The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Letters That Arrived

Day 20:

Bandits have appeared all over I-sei Province. The soldiers stationed in the farming villages seem to be quite busy.

Day 21:

Lahan’s Brother is renovating one of the storage rooms. Apparently building something.

Day 25:

Supplies have arrived from the central region. Much sooner than expected. In addition to food, there’s a bit of medicine included, but still not enough.

Day 27:

Some stores are beginning to open. However, stock is still minimal, and low-quality items are rampant.

Day 28:

Seeing an increase in patients complaining of bleeding from the gums. Suspect malnutrition from a lack of fruits and vegetables.

Day 32:

The cooks in the kitchen tried their hand at grasshopper dishes, but it didn’t go well. We’re grateful for the occasional side of duck egg—it’s a rare and precious source of nutrients.

Day 37:

Lahan’s Brother was playing with the duck in front of his storage room. The duck wanted to get in, and he was trying to keep it out. Strangely, despite the species difference, they seemed to be having a successful conversation.

“What are you doing playing with that duck?”

“Who’s playing?! Come here and help me catch Jofu! Please—come on!”

It was the first time Maomao had heard anyone but Basen use the animal’s name. Lahan’s Brother and Basen hadn’t talked much in the farming village, but maybe the duck had been a shared point of conversation for them.

Anyway, Maomao dutifully scooped the duck up from behind. The humans might be suffering from malnutrition, but the bird was fat and boasted lustrous feathers. If Jofu had dared to step out the mansion’s gate, she would have soon found herself on someone’s dinner table. Maomao had to restrain herself from wringing the animal’s neck by constantly reminding herself that ducks laid eggs.

“She certainly seems to want to get in the storage room. Is there something in there?” Maomao asked.

“Here. This is what I’ve been making,” Lahan’s Brother said. He opened the door. In a corner of the room, Maomao saw a black curtain; Lahan’s Brother pulled it back to reveal a pile of trays. They had water in them, and some kind of seed, which had sucked up the water and was sprouting.

“Bean sprouts?” she asked.

“Exactly. This estate has a pond—I thought it might be worth a shot. I’d prefer some nice, running water, but we all know how precious water is here.”

“What are these seeds? They don’t look like mung or soybeans.”

Mung beans, in addition to producing sprouts, could be used to make noodles and for medicinal purposes. Soybeans—well, the benefits need hardly be enumerated.

“Burr clover,” he replied. “It’s used as fodder for horses, but I heard that humans can consume the fresh buds, so I thought it would be worth growing. I brought the seeds back with my grain.”

“Oh, that’s what that was?” Maomao asked. She remembered now that Lahan’s Brother had had several bags strapped to his body. The wheat had been so striking that she’d forgotten about the others—but she saw now that Lahan’s Brother had hardly met a seed he didn’t want to try cultivating.

“Yes, that’s right. And Jofu is so perceptive that she’s been trying to eat them since before I planted them. Hey! You! Yes, you! Don’t Basen and Baryou share their food with you? Not enough? You want some more? Just you try it, you little...”

Lahan’s Brother gave the duck a bop on the head. They could have been two lovers in a painted scroll—did the duck’s guardian, Basen, know what they were getting up to?

“I’m surprised. Not many people know Master Baryou personally.” Even Maomao had found him no more congenial than a stray cat when they had encountered each other.

“Ah, yes. Once when I was summoned after coming back to the western capital, he passed me a letter from behind his curtain with some words of appreciation. I think it was the kindest thing anyone has done for me since I got here.”

“I like to think I try to be decent to you, Lahan’s Brother.”

She’d just been busy lately, and hadn’t gotten around to doing anything specifically nice.

“That’s a crock. But in any case, yes, I gave Miss Chue a written reply, and received another letter after that, and since then we’ve had quite the correspondence.”

“A messenger sparrow?” Maomao could just see Chue flitting back and forth like her namesake, letters in hand.

