work there. To those around her, it must have seemed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hence the stern look in Meimei’s eyes.

“Yes, Sister,” Maomao said obediently after a moment, and Meimei smiled her graceful courtesan’s smile.

The rapid change in the eunuch’s expression from annoyance to amusement reminded her how immature he could seem. But then again, she found him easier to talk to that way, she thought, as she rocked in his arms.