The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Princeling of the Main House

It had been ten days since Gyoku-ou’s death. His demise had made the bigwigs very busy. Maomao’s job, however, had not changed much. She still made medicine, still examined the sick and the injured and gave that medicine to them.

Specializing does make some things easier, she thought. You just have to do one type of work.

There was a bit more of that work to do, but it was all of a familiar kind.

Once you were in a leadership position, that was no longer true. You had to keep an eye on the work of subordinates that you might not completely understand yourself. When problems arose, prompt decisions were expected—but you couldn’t give simplistic answers either. No wonder diligent officials began to break down physically and mentally.

All of which was to say, Jinshi was exhausted and weak, as usual, but he was getting his work done.

Here I thought he’d learned to step back just a little bit.

Even during their regular exams, Maomao (who accompanied the quack doctor) saw officials carting more paperwork into Jinshi’s office. She was getting pretty tired of it.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Gaoshun said, rebuffing a bureaucrat who had come with more papers. He looked tired too. He met Maomao’s eyes and dipped his head, expressionless. It made him look very somber—but the impression was undercut by the duck, Jofu, who stood beside him, tugging on his robe in hopes of getting some food.

I seem to remember him feeding a cat in the rear palace.

Apparently he now provided the same service for the duck.

“Is the Moon Prince really doing all right?” the quack doctor asked, watching the bureaucrat leave with his papers. He didn’t seem quite so tense with Gaoshun, maybe because they’d known each other since the rear palace.

“He’s certainly tired, but I’m hopeful that he’ll soon regain his energy.” Gaoshun looked directly at Maomao as he ushered her into the room.

If all went as usual, the quack doctor would be dismissed after a perfunctory examination, which would leave only Maomao.

“All right, young lady. I leave the rest in your hands!” The quack doctor departed and Maomao, basically trading off with him, went into Jinshi’s bedroom.

Yikes...

Jinshi lay spread-eagle on the bed. Apparently he had used up all his social graces during his interaction with the quack. He didn’t seem to have it in him to do anything else today—but a distinct sense of aggravation hovered around him.

“Rikuson,” he was muttering. “I’ll never forgive Rikuson...”

The breezy man must have foisted yet more work on Jinshi.

“You seem tired, sir.”

“I am tired.”

“I’ll make this quick, then. Let me see your wound.”

Jinshi didn’t say anything, but sat up looking like a pouting child. He sloughed off the top of his robe and undid the bandages.

There’s really no need for these anymore.

The bandages now were more about concealing the injury than helping it heal. New skin was growing over the scorched, charred old skin, forming a bright-red flower. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been inscribed on human flesh—especially not the flank of someone who was supposed to be very important.

They’ll also help keep his organs in if he ever gets stabbed in the side.

Maomao figured he didn’t really need the salve either, but applied it anyway just to keep things from drying out. Then she wrapped fresh bandages around the site. She’d told him repeatedly to do it himself, but he always wanted her to do it.

“There. All done.”

“Isn’t this bandage a little twisted?”

“No, sir, it’s not.”

“It is. I think you should take it off and redo it.”

So he was going to complain about her bandage wrapping technique, was he? When he did things like that, it usually meant there was something more he wanted to talk about.

Maomao sensed trouble coming. She tried to turn right around and leave the room, but Gaoshun gave her such a sad look that she went back.

“What seems to be the matter?” she asked.

“Funny you should ask,” Jinshi replied. It sounded like this story was going to be a long one. Maomao thought getting some rest would do more for his health, but maybe his mind was in worse shape than his body at the moment.

Many different people came to visit Jinshi; he had to deal with all of them in between going through his piles of paperwork. Of late, there had been particularly frequent visits from one fellow higher-up from the royal capital and Gyoku-ou’s half-siblings.

Of that higher-up, Vice Minister Lu, Maomao knew only a smidgen, such as that he was with the Board of Rites—and, to her surprise, he was her colleague Yao’s uncle. Chue had mentioned it to her in passing once.

