The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: The Still-Hidden Treasure (Part Two)

Maomao, her eyes sparkling, was being carried by Jinshi—like a sack of rice, no less.

How did this happen? she thought. She’d wanted to get to the spot on the map as fast as humanly possible, so she had asked Basen to carry her.

“Uh, I’m not sure about that...” Basen had said. To be fair, even Maomao found the idea a bit embarrassing, and normally she wouldn’t have suggested it. But this was an emergency. Shouldn’t they be trying to get the treasure just as fast as they could?

Finally Basen had said, “I guess we have to do what we have to do,” and had made to pick Maomao up when a hand had reached out to stop him.

“I’ll bring her.”

It was Jinshi.

Thus Maomao had ended up slung ignominiously over his shoulder.

“Master Jinshi,” Maomao said—no one was close enough to hear them, so she didn’t bother to call him “Moon Prince.” “Do you think this is any way to carry a person?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why am I being carried this way?”

Jinshi pouted for a moment before replying, “I’m not supposed to touch you too much, am I?” He’d chosen the means of carrying her that minimized the amount of physical contact between them.

“Uh, you can’t make babies just by touching a girl.”

“Dammit, I know that! Here I am trying to be delicate—don’t just go and say it!”

“Understood, sir.”

Jinshi might be in a sullen mood, but Maomao could tell he was taking care that she not be jostled around too much. There were only so many options here, so she resigned herself to the life of a sack of rice.

Thanks to Jinshi’s porterage, they soon reached their destination. The centuries-old tree would have required at least three of Maomao to reach around its entire trunk.

“Y’ really think it’s here?” Tianyu asked, yawning. Could he be any more disinterested?

“If you’re going to hide something, the base of a tree is a pretty standard place,” Maomao replied.

Physical labor? That’s what Basen was there for. He took a shovel and started digging; the ground was covered in soft leaf mold, but the deeper he went, the harder the earth became.

“Nothing yet,” Tianyu’s father said.

“No, and he’s already dug an entire circuit around the tree,” Maomao agreed.

“Hey, don’t you think it could be somewhere else?” Tianyu chirped.

As they made their respective remarks, Basen kept digging.

Suddenly he gasped and tossed the shovel aside, digging in the ground with his bare hands. Maomao tried to help, but the soil was so tough that she couldn’t make any headway.

“Is this it?” Basen asked. He held up what at first looked like a rock or a clump of earth, but when he gave it a shake, it turned out to be hollow.

“It’s encased in clay,” Maomao said.

What came next was not what Basen was here for. Maomao took a wooden mallet and gently tapped the clay, being careful not to damage what was within. Bit by bit, the casing fell away, revealing a jar with a sealed mouth. Inside was a book.

Maomao gasped and reached out for it, but Jinshi took it, jar and all. “Wh-What are you doing?!” Maomao demanded.

“If you touch it now, you’ll only damage it. Maybe destroy it,” Jinshi said.

At that, Maomao went pale. The book did exist, as promised, but the pages were stuck together from the humidity. If someone carelessly tried to pry them apart, they would become unreadable.

“Is this the treasure?” Tianyu’s father asked. He looked reverently at the book but made no attempt to touch it. “It no longer belongs to me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Maomao asked.

“Yes. It’s enough for me to know that the treasure my brother was looking for really existed.”

Tianyu’s father seemed to have changed his thinking drastically on account of his brother. He’d attempted to restrain his own son in order to keep a strict distance from the Imperial family and not to repeat the crime of autopsy that their predecessor had committed. What irony that his attitude had ultimately caused Tianyu to leave the household and become an accomplished surgeon (if not necessarily an ethical paragon).

Tianyu’s father might have had a few choice words for his son, but Tianyu had none for his dad. If this had been a stage drama, this would have been the perfect time for an emotional reunion—but it wasn’t, and no tear-jerking father-son bonding moment ensued.

That was simply who Tianyu was, most likely.

I guess every family has their own circumstances.

A great weight had been lifted from the shoulders of Tianyu’s father to know that he would not be punished, let alone executed.

Even as all this passed through Maomao’s mind, she never once took her eyes off the battered book. “Master Jinshi,” she said.

“Yes, what?”

“What are you going to do with that book?”

“I think I’ll have it repaired—by a craftsman with tight lips.”

“May I be the first to see it when it’s done?”

“I can’t promise you’ll be the first, but if it does turn out to be about medicine, I’ll let you have a look.”

Maomao clenched her fist. Talk about something to look forward to! She practically skipped all the way back.