The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 6 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Basen and Lishu

When Maomao and Jinshi got word, they rushed to the tower by horse. There was no time to arrange a carriage; instead, they commandeered the mount the messenger had come on, with Jinshi at the reins. Maomao didn’t bother to ask for his permission as she jumped up behind him. He only said, “We’ll be going fast. Don’t fall off.” She took that as an okay. She pressed her face into his back, which smelled of perfume, and braced herself, trying to remain upright.

When they arrived at the palace, Jinshi removed his mask, begrudging even the time to show his insignia of office. The horse didn’t even slow down as they made for the tower where Consort Lishu was confined.

A crowd had already gathered in front of the pagoda. In addition to the guards, there were gawking bureaucrats and court ladies, faced by soldiers insisting they stay back. No sooner had the court ladies noticed Jinshi than they blushed furiously—until they spotted Maomao and looked incensed instead. But Maomao and Jinshi both ignored them; there was no time to pander to the likes of them.

They could see a woman on the uppermost story of the pagoda, a young woman gazing into the distance, her hair disheveled—it was Consort Lishu. Maomao couldn’t tell what she was doing; she seemed to be trying to grab hold of something, reaching out with one hand toward the sky.

What’s she doing up there? Maomao thought. The building was so old, it creaked under your feet; Maomao couldn’t believe the timid consort had gone all the way to the top floor of her own volition. She was too far away to make out her expression, though, or guess what exactly she was trying to do.

“Let me through! Let me through!” cried a familiar voice. Maomao realized that the woman being restrained by the guards was Lishu’s chief lady-in-waiting. She was stretching out her arms as far as she could, as if she might be able to reach the door of the tower, but the guards wouldn’t let her. “Lady Lishu—!”

The woman’s clothes were covered in mud. It was strange; it didn’t look like it had gotten there when the guards had stopped her. It almost looked like someone had thrown a mud pie at her.

But the chief lady-in-waiting wasn’t the only familiar face.

“What’s going on?! What is Consort Lishu doing all the way up there?!” Basen rushed up, out of breath. He must have heard the news too. Maybe he’d been exercising when it reached him, because he was dressed in what seemed to be a martial arts training uniform rather than his usual official attire.

The addition of a shouting young man to the panicked lady-in-waiting only increased the general confusion. Now the guards had to deal with Basen, who was bent on getting into the pagoda. They tried to push him back, but only found themselves dragged along instead.

Ah, the infamous strength. Maomao had learned about it firsthand in the western capital—but she sensed there was something more than simple physical power at work here. She couldn’t think about it now, though; they needed to figure out what to do about Consort Lishu.

“Calm down!” A clear, beautiful voice rang out. Basen and the chief lady-in-waiting both stopped and looked at its owner—Jinshi. He passed his horse’s reins to one of the soldiers, then strode over to the two of them. “I will go.”

“B-But...” the lady-in-waiting stuttered.

“I said, I’ll do it.” Jinshi’s expression brooked no argument. The lady-in-waiting sank to the ground. There was a red line on her face and grains of rice in her hair.

Was somebody harassing her? Maomao wondered. It wasn’t impossible. You didn’t have to be in the rear palace to find plenty of unpleasant people. With word going around that her lady was under arrest on suspicions of infidelity, it would hardly be surprising if the chief lady-in-waiting suffered some reprisals as well.

As far as Maomao could tell, this woman was the only lady to accompany Lishu, so she must have been tending to the consort all this time, all by herself, with no one to help her. At first, Maomao had taken her for nothing more than a particularly nasty food taster—she was struck by how much people could change.

“Why did you leave the consort alone? Were you going to get her meal?” Jinshi asked. There was no kindness in his voice, but neither was his tone cold.

His even demeanor seemed to help the lady-in-waiting get herself under control as well. She said, “My lady has been most depressed recently. She’s seemed weak, maybe because she can’t leave her chambers and has no way of getting fresh air. I think today she reached her limit. She expelled me from her room—she doesn’t appear to trust anyone.”