So he’s the famous uncle.

This uncle was supposedly dead set on getting Yao married. Maomao thought the vice minister had given her a funny look once when they passed by each other—maybe he didn’t like that she was Yao’s colleague.

“That Vice Minister Lu does make a nuisance of himself, doesn’t he?” Maomao said. She’d taken a seat and was sipping at some grape wine—Jinshi’s examination was over and now she was just going to listen to him gripe. Surely no one would blame her for exacting a modest fee.

“He does! He keeps saying we should hurry and go back to the capital.”

“Yes, let’s do that. Right away,” Maomao said earnestly. By all rights, there was no reason for them to stay here.

“Do you think we could do that so soon?”

It was Jinshi who resolutely stayed stuck in the western capital. He couldn’t go home with everything still in disarray. He was the kind who felt he had to see things through to the bitter end, sometimes to his own detriment. That was probably why Rikuson was able to foist so much work on him.

People with a strong sense of responsibility soon grow sick at heart.

Maomao knew: just because you were a good person didn’t mean good things would happen to you.

“You would think there would be plenty of people in the western capital who could fill in for Master Gyoku-ou. And Master Gyokuen is still alive too. Master Gyoku-ou was his son—didn’t he say anything to you?”

Quite honestly, Maomao would have expected the man to be distraught when he learned that his son had died in his absence. But Gyokuen, it seemed, was pleading that his age made it impossible for him to return to the western capital.

Anyway, I’m not sure that his coming back here wouldn’t make things worse.

If Gyokuen returned to the western capital, it would be the Imperial capital that found itself in dire straits next. Empress Gyokuyou was now His Majesty’s official wife, but there were many who resented her bloodline. The new Crown Prince, her son, had inherited his mother’s red hair and green eyes. Maomao had met him when he was young and the pigment still light, and as he grew older the colors would get stronger. It wasn’t hard to imagine him finding trouble because of his un-Linese hair and eyes.

Then there were those who sneered at I-sei Province as a rural backwater. Consort Lihua had a son as well, born just a few months after the Crown Prince, and plenty of people would be willing to trade the one for the other if anything should happen.

Yep, yep. Politics is a pain in the neck.

Maomao munched on a sachima to go with her wine. A wheat-based treat distinguished by its fluffiness, it was a bit crude to serve as Jinshi’s snack, but more than luxurious enough when the food supply was still unstable.

“Sir Gyokuen would like Sir Gyoku-ou’s line to continue ruling here. He said as much in his letter. Though I might have preferred if he’d have been kind enough to give me a name.”

That would explain why none of Gyoku-ou’s half-brothers had been willing to take on the role. It was probably the same matter that was continually bringing them to visit Jinshi.

“Ahem. Master Gyokuen’s second and third sons are here a lot, aren’t they? Could we really not leave things to them? I assumed that was what you were talking about together.”

Maomao still hadn’t heard the second son’s name, but the third son was named Dahai. He was a well-built man in his mid-thirties, in charge of I-sei Province’s ports. He was, in fact, one of the visitors who had come to the annex that very day.

“Sir Dahai is here because he had a request of me.”

“Is it something annoying?”

Judging by Jinshi’s petulant look, it didn’t seem like anything good.

“He asked if I might consider transferring my base of operations.”

“Your base of operations, sir?” Maomao tilted her head, unsure what that meant.

“Oh, it’s nothing much. He merely suggested I move from the annex to the main house.”

“I see, sir.”

“Nothing much, right?”

“I believe that’s what you just said, Master Jinshi.”

One could walk from the annex to the main house in a trice, whistling a tune the entire time.

“The main house is right next door to the administrative office. Which would make it easier for them to add to your workload—is that what this is about?”

“One presumes.”

“And it would really raise some red flags if they tried to get you to go directly to the administrative office, so they’re moving you in stages, getting you used to the idea.”

