The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 1 - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Covert Operations

When Maomao and Jinshi arrived at their destination, she found that he had brought them to the office of the Matron of the Serving Women. The middle-aged woman was inside, but at a word from Jinshi, she quickly left the room. Let us be honest about how Maomao was feeling: the last thing in the world she wanted was to be alone with this creature.

It wasn’t that Maomao hated beautiful things. But when something was too beautiful, one started to feel that the remotest blemish was like a crime, unforgivable. It was like how a single scratch on an otherwise perfect, polished pearl could cut the thing’s price in half. And though the exterior might be lovely, there was the question of what was within. And so Maomao ended up looking at Jinshi like some kind of bug crawling along the ground.

She sincerely couldn’t help it.

I’d rather just admire him from afar. This was how Maomao, simple commoner that she was, truly felt. It was, then, with some relief that she greeted Gaoshun, who replaced the woman in the room. For all his taciturn disposition, this servant eunuch had become something of a refuge for her of late.

“How many colors like this exist?” Jinshi inquired, lining up the powders he had brought from the doctor’s chambers.

They were just medicines as far as Maomao was concerned, so there might be more that she didn’t know about. But she said, “Red, yellow, blue, purple, and green. And if you subdivide them, there are arguably more. I couldn’t give you an exact number.”

“And how would a wooden writing strip be made to acquire one of these colors?” The powder couldn’t simply be rubbed on it; it would just rub off again. It was all very strange.

“Salt can be dissolved in water to color an object. I suspect a similar method would work here.” Maomao pulled the white powder toward her. “As for the rest, some might dissolve in something other than water. Again, this is outside my field of expertise, so I can’t be sure.”

There were any number of white powders out there: some that would dissolve in water and some that wouldn’t; others that might dissolve in oil, say. If some of the stuff was to be impregnated into a writing strip, a substance that would dissolve in water seemed a reasonable assumption.

“All right, enough.” The young man crossed his arms and lost himself in thought. He was so lovely, he could have been a painting. It almost seemed wrong for heaven to have given a man such unearthly beauty. And to then cause that man to live and work as a eunuch in the rear palace was deeply ironic.

Maomao knew that Jinshi had his hand in a great number of proverbial cookie jars in the rear palace. Perhaps something she’d said had caused the pieces of some puzzle to fall into place for him. He seemed to be trying to figure them out.

Could it be a code...?

They had probably each come to the same conclusion. But Maomao knew better, much better, than to say so out loud. The quiet pheasant is not shot, went the proverb. (Which country had those words supposedly come from, again?)

Feeling that she was no longer needed, Maomao made to leave.

“Hold on,” Jinshi said.

“Yes, sir, what is it?”

“Personally, I like them best steam-boiled in an earthen pot.”

She didn’t have to ask what “they” were. Found me out, eh? Perhaps it had been a little bit much, eating the matsutake mushrooms right there in the doctor’s quarters. Maomao’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll try to find some more tomorrow.”

It seemed her agenda for the next day was set: she would be going back to the grove.

⭘⬤⭘

When he heard the clack that assured him the door was shut fast, Jinshi gave a honeyed smile. His eyes, however, were hard enough to cut diamond. “Find anyone who recently suffered burns on their arms,” he ordered his aide. “Start with anyone with their own chambers, and their serving women.”

Gaoshun, who had been sitting silently as if waiting just for this, nodded. “As you wish, sir.”

He left the room, and the Matron came back in his place. Jinshi did feel bad chasing her out every time he showed up. “I must apologize for constantly stealing your office out from under you.”

“O-Oh, heavens, not at all,” the woman said, blushing like she was many years younger than she was. Jinshi made sure the ambrosiac smile was still on his face.

This was how women were supposed to react to him. But on her, his looks were completely ineffective. Was this all his face could get him? Jinshi allowed himself the briefest purse of his lips before his smile returned and he left the room.

⭘⬤⭘

A pile of woven baskets, delivered by a eunuch, awaited Maomao when she got back to the Jade Pavilion. They sat in the living area, the ladies-in-waiting busily investigating the contents. She thought at first they might be a gift from His Majesty, or perhaps a care package from home, but they didn’t quite look like either of those things. The clothing they contained was too plain to be something Consort Gyokuyou might wear, and there were several duplicate outfits. From the way the other girls were holding the dresses up to themselves to check the length, Maomao surmised that they must be new uniforms.

