The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Small Lin

Maomao surveyed the map, which was now covered in writing. “I think we filled in most of the places we’re sure about.” They’d divined the significance of about half of the pieces, and what they saw conveyed how much the town had changed.

“The Moon Prince has a visitor and can’t join us. He’s with Vice Minister Lu from the Board of Rites,” Onsou informed them when he returned. His tardiness in getting back seemed to be explained by the thick book clutched under his arm—he must have gone to get it. Presumably it belonged to the freak strategist.

“Vice Minister?” Maomao wasn’t especially well-versed in formal titles. She vaguely remembered this one having appeared on the court ladies’ service exam, but she’d forgotten what exactly the position entailed. The name, she thought she recognized as one that Dr. You had mentioned.

“He’s basically the second-most-important person on the Board of Rites,” Chue whispered in Maomao’s ear. “Any ceremonial functions the Moon Prince might perform here will need somebody important like that.”

“I see.” She didn’t know what business might have brought Vice Minister Lu to visit Jinshi, but she figured they could manage this without him.

“Man, what’s keeping that guy?” Lihaku asked, looking out past the mosquito netting at the setting sun. “It’s been more than half an hour already. I knew I should’ve gone with him.”

“You’re not wrong. Small Lin is just a visitor. With the way he looks, I’ll bet one of the guards stopped him,” Chue said. She and Lihaku were known around the mansion, and nobody gave them any problems. But if Small Lin had left the premises...

“Maybe I should have gone instead,” Maomao said—but she soon realized she was wrong.

“Fwaaah,” yawned the monocled old fart, finally waking from his alcohol-induced slumber. “G’morning... Oh, I must still be dreaming. I can see Maomao.” Onsou offered his torpid master a wake-up drink. His beloved juice, presumably. “Hrm?! That is Maomao!”

“Ugh. Here we go.”

Oops. Had she said that out loud?

She wished she could just ignore the strategist, but then they would never learn what they needed to know, so instead she made a row of snack trays between the two of them. “You are not allowed to go beyond this line,” she said.

“Wow-ee! That’s like something my big sister Maamei would come up with!” She must have done something similar to Chue’s father-in-law, Gaoshun.

Maomao had the Shogi board placed in front of the freak. “I have no idea whether to expect an answer from you, but I’m going to ask. Specifically, my question concerns the western capital seventeen years ago. If this is the Yi clan mansion, and this building diagonally down from it is Master Gyokuen’s residence, do you know what the other pieces would signify? Ah, I thought not. Thanks anyway.”

“Um, the old fart hasn’t answered yet,” Lihaku said, not hesitating to use the name “old fart” right in front of the old fart.

The old fart, however, seemed unperturbed. Indeed, the fox-like gleam in his eyes grew even sharper, and he reached toward the board with hands that bore the distinctive calluses of a Shogi player.

“This Pawn here, this would be the Shogi dojo. The one underneath it—there was this store that sold Shogi and Go supplies.”

“Master Lakan has a steel-trap memory for things that happen to interest him,” Onsou explained helpfully.

“Huh. Is that so?” Maomao replied, as uninterested as could be.

“This dragon is a restaurant. If you could beat the owner at a game of Shogi, your meal was free. But after three free meals, they cut me off.”

The strategist was downright voluble now. It was beginning to become clear that the places Big Lin had indicated were mostly related somehow to Shogi.

Maomao couldn’t help thinking If only this guy had his act together...

“This Knight, I’m not sure about. This Promoted Gold too.” Those two locations alone seemed to elude the strategist.

“One of them seems to be a shrine. The other is somewhere in the residential district, so maybe it’s where the game records were first found,” Chue said, circling the locations on the map.

“I guess that makes the shrine the only other suspicious place, then,” Lihaku said.

Just when it felt like they were finally about to figure out some answers, the strategist started looking around, his eyes sweeping the room.

“What’s the matter, sir?” Onsou asked.

“Where’s Small Lin?” the strategist demanded.

“He went to fetch an old map.”

“Hrm.”

How unusual for the strategist to show any interest in another person.

I might have expected him to ask about Big Lin, maybe, but Small Lin... Maomao thought. Then she repeated to herself, “Small” Lin...

She smacked the Shogi board, causing everyone to look at her in surprise. “What’s wrong?” Lihaku asked.