“What am I, a feral cat they’ve adopted?” Jinshi looked spent. Maybe the exhaustion had just caused him to abandon any pretense. “If I’m too willing to move, I think the chance to go home will only get further away.” Funny thing to say, when he was the one who’d refused to leave.

It was a dilemma: on the one hand, they wanted Jinshi to go back to the central region; on the other, they wanted him to stay here in the western capital.

“Couldn’t you just refuse to move your ‘base,’ sir?”

“Believe me, I’d like to. But do you know what they say about the Emperor’s younger brother in the western capital these days?”

Maomao didn’t pull any punches. “They shout and swoon over your beauty, but at the same time, some conspiracy theorists hold that you masterminded the assassination of Master Gyoku-ou.”

“Mm.”

“Did you?”

“No!”

Figured.

Jinshi didn’t seem particularly adept at underhanded schemes like assassination. Yes, he had been more than willing to use his wiles to get his way in the rear palace when he had been posing as a eunuch, but recently he had become much more reserved. Maomao almost thought he was regressing.

“That leaves people claiming that I came to the western capital only in order to take it over.”

“Why come to this parched place when you could make lots more profit finagling things in the royal capital? You could buy up grain, then sell it at a high price and wring the money out of them.”

“You sound positively brutal.”

“It was Miss Chue’s idea.” Chue was something of a chatterbox, and she loved to use Maomao as an excuse to dodge work. “Anyway, if you go to the main house, won’t you only look even more like you’re bent on conquest?”

“Sir Gyoku-ou’s brothers and children are at the main house. The suggestion is that security would be better served by having everyone in one place, rather than splitting the guards between the main house and the annex.”

“You’re not afraid of someone trying to stab you to get revenge for their brother or father?”

“I like to think that wouldn’t happen,” Jinshi said after a moment. “Really, if anyone were feeling that emotional about it, I would have expected to see at least one assassin already.”

Commuting to the administrative office certainly would be much easier from the main house. Maomao wondered if she and the rest of Jinshi’s entourage would go with him.

Not that I’d really like to.

She could just picture a weird old fart hanging around, and it worried her. She was pretty sure the freak strategist was staying over there. Hence, Maomao was invested in maintaining the status quo.

“I can’t shake the sense that the move wouldn’t have many tangible benefits for you, Master Jinshi. Would it be a problem just to turn them down? You sound strangely unsure of what to do.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I think I have to meet them in the middle, or we won’t get anywhere.”

There it is.

Jinshi was too direct, too honest, and sometimes it cost him. Maomao had a certain respect for that part of his personality, but it could be infuriating.

He should just put his foot down with them!

She was about to say so when Jinshi added, “Ahh, and the main house also has that thing.”

“What thing?” She cocked her head. She had no idea what this thing was.

“The greenhouse. Didn’t you see it last time we came?”

“A g-g-greenhouse?!” Maomao couldn’t stop her eyes from sparkling. She’d seen cactuses planted around the grounds when they had come last year—at which time they had stayed in the main house—but she hadn’t heard about any greenhouse.

“They said that if I moved to the main house, I could use the greenhouse to cultivate herbs.” Jinshi glanced at Maomao, then grinned openly. “But I gather you’d be just as happy to stay at the annex, Maomao?”

“Wh-Whatever do you mean, Master Jinshi? Never fear! I would certainly follow you to the main house!”

She pounded her chest for emphasis, so hard that she broke down coughing.

The move to the main house soon proceeded. The quack doctor was to come with them, not that it would change much of anything.

There was, however, at least one person who decided to stay behind. Lahan’s Brother surprised them. “A greenhouse is outside my field of expertise. It’s not like you’ll be far away. I think I’ll stay here,” he said. On his head was a duck, and beside him was a goat.

“Oh. I figured a pro farmer like you, Lahan’s Brother, would jump at the chance to grow things,” Maomao said.

“Who’s a ‘pro’?! Look, it’s not that I couldn’t do it. It’s just I have to focus on things that fall within the scope of my responsibilities. All I really do is imitate the things I’ve learned.”

