The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: The Strategist Takes Command

Amid the blood, Rikuson stood ruminating on the past.

The current administrative building was within the Yi clan mansion; in fact, for his office, Gyoku-ou had chosen the very room that Rikuson’s mother had once used.

He lay stabbed to death in the place where he had committed that outrage seventeen years ago. It was almost too perfect.

Rikuson had returned to the western capital on Gyokuen’s orders, but when he had discovered that his immediate superior would be the one man he remembered more clearly than any other, he thought he might go mad. He had endured, however, so that he might honor his sister’s last words. When Gyoku-ou had asked him if he was part of the La clan, Rikuson had gone beyond anger; he found all he could do was laugh. The man he could never forget, it turned out, didn’t remember him at all.

This was the man that Gyokuen had raised as his son, for all his flaws. He might not have a blood connection to his father, but he had the talent to help the western lands grow and be great. Perhaps the only thing to truly regret about him was his sense of inferiority. The realization that he was not Gyokuen’s true child had twisted him.

He had sought, not to make the western lands great, nor to protect them, but to use them as a means of attacking Shaoh. Perhaps he wanted to eradicate the source of his own blood.

That, Rikuson could not overlook.

The stage was too perfect, like it had been set for him.

Rikuson drew out the knife and knelt next to the man Gyoku-ou had killed.

People came rushing in. “What’s going on in here?” one said. Then they saw the bloodstained floor and Rikuson with the two bodies.

“Wh-What in the world is this, Master Rikuson?!” Gyoku-ou’s aide asked. The others with him started chattering noisily. One lady-in-waiting gave a shriek.

“It is as you see,” Rikuson said. “When I entered, he was already dead. I simply found an opportunity to take the knife and killed the traitor in return. It was all I could do.”

“Is this true?” the aide said, eyeing him. Indeed, everyone looked at Rikuson suspiciously.

Of course. It was only natural for them to suspect him. Everyone there knew that Rikuson had been received with little hospitality, and they knew it was possible he was not to be trusted. He would have to play this very, very carefully.

Or, no. Perhaps it would be better to be buried in the same place as his mother and older sister...

The thoughts were hardly through his head when someone said, “He was already murdered when you entered the room. So you killed the rebel—is that not right?”

It was, of all people, Lakan standing there. He looked half asleep and wasn’t even wearing his monocle. Weren’t they in the middle of a state ceremony? What was he doing here?

“Master Lakan. What happened to the ceremony?”

“I was sleepy, so I ducked out.”

Ah, Rikuson thought, it was all over now. There was no hiding anything from Lakan. He had neither good intentions nor bad, but would simply lay out the facts. Rikuson gripped the knife: if he was found out here, it would allow him to die in the same place as his mother and sister.

“You heard the man,” Lakan said to those around them.

“Wh-What do you mean, Grand Commandant Kan?”

“Hrm? He’s telling the truth. He killed the rebel who killed the man. Where’s the crime in that? If anything, this is all your fault for leaving such scant security.”

“Wha?” said the aide, thrown for a loop by this accusation.

“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

There was much murmuring, but the general consensus was that if Grand Commandant Kan said it, then that was that, and everyone began to withdraw. Their suspicion of Rikuson had been dispelled in an instant.

Rikuson wondered, briefly, if he could live with this. Yet at the same time, he was relieved to have kept his promise to his sister.

“We can talk about this later. For now, you had better change,” the aide said to him. The lady-in-waiting who had screamed earlier tremblingly held out a handkerchief to Rikuson. She was slim; Rikuson had seen her several times before.

“Are you here for work, Miss Chue?” he whispered in her ear.

“Aww, how’d you know it was me?” Her face looked completely different, but the voice was that of the cheerful lady-in-waiting.

“He was served up to me on a silver platter. I thought there must have been someone behind it.”

The way nobody came to the office, even though circumstances were suspicious. Yes, Gyoku-ou had told them all to clear out, but it was a bit too convenient.

Rikuson understood: it had been Gyoku-ou’s destiny to die, even if it hadn’t been Rikuson who did it.