Maomao jumped to her feet and scowled at the freak strategist. There were those in the world who possessed rare talent, but let it go to waste. “The ‘small’ of Small Lin,” she said, her gaze still fixed squarely on the freak. “May I take it that it means ‘bad’? Is that why you call him that?”

“Well, yes. Maomao, I don’t really know the difference between good people and bad, he just strikes me as a liar.”

Maomao, still frowning, sat back down. “Why didn’t you say that?”

“Well, what’s it got to do with me?”

Ah, yes. There was the strategist she knew.

Everyone else in the room sat in stunned silence. Then a hesitant voice came from the entrance. “Ahem. Pardon me for interrupting when you’re in conference...” Judging by his uniform, the newcomer was one of the freak strategist’s subordinates.

“Yes? What is it?” asked not the freak, but Onsou.

“There seems to be someone at the administrative office who claims to be looking for a missing member of their family.” The soldier stole a glance at Big Lin, who was still sleeping in a corner of the room. “His description matches that of an old man dragged here by Master Lakan yesterday...”

The silence grew even more stunned, and then another soldier appeared at the door. “Master Lakan, there’s been a fire at the west shrine. I’ve already dispatched a firefighting squad to take care of it.”

The freak’s subordinates really were all highly capable people. They didn’t even need their boss to tell them to do what was appropriate and necessary.

The missing family member was Big Lin. The burning shrine was the one they had just concluded would be worth investigating.

It was almost satisfying, in its own perverse way, to have been so thoroughly played.

Nobody knew who had set these events in motion. At the moment, all they knew was that whoever it was, they seemed to be two steps ahead.

They relocated their conference to Jinshi’s chambers, where the three of them—Maomao, Chue, and Lihaku—now knelt meekly. They’d thought the freak strategist might follow them, but Big Lin had woken up from his nap, so the Shogi game had resumed.

“I can only offer my humblest apologies,” Maomao said. She and the others had their heads pressed to the ground in abject apology, and Chue was even dressed in a white robe as if prepared to disembowel herself at any moment.

“Er, Chue... There will be no need for that,” Jinshi said. With evident relief, Chue promptly changed back.

In short, “Small Lin” didn’t exist. There was a man who claimed to be a relative of Big Lin’s, but he was a different person, someone who didn’t look all that much like Small Lin.

“Small Lin” kidnapped Big Lin during the insect swarm, then took advantage of the fact that Big Lin isn’t coherent to pose as a relative to try to get close to the freak strategist.

He’d certainly pulled the wool over Maomao’s, and everyone else’s, eyes. He was such a diligent caretaker to Big Lin that he looked like he’d been doing it for a long time. What was worse, he seemed to be aware of the strategist’s ability to see through lies, and he knew that as long as the old fart had a worthy opponent to play Shogi with, he would focus on that instead of on Small Lin’s deception.

If he hadn’t known about the special qualities that creature possessed, then he had been extraordinarily lucky—and if he had, then he was a master tactician himself.

Big Lin was now with his real family. The man who had come asking after him had been accompanied by a young woman—his wife or daughter, perhaps—who was Big Lin’s actual nurse. Maomao and company were glad to discover that Big Lin hadn’t been abused and abandoned the way Small Lin had described, but judging by the state of the visitors’ clothing, the part about the family falling on hard times had been true.

They were with Big Lin now, keeping an eye on him as he played Shogi.

Maomao was frustrated. She knew that having the freak strategist around would only see them veering off topic at every opportunity. She intended to explain the situation to Jinshi, thoroughly and completely, and only then bring in the strategist to get his story.

If the old fart would’ve just told us, she thought, but there was no predicting what he’d do. She wasn’t even sure what it was that had tipped him off that Small Lin was a villain. He had done a superb job of looking completely harmless.

He took such convincing care of Big Lin. I wonder if he actually does have nursing experience. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how he had deceived all of them so completely. If it was just a performance, it was a very good one. Even Chue had been taken in—not something Maomao would have expected, even if someone managed to trick herself and Lihaku.

“He even fooled you, Chue?” Jinshi asked.

“Yes, and I’m so embarrassed! In my family home, a little beating wouldn’t be enough to make up for a screwup like this!” She mimed copious weeping.

Is Chue’s family that ruthless? Maomao wondered. She’d assumed it must have been a very laissez-faire place to produce a free spirit like Chue—but that was all it had been. An assumption.

“What’s done is done,” Jinshi said. “But please, describe this person to me.”

“You didn’t see him, Master Jinshi?” Maomao asked.