Maomao thought it was awfully professional to know—and be clear about—what you could and couldn’t do, but she kept that to herself. It was certainly better than someone who pretended to possess knowledge they didn’t have.

“My specialty is grains,” Lahan’s Brother said. “You know a lot more about herbs than I do.”

“I suppose so.”

He said specialty! Maomao observed, but she pretended not to have heard. How nice of her.

“Anyway, like I said, I’ll still be close by. If anything comes up, call me.”

“Thank you, I will.” Maomao bowed to Lahan’s Brother. She suspected she would do quite a bit of calling on him, whether he encouraged her to or not.

The main house was substantially larger than the annex, and the medical office Maomao and the others were introduced to was bigger too.

This must be the place Dr. Li was entrusted with.

Of all the medical personnel sent from the capital city, Dr. Li was the most serious and most intimidating. And since their last meeting, Maomao had added most pessimistic to that catalog.

Looks like he’s still at the clinic in town.

The shelves here were neatly organized, making them easy to use, although most of the medicine had been taken to the clinic. There were also beds and chairs, neatly arranged. Maomao’s group hadn’t brought much equipment themselves, so it seemed like this wouldn’t take long.

“Shall I help you clean up your room, miss?” the quack asked, and for some reason his eyes were sparkling. He was holding an embroidered curtain.

“No, I can take care of myself. You can clean up your own room, please.”

She was not going to spend another night in a hideous, frill-laden chamber. She was even thinking that maybe next time they were running short on bandages, she could tear up that curtain for material.

A well-built soldier ambled up. “Hey, young lady?”

“Something the matter, Master Lihaku?”

“I need to use the toilet. You don’t mind if I leave you here?”

“I don’t think it should be a problem.”

Lihaku was more diligent than he might appear. There was another guard still standing outside the new medical office, so Maomao figured it should be fine.

“Sorry. I didn’t get a chance to relieve myself on my break.”

“No, it’s all right.”

The soldiers got breaks, yes, but a long shift could see them standing for half a day at a time. Bureaucrats occasionally sneered that it must be nice to have so much free time, but the work was demanding in its own way.

Lihaku said a few words to the other guard, then went to find the toilet. They didn’t know their way around this place, and it seemed like it might take him a few minutes. Maomao busied herself bringing in equipment and unloading the last of their cargo.

“There! All done.”

She was just giving a big stretch when she heard a shout from outside. “Yowch!” That was the quack doctor.

Maomao went out, wondering what had happened, to find the quack plopped down outside the office, rubbing his shin. There was also a boy holding a wooden training sword. The guard had been keeping an eye on Maomao, apparently to the exclusion of the quack doctor.

“I! Have judged you! You intruding insects!”

The boy must have been eight or nine years old. He was dressed in fine clothing and his hair was carefully done up. Those things would seem to mark him out as the scion of a good family, but that didn’t matter much right now.

Maomao crouched by the quack and looked at his shin. With one of those wooden training swords, even a young kid could cause a nasty bruise. She glared at the boy. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

He didn’t so much as flinch at her raised voice; in fact, he stepped forward in a show of strength. “I! Have delivered punishment! Upon the criminal!”

Who’s a criminal?

Maomao was just stalking toward the child to deliver him a good knuckle to the head when a panicked servingwoman rushed up and grabbed him. “Young master, you mustn’t!” She started bowing furiously to Maomao. “I’m sorry! I’m so very sorry!”

Maomao clenched her fist and stared daggers at the naughty child.

“Hey, let me go! I am going to slaughter the lot of them!” the kid shouted.

“No, young master, you can’t do this here! You can’t do this. I’m so sorry.” With her head still bowed, the servingwoman dragged the boy away.

Maomao had no choice but to let her fist relax. She was just glad the servant had made a prompt exit. Child or not, she really had been about to smack him one. No mercy for kids who went around whacking people with swords.

“My apologies!” the guard said, his face white. He would be blamed for letting the quack get injured after Lihaku had entrusted him with this job.