“So you left until she got a hold of herself?”

“Yes, sir. I needed to change, anyway... Although now it seems I’ll need to do it again.” She looked at her filthy skirt.

Jinshi nodded and headed toward the door.

“I’m coming with you,” Basen said, and started to go after him, but the other man only looked at him.

“There’s no need for you to come. It’s not your job.”

Basen scowled, clenching his fists.

He’s not wrong, Maomao thought. Unlike Jinshi, who was personally acquainted with Consort Lishu from working in the rear palace, Basen had merely accompanied her on their trip west. Whatever feelings he might have for her, dealing with her was not his business.

“But—” he started, a pained look on his face.

“You are my adjutant. You understand what that means, yes?”

Basen didn’t say anything.

“Consider the worst-case scenario and prepare for it. You’re the only one who can.” With that, Jinshi disappeared into the tower.

He really trusts this guy. She didn’t know whether Jinshi was making the best choice or not, but she knew it was a difficult decision—and she also saw that she needed to do what she could to help.

Basen looked deeply pensive for a moment, then called one of the officials over and began giving instructions. She thought he said something about getting together every blanket and mattress they could find, but Lishu was too high up for that to help.

Meanwhile, Maomao did what only Maomao could. “Did Consort Lishu display any other unusual behavior?” she asked, rubbing the lady-in-waiting’s back. Maomao had observed the scratch on the woman’s cheek and wondered if Lishu had had some kind of fit. She was usually so docile, but if she was feeling that paranoid, it wouldn’t have been surprising.

“I don’t know if I would say unusual, but she’s seemed especially interested in the ceiling lately. I think she was bothered by some hole in the woodwork.”

Was something on the floor above on her mind? Would that explain why she had gone up to the top story?

“I think there was someone on the level above us. There was a strange smell in our room sometimes, and I think it came from up there.”

“A strange smell?”

“Yes... It was like perfume, but it was nothing I’d ever smelled before. I didn’t like it very much, but it seemed to please the consort. She spent a lot of time sitting where it was most noticeable.”

Maomao cocked her head, and this time turned to one of the guards. “Was there anyone else in that tower?” she asked.

The guards glanced at each other, looking stricken. Their faces communicated that they knew something, but couldn’t say what.

“Was there anyone else?!” Maomao demanded—but the answer came from an unexpected source.

“Not was. Is.” A man with spectacles, an abacus, and tousled hair came trotting up to the conversation. “Although I requested that if anyone else were put in that tower, they be kept as far away from them as possible.” It was Lahan, with an implicit rebuke for the guards.

“Apologies, sir. The tower is old... The upper floors didn’t seem to be in a usable state.”

“Well, I didn’t think anyone else would end up in there, anyway. Certainly not a consort.”

“What are you talking about?” Maomao said.

“Only what I asked to be done. Lest it become a diplomatic incident, you see.”

“Diplomatic incident?” Maomao didn’t see at all. What did that have to do with anything?

“I told you you should have come to my meeting with that western beauty. She asked me for this.”

“This western beauty of yours—you mean the special envoy?!”

“Keep your voice down,” Lahan said, slapping a hand over Maomao’s mouth.

The guards didn’t appear to have heard, but Lishu’s chief lady-in-waiting reacted. “The special envoy... Yes, that reminds me!”

“What is it?” Maomao asked.

“You asked me if anything unusual had happened with Lady Lishu. And I just remembered...”

“Yes?! What?!” Maomao grabbed the woman by the shoulders, all but shaking her.

“One of the ladies-in-waiting released a bird. A white bird we got from the envoy.”

“A bird? What happened to the mirror?” Maomao had been under the impression that the envoys had gifted large mirrors to each of the high consorts—had Lishu not gotten one?

