The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Growth

The wind that blew through was so cold it was almost painful.

Time passed quickly. Since her return to the western capital, Maomao had resumed her daily life almost as if nothing had happened. Before she knew it, the year had turned, and she was twenty-one years old.

Her days passed much as they had before; she spent her time making medicines in the office with the quack doctor, raising medicinal herbs in the greenhouse, and occasionally visiting Jinshi to do exams.

Well, maybe one thing was a little bit different.

“Daddy! Play with me!”

“C’mon, your dad is on his way to work, Gyokujun. We can play later.”

Namely, Shikyou was now present at the main house. He’d traded his biaoshi outfit for more proper clothing, in which he did indeed much resemble Gyoku-ou. The similarity was so striking, in fact, that it made Maomao hope that the populace who had so revered Shikyou’s father might support the son as well. After all, it was all too common for people to make judgments on appearances rather than character.

I do have to wonder, why the change of heart?

Maomao didn’t pretend to understand it; she was just an apothecary. No doubt there had been much discussion between Shikyou and Jinshi.

There was a new piece of furniture in the medical office: a large couch. From what Maomao heard, the freak strategist had been a regular visitor while she was missing. He’d brought it with him, and here it had stayed.

How did they ever get around him?

The quack doctor must have entertained the strategist the whole time Maomao was away. The quack’s interpersonal skills, Maomao reflected, must be among the most potent in all of Li. The only other person she could think of who could talk down that freak was her father, Luomen.

“Oh! Excuse me, but could you grab that stick for me? My back’s itchy,” called Chue, who was lying on the couch. Her torso had been freed from its bandages, as had her right hand and arm. However, her elbow could only bend about half as far as it had before, and her hand and fingers moved only the slightest bit. Her arm hadn’t fallen off, though, and the fact that she could move her fingers at all testified that Maomao had done well.

Chue’s injuries were so severe that for a while she wasn’t required to do any work, but was supposed to come to the medical office for physical rehab.

But now she’s downright living here!

“Yes, of course, is this the one you want? If your back itches, we have some salve that can help,” the quack doctor said, handing Chue a stick of the perfect length.

“Oooh, you know, that might not be a bad idea. Oh, and isn’t it almost snack time?”

“It certainly is. Today I’ve got sweet potatoes, steamed and mixed with honey and then roasted. And I added some goat’s milk to round out the flavor.”

The quack doctor had become quite the chef, for what it was worth—which was one reason that Chue had made herself such a regular presence in the office. It was interesting to note, then, that the quack’s ability to mix medicines hadn’t improved in the least.

“Why, my dear quack, you’ve gotten even better than before! This dish is going to cause a revolution in Li’s potato-cooking world!” Chue said, working her way assiduously through the pile of potato on her plate. Her left hand proved more than enough to enable her to eat.

“Miss Chue, if you’d be so kind as to leave some for the rest of us? I’m going to go call the others,” Maomao said.

“Yeth, of courth,” Chue replied around a mouthful of food. It hardly made her seem trustworthy: Maomao transferred what was left of the snack onto another plate. The quack was preparing some tea with an unusually strong smell—leaves from the central region, Maomao suspected. He would finally have some decent tea after spending so long boiling dandelion roots.

“Looks like things have gotten much more stable,” Maomao remarked. They were also feeling more comfortable with the office’s supply of medicine. There were still some food shortages and other sources of unrest, but they’d won some leeway.

“Oh, by the way, we should be able to go back to the royal capital soon,” Chue drawled.

“What?” Maomao asked.

“I forgot to mention. Tee hee! My husband asked me to tell you all, Miss Maomao. My bad!” Chue knocked herself on her forehead with a knuckle on her left hand. She winked and stuck out her tongue—Maomao found the gesture oddly aggravating.

“Is Master Jinshi going back as well?” Maomao asked.

“He sure is! It would be tough for him to stick around here much longer, and the succession is pretty well sorted out. For formal purposes, everyone is going to close up around Shikyou.”

“Will that work?”

To be quite honest, Maomao was uneasy. Certainly, Shikyou had a talent for swiping the best moments out from under people’s noses, and he had that “hero” quality. Despite being much more charismatic than his second and third brothers, though, he’d spent years wandering at his leisure. His martial prowess and an information network he could only have gained as a biaoshi would be assets, but it still seemed like there was a good deal he lacked.

“Are you sure he won’t have, as the saying goes, the head of a dragon and the tail of a snake?”

His resemblance to Gyoku-ou would probably win him a good deal of support in the beginning. As the shine wore off, however, there was no telling how people would ultimately react to him.

“Even a slithery snake must do what he needs to do,” Chue intoned. “We need Shikyou to be the hero of the western capital, and that’s what he’s going to have to be.”

A hero, huh?