“I don’t need any more apologies. Help me get the master physician inside.”

Maomao touched the quack’s shin. “Owww! It hurts!” he cried, really rather overdramatically. The bone wasn’t broken, but he probably wouldn’t be walking anywhere for a few days.

Judging by that outfit and the servant looking after him...

It seemed safe to assume the boy was a relative of Gyokuen’s.

They’d barely gotten here, and already Maomao had a feeling that there was going to be nothing but trouble.

Maomao pressed a damp rag against the quack’s leg. Unfortunately, the abused shin had swollen substantially by the next day.

“It should be better in two or three days,” Maomao told him. In her opinion, the quack could just as well spend that time resting in his room. But he insisted on working, and she couldn’t very well chase him out of his own medical office.

I really don’t think it would be a big problem if he weren’t here, she thought, but she wasn’t cruel enough to say so out loud.

“Urrgh, it hurts...”

“I’m sorry, miss,” Lihaku said, bowing his head. The boy had seized on a brief moment when Lihaku wasn’t there. A single, fleeting lapse of attention by the guard. Maybe it had been in part because the interloper was just a child—but it remained that this boy had evaded the guard’s scrutiny and managed to harm the quack.

It’s because they’re really guarding me, isn’t it? Maomao thought. Outwardly, the soldiers were assigned to the physicians, and so in principle they were supposed to be protecting the quack doctor. But the remaining soldier had actually been watching Maomao.

The soldiers didn’t specifically give Maomao any special treatment—probably a touch of consideration on Jinshi’s part. But there seemed to be a tacit understanding of who she truly was.

Much as I hate for people to think of me as that freak’s daughter. Therefore, as long as the guards didn’t bring it up, Maomao was happy to act the part of an ordinary medical assistant. That was all she was, and nothing more.

And yet, she didn’t want the quack doctor being put in danger because of that. It seemed the guard yesterday wasn’t yet used to protecting VIPs. That was one of the reasons Lihaku had seemed so apologetic about needing to go to the bathroom. He was the one permanently assigned to the medical office, while the other guards came in on rotation—and there were a lot of new faces these days.

“Knock knoooock! Incoming!” Chue entered, pretending to knock on the medical office door. “Poor Mister Quack! I’ve come to visit you at your sickbed!” She was holding some grapes, a common fruit in the western capital.

“Oh, Miss Chue, that’s so kind of you.”

Whoa, wait, hold on there. Did he really not care that she called him “quack” like it was nothing?

“Miss Maomao! Would you like to know which no-goodnik it was that attacked Mister Quack yesterday?”

“Who? If it was someone from this estate, I assume it had to be one of Master Gyokuen’s grandchildren or great-grandchildren.”

“Bingo! It was Master Gyoku-ou’s oldest son’s son.”

I might have guessed.

Maomao had heard that Gyoku-ou was nearly old enough to be Empress Gyokuyou’s father himself, so it wasn’t that surprising if he had a grandson the age of the boy who had attacked the quack.

“They say his name is Gyokujun!” Chue sketched a character in the air with her finger. Apparently the family had a thing for naming their children after birds: as the -ou of Gyoku-ou meant “nightingale,” jun meant “falcon.” Chue went on, “Also, young Gyokujun wishes to apologize and is standing outside the medical office with his mother right now. What would you like to do?”

“You could have led with that.”

Maomao looked at the quack doctor. Rather than actually say yes, he smiled. “He’s still just a child, after all. If he knows he did wrong and wants to apologize, then it’s water under the bridge!”

Gee. Nice guy...

Maomao wasn’t so sure, but the quack doctor was the victim here, so they would do as he said.

“Come in,” Maomao said as she opened the office door, although she didn’t look very happy about it.

Gyokujun was standing there, not looking any more pleased than Maomao. A woman stood next to him, a timid look on her face. “I can’t apologize enough for what my son did,” she said, bowing deeply.