“Well, sometimes Jofu takes them.”

“The duck carries your letters.” Maomao, deeply suspicious, looked at the bird in her arms. Jofu was giving her puppy dog eyes as if in hopes that she would soon put her down. Since Lahan’s Brother had closed and locked the storage room again, she decided she could let her go. She put the duck down and she waddled off.

Maomao said, “I can’t help thinking you seem to do your best work when no one is looking, Lahan’s Brother.”

“That’s a pretty backhanded compliment.”

“It is a compliment. But listen, more important things: How many more of these bean sprouts can you grow?” If the answer was a lot, it would help a little with the malnutrition situation.

“The seeds in the storage room represent my entire supply right now. But it’s not like they’re rare. We could go around the nearest villages asking if anyone has any burr clover. I’ve heard rainy season is the time for this plant, so people might have more than you’d expect just now.”

“You think you could try to get as many as you can? I want everyone at the food distributions getting bean sprouts in their soup.”

Of course, what went in the food that was handed out wasn’t Maomao’s decision. She intended to bring the matter to Jinshi.

“The seeds are only half the equation. What do we do about water?” Lahan’s Brother asked. “Assuming, of course, that we get enough seeds to dry up the pond.”

“I think we can worry about that later. Anyway, I wouldn’t say no to some soybeans or mung beans either.”

“Good point. Although even if we’re lucky, I think it’ll only amount to a patch on the problem.”

Lahan’s Brother seemed to have a number of different irons in the fire besides his bean sprouts. He was in the process of turning a corner of the annex’s garden into a field, something for which Maomao liked to imagine he’d gotten permission. Meanwhile, Chue was building a goat shed. Maomao hoped Gyokuen wouldn’t be too surprised when he got back to the western capital.

“By the way, Lahan’s Little Sister...”

“I’m sorry, what did you call me?” Maomao looked like she was ready to spit in his face.

“Oh, spare me. I’m pretty sure I saw someone going to the medical office. Don’t you need to check on them? Do you trust that old doctor all by himself?”

“Point taken. I am worried, so I’ll be going.” She gave Lahan’s Brother a little wave and headed for the medical office.

“Well! Fancy seeing you here,” she said when she arrived. Who should be waiting in the office but Tianyu?

“We’re out of medicine,” he said.

“Oh you are, are you?”

“Uh-huh.”

He gave her an expectant look. What did he want from her? The lax, easygoing man had acquired a tan from the desert sun. Dr. You had clearly been putting him to work.

“What exactly are you out of?” Maomao asked, eyeing the medicine cabinet.

“Styptics, antiseptics, and salves. Also cold medicine, antipyretics, diarrhea cures, and any drugs to help a headache.”

“Is there anything you do have?” Maomao scowled. It seemed like just yesterday they had resupplied.

“Not really. We’ve had a lot of cases of the runs in particular. Maybe there’s a sketchy restaurant in town. And the headache cures... Well, let’s say I think our superior needs them these days.”

They only had two “superiors,” Dr. You and another physician. Somehow, Maomao suspected the man in question was the latter.

“Stomach medication might be better. Not that we have any of that,” Maomao said. She meant it as a joke, but circumstances were getting less and less funny. “This is the last of our medicine.”

“Well, make some more! Please?”

“We don’t have ingredients!” Maomao and her companions were making as much medicine as they could; even Lihaku and Chue were being pressed into service.

“Use substitutes, then.”

“We are. We’re almost out of them.”

“Seriously? Doesn’t that impact the quality?”

“Well, we can’t have everything, can we?”

Of course Maomao would have preferred to supply only the best medicine, but they didn’t have what they didn’t have.

“The medicinal herbs aren’t as good around here as they are in the central region,” she said.

Part of it was the climate. The region around the western capital had its own endemic plant life, including some with medicinal applications, but Maomao, who had spent her entire life in the central region, didn’t really know how to use them. This area was a nexus of trade and communication with other countries, and supposedly there was nothing that couldn’t be obtained in the western capital.

