The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 3 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Third Time’s the Charm (Part One)

The next day Ailan returned from the clinic, but Maomao, much to her chagrin, found herself summoned there—by the middle-aged palace woman who had collared her the day before.

“So that’s why they want to see Maomao,” Gyokuyou said to Ailan, her hand on her chin. They were in the living area, where Gyokuyou lay stretched out on a couch. Her belly was well and truly round by now, large enough to slow her down. She wore clothes designed to hide the bulge, but even so, it would probably be best for her to avoid attending tea outside the Jade Pavilion for the duration.

“I’m so sorry,” Ailan said. “I should have taken it here instead.”

Ailan, it seemed, had taken the cold medicine Maomao had made her while she was still at the clinic, where one of the ladies had spotted her and pressed her about where she’d gotten it.

That’d do it, all right, Maomao thought. Medicine wasn’t allowed at the clinic because there were no doctors there—you couldn’t have people just walking in with it. They had to find out the story behind Ailan’s medicine lest official eyes take notice of them.

Maomao was thinking that it would be best for her to head right to the clinic, take her scolding, and get it over with, when Ailan said something most unexpected:

“They want to know if they can borrow her for a while.”

“Goodness,” said Gyokuyou, looking at Maomao with curiosity. Ailan watched them both with concern.

Maomao could only think what a headache this seemed likely to be, even as she contemplated the ingredients for a new medicine.

Ultimately, Maomao found herself returning to the clinic effectively under guard. It wasn’t Ailan escorting her, but Yinghua. She’d probably seemed right for the job: shorter than Ailan, she was nonetheless more outgoing and more determined to face things head-on.

Even though the clinic was situated within the rear palace, it was quite a walk to get there. Yinghua, ever the talker, couldn’t keep herself from chatting on the way.

“Hey, Maomao. After you dropped Ailan off yesterday, did you do something with the lanterns in the garden?”

“You saw that?”

It had been on her way back from the clinic (or more precisely, after she’d bumped into Jinshi and Gaoshun on the way home). Struck by an idea for a new medicine, she’d set out immediately to find components.

“I was just looking for the ingredients for some medicine.”

She’d lit a lantern when it got dark, attracting bugs. As well as a certain creature that ate bugs.

“Ingredients? Tell me it wasn’t bugs...”

“It wasn’t bugs.”

Despite Maomao’s assurances, Yinghua continued to frown; she seemed to sense that there was something even less pleasant afoot. “Uh, Maomao, about your room... It’s gotten pretty full of...stuff lately, wouldn’t you say? It’s really starting to stink of medicine. Lady Hongniang isn’t very happy.”

“Now, that’s scary.”

“You don’t look very scared...”

Nothing could be further from the truth, Maomao thought. The chief lady-in-waiting had a very quick hand. But then, perhaps one had to be strong like that to survive in the rear palace.

“I think one of these days she’s going to kick you out of your room and make you live in a shed in the garden,” Yinghua said with a smirk.

“I’d like that very much.”

A garden shed would be larger than the room she was in now, and more importantly, well separated from the other ladies’ sleeping quarters, so nobody would notice any clattering in the night. It drove Maomao crazy that despite having discovered a treasure trove of unused tools in the medical office, she couldn’t make use of them here.

“I’ll be sure to inquire about the matter with Lady Hongniang as soon as I get back,” Maomao said, her eyes shining.

“Huh? Wait, uh...” They arrived at the clinic before Yinghua could get out whatever she had been about to say.

“Let’s head inside, then,” Maomao said.

“Hey, that thing I said—I didn’t—!”

Maomao didn’t really hear Yinghua; she was too busy wondering if, with a building of her own, she might be able to do work that involved fire. Her heart swelled with anticipation.

The middle-aged woman turned out to be named Shenlü. On close inspection, her eyes had a green hue just like Consort Gyokuyou’s. Maybe she had some western blood in her veins. The color of her eyes might also have inspired her name, which meant “deep green.”

Maomao and Yinghua were shown into what seemed to be the clinic’s reception area, which smelled faintly of alcohol. Shenlü brought tea. They were seated at a simple table, which looked sturdy and well-used, like the chairs and shelves around them.

“My sincere apologies for my rudeness to you,” Shenlü began. “I’d no idea you were a servant of the Precious Consort.”

“Think nothing of it,” Maomao replied.

Shenlü, like many of the palace women who didn’t serve directly in the Jade Pavilion, referred to Gyokuyou by her title. Unlike many of the palace women, Maomao didn’t have a particularly distinguished upbringing. She was, in essence, beyond her station here.

Shenlü sounded calm and collected, with no trace of the firm maternal tone she’d adopted while swamped with laundry the day before. It was obvious now that she was a properly educated lady of the rear palace.

I knew she was sharp, Maomao thought. Not every lady of the rear palace could even read and write. To have stayed here as long as Shenlü appeared to have done, she must have been a woman with her wits about her. Or else there had to be some special reason for keeping her around.