She pressed on the back of her brat’s head, trying to make him bow too, but he said, “S-Stoppit! I’m not gonna say sorry!”

“You apologize this instant!”

“Nuh-uh! No way!” Gyokujun whined.

Now his mother was angry. She raised her hand high, and almost at the same moment they heard the slap, Gyokujun went crumpling to the ground.

An openhanded slap wouldn’t leave a lasting mark, but it sure sounded dramatic. Maomao doubted the boy was actually hurt, but he was still physically small enough that his body probably couldn’t absorb the blow.

“I said, apologize!” His mother looked like she might burst into tears. Maybe the stress of child-rearing was bubbling to the surface.

Gyokujun sniffled and pinched his lips together, trying not to cry. “I... I’m very sorry,” he said, although he obviously didn’t mean it. He showed every sign that he would do it again if he got the chance, but the quack doctor was watching his mother anxiously.

“That’s enough, please, it’s really fine. Please, don’t bow to me.”

Gyokujun’s mother, however, only bowed again, insisting, “I am so, so sorry!” Gyokujun was already out of his bow and scowling at the quack.

Signs of a lesson learned: zilch, Maomao observed.

When mother and son had left, Maomao was hit by a wave of exhaustion.

“Do you think he’s all right? That was some slap she gave him,” the quack said, much concerned about a child who had shown no repentance.

“Aw, every parent gives their child a good whack now and then, buddy. Most men can remember doing sword drills until they went unconscious from shouting,” said Lihaku.

“Exactly. It was nothing much. He’s just lucky she didn’t use a closed fist,” Chue added.

“An open palm isn’t such a big deal. Although it’s trouble if there’s an injury somewhere it can’t be seen. The solar plexus is a good compromise—it hurts, but it doesn’t show,” offered Maomao.

“What kinds of homes were you three raised in?” the quack asked, drawing back a little. He was a eunuch, but he originally came from a good family, and had probably never suffered “the punishment of the iron fist” at the hands of his parents.

Still, it wasn’t that Maomao didn’t understand the quack’s concern. “The boy’s mother did seem sort of frantic. I guess a person could get in a lot of trouble for harming the Imperial younger brother’s personal physician.”

As much trouble as one might get in, though, the mother seemed worried about something more.

“Shall Miss Chue explain that one?” Chue said, striking a pose with her finger pointed toward the ceiling.

“Do you know? Was there a reason?” the quack said, immediately curious. Lihaku looked like he wanted to know too. Maomao had to admit that she was curious, but she affected disinterest, as if she would just listen in if everyone else wanted to know.

“Master Gyoku-ou has passed away, and the western capital is all agog about who’s going to be the next leader here. Every name you can think of has been suggested, from Master Gyokuen’s other sons to Mister Rikuson from the royal capital, to even the Moon Prince himself!”

“Yes, I’ve heard all that,” Maomao said.

Mostly from a complaining Jinshi.

“The one person whose hat hasn’t been thrown into the ring is the one person you would expect to be first in line—did you know that?”

Lihaku said slowly, “Normally, you would expect Master Gyoku-ou’s son to succeed him. That’s how it works, even in the Imperial family, right?”

He was right, indeed.

“Precisely. But! That son has been kept completely out of politics throughout his life, on the grounds that he wouldn’t need to be involved until later. He’s been ruled out on the basis of ignorance, or so the story goes. But doesn’t that seem strange?”

“Yes, so it does. You would think he’d have studied a little more,” said the quack doctor.

“With what I’ve said so far, I would expect Miss Maomao at least to be able to see where this is going. In reality, Master Gyoku-ou’s eldest son is—da-dada-daaaah!—a lazy, profligate layabout!” Chue waved her hands enthusiastically and produced a shower of confetti. “He did get the education you’d expect of an intended successor, but then he threw it all away.”

“‘Threw it all away’ how?”

“He had...let’s call it a late rebellious phase. By that time, though, he was already married to the woman his parents had chosen for him, and even had a child. But he stole a horse and ran off! You’d think he was some little kid!”

