The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 8 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Go Contest (Part Two)

I want to go home, Maomao thought as she stirred a mixture of honey, ginger, and fresh-squeezed tangerine juice. She was at the same place she’d been the day before, the Go tournament, in a corner of the theater, making drinks as fast as she could.

She’d been on duty yesterday; she was supposed to be off today. What about her plans to hunker down in the dormitory and read the medical treatises Dr. Liu had lent her?

And to be here, of all places! Yao and En’en were there too; like Maomao the day before, they had been sent over by Dr. Liu, although since En’en enjoyed Go, she seemed to be having a good time. Maomao wished she could be working with the two of them, but her father had told her, “I need you over here,” and assigned her to the theater. Need we mention the reason?

Maomao seethed as she remembered when she’d been dragged in here yesterday. When the old fart spotted her, he set up a ruckus, just like he always did. Let’s say that it had fallen to Maomao’s father to talk him down and leave it at that.

There was a panoply of Go boards set up in the theater. In the spectator seating, people who had been victorious outside faced off with each other, and those who continued to win could ascend to the stage. Only a few people had made it up there the day before, so the freak strategist’s matches had been separate. More people were reaching that coveted platform today, and at that moment the freak was taking on three people at once.

One might expect that to be confusing, but it was very much in character for the strategist. He could hardly get by in day-to-day life, but he sent his opponents away from their boards one after another with their heads bowed. He would occasionally shoot little glances in Maomao’s direction between moves, but she ignored him.

“Everything ready, Maomao?” asked Yao, coming over with a kettle.

“Yeah, here. I need more tangerines, though; I’m all out.” She poured the honeyed drink into the kettle.

“Sure thing.”

“Also...”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to sit somewhere else.” She felt bad staying inside while Yao and En’en had to rush in and out constantly.

“Oh, it’s okay. It’s no problem.” Yao pounded her bountiful chest as if to say: Just leave everything to us! “I’m more worried about our snack supply. Is it holding up?” As the girls went around to see if anyone was feeling unwell, they also handed out snacks to the participants. The entrance fee seemed to have been calculated to cover the cost.

“I’m not sure, but I expect it’ll run out in a hurry,” Maomao said with a look in the direction of the freak strategist. He had a mountain of mooncakes and bean buns beside him. Playing board games took a lot of brainpower, which made a person want sweets. That seemed to be one of the justifications for handing out snacks, but Maomao sensed Lahan’s hand in this plan: the buns and mooncakes were both filled with sweet potato.

Sweet potatoes weren’t widely available in the public markets. This was presumably part of his plan to spread them around. They were sweet enough that by including them in a recipe, you could reduce the amount of sugar you needed, making the overall cost of ingredients cheaper.

It wasn’t just the tournament participants who could enjoy the treats either—stalls had been set up to hawk them to other visitors, who could buy them if the flavor appealed to them. He had been very thorough.

“How are things outside?” Maomao asked.

“No real problems. A few fights broke out when people kept losing, and some kids have fallen down because of the crowds and hurt themselves.”

“Fights?” That was to be expected. You couldn’t have this many people in one place without a bit of commotion.

“It didn’t get worse than a few bruises. The soldiers are all hanging around here, so they broke them up right away. I guess that sort of counts as working.” Yao didn’t look very impressed. She took the full kettle and said, “Sweets and tangerines, then, right?”

“Yes, please.” Maomao watched her go.

“’Scuse meee! Miss? I won!” someone called from the entrance. Maomao went over to check them in, thinking to herself, They could at least hire one receptionist! As for Lahan, who had delegated all this work, he was nowhere to be seen.

Maomao collected the name tags of the new guy’s defeated opponents. In this tournament, when you won, your opponent gave you a tag with their name on it. Collect three such tags, and you could enter the main tournament venue. Not all victories were equal, however. Some people simply kept working over weaker opponents. That wasn’t technically against the rules; when Lahan had been asked about it, he’d said, “If they paid the entry fee, I don’t care.”

Doesn’t really matter. If they aren’t that good themselves, they’ll find out in here. If you lost, you had to go back out to the square and start again. Maomao gave the newcomer a fresh tag, a drink, and a mooncake. “There’s someone waiting for a game in the seats to the right. You can go ahead and start playing against them.”

You didn’t get to pick your opponents. The guy in front of Maomao looked less than thrilled about it, but he sucked it up and went over to the seating area. If he’d breathed one word of complaint, Maomao would have had him out of that theater on the spot: her father as well as several of the freak’s people were stationed around, just to make sure the eccentric didn’t get up to anything.

“Excuse me,” said a man hesitantly approaching Maomao. “Do you think I could ask for more mooncakes?”