At the moment, Shenlü’s expression was somewhat dark. Was it because she now knew Maomao was one of Consort Gyokuyou’s ladies? Maomao was none too pleased with the idea that she might be receiving special treatment. People had a distinct tendency to look the other way when it came to the doings of the upper consorts—and their ladies-in-waiting. Yet Shenlü had summoned Maomao here personally, a fact that seemed to make her almost as uncomfortable as Maomao.

At length, though, Shenlü looked directly at Maomao and heaved a sigh. “I have a favor I’d like to ask you.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

Shenlü briefly looked taken aback by how nonchalant Maomao sounded, but she quickly composed herself and said, “I’m afraid it may sound somewhat forward. You don’t mind?”

“Go ahead, please.”

Maomao was more than used to being treated rudely. In fact, she was usually as guilty of it as any of her conversation partners were, or at least she suspected she was. Thus, she had the confidence to let most things roll right off her back.

“If I asked you to make a medicine for one of the ladies who serves the Wise Consort, then?”

“What?” The reaction came not from Maomao, but from Yinghua, who slapped her hands on the table and leaned forward. The tea sloshed in the cups, a few drops spilling onto the table, where they left dark spots. “Do you know what you’re asking?!” Yinghua demanded.

Shenlü sighed again. “Believe me, I’m all too aware.” She looked at Maomao.

Maomao looked back, seeing that Shenlü was serious. “I presume you have some reason.”

“Maomao!”

“I’m sorry. But it can’t hurt to hear what she has to say, can it?”

Yinghua sat back down, her eyebrows pinching together. She took a sip of her tea, which was cold by now, and appeared to be trying to pull herself together.

“Perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me what’s going on,” Maomao said.

“Very well,” Shenlü replied, and began to tell the story.

“This is getting out of hand,” Yinghua said, uncharacteristically slumped over.

“You’re not wrong,” Maomao replied. She agreed with Yinghua that it was only going to be trouble, but she couldn’t ignore what she had just heard. One of the maids in the residence of the Wise Consort, Lihua, was desperately ill. The patient was at the Crystal Pavilion at this very moment.

This maid had often done her washing at the laundry area in the northern quarter, so she and Shenlü had come to know each other. The maid had developed an unsettling cough a bit back, and Shenlü had suggested she get some rest; it had been five days since then and Shenlü hadn’t seen the woman.

Maybe she was doing her laundry somewhere else, or maybe the person in charge of the laundry had changed, Maomao had suggested, but Shenlü had shaken her head. “Even if that’s true, I’d like her to come and get checked out at least once.”

So, a cough, huh? Maomao thought. According to Shenlü, it had been an unusual one. It had begun several days before the woman stopped showing up at the laundry area, but even before that, she’d felt tired and had had a mild but persistent fever. Maomao asked if the maid had formally come to the clinic, but apparently she hadn’t been able to get permission.

Nasty place, Maomao thought. A simple maid probably wouldn’t have asked Consort Lihua directly for permission to go to the clinic; she would have talked to one of the ladies-in-waiting, who most likely had ignored her. Considering the symptoms, Maomao wished they hadn’t.

“You really think she’s there?” Yinghua asked.

“I firmly believe we need to look into it,” Maomao said. If what Shenlü had told her was true, they had to deal with the problem, and soon. Otherwise, it could well spread far beyond the Crystal Pavilion.

Yinghua studied Maomao closely. “I know these sorts of things get your attention, but this is the Crystal Pavilion we’re talking about. You need to at least wait until we can arrange a formal visit. You know that, right? You can’t go charging in there again.”

“...I know.”

Although Maomao had some acquaintance with Consort Lihua, she couldn’t just go showing up at her residence. She’d just made that mistake recently. She was desperate to go to the Crystal Pavilion the moment she could, but the stars simply weren’t aligned. She had to at least be with Jinshi or she would never get in the door.

All right, freaking out isn’t going to do me any good. Maomao was trying to distract herself by thinking of something else when she spotted it. She went rushing over to it, although she had to hop up and down like a frog a few times before she was finally able to grab it.

“Maomao! What was I just saying?” Yinghua cried, picking up the hem of her skirt and following her.

Maomao frowned, feeling the thing between her palms. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I saw something I’ve been looking for.”

“What, a bug? Eww!”

“It’s not a bug.”

And it wasn’t. But it also wasn’t a body. That, sadly, had gotten away, but it had left Maomao with what she wanted. She could still feel it squirming in her hands.

“Look,” she said. She opened her hands to reveal a lizard’s tail, still flouncing wildly. Lizard tails could fall off, but they could also grow back. That was the point.

You can’t give up on anything. The moment you give up, it’s all over, some immortal had once said. If you want to create a new medicine, first look into other things with similar effects. And I want a medicine that makes things live and grow. Hence Maomao’s interest in lizards, which she’d suspected might eat the insects that gathered around the garden lanterns.

“I wanted to try to find out how and why the tail grows back,” she said. She was feeling pretty pleased, but there was no response. She looked over to discover that Yinghua, her face pale and her mouth open, had fallen clean over backwards.

Maomao wrapped the tail in a handkerchief and tucked it into the folds of her robe. She ended up having to look after Yinghua until she was feeling better.