“Here, try this on,” one of the other ladies-in-waiting, Yinghua, said, pushing one of the outfits at Maomao. It consisted of a plain overgarment above a light-red skirt, while the sleeves were pale yellow and somewhat wider than usual. It wasn’t silk, but it was an exceptionally fine brocade.

“What’s going on with these?” Maomao asked. The colors were subdued, as befitted a serving woman, but the design seemed eminently impractical. Maomao also frowned instinctively at the excessively open chest, something that had never featured on any of her other clothes.

“What do you mean, what? These are our outfits for the garden party.”

“I’m sorry. The garden party?”

Thoroughly insulated by the indulgences of the more experienced ladies-in-waiting, Maomao’s only excursions outside of her regular regimen of food tasting and making medicine were going out to collect ingredients, chatting with Xiaolan, taking tea with the doctor, and so forth. As a result, she didn’t hear much about what was going on among those over her head. Frankly, she had started to wonder if it was really acceptable for a person to make her living at a job that seemed this easy.

Yinghua, somewhat amazed that she had to spell this out, explained to Maomao what was going on. Twice a year, a party was held in the Imperial gardens. His Majesty, being without a proper queen as he was, would be accompanied by his concubines of the Upper First rank. And they would be accompanied by their ladies-in-waiting.

In the rear palace hierarchy, Gyokuyou held the rank of guifei, or “Precious Consort,” while Lihua bore the title xianfei, “Wise Consort.” In addition to these women there were two others, the defei, or “Virtuous Consort,” and the shufei, or “Pure Consort.” These four comprised the Upper First rank.

Typically, only the Virtuous and Pure Consorts would attend the winter garden party. But due to the birth of their children, Gyokuyou and Lihua had both been absent from the most recent gathering, so this time all four would be present.

“So all of them will be there?”

“That’s right. We have to be ready to put on a good show!” Yinghua was practically vibrating. Besides being the all too rare chance to get out of the rear palace, this gathering of all the most important consorts would double as the debut of Princess Lingli.

Maomao was well aware that she couldn’t beg off the party on the pretext of inexperience. Consort Gyokuyou had far too few ladies-in-waiting already for her to do that. Besides, the services of a food taster would be seen as particularly important at such a public gathering.

Maomao’s intuition nagged at her. It could be a bloodbath if we aren’t careful. And her intuition had an annoying habit of being right.

“Hmm, I think you’d better stuff that chest. I’ll help you add a bit around the butt, too. Sound okay?”

“I leave the matter in your capable hands.”

A certain voluptuousness was the standard of beauty here, which unfortunately meant Maomao’s natural shape was somewhat wanting—a point Yinghua made inescapably clear. She was busy cinching belts and checking fits. “You’ll have to make yourself up, too. You could at least bother to hide your freckles every once in a while.” Yinghua gave Maomao a naughty little grin, and we need hardly say that Maomao replied with a scowl.

Maomao was somewhat disheartened when Hongniang filled her in on how things would go at the party. The head lady-in-waiting, who had been at the previous year’s spring event, heaved a sigh and said, “I was so looking forward to not having to deal with it this year.” When Maomao inquired whether there was anything particularly bad about it, Hongniang explained that there was simply nothing to do. The ladies-in-waiting just stood around the entire time.

There would be dance performance after dance performance, then singing accompanied by a two-stringed erhu, then food would be presented and eaten, and then the girls would exchange forced smiles and pleasantries with the various officials in attendance. And all of it outdoors, where they would be exposed to the blowing, dry wind.

The gardens were expansive, a testament to His Majesty’s power. Even a “quick” visit to the toilet could take upwards of thirty minutes. And if His Majesty, the true guest of honor, remained resolutely seated, his consorts would have no choice but to stay sitting as well.

Sounds like I’m going to need an iron bladder, Maomao thought. If the spring party had been as much trouble as all that, how much worse would it be in winter?

To combat one source of potential discomfort, however, Maomao had sewn several pockets onto her undergarment, into which warmers could be placed. She also minced ginger and tangerine rinds, boiling them with sugar and fruit juice to produce candy. When she showed these products to Hongniang, the head lady-in-waiting veritably begged her to make some for everyone else.