I just wish they would prioritize medicine in those supply shipments they send.

Maybe they figured that food had to come first and that medicine could wait. Or maybe the supplies just weren’t reaching Maomao at the medical office.

“Huh,” Tianyu grunted. “At this rate, I wonder if we’ll ever get back to the royal capital.”

“Who knows.”

“You think Luomen will be okay?” said the quack doctor, who had appeared without Maomao quite noticing him.

Right. Pops...

Luomen was serving in the rear palace in lieu of the quack, so she thought—she hoped—that he would be fine. If anything, she thought the quack should be more concerned about himself.

They’d known that the expedition to the western capital would be a longer one, but as Tianyu said, at the moment there was truly no end in sight. Maomao thought that maybe Jinshi, at least, ought to go back to the Imperial seat, but he showed no sign of leaving.

He might have rejected the idea himself, knowing him.

Things in the western capital at that moment were, quite frankly, bad. Yes, they had known what was coming, and that made it ever so slightly better, but they were facing down a natural disaster.

Insect plagues have supposedly been known to destroy countries before. Maybe there had been smaller swarms in the past here, but one as big as this? It must have been decades since such a thing had happened. Maybe fifty years.

Jinshi had requested support from the central region, and his presence at least ensured that it was easier to get than it would have been otherwise. They might even send a little more than they would have otherwise, as long as he was there.

From where Maomao was standing, Jinshi and the Emperor didn’t seem to be at odds.

Even if I still have some questions about the incident that got him sent here.

Presumably, there had simply been no one else to go.

“I suppose the honored Imperial younger brother is still in his honored room doing his honored work,” Tianyu said with no small trace of sarcasm.

“There’s nothing else for him to do!” the quack doctor piped up. “The Moon Prince can’t leave the mansion—it’s dangerous!”

“Yeah, I get that, but it’s not a good look,” Tianyu said.

“What do you mean?”

“Soldiers are being sent hither and yon, while he just gives the orders, wolfing down his food in his nice, safe room—they say.”

“Who says?”

“One of the lower-ranking soldiers I overheard having his potato congee.”

“Oh, my!” The quack put his hands to his mouth and frowned in distress.

“Then again...” Here Tianyu turned to the counterargument. “Another soldier asked him, ‘So who do you think got you those potatoes?’”

“Huh!”

In short, there were soldiers who doubted Jinshi’s motives, but there were others who understood the position he was in. Still, if there were soldiers—even if it wasn’t all of them—who had doubts about Jinshi, what must it be like among the common people?

Tianyu supplied the answer. “The governor around here sure knows how to make himself popular,” he said. Technically, he was referring to the acting governor—Gyoku-ou.

“How to make himself popular?” the quack echoed. “You mean he helps with handing out the food himself?”

“He doesn’t go that far, but the people like him. It’s local soldiers who are passing out the grub, so people automatically assume it was their beloved governor who got it to them. And the soldiers don’t make any secret when they go out to stop people from making trouble—within the capital limits, at least!”

“Well, now, that is something!” said the quack, who had begun to prepare tea. There were no more tea leaves, though, so he was brewing dried dandelion leaves.

“Something, sure. Even if it does all seem like a bit of a performance.” Tianyu seemed to be deliberately talking Gyoku-ou up.

Actor talk again, huh? Maomao thought. The freak strategist had said something similar about the man.

“Pardon me, but if you don’t mind my asking, how does Master Gyoku-ou look to the two of you?” Maomao asked. She really only needed Tianyu’s opinion, but the quack looked so eager to be part of the conversation that she thought she should include him.

“Master Gyoku-ou is very impressive! So manly and decisive. I admit, I only got a quick glimpse of him, but still,” the quack said. His opinion was about what Maomao had expected. She’d heard many people talk about Gyoku-ou, and while she hadn’t had a chance to confirm it with her own eyes, at least on the surface he seemed to inspire this sort of impression.