He wasn’t a participant—he was the freak’s minion, a man who had recently replaced Rikuson as the strategist’s aide. He was of average height and build; he didn’t look very soldierly. This was the same man who had been at his wits’ end when the strategist had managed to poison himself with his own juice. Rikuson had been a pretty-boy but could be firm when push came to shove; this guy looked far easier to push around.

“All right,” Maomao said, although her expression was one of exasperated disbelief: had he already gone through his entire supply? She brought out some buns, making it obvious what a chore it was. “Here you go.”

“Er, n-no, I...” The minion appeared to be trying to come out with something very hard to say. “Perhaps...you could bring them to Master Lakan yourself?”

Maomao was absolutely silent.

One look at her inspired him to backpedal. “S-Sorry! You’re obviously very busy! I’ll take them myself.” At least he was quick on the uptake.

“Maomao...” someone behind her said sadly. She found her father standing there. “Don’t make that face.”

“What face?” She brought her hands to her face and found that her temples were tense, her lips twisted back hideously. “Oh. Sorry,” she said to the subordinate.

Her father, meanwhile, looked toward the infamous old fart. “Has Lakan been feeling unwell?” he asked.

“You can tell?” The minion looked at him. “In joyous anticipation of this tournament, he’s been—very uncharacteristically, I must say; most strangely; a veritably unbelievable tale it is, yes—but Master Lakan has been working relentlessly.”

Maomao was quiet. Just how little work did the bastard normally do?

“He normally arrives at the office sometime around noon, then shows himself out again before the sun sets, but recently he’s been at his desk as much as anyone else—and he hasn’t even been napping!”

“The boy is indeed working hard, then. He typically sleeps away half the day,” Luomen remarked. So what it came down to was that the freak was finally shouldering a normal workload.

Maomao’s old man continued to look fixedly in the strategist’s direction. Evidently the freak was looking fatigued, not that Maomao could see it. He got so into his games of Go that it was hard to tell.

“I suppose it’s back to work tomorrow, but might I ask you to be so kind as to afford him some time to sleep? When he doesn’t get enough rest, his powers of judgment decline precipitously,” Luomen said.

“Judgment? Doesn’t he usually just flail around?” Maomao grumbled, provoking a melancholy droop of the eyebrows from her old man. He’d always had a soft spot for that freak.

“I’m going to go check on things outside, Maomao,” he said.

“Got it. I’ll call you if anything comes up.” Or flag down the nearest soldier. Maomao assumed she and her old man were here because Lahan had calculated that they would serve as a useful bulwark against the freak strategist. The fart was behaving himself at the moment, and Luomen evidently thought it was more important to see if anyone outside was feeling poorly. “Go slow all right? There’s a lot of people out there.”

“I’ll be fine.” Easy to say—but her old man had a bad knee and walked with a cane. She munched on a mooncake and fretted about whether he would trip and fall in the crowd.

“They should’ve provided rice crackers too,” she said. The mooncake was tasty enough, but it was too sweet. Maomao went back to mixing up honeyed drinks, still cherishing a wish for salt.

It was afternoon, and the numbers stood at: three people who had gotten sick from focusing too intensely on their games, two who had started fights over allegations of cheating, and one child who had fallen down when he bumped into a gawking bystander. The number of people in the theater waxed, waned, and waxed again. Some of them showed up two or three separate times.

“Sure he’s not cheating?” Maomao hissed to Lahan after she admitted one man for the fourth time.

“Nothing of the sort,” replied Lahan, who, as the organizer of all this festivity, was looking quite pleased with himself.

Because you’re raking it in, I’m sure. The entry fee was a pittance, but he must have other ways of recovering his investment. Maomao scowled at the tousle-haired man with his round glasses. “And here you’re making me work for free.”

“No, you’ll be getting compensation. I’ve confirmed that we’re in the black.” So she’d guessed right about the source of his good mood. “That man you just admitted is a professional. Winning three games against amateur opponents is the work of a moment for him. Though he’s been reduced to playing in the corner of a pub to earn his drinking money.”

“Hm.” Maomao demonstrated the extent of her disinterest by checking their remaining stock of buns and teacups.

“You could afford to act a little more engaged in a conversation, you know. Couldn’t you muster a ‘Wow, really?!’ or ‘You know everything, don’t you!’? Maybe ‘That’s my honored older brother for you!’ Where’s the love?”

“You really think you’d feel flattered if I said any of those things?”

“Point taken. I would feel thoroughly mocked.”

Which, as far as Maomao was concerned, meant that it was better not to engage in fatuous flattery in the first place. “It hardly matters. I don’t think you’re the type to let your guard down enough for anyone to insinuate themselves with you that way.”

“A most perceptive little sister, you are.”