“We did receive a mirror, but Consort Lishu was given a pair of mating birds as well, on the grounds that she was the youngest. The envoys thought perhaps she might be lonely, so far from her parents.”

“And they thought birds would help?”

“I suppose so. But Lady Lishu starts sneezing anytime she touches an animal’s fur or feathers, so she didn’t see much of them. She felt bad not being able to care properly for them, and gave them to one of the maids. A bit back, while Lady Lishu was away, the woman let the bird go. In fact...she seemed to have let them both go, I’m afraid.”

The birds... She let them go? Maomao felt like the pieces were just about to fall into place. She searched her memory desperately, trying to figure out why this seemed so important. Could it be...

“These birds didn’t happen to be pigeons, did they?”

“They might have been. I never actually saw them, so I’m not sure, but I did hear them cooing, I think.”

Pigeons knew how to get back to their homes. The page Lishu had copied from the novel had been rolled up like a string. What if it had been tied to a pigeon’s leg?

There was something else too. “At the banquet for the envoys last summer, wasn’t there somebody talking to you? Not one of the envoys themselves, but one of their servants.”

“Now that you mention it...”

Among the ladies-in-waiting, there had been someone saying something to the effect of: “The gentlemen of the west are generous and so very handsome!”

I can’t believe I missed it, Maomao thought. She’d been so sure that the book must have been sold by the visiting caravan. It made sense—someone from the west would have been able to get a hold of the translation sooner than those in the capital.

But the envoys had come to the banquet specifically to market themselves to the Emperor and his younger brother. Of course they would sound out the palace women first, trying to get whatever information they could. And they would naturally go after the person who looked most vulnerable. If they had decided, during their reconnaissance, that Lishu would be the easiest consort to manipulate, it would certainly explain why they had targeted her after that.

They played us! She should have realized, especially after one of the envoys had turned out to be involved with the Shi clan—and had managed to look perfectly innocent about it.

Now wasn’t the time for regret, though. “All right, Lahan. Who is it in that tower?”

In response, Lahan leaned toward Maomao and whispered a name. When she heard it, she immediately broke out in a clammy sweat.

The White Immortal.

Of all the people it could have been... That made Maomao all the more curious about the strange smell that had been drifting into the consort’s chambers. With as much as the White Lady knew about drugs, it was entirely possible she’d mixed something into some incense that would dull Lishu’s judgment.

Maomao shoved past Lahan and made for the tower. She saw no sign of Basen. He must have taken to heart Jinshi’s admonition to prepare for the worst. Anyway, she didn’t have time to worry about him now. She needed to go see exactly what was happening with Consort Lishu.

She slipped past the startled guards and into the tower. Hallway, stairs, hallway, stairs. It was enough to make her head spin. She only knew she’d arrived at the top floor because she found several men there.

Jinshi was standing in front of an open door, beyond which was a balcony where Lishu stood, her eyes unfocused. Jinshi was speaking to her calmly. The balcony was falling apart; Lishu was light enough that it could support her, but if Jinshi tried to go out there, his foot might go clean through the floor. He obviously hoped he could talk her back into the building, but it didn’t look like it was going very well.

“Don’t move... Stay away...” Lishu was saying. What was she looking at? She was giving little shakes of her head, her face contorted with fear. A beautiful, much-beloved gentleman was standing before her, yet she looked as agonized as if she beheld a monster. Her eyes were utterly blind to his beauty. She was seeing something else, something fantastic.

“Consort...” Jinshi said gently, still trying not to upset her further. He had the right idea—if he could just keep talking to her until she came back to her senses, he might yet succeed.

Maomao stood quietly behind Jinshi. It would be risky for the young man to go out on the balcony; if they wanted to get any closer to Lishu, Maomao would be the better choice.

“I’ll go,” she said.

“Hey, wait!” Jinshi said, but she brushed his hand away. Quite frankly, she didn’t want to do this. What if her foot punched a hole through the floor? What was the consort even doing way the hell up here?

