The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 3 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Books

“What are you doing?” asked the thoroughly perplexed eunuch Jinshi, who looked as gorgeous as he always did. His attendant Gaoshun stood behind him.

“I should think that would be obvious,” Maomao said, wiping away sweat as she stood over a burning cookstove. Beside her was the quack doctor, fanning himself with his hand and obviously finding the heat rather unpleasant. While he worked assiduously—Maomao needed an assistant, what with her leg still healing—she couldn’t help thinking his movements were as flabby as he was. Maybe she was hoping for too much.

They were using the cookstove in the medical office to heat a very unusual stewpot. From the lid of the pot emerged a long tube that ran through some cool water, causing droplets to form at the end, where they were then collected in a small vessel. This distilling device was one of the discoveries of their recent cleaning spree. It pained Maomao to know that such a valuable object had sat unused in a storage room for so long. The air was full of the smell of flowers; a bevy of petals occupied the pot.

“We’re making perfume,” Maomao said. She had a wonderful source of petals in the roses she had cultivated for the garden party not long before.

“It’s certainly...aromatic.”

“The smell is fairly mild compared to wild roses. And we’ll thin it out further with oil and water.”

Over the generations, humans had fashioned roses to their liking, favoring beauty and richness of color at the expense of smell. That was simply the way of the world; you couldn’t ask for everything or you would get nothing.

Jinshi peered at the distiller interestedly. When the doctor, who had been industriously transporting firewood, realized the other man was there, he started brushing the dust and dirt off his clothes with all the self-consciousness of an adolescent girl. Smoothing his mustache and beard with his fingers, he asked, “To what do we owe the honor, sir?”

Jinshi’s face darkened; Maomao didn’t think the doctor meant anything by his question, but Jinshi seemed to resent the way it had been asked. “No one could fail to notice a smell this strong,” he replied, his lips forming into a slight pout. Nearby, Gaoshun’s brow furrowed.

He thinks Jinshi needs more gravitas, Maomao guessed. The quack doctor was oblivious enough that it didn’t much matter, but being important meant never looking less than distinguished.

Maomao got up from her chair, took some tea snacks from a shelf (she was well aware by now that the quack kept his most valuable treats on the highest one), and put them on the table. Jinshi sat down; Maomao picked up a mooncake, took a bite for good measure to show that it wasn’t dangerous, and then passed them to him.

“I suppose you’re doing this here because it would be more difficult at the Jade Pavilion,” Jinshi said.

“Yes, that’s part of it.” Maomao wiped the grease off her fingers and resumed her place by the cookstove. She changed the vessel at the end of the tube for a different one. After a moment, a greasy substance began to fill it: perfume oil. “The other part is this: perfume oil contains an ingredient that can potentially abort a pregnancy. As long as a woman doesn’t drink a concentrated dose of the stuff, she should be fine, but still...”

She glanced around, making sure the quack wasn’t too close. He was a very friendly person, but he had loose lips. It was too soon to let him know that the mistress of the Jade Pavilion, Consort Gyokuyou, was pregnant.

“In other words, there’s no special need to regulate the perfume oil being used in the rear palace, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, sir, I think it should be all right.” Making rules about every little detail would only make their lives harder. Besides, enforcement would be difficult in such a large place.

Jinshi looked at the other pot on the stove. It didn’t have a pleasant fragrance like the one full of rose petals; instead, breathing whatever was in this pot made his head spin. “What’s this one?” he asked.

“That’s alcohol,” Maomao said.

Through repeated distillation, it was possible to achieve a very high concentration of alcohol. Indeed, this stuff was strong enough to make Jinshi feel drunk just by taking a sniff. It wasn’t for drinking, but would be used for sterilization. The warm season was coming, when bad air could accumulate and cause physical harm. With a little princess at the Jade Pavilion, they would want everything to be as clean as possible. Maomao was even making a bit more than she needed so she could leave a supply here at the medical office, where it would see plenty of use.

“You can use it to clean things?” Jinshi asked.

“Yes; I hear that’s what they do in the west.” This was one of the little factoids she’d gleaned from hearing about her adoptive father’s experiences studying in the western lands. If there was anything at all that set her apart, Maomao thought, it was the knowledge she’d gotten from him.

“As I recall, the man who adopted you was—”

Before Jinshi could finish, though, they heard a great thump. Gaoshun poked his head outside to see what it was. Two eunuchs had arrived at the medical office with a massive box and had set it down just outside the door.

“What’s this about?” Gaoshun inquired of the doctor.

