The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The Biaoshi

Maomao spent the next day treating Shikyou, looking after Xiaohong, and disciplining Gyokujun. Frankly, there wasn’t much else to do anyway. Even looking after Xiaohong really only entailed sharing some of the food they were given with her, making sure she brushed her teeth after they had eaten, and helping her bathe, although all they had was a washcloth. She was calm and surprisingly mature for her age.

She could hardly have been more different from Gyokujun—he was the real troublemaker.

“Hey, you! How ’m I supposed to eat this bread? It’s rock-hard!”

“Then don’t eat it.” Maomao took the bread off his plate and put it on a shelf where he wouldn’t be able to reach it.

“Y-You jerk! What am I supposed to eat, then?!”

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want it.” She tore off a piece of the tough bread and chewed it.

“Dad! Daaad! Do you hear how this woman talks to me? Hang her!”

“I’m not in charge of anything, so I can’t hang anyone—and besides, it’s your own fault for not eating what you were given. Look, Xiaohong is eating her food.”

Oops, that’s gonna backfire.

Gyokujun thought he would find an ally in his father, but Shikyou told him to be more like Xiaohong instead. The resentment would only make him bully her worse. He might be an irredeemable little shit, but Maomao thought the situation in which he was brought up had something to do with it.

Gyokujun spent so much energy being angry that he soon got tired and fell asleep. Meanwhile, Xiaohong took advantage of the moment to cuddle up with her uncle.

“Uncle, what does this say?” she asked. She had opened the weathered old scriptures and placed the book on Shikyou’s knees.

“It says shrine,” he replied. “It’s the place you always go to pay your respects, Xiaohong.”

“What about this?”

“Ah, now, this one...”

Uncle and niece seemed to have a genuine rapport. Xiaohong had seemed so withdrawn, but with Shikyou she was friendly. As for Shikyou, he worked hard to make sure his niece didn’t grow bored in the cramped confines of their small rooms.

Maybe he wanted a daughter instead of a son? Maomao wondered. She wasn’t so boorish as to make the suggestion aloud. Instead, she pulled the covers up over Gyokujun, who lay flopped on the bed. Yes, some believed that a certain amount of harshness was necessary to raise young men, but that was only when their fathers were there for them.

“Good! How about we play marbles next?”

“Yeah!”

They laid out some nuts and stones on the floor and flicked them around. It was a simple game, but Xiaohong enjoyed it. If Maomao hadn’t known better, she could have taken them for an actual father and daughter. Maybe if he treated Gyokujun this way, she thought.

Isn’t Xiaohong unhappy to be separated from her parents? Maomao wondered, thinking that maybe the girl was tougher than she looked.

She found herself thinking quite a lot, given that there wasn’t much else to do. The same man as always brought them their food; he doubled as their guard. He was at least kind enough to give them plenty of water.

When the guard brought their meals, he also brought letters that Shikyou read without showing Maomao, then immediately burned in the candle flame. Maomao mourned the waste of precious paper, but whatever was in those letters, he obviously didn’t want her to know.

She strongly suspected that the disappearances of herself, Gyokujun, and Xiaohong had the household in an uproar, but where she was, nothing much seemed to change. Any commotion had failed to reach the post town.

If the freak strategist learned that Maomao was gone, she expected him to march straight here and turn the place upside down. Chue must be doing quite a job to throw him off the trail.

Shikyou would manfully entertain Gyokujun and Xiaohong until they got tired and fell asleep. Gyokujun liked to hear stories of his father’s travels, and Shikyou would regale him with tales of his adventures the way other people might sing lullabies. Xiaohong would listen along quietly.

One night, when the kids were soundly asleep, Shikyou turned to Maomao. “I know you’ve put together a lot of the pieces already. Do you have any questions for me?”

“I wouldn’t expect an answer if I asked you, and if you did answer, I suspect I would wish you hadn’t.”

There were too many things in Maomao’s life that she ended up wishing she didn’t know. On this occasion, she’d brought this on herself by being too perceptive about Chue.

“All right. I’ll tell you one thing. I’m leaving here tomorrow morning, and by evening, you’ll be released.”

“Very reassuring news.”

In the morning, Shikyou would leave, and Maomao would be free in the evening. Presumably that meant that whatever the trouble was, it would be resolved during the day.

Please tell me it doesn’t involve attacking anything.

Maybe they had been planning an assault and had isolated Maomao so she wouldn’t be able to tell Jinshi of their plans. That made a certain kind of sense...

But somehow I don’t think that’s what they’re up to.

If it were, the entire situation would smell fishier.

“I’ll be best off if I can act on my own,” Shikyou said. “If I asked you to look after Gyokujun and Xiaohong for me...would you do it?”