That was only one of many bitter questions that occurred to Maomao, but like an idiot, she pressed ahead, consequences be damned. She had boarded this boat, and she was going to ride it until the end. She found one thought growing irresistibly in her mind: now that she’d come this far, she was going to help Consort Lishu.

“Consort,” she said. “Lady Ah-Duo is waiting for you.”

It was a judicious choice: mentioning her family here and now would almost certainly have had the opposite of the desired effect, and even Jinshi’s presence hadn’t brought Lishu back to them. Instead, Maomao invoked the name of the person the consort trusted most at this moment.

Her choice earned a twitch from the consort. “Lady...Ah-Duo...?” She seemed to show no fear of that name.

“Yes. She’ll be here soon. You need to change before she arrives.”

Maomao was careful not to specifically tell Lishu to come back to them. She just needed the consort to move toward her on the balcony. Just stay calm and move...

But it’s never that simple.

A sweet-bitter aroma wafted to Maomao’s nose. Something went by her without so much as a sound of footsteps, seeming so much a part of the natural world that no one reacted at first. The White Lady passed them by as unnoticed as a breeze.

Jinshi was the first to register her presence; he moved to intercept her, but—

“Gah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

There was a shrill, piercing laugh. That was all she did—she laughed. Her red eyes almost closed, her voice was like a wild animal’s. It raised goosebumps on Maomao’s skin. She reached out reflexively toward Consort Lishu—but she was too late.

In her current state, the laughter was enough to agitate Lishu. Her face twisted, and she fell back against the railing. The woman’s cackling must have terrified her.

The rotten railing wasn’t even able to support Lishu’s modest weight, and she pitched backward into the empty air.

Maomao rushed across the balcony, but the floorboards gave way and she too began to fall. Just when she was expecting to feel a rush of wind against her body, she felt a pressure against her belly instead.

“Noooo!” Jinshi caught her at the last second.

He caught her, but she was unable to catch Lishu. Maomao’s hand was empty, and Lishu was gone.

○●○

So this was how it all ended.

Lishu smiled. Her body was dropping through space. Soon she would strike the ground and enter into a sleep from which she would never awaken.

Her surroundings, which had seemed so hazy, were suddenly sharp and clear. She could see the collapsing balcony, and the apothecary, the one who usually acted so indifferent. Ah... She’d thought it felt like someone had been talking to her. It must have been the apothecary.

Lishu fell, unloved by anybody, unneeded. She was only ever in the way, so maybe it would be better if she wasn’t there at all. She wouldn’t be ridiculed anymore, or laughed at, or ignored. No one would leer at her with cruelty in their smile. But the journey to the ground did seem to be taking such a long time, so long that she wondered if maybe she really had grown wings and flown away like a bird. No, better to dispense with such fantasies. They only made it harder to bear when you came back to reality.

She closed her eyes, preparing to welcome the end, when she heard a voice.

“Consort!”

It sounded familiar. Whose was it? Without really meaning to, she looked toward the voice.

She saw a man standing on the multitiered roofs. He was grown, but not old enough yet to have acquired a beard or mustache. The sensitive lines of his face stirred something in her memory.

It was the young man who had saved her from the lion at the banquet in the western capital. She’d never had a chance to thank him. She’d thought about it several times, but had never quite managed, so she had meant to send him a letter eventually. Now that she thought about it, she was glad she hadn’t. She would have felt bad if the ugly suspicions surrounding her had engulfed him as well.

She wished, though—now, now it was too late—she wished she could have at least told him how grateful she was. She opened her mouth. He would never be able to hear her, but she thought she could at least communicate those two simple words: “Thank you.”

Before she could so much as move her lips, though, the young man did something unbelievable. He began running along the roof, old tiles breaking under his feet, chunks of them flying loose. Despite the footing, or lack thereof, the young man jumped. He flew through the air and grabbed Lishu.

What was he doing?