“Ah, the young lady requested it.”

Maomao glared at the quack to shut him up, but she was too late. Jinshi had already taken an interest in the delivery, beginning to unpack it. She wished he wouldn’t touch it without asking.

“Master Jinshi, the tea is ready. Please, have a seat and enjoy it,” she said.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Just something from my home. Nothing of interest, I assure you.”

Unfortunately, Jinshi looked very intrigued indeed. I can’t believe this guy, Maomao thought. She—yes, even she—was a woman. She wished he would have the decency not to look at a moment like this. But instead she cast her eyes to the ground and said, “I-It’s full of underwear, sir.”

Jinshi promptly took his hand away, looking unsettled. That’s right, just leave it alone, Maomao thought at him without looking up, but reality is rarely so accommodating.

“Just how much underwear is in there that it took two grown men to carry it?” Gaoshun asked. Leave it to him to notice the most inconvenient details.

“You’re right!” Jinshi exclaimed, and thus the contents of Maomao’s delivery, which she would have been just as happy for him to remain oblivious to, were unveiled for all to see.

“Fastidiousness, that’s the problem with the rear palace,” Maomao said, her back straight and her face utterly serious.

The ladies who comprised the residents of the rear palace were a collection of innocent virgins who hoped they might one day become the Emperor’s bedmates. Admittedly, not everyone was like that, but such exceptions were a minority.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that His Majesty’s Imperial eye fell upon one of the virgins. Not only would she have the intimidation of being with the Emperor himself, she would be embarking upon completely unknown experiences with him.

“Imagine the consternation of the young woman who commits some novice blunder under those circumstances. I would argue they need to learn the basics ahead of time.”

“And that’s why you’ve acquired all...this?”

Jinshi was standing imperiously in front of Maomao, who sat in a formal posture on the ground. The situation felt oddly familiar.

The delivery sat open, a great deal of literature visible inside. What kind of literature? Well...you know. The kind Maomao had already been acquiring in some quantity to comfort a lonely Emperor when he found himself pining away at night. Consort Lihua was likewise an avid reader of such material. This time Maomao had decided to get more than usual, in hopes of finding new sales opportunities here and there—but the timing of their arrival had been truly terrible.

She’d had this batch delivered to the medical office so she could finally escape the gaze of the persnickety Hongniang, but look what it had gotten her. Maomao was by no means avaricious, but if she didn’t manage to earn a modicum of money, her old man back in the pleasure district might not have enough to eat. He was such a soft touch, her old man; she was sure the madam would badger him into working nonstop.

Jinshi was openly exasperated, but he also seemed to sense the truth of what Maomao was saying. When she added that this request came in part from His Majesty himself, Jinshi looked deeply conflicted, but recognized she was in the right.

Gaoshun, meanwhile, was flipping through one of the books with a studious expression. The entire scene was so surreal that Maomao found herself scowling at it in spite of herself.

“This is exceptionally beautifully made,” Gaoshun commented.

He’s admiring the craftsmanship? Maomao thought. She’d been entertaining the possibility that Gaoshun was the world’s most poker-faced lecher, but apparently that wasn’t what had attracted his interest.

“They use fine paper,” she said.

Books about the bedchamber were hot sellers; they were often sent with young women when they went to wife, and those who read such texts for personal interest were more than willing to spend the money on them. Such books typically consisted mostly of illustrations, so one didn’t have to be literate to enjoy them. And as much as they cost, the potential profits they might engender could be equally great.

“Are these printed?” Jinshi was likewise studying the illustrations, but considering what they were illustrations of, the moment was plainly comical. The quack doctor stole embarrassed little glances here and there.

“Not with wood blocks, but with metal plates, I’m given to understand.”

“That’s really something.”

It was a western technique. Maomao didn’t know much about how the books were made, but for Jinshi to say something admiring about them, they must be quite unusual.

“Since I finally got my hands on some high-quality materials, I thought it might be best to disseminate them more widely,” Maomao said.

“That’s a different issue,” Jinshi shot back. He continued to flip through the book, though, taking careful note of its contents. Maomao, not sure she wanted him looking too closely, inadvertently slipped back into her skeptical gaze. Perhaps Gaoshun noticed, for he nudged Jinshi gently.

“If it’s caught your interest, sir, why not keep one for yourself?” Maomao said.

“N-No! It hasn’t caught my anything!” Jinshi said, all but throwing the book down. Maomao picked it up and smoothed it out to make sure the pages wouldn’t crease. “No, indeed,” Jinshi said, more confidently this time. “But perhaps I can look the other way on this one occasion.” He suddenly sounded rather self-important—but then, he was important, so maybe that was inevitable.