“Ohh. Was it too obvious?” Chue asked, but she didn’t deny it. “How’d you know it was me? I changed my hair color and the size of my eyes!”

“It was the shape of your ears. You have the loveliest ears, Miss Chue.”

“Eep! Are you really studying the ears of a married woman that closely?” The voice was Chue’s, but the nervous body language looked like a completely different person. She’d brought Rikuson a change of clothes, while managing to appear thoroughly horrified by the blood all over him.

“Do you think I’m going to meet my end when the physician begins his investigation?” Rikuson asked offhandedly.

“Dr. You is the physician in charge here. He’s a very dedicated worker, but a flexible thinker—and more than anything, he wants the western capital to be peaceful. Miss Maomao, now, she might start digging out of sheer curiosity. And the other two doctors, they’ve got their personal quirks.”

“I see what you mean. I’ll make it my business not to see Maomao again after this.” The thought saddened Rikuson, but there was no avoiding it. He could not take back what he had done.

“Good plan. Oh, and if you would be quiet about me too?” Chue said, not neglecting to hush him up.

“I certainly will. Might I make one request in exchange?”

“What would that be?” Rikuson could hear the distinctive voice clearly in his ear, yet to any onlookers, Chue might not even seem to be moving her lips. Her disguise was nearly perfect; even Rikuson might not have recognized her if they hadn’t spent so many days together in the farming village.

“You collected a little something from the room earlier, didn’t you, Miss Chue?”

She’d been so subtle about it that anyone else might not have noticed. But Rikuson saw that the position of Chue’s hand was a little different after she had entered the room than before.

“Aww, why do you have to be so sharp?” she said. Then she added, “Small Lin is the real victim here, isn’t he?” She was surprisingly frank about it.

“In that case, he must have come here to make some demand on the basis of that stolen thing. Specifically, a family register, yes?”

“Please, don’t say any more. Miss Chue’s head might not stay attached to her shoulders!” Chue said, although she didn’t sound very worried. She was, however, taking care that there was no one else around.

“Might I ask that you dispose of this object you obtained as quickly as possible?” Rikuson did not and would not forgive Gyoku-ou, but neither did he intend to besmirch his memory.

“I’ll have to ask my superiors.”

“It would benefit everyone, getting rid of that thing. What if it became public knowledge that the Empress’s real father was some nobody from nowhere?” Rikuson sensed that Chue already knew the truth.

“I know, I know, it wouldn’t be any fun at all.” She still sounded unruffled, but her face was slightly more tense than before. She must be a very capable spy. Rikuson wondered if she might simply snuff him out, but he liked to think she wouldn’t.

If someone investigated the family register, it was possible that they might uncover Empress Gyokuyou’s true father. One could see who her mother’s previous husband had been, and even if he were dead, his family could be investigated. That would be no good at all.

“Miss Chue knows why this family register is bad news for her, but what makes you want to get rid of it, Mister Rikuson?”

“It’s nothing special. It’s simply, if you make a deal with someone and then their secret is exposed, the deal becomes worthless, doesn’t it?”

He wasn’t doing this for Gyoku-ou—the man who would have foolishly exposed the entire western region to danger. That great mass of inferiority toward Gyokuen.

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.

“Understood! I’ll talk to my superiors about it.” Chue handed Rikuson the change of clothes, and then she went off somewhere, disguise and all.

“It doesn’t seem like she directly serves the Moon Prince,” Rikuson mused, but he wouldn’t pry any deeper. For one thing, he now had a guilty conscience.

Rikuson went back to his room, where he closed the door and knelt down. He desperately wanted to change his bloodied clothes, but his body wouldn’t move.

“I don’t understand. It’s supposed to be over.” Tears began falling from his eyes. Ploop-ploop-ploop. “Am I wrong? Is it only just beginning?”

He sniffled like a crying child. As a grown adult, it was embarrassing—but at that moment he felt his mother and sister watching over him.

What’s more, for some reason, Lakan had covered for him.

“I didn’t lie...but he should have known it wasn’t the truth.”

What an uncharacteristic thing his former boss had done, he thought.

His next thought was that he would go on. In order to protect the western lands, he would live, he would continue to be the wind.