Maomao thought about how uncomfortable the mother had seemed earlier.

“So his own relatives aren’t treating him as the heir apparent, and folks are even suggesting people unrelated by blood to be the next leader. He must be pretty bad,” Lihaku said, crossing his arms.

“Oh, very bad! This eldest son is some twenty-five years old. He abandoned his home several years ago, leaving his wife and child, and...well, let’s just say he’s been up to a lot.”

That might explain the mother’s mean streak, Maomao admitted. No doubt her relatives blamed her for “not keeping a close enough eye on her husband.”

“Like what?” Maomao asked.

“Master Gyokuen’s second-to-last son, his seventh, is twenty-five too, and the two of them don’t get along. They fight all the time. Once, there was a whole thing when they decided on a duel with real edged weapons. Both of them are so good that no one could stop them. Oh, it was terrible!”

Hmm, hmm!

“Then he started brewing his own liquor, ‘borrowing’ bottles from a nearby distillery, filling them with his moonshine and selling them. That tanked the distillery’s reputation. It’s worth noting that the place was run by Gyokuen’s third daughter.”

Hmm?

“Also, Miss Maomao, you remember how we were attacked by bandits when we went to that farming village? Apparently he was also connected with that incident.”

Hmmmm?!

Maomao held up a hand for Chue to stop.

“What seems to be the matter, Miss Maomao?”

“I’m amazed Master Gyoku-ou didn’t disown him.”

“Being the eldest son probably helped protect him a little. And Master Gyoku-ou has some odd preoccupations, so he never gave his second or third sons any education in politics at all. Anyway, the eldest son was a well-behaved and capable young man until he went off the deep end, so maybe Master Gyoku-ou thought he would come back around eventually. The son’s a powerful guy and a leader—I heard that when he was attacked by the boss of a bandit gang known all around I-sei Province, he went to get the guy back himself.”

Chue nibbled on a fried dough twist she’d gotten somewhere. She’d distributed them to the quack doctor and Lihaku as well, and they were also eating.

Getting revenge on a bandit, huh? Very much the sort of “hero” image that Gyoku-ou had so prized.

“As for Master Gyoku-ou’s younger brothers, they’re all too busy with business to lead the western capital. But we absolutely can’t leave the job to his eldest son. Mister Rikuson and the Moon Prince were probably put forward to buy some time. Master Gyoku-ou’s second and third sons are both clever guys. We can gain enough time for them to learn about politics. I think plans are being laid for the eldest son to be disinherited before then. With Master Gyoku-ou gone, he’s lost his protection.”

“You sure know a lot, Miss Chue,” the quack doctor said admiringly—although these seemed like things she probably wasn’t supposed to know.

These were Gyokuen’s children: toughness and stubbornness were guaranteed. They were using the Emperor’s younger brother in order to buy themselves time.

“That does explain why that boy’s mother looked so worried,” Maomao said. Marrying a family’s eldest son didn’t mean much if that son got himself kicked out of the family line. And if her own son went on to injure the Imperial younger brother’s physician, well, that would be enough to make the blood run cold.

“In light of all that, it seems likely that the second or third son will be assigned to serve under the Moon Prince for a while, and the other one will be assigned to Mister Rikuson. If one of them proves to be an especially quick study, that means we’ll be able to go back to the central region all the sooner. And speaking of going back, Miss Chue had better get back to work.”

She stood up as if to signal that the conversation was over; she was done with her snack, anyway.

Maomao raised her hand. “Miss Chue? Question.”

“Yes, Miss Maomao? What is it?”

Maomao recalled that they were now stationed in the main house. “Does this worthless layabout of a son ever come to the main house?”

“Not very often, but I gather he stops by to see family every once in a while. It’s certainly possible you might bump into him.” Chue gave a broad wink.

Please... Don’t jinx it.

Maomao foresaw many travails in her future. She did the best thing she could do: she shook her head and tried to forget about it.