The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Contradictions and Goals

The unending parade of wounded men was not the only thing Maomao had to worry about at work.

“Nooo! Don’t wanna go back to work!”

“No, Master Lakan! You’re going back!”

The freak strategist’s aide Onsou was attempting to pry him away from the post to which he clung like an oversized cicada.

You can do it, Onsou! Maomao thought, privately cheering him on as she made some ointment.

“We need you to wrangle that predator as well as you can, to spare us even a little of the chaos we now find ourselves in.”

And just how am I supposed to do that?

The old doctor’s words had left her feeling lost. One thing she did have to do, however, was her work. She ignored the cicada-esque thing and went on making salves.

As usual, there was no lack of wounded in the medical office. There would be at least four or five major injuries each day, one or two of which would be hard to chalk up to training accidents. Those cases tended to be all the more obvious because, when asked for details, the people involved had a tendency to trail off.

One might think that when the apex predator returned, things would quickly go back to normal, but that predator was busy playing cicada. The main outcome was that when the freak strategist was around, everybody avoided him and went to a different medical office, so Maomao’s workload got lighter.

Let’s see, what else do we need?

Compresses and medicine for wounds were in frequent demand, so they had to be sure they didn’t run out. She also needed to help the physicians, though, so it was hard to build up a stock.

When the old fart clinging like a cicada to the post was gone, Dr. Li came back, dripping sweat. Beside him was a young soldier who looked pale.

“I thought you were off today,” Maomao said.

“I am, so I was training at the practice grounds.”

When he wasn’t even a soldier—what was that about? Maomao didn’t voice the question.

“All right. Who’s that with you?”

“He was on the grounds too, so I brought him over. You might remember him as the young man with a wooden sword in his belly from a little while ago. We told him to come back every day so we could check how his abdomen was doing, but he never did, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Only then did Maomao register that it was indeed the same soldier. She and Dr. Li looked at him.

“You sewed me up, so I’m doing just fine. Don’t worry about me. It’ll get better in good time,” he said.

“Is that so?” Maomao asked. For all that, he didn’t look very good.

“Let’s have a look.” Dr. Li pinioned the young man. Maomao undid his belt and the bandages around his belly.

“Ugh, it stinks!” she exclaimed.

“What did you say?!” he demanded.

“Forget changing the bandages—it smells like you haven’t even taken a bath since we worked on you!”

“That’s the trouble with young men!” Dr. Li added. “They have such good metabolism, and it gives them the worst body odor! At least wipe yourself down from time to time!”

“Wh-What’s going on? First you pin me, then you strip me!” The young soldier struggled, but the outrageously bulked-up Dr. Li was too strong for him.

“Maomao, go get another doctor. We’re going to change these bandages right now.”

“Yes, sir!”

Maomao went to the next room and dragged a physician back with her.

The bandages, which they had wrapped tightly to stop the bleeding, released an even more overpowering smell as they were undone.

“Looks like it’s a bit infected,” Maomao remarked. “Did you do any strenuous exercise? Some of the stitches have broken.”

“Did you take your anti-infectives?” Dr. Li asked.

“I wish you wouldn’t treat it this way,” the other doctor grumbled. “When it never heals, you’ll blame us. Okay, shall we stitch him back up?” This physician was a stubbly man somewhere in his thirties.

Unlike in the rear palace, the doctors in the outer court were usually quite accomplished. Moreover, those who worked near the training grounds saw crowds of patients every day, and worked with an eye toward efficiency. It was practically pleasant to watch the way they went about their business with no wasted movement.

“We’re done cutting away the infected area and cleaning the wound. Here’s the needle,” Maomao said, offering the two men tools; they started sewing.

The young soldier had been given a bandage to bite on. He had bruises here and there, though whether they were from training or from something else was impossible to say.

They only needed to resew one spot, so the work was quickly done.

“If you don’t change your bandages it’ll never heal, no matter how long you give it,” Dr. Li admonished the young man.

“And I wish you’d take your medicine. That’s what it’s for,” added the other doctor.

“Please make sure you return the trousers and underpants we loaned you the other day,” Maomao chipped in. She seemed to have struck a nerve, because the young soldier went bright red. He probably didn’t care to be reminded that a man of his age had wet himself.

Dr. Li cornered the young soldier. “Now, forgive me for interrogating you when we’ve just sewn you up, but could you tell us who did this to you? Everyone disappeared in such a rush last time. It left us in quite a tizzy.”

“It was just a little mishap during training. It doesn’t matter who did it.”