“Are you certain, sir?” Maomao asked, a gleam beginning to enter her eyes.

“Yes, but I wish for you to inform me what shop is selling such things.”

Maomao’s expression promptly changed to one of barely concealed amusement. Gaoshun nudged Jinshi again.

“What? I just want to know more about this exquisite printing,” he said, sounding slightly flustered. This conversation was getting stranger by the minute.

“Certainly,” Maomao said, still looking amused but jotting down the name of the shop in a notebook.

“It’s the truth!”

“Of course, sir.”

She didn’t think Jinshi had to resort to illustrations; someone like him could surely see as much of the real thing as he wished. It wasn’t possible that paper was sometimes preferable to reality, was it? Maomao, her thoughts threatening to run away with her, pondered the possibilities as she tore out the page of the notebook and gave it to him. As she did so, she couldn’t help noticing the excellent quality of paper in the doctor’s notebook, just what one might expect.

Joking aside, Maomao suspected Jinshi might have it in mind to start up a new business venture. The real trick of politics was figuring out how to extract taxes from the populace without unduly upsetting them. One way was to increase people’s income, and the first step in doing so was to invest tax money.

Don’t know exactly how he plans to go about it, Maomao thought, but the important thing to do now was to pick up the scattered books. Jinshi was attracting his customary audience, and while it might have been interesting to discover just how they would look at the gorgeous eunuch if they knew what kind of reading material he was perusing, Maomao wasn’t a terrible enough person to give him away.

While Maomao was busy cleaning up, Gaoshun’s hand brushed the box in which the delivery had arrived.

“What’s wrong?” Maomao asked.

Gaoshun looked hesitant. “I was wondering whether any of them might require censorship...”

He was talking, of course, about the content of the materials. Several were rather, well, hard-core. His Majesty’s personal preference. And what a preference it was.

“I’m told that our most important reader found something lacking in the earlier material.”

“Absolutely not,” Gaoshun said. And after she’d wheedled the madam into handpicking the best stuff. She reluctantly handed him the most lurid of the material.

Some ten days or so later, Maomao was loafing around the laundry area.

“I wonder what’s buried down there,” Xiaolan said innocently, leaning against a wall with a laundry basket in her arms.

The weather was excellent today, so the laundry area was bustling. Eunuchs washed clothes as fast as water could be brought. The maids’ uniforms were laundered by being trodden underfoot in a harsh lye mixture, while the consorts’ clothing was worked by hand using a handmade soap.

“Search me,” Maomao said. She pulled out a baked treat wrapped in the skin of a bamboo shoot and handed it to Xiaolan, who took it with a grin.

The question about what was “buried down there” was, Maomao gathered, a line from a novel. Novels were all the rage in the rear palace these days.

“What do I seek beneath the bewitching blossoms?” Xiaolan inquired, her eyes sparkling. She was a country girl and couldn’t read; there must have been someone reading the story to her. “I wonfer whaf it could be,” she said around a mouthful of food. Her cheeks bulged like a squirrel’s.

“Maybe horse crap?” Maomao ventured, earning a snort from Xiaolan. The girl managed not to choke, but she glowered at Maomao, her eyes watering. Maomao brought some water from the water supply and helped Xiaolan drink it, rubbing her back.

“You shouldn’t eat so fast.”

“It was your fault!”

What Maomao had said wasn’t untrue, though. Growing good vegetables required more than just water. Feeble soil would bring forth feeble produce; that’s what fertilizer was for. Beautiful flowers were just the same: the more beautiful they were, the more potent the fertilizer must have been. But a young girl smitten with a romantic story probably didn’t want to have her attention drawn to such vulgar details. Maomao resolved to be more careful in the future.

It wasn’t long before their turn came to do their laundry.

The novels Xiaolan was so taken with were making the rounds of the rear palace, and the Jade Pavilion was no exception. When Maomao got back, in fact, she discovered three young women chatting and giggling over a rough-hewn book.

“Hi, Maomao,” said the calm, mild-mannered Guiyuan. The other two, Yinghua and Ailan, were too absorbed in the book to greet her. Guiyuan had the page between her fingers, and the women were tugging on her sleeve, urging her to hurry up and turn it. Maomao leaned down to look at the cover, which had an illustration of a tree with a profusion of blossoms and a figure standing beneath it. She surmised it was the same book Xiaolan had been talking about.