“Good question...” Tianyu sipped his dandelion tea and packed the medicine Maomao gave him into a box. “He seems like...someone who was born in the wrong era.”

“The wrong era?”

“Yeah. You know, a lot like your weirdo strategist.”

Maomao did not like what she was hearing. “What exactly does that mean?”

“All I’m saying is they aren’t built to get along in daily life. Or...maybe I should say, they weren’t meant for quiet days. I got just a glimpse of the guy around town, and he seemed invigorated by all the fuss.”

“Funny, I might have said the same thing about you.”

“Maybe I’m one of them, then? Then again...maybe not quite.” Tianyu looked genuinely torn.

“What exactly makes you different?” Maomao asked.

“It’s like...the wanting to stand out. The wanting to be noticed. I can’t quite articulate it.”

“You mean a desire for approval?”

“Like I said, I’m not sure. Eh, whatever.” Tianyu drained the last of his tea, then left carrying his medicine. Tired of the subject of Gyoku-ou, probably.

“One of them, huh?” Maomao muttered. It didn’t sound like a very good thing to her.

Maybe she didn’t understand. Instead of worrying about it, she decided to see what she could do about shoring up their medicine supply.

After some consideration, Maomao decided that her best bet was to turn to a pro farmer. Having tended to his bean sprouts, he was now in his field.

“Grow medicinal herbs?” Lahan’s Brother had changed into work clothes and carried a hoe. His own costume—not to mention the expert way he swung the hoe—utterly betrayed all his insistence that he was not a farmer.

The groundskeeper’s meticulously manicured garden was now a thing of the past, transformed into an experimental agricultural space full of wheat and sweet potatoes. The earth was being worked by the other farmers who had accompanied Lahan’s Brother from the central region, as well as the groundskeeper himself, who looked thoroughly defeated.

“True, a field for medicinal herbs might be a good idea in the long run, but I think it’s going to be tough around here. The western capital itself is so dry it’s not really suited for fields, and the grasslands are too far away to be practical. And this field is off-limits! It’s for wheat and potatoes and nothing else!”

“But you’re always going off to plow fields all over, aren’t you, Lahan’s Brother?”

“That’s legitimate work! I was told to plant potato seeds everywhere I could!”

“Who told you?” Had Jinshi made another special request of him?

“My father,” he said miserably. “I don’t think he has any idea what’s really going on. I got a letter from him, here in the middle of this emergency, and what did it say? ‘I’m waiting for your report!’ And meanwhile, I thought I was going to die!”

If Lahan’s Brother was a proper, serious farmer, Lahan’s Father was a deranged one.

“That’s true. You did well to survive, Lahan’s Brother. How did you get back here?” He seemed to have been separated from his bodyguards, and he’d been far on the western edge of the province; it must have been quite a journey.

“Urgh... I had my bodyguards part of the way, but one went chasing after the horses when they took fright at the grasshopper swarm and fled, another went his way when we were attacked by bandits... I managed to trade what little dried potato I had for what we needed at the various places we passed through—and then people tried to steal the rest of my potatoes! On my way westward through the villages, anywhere I stopped to teach them about growing potatoes, I also warned them that there could be a plague of insects coming, and on my way back I found that there was comparatively little damage to those villages. The first one, they even thanked me and gave me a place to stay. And then in the next village...”

This wouldn’t do. If Maomao listened to his entire story, she would have enough of his exploits to fill a book.

“Okay, yep, I get it, I hear you. Well, if you find a place that looks good for growing medicinal herbs, you tell me.”

“Oh, hear me out to the end. Come on, listen! Bah, fine. I can see there’s no reasoning with you. Just don’t expect too much.”

Lahan’s Brother might mutter and grumble, but he was a really good person; he would do his job. It was the same reason Maomao prayed that people wouldn’t work him into the ground.

“That reminds me—some letters came for you too,” he said.

“Oh? Who from?”