“Only a glimpse of his face. I had a visitor and had to come straight back to my room.”

Fair enough—the Emperor’s younger brother wouldn’t normally stand around and chat with a random commoner.

“But you’re done entertaining now, sir?”

“Yes. When I mentioned that Sir Lakan was about, the man looked slightly ill and went home. Apparently Sir Lakan and Vice Minister Lu don’t entirely get along. The vice minister was advising me on what we should do about the ceremonies we had planned for this visit.”

Is there anyone who does get along with the old fart? Who really knew how to cope with the monocled freak?

“I want to know everything about this man. How he acted, what he was like,” Jinshi said—not to Maomao, but to Chue.

“Yes, sir. He was a completely and totally normal man. His facial features suggested a hint of foreign blood, but otherwise, he had no distinguishing characteristics at all. Maybe it would help if I described him as being a lot like Lahan’s Brother?”

Ahh...

Maomao thought that actually made sense. No wonder this guy had been able to blend in so readily. He wasn’t given to outbursts like Lahan’s Brother was, but he shared the other man’s ability to just go about his business, never really standing out. And they had the exact same quality of put-upon-ness.

“One thing about them really stands out,” Maomao said.

“Oh yes, for sure,” Chue said.

Then they chorused: “The way you can’t seem to remember their faces!”

“I will try, though!” Chue said. “I’ll see if I can do a likeness.” She immediately produced a brush and started painting, and soon had a portrait that captured Small Lin’s salient characteristic of having no real salient characteristics. Maomao assumed the portrait would be shown to Big Lin’s family.

“All right. And what kind of man do you think he was? You can give me your personal opinions; I’ll take anything.” This time, Jinshi’s gaze took in Maomao and Lihaku as well.

“If I may, then, sir,” Lihaku said. “I mostly agree with Miss Chue. This guy was totally ordinary. But he also seemed to really know what he was doing with Big Lin.”

“He was accustomed to his role, you mean? Was his performance really that good?”

“It was more than that. It’s like, I’m not sure most people would know how to work that well with an old guy. You don’t usually think of men taking care of their elderly relatives anyway, right? It’s usually their wife or sister.”

Maomao nodded. In Li, men stood above women in the social hierarchy. The impulse only seemed stronger here in I-sei Province, where women or brides were frequently viewed as nothing more than tools. Witness the fact that it wasn’t the man who’d come looking for Big Lin who was caring for him, but the woman he’d brought with him.

“And what do you think, Maomao?”

“I agree with the others. However, if he has indeed been searching for Big Lin’s old letters and papers the way we are, then I think we can assume he’s been doing it far longer than we have.” Either Small Lin himself, or perhaps a compatriot, had been staking out Big Lin.

“Yes, that would be reasonable,” said Jinshi.

He didn’t seem to be actively searching for the cache so much as keeping watch to see if anyone else would find it. It seemed like an awfully roundabout way to get what he claimed to want. If nobody found the papers, fine. Small Lin just didn’t want them discovered.

“Do you think it’s safe to assume that there was something so damaging in those materials that he wanted to eliminate them, even if it carried a considerable risk?” Maomao asked.

“To the point of deliberately making contact with Sir Lakan?”

“When you can’t predict what someone is going to do, when they finally do act, it can be earth-shattering.”

“Ahh.” Jinshi nodded quickly. Lakan did have a gift for jinxing things.

So whatever it is, he doesn’t want it to be found. Secret accounts, maybe? No, wait. What would that have to do with the compiling of a history?

“I wonder what could be worth that kind of risk,” Lihaku said.

“Maybe it has to do with the Yi rebellion,” Chue suggested.

“If he doesn’t want it to be found, then I think it’s safe to figure that whatever’s in there isn’t something he wants to know, but something he already knows,” said Maomao.

If he went out of his way to burn the library, it must really be something he doesn’t want getting out. Maomao found herself pondering why Small Lin might have deliberately set fire to the books. Hadn’t he considered the possibility that the destruction might not be complete if Maomao and the others came right away?

What if he only pretended to burn them?

If the books were burned, their pursuers might give up—but they might also try desperately to decode any remaining fragments of text. There were no guarantees that fire would consume everything, after all.

What if he only absconded with what he needed?

What was it that Small Lin needed, then? Maomao thought about it so hard that her head started to spin.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door flew open. “Maomao! I wooon!”