“Excuse me? Someone was obviously trying to kill you! You had a broken wooden sword stabbed in your belly. You’re only lucky it didn’t lacerate any internal organs!”

Maomao and the stubbly doctor both nodded.

“From your speech, I take it you’re from I-sei Province,” Dr. Li said. Having spent a year there, it was easy for him to catch the accent.

The young soldier fell silent.

“Which would suggest the perpetrator was from the central region,” the stubbly doctor said, stroking his chin. “Ugh! I wish they’d find somewhere else to have their proxy battles. Aren’t you angry at them for beating you up like that? Man up and report them!”

“If I do that, all that will happen is they’ll beat me black and blue,” the young soldier spat. “Among us soldiers, the weak are at fault for being weak. Being strong is the only thing that matters.”

Maomao could understand what he was saying, but if that logic was going to result in major injuries, she did want to resolve the matter. This wasn’t just a problem for the troops; it also meant more work for the physicians.

The young soldier was proving unexpectedly stubborn. They would have to insist that he at least change his bandages and take his medicine. If he didn’t want to bother them with it, that was nice of him and all, but if it made his wounds worse, it would only mean more trouble in the long run.

Speaking of people who bother us...

Maomao found herself thinking of Jinshi. If this young man had let them change his dressings as often as Jinshi had let her change his, he’d be better by now.

She still hadn’t heard anything from Jinshi about the jade. She assumed he would contact her if he learned something.

With that thought in mind, she started preparing anti-infectives to give to the young soldier.

Maomao wasn’t specifically fond of gossip, but she didn’t have any aversion to it either. At the same time, though, she wasn’t interested in hearing the same thing over and over. But there were those who would gamely explain something to you even if you told them politely that you already knew the story and didn’t need to hear it again.

“Well, now, let’s see. The military has been a pillar of the Empress Dowager’s faction in the past, but, gee, these last few years, Empress Gyokuyou has begun to come into her own, and the folks from I-sei Province are starting to throw their weight around.”

This was Chue, nattering away while Maomao rewrapped her bandages. She’d started showing up at the medical office near the training grounds in tandem with Maomao’s reassignment there. The physicians left Chue’s treatment to Maomao, a fellow woman—either because they didn’t want to be examining a married woman too closely, or because Chue could be such a talker when alone with whoever was treating her.

“Not that the Empress Dowager’s faction was going to stand by and watch. So long as Master Lakan was here, the neutral faction acted as a check, and there were no major issues. But! While Master Lakan was away, that delicate balance was upset,” she drawled.

“Ah. Yes. I see.” Maomao lifted Chue’s right arm, palpated it, and so on. Chue could only move her fingers at what could best be described as a tremble.

“And it was no easier for Master Lakan’s camp. It’s terrible—some of them actually changed allegiance to the Empress Dowager’s or the Empress’s factions!”

“About that,” Maomao said, massaging Chue’s arm. “I can’t get over those names. The Empress Dowager’s faction and the Empress’s faction.”

“You’ve met both of those august ladies, haven’t you, Miss Maomao?”

“Yes. And I don’t think either of them is the kind to go out of her way to attack someone, is she? This makes it seem like Empress Gyokuyou and the Empress Dowager are somehow having a fight, and that feels odd.”

The Empress Dowager had freed slaves and built the clinic in the rear palace to create a place for palace ladies with nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the Empress, Gyokuyou, was not the type to sit quietly by if someone picked a fight with her, but she wasn’t specifically bellicose.

“There’s no avoiding it—the families are getting involved,” Chue drawled. “The Empress Dowager’s family can be quite avaricious, you know. You can probably guess that much from the fact that they sent her into the rear palace as a little girl.”

“Yikes...” Maomao worked the pressure points of Chue’s hand, wondering even as she did so if needle treatments were actually effective. Beside her she kept some notes, where she recorded observations about how Chue’s mobility had changed since last time. “So the Empress’s faction is really Master Gyokuen’s faction?” she asked.

“Weeelll, yes, pretty much, but it’s attracted lots of people from the provinces. It always seems to be the folks with central connections who get promoted, so the provincials have hitched their wagon to Master Gyokuen, who’s a meritocrat.”

“But at his age, isn’t the question of inheritance pretty pressing?”

His age had been his excuse for not returning to the western capital upon the death of his eldest son Gyoku-ou, but Maomao had heard it was also because he was laboring to establish a base in the central region.

“Yes, which is why the Empress Dowager’s faction is currently taking aim at exactly that.”