Thinking about it, Maomao realized that perhaps the reason Gyoku-ou had given Shikyou alone among his sons a political education was that it had been in Shikyou that Gyoku-ou saw the heroic image he had so idealized. He had wanted to pass his position on to his son, who was from the start what Gyoku-ou had labored and aspired to be.

“Shikyou’s a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He was educated all along to be the leader here in the west, and running a biaoshi agency certainly gives you some experience in managing people.”

“You don’t think he’s...too unserious? Too soft?”

Shikyou’s personality was at odds with his name. He might act like a villain, but he had a soft side.

“That’s a fair question. That’s why we need to make sure everything around him is solid.”

“But what if the people around him don’t trust him?” Maomao asked.

Chue only grinned and sipped her tea. “I think Feilong will have no trouble being there for his elder brother. And they’ve got Mister Rikuson too! What’s more, you might not expect it, but Shikyou is rather popular with his uncles.”

“His uncles? Didn’t he fight with the one that’s his own age?”

“The more you fight, the closer you are. If the second or third son had acceded to the leadership, I think some ambitious upstart might have tried to overthrow them. Uncle Yohda or the like.”

So it went between a bunch of men who all seemed like a lot of trouble.

“Also, Vice Minister Lu will be sticking around for a while to help clean things up,” Chue added.

“You mean that guy from the Board of Rites? What good would it do to leave someone in charge of religious observances here?”

“Vice Minister Lu’s served a lot of positions in a lot of offices. The generous way to put it would be to say he’s very versatile. The less generous way, that he’s a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none. Still, he can do just about anything, so I’m sure he’ll be able to handle things here.”

“That makes him sound a lot like Lahan’s Brother.” Whatever—Maomao could finally relax a little. “The point is, we can go back.”

She’d been starting to worry she would end up buried out here in the west. She heaved a sigh of relief.

“I think Mister Lihaku already knows. Lahan’s Brother probably doesn’t. Make sure you tell him, all right? There’ll be lots to prepare.”

“Sure thing,” Maomao replied.

Lahan’s Brother was in the fields he’d made by tearing up the main house’s garden. He’d planted wheat—the wheat that he’d brought back at risk of his life during the insect swarm.

Maomao left the medical office to go find Lahan’s Brother. She found him crab-walking in the fields—treading the wheat, she presumed.

“Lahan’s B—”

She was just calling out to him when she spotted two children at the edge of her vision. Who should it be but Gyokujun and Xiaohong.

Is Gyokujun giving her a hard time again? Maomao had thought maybe the travails of the road had taught him a few lessons, but maybe not. Why does he think I rescued him?!

Maomao had become quite partial to Xiaohong, so she had every intention of dropping a knuckle on the spoiled bully’s head—but something was off. Gyokujun was indeed strutting around about something, but Xiaohong only looked at him with lidded eyes. Maomao thought the expression looked familiar.

“Hey! Are you listening to me?” Gyokujun demanded, grabbing Xiaohong by the collar.

At that exact moment, there was a sturdy whack. It was Xiaohong’s open palm, which had made contact with Gyokujun’s cheek. Gyokujun was so startled that he lost his balance and fell square on his behind.

Gyokujun, clearly shaken, touched his reddened cheek. “Wh-Wh... What do you think you’re doing?! Are you not afraid of me? You know I can chase the likes of you right out of the western capital!”

“No, I’m not afraid,” Xiaohong said and looked down at him, still unfazed.

“Do... Do you know who my father is? He’s the ruler of the western capital, you know!”

“So what if Uncle Shikyou rules the western capital? Go ahead and tell on me. He won’t get rid of me over this. You should know that better than anyone, Gyokujun.”

“Well, I’m gonna be leader next after my dad. Then I’ll kick you out myself!”

“Heh heh!” The otherwise expressionless Xiaohong suddenly laughed.

“What’s so funny?!”

“Oh, I just thought that if the likes of you were going to be leader here, maybe I’d go to the imperial capital and try to aim a little higher. What can you do? You’re just a little shrimp who hides behind his daddy all the time. A shrimp who runs away leaking snot from his nose!”

Then, as if nothing had happened, Xiaohong simply walked away.

“S...Snnniiiifff!”

Brought to tears by a girl even younger than he was, Gyokujun was left with nothing to do but sit there on the ground, leaking snot and flailing angrily.

I feel someone watching me, Maomao thought. She turned around slowly to find Lahan’s Brother standing there.

“What did you teach that girl?” he asked, giving Maomao his most scathing look.

“Me? Nothing...”

“That wasn’t nothing! Did you see her expression? She looked exactly like you! Ah, she was a sweeter, more demure child when I knew her!”

“You’ve got it all wrong!”

No matter how Maomao struggled to convince him, however, Lahan’s Brother would not believe her. She spent so much time and energy on the subject, in fact, that she forgot the very important thing she had come to tell him.