“You want to read it later, Maomao?” Guiyuan seemed to be a quick reader, quicker than the other two, and she had time for a little conversation.

“No, thanks. Why is everyone so excited about that book, anyway?” Maomao asked.

“It came from His Majesty. It’s great, believe it or not.”

His Majesty—so it had come from the Emperor himself. The surprising thing was that he knew about it at all; high society tended to look down on novels as not refined enough. They held that fact was more edifying than fiction.

“Apparently he gave them to all the consorts and told them to share them around when they were done reading them,” Guiyuan said, although she looked a tad disappointed that Consort Gyokuyou wasn’t the only one to receive this special gift.

“Well, well,” Maomao said, looking more closely at the cover. She realized she recognized the mark on it. It was the seal belonging to the bookstore she’d referred Jinshi to the other day.

Ahh, now it makes sense. She finally grasped why he had been so interested in her por—er, her reference materials. When Jinshi had seen the quality of the paper, he had realized it would be suitable for a gift from the Emperor. If the books had really been given to all the consorts, that meant at least a hundred had been printed. If they could make plates of the books, even more could be produced. Then, if they produced a popular edition on slightly less-expensive paper, they could realize even more profit. Maomao was starting to think she should have asked the printer for an intermediary’s fee.

She was sure Jinshi must have planted the idea in the Emperor’s head. I should’ve known he was planning something.

Fiction novels, easy to approach but unsophisticated, were being distributed to the consorts. Normally any gift from His Majesty would be cherished and treasured, but by giving books to all his ladies, each one would be less valuable. And anyway, the gift was nothing but pulp fiction. There would probably be a few disobedient consorts scandalized by the idea of even touching the thing.

On top of all this, there was the command to share the books with other people. Some of the consorts might hit on the idea of having their ladies-in-waiting read the book to them, instead of taking the trouble to read it themselves.

Hmmm...

The pieces were starting to come together; Maomao began to see what Jinshi was up to. The ladies-in-waiting who learned the story would share it with other women. Hence why even Xiaolan could quote from the book.

“Aw, are we done already?” Yinghua asked, looking as dejected as a dog who’d been denied a treat. The book was now closed, and Guiyuan and Ailan wore similar expressions. “More! I wanna read more!” Yinghua exclaimed with all the fervor of a deprived child. Amusements were few and far between in the rear palace, so that even a lone novel was a source of genuine excitement.

“According to Master Gaoshun, there’s a new book being printed. When it’s ready, he says we’ll get a copy,” Guiyuan said.

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t wait that long!”

Guiyuan frowned at Yinghua. Yinghua, for her part, had her cheeks puffed out like a blowfish.

Ailan, meanwhile, had the book in her hands and was looking at it intently.

“Is everything all right?” Maomao asked.

“About this book...” Ailan started.

Hongniang, the chief lady-in-waiting, was looking after Princess Lingli while the three young ladies took their break. When their break time was over, they would switch, and Hongniang would have a chance to relax.

“We’re the only ladies-in-waiting here, right? And Lady Gyokuyou was nice enough to say we could read this. Doesn’t it feel like kind of a waste if we’re the only ones who get to enjoy it?”

Maomao thought she understood what Ailan was getting at. When you find something interesting, you want to share it; that’s human nature. Maomao, for example, had once discovered a very rare snake she’d never seen before, and had gone around showing it to everyone she could find. (They had not been pleased.) It was probably this same impulse that motivated Ailan to want to let more people read the book. The women of the Jade Pavilion had some connections outside their own workplace. But Yinghua put a stop to that idea.

“Wait,” she said. “I don’t think we should show it to any other palace women. We have to be careful with it.”

“That’s right, they might lose it,” added Guiyuan.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Ailan said wistfully.

Hmm. Maomao reached for the book. What she was about to suggest might not normally be acceptable, but considering what she thought Jinshi had in mind, she decided it would be all right this time.

“What if you didn’t give them the actual book,” she said, “but made a copy for them?”

Ladies lower in the hierarchy might not have the means, but Ailan was an attendant to a high consort and should be able to procure the paper, brush, and other implements necessary to copy a text. And if she didn’t want to take the time or spend the money, well, she didn’t have to.

“What?” Ailan said, caught completely off guard by Maomao’s suggestion.

“I suppose replicating the illustrations would be difficult, but you have lovely handwriting, so I don’t think copying the text would be any problem for you.”