While she was busy working on them, a certain eunuch with too much time on his hands showed up and demanded she make some for him as well. His assistant seemed to feel bad about it and at least helped her with the work.

What was more, it seemed Consort Gyokuyou let word of Maomao’s ideas slip during one of the Emperor’s nocturnal visits, and the next day she was approached by His Majesty’s personal seamstress and chef. She obligingly taught them her methods.

I guess we aren’t the only ones who have it tough at these events, she thought. Still, the hubbub over such simple ideas suggested how rotely everyone else was approaching the party. When one let oneself become too attached to custom, one ceased to be capable of discovering even the most minor innovations.

So Maomao passed the time until the garden party in domestic endeavors. Hongniang, meanwhile, busied herself with attempting to correct Maomao’s occasional lapses into less than deferential speech. Much as Maomao appreciated the gesture, she found the lessons trying. Unlike the other three serving girls, their leader, Hongniang, was just a bit too attuned to how Maomao really was.

When she was finally free, the night before the garden party, Maomao set about making some medicine with herbs she had to hand. A little something, just in case.

“You look absolutely beautiful, Lady Gyokuyou.” Yinghua spoke for all of them, and her words were more than mere flattery.

I guess that’s the Emperor’s favorite consort for you.

Gyokuyou exuded an exotic beauty, dressed in a crimson skirt and a robe of a lighter red color. The wide-sleeved jacket she wore over this was the same red as her skirt, and worked with embroidery in gold thread. Her hair was gathered into two large rings held back with ornate hair sticks decorated with flowers, and perched between the rings of hair she wore a tiara. Straight silver hair sticks surrounded the elaborate decoration, themselves adorned with red tassels and jade stones.

It was a mark of Gyokuyou’s force of personality that despite the elaborate designs, she was in no way outshone by her own clothes. The consort with the flame-red hair was said to look better in scarlet than anyone in the country. The way her eyes, green as jade themselves, shone from within all that red only added to her mystique. Perhaps this was the product of the abundant foreign blood that flowed through Gyokuyou’s veins.

The skirts that Maomao and the others would wear likewise used light red to indicate that they served Consort Gyokuyou. In addition, wearing the same color as their mistress, but in a lighter hue, would make her stand out that much more.

The ladies-in-waiting all changed into their skirts and did their hair. Consort Gyokuyou, remarking that this was after all a special occasion, produced a jeweled box from her own dressing table. Inside were necklaces, earrings, and hair sticks decorated with jade.

“You are my own ladies-in-waiting. I have to mark you out, to make sure no little birds try to go flying off with you.” And then she bestowed an accessory on each of them, in their hair or on their ears or around their necks. Maomao was given a necklace to wear.

“Thank you, milad—”

Hrk!

Before she could properly finish her expression of gratitude, she found herself choked. Yinghua had wrapped her arms around Maomao. “All right! Time for some makeup!”

Hongniang was standing there with eyebrow tweezers and a grin on her face. Was it just Maomao’s imagination, or did she look a bit more jovial than usual? The other two ladies-in-waiting had items of their own: a pot of lip color and a brush.

Maomao had forgotten that the other women had of late been deeply interested in getting her to wear some makeup.

“Hee hee. I’m sure you’ll look lovely.”

It seemed they had a co-conspirator! Consort Gyokuyou’s laugh was like the ringing of a bell. Maomao couldn’t hide her distress, but the four waiting-women were merciless.

“First, we need to wipe your face and get some scented oil on there.”

A damp cloth was assiduously applied to Maomao’s face.

But then Yinghua and the others exclaimed in unison: “Huh?”

Ugh... Maomao stared at the ceiling, beaten. The girls were looking from the cloth to her face and back, their mouths hanging open. Guess the jig is up. Maomao closed her eyes, not best pleased.

We should say something here. The reason Maomao hated to be made up was not because she fundamentally disliked makeup. It didn’t disagree with her in any particular way. In fact, so far from having trouble with it, one could say she was quite skilled at its use. Why her aversion, then? It was because her face was already made up.

Several light stains could be seen on the damp cloth. The face everyone had taken to be heavily freckled was in fact the product of cosmetics.