“Miss Chue was just here. Maybe you missed each other.”

“Right.”

The letters were presumably from Luomen, or maybe from the Verdigris House.

Maomao went back to the medical office and got her mail, then went to her room to open it. She had gradually renovated the decor until, as one might expect, it was a simple room with medicinal herbs hanging everywhere. The quack doctor, who had so kindly redecorated for her in the first place, had looked disappointed, but on this point Maomao was not prepared to budge.

She had three letters, from Lahan, Yao, and En’en, respectively.

Oh, right. She remembered belatedly that before they’d set out, Yao had told her to write sometimes. And I haven’t sent a single word.

Things had been so chaotic that she’d had neither the time nor the motivation to send any letters. She hadn’t even given it much thought, assuming that if anything really serious came up, Jinshi would contact her at the medical office.

Maomao looked at the three letters and pondered how to approach them. After a moment, she decided to leave Lahan’s for later. She waved her finger back and forth between Yao’s and En’en’s letters, not sure which to read first, and her finger settled on Yao’s. It was backed with sturdy oil paper, to give it the best chance of surviving the long trip. Normally, Maomao might have expected En’en to add perfume, or use fine paper, or even send some flowers, but in this case they seemed to have prioritized utility.

It’s far enough that you can’t even assume the letter will ever arrive.

Yao’s letter was the usual, pointed and pouty until it abruptly turned shy and sweet. It pointed out that Yao hadn’t gotten any letters from Maomao, and wondered what was going on. It said she had heard about the insect plague in the west, and had taken it upon herself to write, and was Maomao doing okay? And so on and so forth.

The letter was written in careful columns of neat characters that occasionally grew bold with emotion. Ah, Yao. Even her handwriting was transparent.

Don’t worry! I promise, I’ll write back...

The real problem was how long it might take any letter Maomao sent to reach Yao, but that was out of her hands.

Next she opened En’en’s letter. Like Yao’s, it had been reinforced with oil paper.

She looked over the letter. Then she turned it over, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. She pressed under her eyes with her thumb and pointer finger.

Then she turned the letter back over and looked again. The paper was the same size as Yao’s letter, but En’en’s characters were hardly bigger than grains of rice, and ran together in a cursive hand, flowing down the page like a sutra. Some ninety percent of it was about Yao. This was no letter; it was a collection of field notes from En’en’s observations of her mistress.

Maybe En’en was trying to tell Maomao something important, but the more of the letter Maomao read, the more the message seemed to be simply My mistress is so darn cute!

There was one thing that weighed on En’en: that Yao still hadn’t given up the idea of doing the same work as a full-fledged physician.

There seemed to be something else too, but it was only an implication, a whiff detectable from her dense text, and nothing more.

Sorry, I don’t have time to play guessing games, Maomao thought, and set En’en’s letter aside. All right, time for the last one.

She was surprised to receive a letter from Lahan. Wouldn’t it be better for him to contact Jinshi? Surely he realized that with Maomao, there was the distinct possibility that she would throw the letter away without ever reading it.

In any case, it had reached her safely, and for the sake of those who had helped it do so, she decided to open it.

Lahan’s letter, too, was backed with oil paper, like the others. It hadn’t surprised Maomao that Yao’s and En’en’s letters might be constructed the same way, but Lahan’s as well? That seemed a little odd. Then again, maybe they sold paper that was made that way, specifically for sending long distances.

Whatever. She looked at the letter, which said:

Yao and En’en are at my house yet! What do you suppose I should do?

The sentences evinced a rare display of uncertainty on Lahan’s part. The rest of the letter politely asked after the health of those in the western capital, but the matter of Yao and En’en was clearly his main concern.

Hell, I don’t know.

Maomao carefully folded the letters back up. She needed somewhere to put them for the time being. The quack doctor had given her, at her request, an empty box from when he’d gotten some manju buns, and she decided to use that. Maomao was a commoner at heart, unable to throw away even an empty box.