The producers of the book would no doubt have been better pleased if the women had bought another copy instead, but when that wasn’t feasible, something such as this was the only solution. Though it might be asking too much for Ailan to illustrate the book herself, she could provide a perfectly readable copy of the text, which was really all that was necessary.

“I see! That makes sense!” Ailan’s eyes began to shine with a new light.

“Oof! Are you really gonna do all that work?”

“Yinghua, don’t say that,” Guiyuan reproved her.

Maomao set the book carefully in front of Ailan and resolved to get back to work. Their break time was almost over, anyway, so they all needed to hustle or Hongniang would fall upon them like a lightning bolt.

It was all a very roundabout way for Jinshi to get what he wanted, Maomao thought. With books—of whatever kind—circulating more freely in the rear palace, at least a few people would learn to read.

Back when Maomao had been serving Jinshi directly, she’d had a few opportunities to see some of the paperwork he dealt with in his own work. He’d asked for her opinion on one project—purely out of curiosity, of course. He had wondered how the literacy rate among the women of the rear palace might be improved.

Maomao was getting firsthand experience of how well Jinshi’s plan was working. She was holding a twig in her hand, scratching the characters Xiaolan into the ground. Xiaolan herself watched intently, then tried to copy her.

Xiaolan always seemed like she was more interested in snacks than anything else in life; Maomao had been surprised when she’d first come to her and asked her to teach her to read and write. When Maomao asked why, Xiaolan said the woman who had been reading stories to her had stopped. The woman’s voice had finally given out after being endlessly petitioned by the illiterate palace women to read to them. She was a good-hearted woman, though, and had agreed to make copies of the book if the others would make the effort to learn to read it themselves.

So there was someone else out there thinking along the same lines as Ailan. It was an awfully generous offer, considering the price of paper.

Maomao had suggested that she could read to Xiaolan, but the other woman had shaken her head. “She was nice enough to write it out for me, so I can’t cheat like that.”

Maomao mussed Xiaolan’s hair fondly. She thought she was giving her a friendly pat, but she mostly succeeded in making it go every which way, earning herself an annoyed look from Xiaolan.

Thus, the time they usually devoted to gossiping was turned to learning to write. Xiaolan gripped her twig with a look of intense concentration. The character xiao, which consisted of just a few short strokes next to each other, still looked a bit like a pile of dead bugs to her, but it was simple enough and she could manage to recognize it. Lan, however, was a far more complicated character and was giving her a good deal of trouble.

Maomao wrote the character in the dirt again, nice and large. This time she broke it down by its three radicals to make it easier for Xiaolan to understand. On top, there were three simple strokes representing grass; beneath them, a character that by itself meant “gate,” and inside the gate was the character for “east.” Maomao started by having Xiaolan practice the pieces individually.

“I never knew my name was so hard...” Xiaolan received passing marks on her “grass” radical, barely, but her teacher insisted she redo the “gate” and “east” parts.

The fact was, Maomao wasn’t sure what the characters for Xiaolan’s name were. Xiaolan’s own parents probably hadn’t been literate. But she assumed it would be appropriate to use the most common characters for the name. When Maomao had been taught to read, she’d started with her own name. It was important, she was told, for helping you know where you came from—but then, she was often told she had all the charm of a stray cat.

“If you learn to write the characters, you’ll obviously end up learning to read them, but would you rather focus on just reading for now?” Maomao asked, but Xiaolan shook her head.

“If we’re going to take the time, I’d rather learn to write them. That can only help in the long run, right?”

That was true. The ability to read and write opened up many more job opportunities. Even in the rear palace, literate women were put to relevant work and treated better than the interchangeable laundry-hops. It was even said that an especially accomplished palace woman might find herself reassigned to administrative duties outside the rear palace.

“I’ll have to find work for myself after I leave here. I’d better learn while I have the chance.” So Xiaolan was trying to plan for the future, in her own way. She’d come to the rear palace about the same time as Maomao. Terms of service lasted two years, so she was already halfway through her contract. Given that she had been sold into service by her parents, it seemed unlikely she could expect to go back home when her time was up.

“I see. We may need to make the lessons a little more intense, then,” Maomao said, and then she started writing swiftly in the dust.

“Y-Yeah, thanks. So, uhh, what does this say?”

“It says: dong chong xia cao. Caterpillar fungus.”

“Um, okay. And this?”

“Mantuluo-hua. Thornapple.”

“And...this one?”

“Gegen. Kudzu root.”

“Um... Do these words actually come up a lot?”

Maomao didn’t say anything, just reluctantly rubbed away the vocabulary she’d written and replaced it with more ordinary terms.