“Yeah, great.”

If only he’d warned them about Small Lin like a normal person would have... But no, it was no use being angry. The freak strategist had told her that he hadn’t said anything about Small Lin being a bad guy because no one had asked him. Well, she would try asking him a few things, then.

“How did you know that man was a charlatan?”

“Because watching him was like watching an interesting play.”

Maomao stopped. No, she still had no idea what anything he said meant. What would Lakan know about watching a play? The performers would all look like Go stones to him.

“Everyone on the stage is lying, but some of the performers are better at it than others. The more natural the falsehoods are, the more interesting the play is,” the strategist said.

“The more natural, the more interesting...”

It made a certain kind of sense to her. A play was something fundamentally untrue, and the actors people who specialized in delivering these untruths to the audience. The better liars they were, the better performers they made, and the more engaging the drama was. The idea that someone might be a liar and a villain because watching them gave the sense of watching a good stage play was the sort of conclusion only the freak strategist could have come up with.

“Ahhh. Yeah, that sort of makes sense,” Chue said as it clicked for her. Maybe it made sense because she, like the strategist, lived by her intuition.

“Does it? Maybe you could explain it to me,” Maomao said.

“Yes, of course, Miss Chue’s explanation incoming! This was someone who wasn’t playing a part—they’d become that part. You see it sometimes, among con artists and spies.”

“Spies?”

“Oh yes! Some agents even marry a local so that they won’t be suspected when they enter another country. But that spouse, you see them every single day. The spy has to be a true husband or wife to them. They can’t just act like it, they have to be it. The only thing is that there’s something more important to them than their partner. Some spies might even have kids! As long as no one finds out what they are, their family will never know the difference.”

Talk about ignorance being bliss. Chue’s description was awfully full of...concrete details, though. It almost seemed to suggest...no. In any case, the point was that Small Lin had, for all intents and purposes, become a real member of Big Lin’s family.

“Say, Maomao, why don’t we have dinner together?” the freak strategist said. He still looked relaxed and very pleased with himself, totally oblivious to the mood in the room. From behind him, Big Lin’s real relative was watching them. He did indeed look like he was living a hard life—almost everything Small Lin had told them appeared to be the truth, except for his own identity. Onsou gave the man some money on behalf of his master.

Then he said to the strategist, “Master Lakan, you already have a dinner engagement with Master Gyoku-ou. And we need to spend the time until then getting through some work.”

Yes, this man was indeed a hard worker.

“Aww, I don’t wanna!” the old fart moaned. Pathetic. He wrapped himself around a post and refused to move as Onsou tried to drag him away. Children throwing tantrums comported themselves with more dignity.

“Miss Maomao, a word from you would be helpful here. Tell him ‘Have fun!’ or something.”

“I don’t want to, Miss Chue.”

“Would you rather he stay here, Miss Maomao?”

Maomao scowled and managed to choke out “Have fun” in the quietest possible voice.

The strategist’s face lit up. “I will! I will have fun!”

Maomao watched Onsou begin to lead him away. “Just one more question,” she said before he was out of earshot.

“Yes? What is it? You can ask your daddy anything!”

She really, really wanted to smash that monocle, but she forced herself to ignore the urge. “How does Master Gyoku-ou look to you?”

She felt like the answer to this one question held the key to everything. Even Jinshi swallowed heavily, wondering what the strategist would say.

But what he said was: “Gyoku-ou? Who’s that?”

“The man you’re having dinner with tonight! The one who keeps you swimming in fruit juice!” Maomao said.

“Ohh! Him,” the freak said, clapping his hands. “I think he must have wanted to be an actor. He seems like he’s smack on his way to becoming a hero.”

“Huh?” Maomao started to feel like she was wasting her time with this line of questioning. A hero in this case was a male stage role, usually a warrior or sometimes a chivalrous gambler.

Maomao only found herself with even more questions than before; she started to feel the mental equivalent of indigestion. It didn’t help when Chue said, “Miss Maomao, maybe it’s about time you let yourself get a little closer to Master Lakan. You would know it was all calculated, but you could be a little nicer.”

“I think the moment either of us got any closer than we already are, he’d never leave me alone, and then neither of us would get any work done. Is that what you want?”

“Oh! Yes. Your point is taken.” Chue clapped her hands, but it looked like an act. Maomao could only give the lighthearted lady-in-waiting a scowl nearly as grim as the one she’d fixed on the strategist.