Maybe he was just a little touched in the head. After all, no one could survive a fall from this height. Not even a trained soldier—certainly not one holding an additional person’s worth of weight. Yet he held Lishu tightly in his arms.

Why would he embrace her, hold fast to a worthless young woman? It was pointless; it would only lead to both their deaths. She wished he wouldn’t do this. Why was he doing this?

Tears poured from her eyes. But the young man, seemingly oblivious to how Lishu felt, smiled awkwardly.

And then there was a tremendous thump. The young man’s left leg caught the roof below them, but only for a second, and then they were falling again, his leg twisted at a bizarre angle.

“St—” Lishu said, but before she could get the word Stop out of her mouth, the young man had kicked off the next roof with his still-functioning right leg. The force of the kick must have been immense, for Lishu saw some roof tiles come loose.

Leaves rustled as they plummeted into the branches. Lishu caught the smell of fresh foliage. They had dropped among the huge trees that surrounded the tower. The young man kept hold of Lishu with one hand and grabbed a branch with the other. Their combined momentum, however, thwarted him, and he lost his grip. He tsk’ed as his fingernails dragged down the side of the trunk.

Their fall stopped with another big bump. There was an impact, but no pain. Lishu hadn’t actually hit the ground; instead, the young man was beneath her, protecting her—and beneath him was a pile of mattresses. When she looked around, in fact, she realized there seemed to be mattresses everywhere.

Both the young man’s legs were broken, while the nails on his left hand had been torn out and his fingers were bleeding. And while they may have landed on some mattresses, it couldn’t have been enough to keep the young man from hurting his back in the landing.

He was an absolute wreck—but he was still wearing that same awkward smile.

“Why?” Lishu said. She wasn’t able to voice the complete question: Why had he saved her? Why had he not simply left her to die? She didn’t know what to do with someone who had battered his own body in order to protect her.

The young man’s right hand, the only uninjured part of him, was shaking for some reason. He slowly moved away, releasing her. “Are you hurt, my lady?” he asked.

“Why?”

She still couldn’t muster any further words. Tears clouded her eyes, and her vision was full of the young man’s blurry, smiling face.

“Does anything hurt?” he asked.

No! No, that wasn’t why she was crying. She shook her head.

“I must apologize for presenting myself before you in such a filthy state. It was an emergency.”

No! She didn’t care about that.

“I tried to be careful not to use too much strength. If you nonetheless find yourself with bruises, however, please don’t hesitate to punish me.”

Lishu was speechless. How could he say such things? His arm around her had been powerful and yet gentle. How could she ever punish him for that?

A moan escaped her, provoking a look of alarm from the young man. No, no—he shouldn’t be worrying about her. He should be thinking about his own broken body.

“Why would you bother to rescue me?” Lishu asked finally. The Emperor would surely cast aside a consort who was suspected of infidelity. It was pointless for the young man to risk his own life to save her.

“You mustn’t belittle yourself so. Saving you was worth everything. That’s why I did it.” He reached up with his one good hand and shyly wiped away Lishu’s cascading tears. “I wanted you to be happy. That’s all. Perhaps even that wish was too much ambition for a simple soldier.” That smile again.

Lishu’s mouth twisted and untwisted. She was wearing hardly any makeup, her eyes were swollen, and her face must have been bright red. She was embarrassed for the young man to see her this way—and her embarrassment only made what she did next even more embarrassing.

She buried her face in his chest.

“Lishu?! I mean, Consort?!”

The young man was practically panicking; she could hear his heart pounding with agitation in his chest. This went beyond embarrassment—she had to get away from him before anyone saw them, or this time she would be suspected of being unfaithful with this young man. Normally, doing something this crazy would have caused her heart to race and sent blood rushing to her head.

And indeed, her pulse was going very fast. But at the same time, she was calm, here with her face against the young man’s chest, which smelled faintly of sweat but just as much of fresh leaves, new growth.

Lishu wished fervently that this brief moment might be even one second longer.