“I don’t think it counts as asking when I can’t possibly refuse. But while we’re both being frank, I’m not a big fan of Gyokujun.”

“They’re in your hands.”

Maomao meant to take care of the kids in any event, but surely she could be allowed a gripe.

Shikyou, she couldn’t help thinking, was nothing like his father Gyoku-ou. Yes, they resembled each other in looks, and they each carried themselves with a certain heroism—but that heroic air came more naturally to Shikyou. Gyoku-ou hadn’t been born with it; it was something he had affected. For Shikyou, that charisma came from within. Maomao could feel it.

Yet this larger-than-life man was hiding something, something he was willing to hole up in a little room in an inn town to conceal. Maomao had some idea what it might be, but to find out for sure would be immensely dangerous, and she knew it—so she didn’t ask.

Instead she said, “As long as I’ll be seen safely back to the western capital, I’ll return to the main house with Lady Xiaohong. Then what do I do? I’m sure they’re going to question me about this, but I have no idea what to say.”

“Tell them the truth. Tell them that I was wounded, and you treated me. Say that you then accompanied me because I needed further care. That’s all.”

“And Gyokujun and Lady Xiaohong?” (She wasn’t about to refer to the little shit with a respectful title.)

“Just tell them whatever. Say they came with because they’re so close to me.”

That would never work. Maomao just knew Xiaohong’s mother was going to put the screws to her; she was going to need to think of a better excuse than that.

I’m not so sure it’ll work on Jinshi either.

This was sounding like more and more of a headache with each passing moment. Still, if she could go back tomorrow, then that was enough for her. Nothing to do but go to sleep and wait for the next day to come.

The next morning, Maomao awoke to a rustling sound. A woman and several men were standing there, all dressed like biaoshi—that is, mercenaries whose business was the guarding of money, treasure, or very important people.

“You’re awake?” asked Shikyou. He was dressed like the others—transformed from a mere brute to an armed guard. It turned out his attitude didn’t need much adjustment. He stood ramrod straight, however; Maomao would never have guessed there was a gash in his abdomen.

“Your wound might open if you stand too tall,” she told him.

“I have a bandage cinched around it good and tight. A little bleeding won’t do it any harm, will it?”

Maomao didn’t like the obvious assumption that he was going to do some serious physical exertion whether she advised it or not, but she had given him her opinion. She took no further responsibility.

Instead, she shook Xiaohong and Gyokujun awake. It was better than having to deal with them weeping and sobbing when they woke up to find Shikyou gone.

“Huh? Where’s Dad going?” Gyokujun mumbled.

“Maybe to work?” Xiaohong said.

While Maomao held their hands tight, making sure they didn’t go anywhere, another biaoshi, a man, walked in and whispered to the lone woman.

The woman knelt down in front of Maomao and said in a low, steady voice, “I think we should hurry. It seems we’ve been noticed.”

“Noticed? What does that mean?” Maomao asked.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” she replied. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to escort you to the western capital.”

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Maomao scowled, but there was no time for complaining. All she could do was follow the lady biaoshi’s instructions.

“Bring your clothes, if you’d be so kind. You and I will be sticking together from here on out.”

After a second, Maomao nodded—she had no other choice. “All right.”

They got into a waiting vehicle—not one of the armored wagons the biaoshi usually used, but an ordinary covered wagon. Maomao was given a set of very fine clothing, along with an outfit for Xiaohong. She helped the girl change before putting on her own new clothes.

“We’re not going home?” Gyokujun ventured.

“It’ll just be a little longer than we thought. Here. Clothes.” Maomao tossed his new outfit at him.

“You have to help me!”

“You can’t dress yourself? Come on!”

Gyokujun grumbled, but he angrily put on the outfit.

“Where are we going?” Maomao asked the biaoshi.

“Fear not. Whatsoever may happen, I will keep you alive.”

That didn’t answer her question. If nothing else, the fact that it was only the lady biaoshi in the back of the wagon with them seemed to be a gesture of consideration toward Maomao and the children.

“We’ll take a different path from Master Shikyou. If we can successfully stay hidden, we should be able to work our way back to the western capital.”

“All right.”

They couldn’t see what was going on outside from under the wagon’s cover. Xiaohong huddled close to Maomao, while the lady biaoshi sat crossed-legged and never let go of the curved blade in her hand.

Maomao took the woman to be somewhere in her thirties, perhaps, with perfect posture and sharp gaze. Particularly notable were her suntanned skin and clear, low voice. Even accounting for her general failure to recall faces, Maomao thought she would have remembered this woman.

For the foreseeable future, she would be trusting this stranger with her life.