“They’re making a move against the Empress’s faction?” Maomao tilted her head. “It’s not the newcomers, the Empress’s faction, who are making a move against the Empress Dowager’s faction?”

She recalled what the leader of the U clan had said about the new faction not liking him very much.

“No indeed. You know the saying, ‘The nail that sticks up will get pounded down’? Well, the Empress’s faction is the nail. But it’s not so easy to say in this case. Tell me, what do you think about Wang Fang, the guy who was killed in Master Lakan’s office?”

“I think it looks like there’s more to that story.”

“Yep! All three of the court women who conspired to kill him were connected to the Shin clan.”

Lahan said something similar.

She hadn’t gotten him to elaborate on that remark yet, but Chue seemed likely to be more forthcoming.

“You’re suggesting that because Wang Fang belonged to the Empress’s faction, the Empress Dowager’s people killed him and made it look like a crime of passion?” Maomao asked.

“That’s certainly possible—or it might just have been a run-of-the-mill murder.”

“What was Wang Fang looking for?”

“Ooooh, what shall I do here? Okay, I’ll tell you—just because!” Chue whispered in Maomao’s ear: “Wang Fang was supposedly searching for a Shin family heirloom that was said to have disappeared.”

Maomao was careful not to let the shock show on her face.

“Each of the three women had relatives who were friends with the former leader of the Shin clan. Wang Fang was asking around about exactly what shape this heirloom took.”

“An heirloom...” Maomao still thought this could also be connected to Joka’s jade tablet.

Was he looking for an Imperial relative who isn’t on the family tree?

No; if Wang Fang belonged to the Empress’s faction, he didn’t need to finagle himself a convenient royal. Something didn’t make sense here. Maomao let go of Chue’s hand, feeling as if she only had more questions than before.

“Ohhh! My poor wound aches!” Chue said and rubbed her hand demonstratively, evidently angling for more massage.

“We have to call it here for today. I have other work to do,” Maomao said.

“You’re no fun.”

When Maomao left the room, she found a tall court lady holding a basket.

Okay. I’m pretty sure that’s...

It was the newcomer with the short name. She was dressed rather thoroughly, perhaps to avoid showing any skin.

“I got the herbs you asked for,” she said.

“Great.”

The basket was full of them. This young lady—as well as the other newcomer, Changsha—was being put to a great deal of work by various departments while they were still new.

“Could you hang on for a second?” Maomao asked, checking the contents of the basket against her notes about what she had ordered. “Let’s see... Rhubarb root, spatterdock, cinnamon...” All of which could contribute to treating bruises. “That’s everything. No problems.”

Maomao took the basket and was going to put the herbs in the medicine cabinet immediately, but the new girl showed no sign of leaving.

“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao! She’s looking at you like she wants to say something!” Chue—who had also not left—said, nudging her.

“Is there anything else you need?” Maomao asked.

“I heard from Yao and En’en that you run an apothecary shop in the city, Maomao,” the new girl said with utmost gravity.

“I do...”

“Then, is there any chance you know about this man—another apothecary? I think he’s been running an apothecary shop or serving as a doctor in the capital the past several years.”

“A man who became an apothecary? I know a few of those.”

Her own pupil was among them.

“Y-You do?!”

“Uh-huh. His name is Sazen, and he works at an apothecary shop in the pleasure district.”

“Sazen... Pleasure district... Do you think it could be a false name? Does he look, you know, like he has a story?!”

Maomao paused. The girl was acting a little funny. Maybe Maomao had been wrong to give Sazen’s name so easily.

Come to think of it, he did escape from the confusion of the Shi clan affair.

It could be bad news if it was discovered that he’d been involved in that. He was a decent guy, and anyway, she’d worked hard on him. She didn’t want to have to find yet another new apothecary.

Another question: Why did this girl want to find a man serving as an apothecary?

“I’m begging you! Let me meet this Sazen person!” The new girl grabbed Maomao’s collar and shook vigorously.

“Er... But...”

“If you won’t tell me where he is, I’ll find him myself! You said he was in the pleasure district!”

Definitely shouldn’t have said that.

There weren’t that many apothecaries in the pleasure district. The new girl would find Sazen without much trouble.

“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao, why don’t you just take her there?”

“Miss Chue, Miss Chue, I don’t think this is any of your business.”

“Hoo hoo hoo! Miss Chue will go with you. She’s got time to kill now that she’s been let go from her old job.” Chue chortled merrily.

Maomao groaned and wondered what to do. The new girl still hadn’t let go of her.