Maomao ignored him. He’d come out of his mother with his mouth open—she knew if she tried to argue, he might never shut up.

Lahan, evidently disappointed by the lack of further grist for his chatter, spread his arms and shrugged his shoulders. “His racket might be winning wagers on Go games now, but he was once an instructor of the highest degree,” he said. In the past tense—as Maomao had somehow expected.

“Let me guess. Some worthless old coot made mincemeat of him and he lost his job.”

“Right on the money. Evidently some bigwig who wanted to take my honored father down a peg induced the instructor to play a game against him, with the result that the man lost miserably.”

“What a shame for him.” It had to be demoralizing, fighting your way up so many times only to be beaten back down. If it really cost ten silver pieces to challenge the strategist, Maomao feared the man would go bankrupt.

Quite suddenly, she was struck by a bad feeling. “I don’t suppose it’s possible that the horde of challengers in this tournament is made up largely or entirely of people with grudges against the old fart?” That would explain the need for extensive security.

“You’re half right. Someone might make a run at him at any time—that’s why the guards never rest—but as long as they don’t stab him straight through the heart and kill him in one blow, my honored uncle should be able to do something to save him.”

“Of all the stupid, trivial reasons to summon my father!” She slammed her foot down on Lahan’s toes.

“Ow! Ow ow ow ow! Stop that!”

Realizing that another injury would simply increase her workload, Maomao relented. “And what’s the other half?” she asked.

Lahan held his foot gingerly and made a show of rubbing his abused toes as he said, “Only the Go Sage stands any realistic chance of victory against my father in this game. If any other player could beat him, even if they had to use this tournament to do it, it would certainly get my father’s attention.”

“Get his attention. Yes.”

They were dealing with a man who saw other people’s faces as nothing more than Go stones. Even the thought that he might remember someone was more than enough to play upon.

“Well, that rumor took on a life of its own,” Lahan said, his already narrow eyes narrowing even further behind his glasses. “Until people were telling each other that if you could defeat Kan Lakan at a game of Go, he would grant any one request you asked.”

Maomao’s jaw hung open and she couldn’t seem to get it to shut. “I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life! Who the hell got that idea? And where the hell did they get it?”

“One wonders.” Lahan didn’t quite meet her eyes, leaving Maomao with a near certainty that he was the source of the rumor. Given that it was his money tied up in this venture, it seemed he was prepared to do anything he could to recoup his investment.

“And just look at all the greedy schlubs who believed that story,” Maomao grumbled. At just that moment, a new competitor came in.

“Is this where I check in?” the newcomer said, and their voice was like heavenly music drifting down from above.

Very silently, Maomao looked up and found a man wearing a stuffy-looking mask. The corners of his eyes were crinkled in a smile. On the reception table in front of her he’d laid his opponents’ tags, proof of victory in three games. Lahan gave the man a careful look. He presumably knew who it was—and seemed to think the mask was a shame.

“Here. Your participation prize.” Maomao gave him tea and a mooncake, but she couldn’t shake a sense of unease. She remembered what he’d said the last time they’d spoken.

“I’ll take the tea, but I’ll pass on the snack. My attendant will bring some for me; just bring it by later.”

“All right,” Maomao said after a beat. It was all she could say, knowing whom she was speaking to. “Then please line up over there and wait for a game.”

Lahan was positively beaming. If there was a pretty face around, he didn’t care if it belonged to a man or a woman. “You’re right. Greedy schlubs, and gullible too.” He looked at her as if to say, How about that? He looked so pleased with himself, in fact, that she felt compelled to stomp on his toes again.

In his first game in the theater, the masked man, a.k.a. Jinshi, found himself matched against a plump middle-aged man, who gave his masked opponent uneasy looks throughout the game. Jinshi won easily.

“I’d heard he wasn’t bad, but it turns out he’s very good,” Lahan commented.

“You think?” Maomao said. She’d served Jinshi for a time, but she didn’t recall him playing that much Go. He was an accomplished enough person to know the basics of the game, maybe a little better than average. “You sure that guy he was playing against didn’t just suck?” Jinshi had won so handily that one could almost have suspected the middle-aged guy of getting here by foul means.

“Yes, perhaps. A lucky draw,” Lahan said.

Jinshi bowed politely over the board, then headed to his next opponent.

“You’re not going to punish the guy for cheating?” Maomao asked.

“If he wants to come back, he’ll have to pay the entrance fee again. Why would I drive off a cash cow?”

Maomao didn’t say anything to that. Lahan was hopeless.

“Oh, I’m joking,” he said. “However he got here, if he coughs up the coin, he can face my father. Where’s the problem?”

“I thought they had to win before you squeezed even more money out of them.”

“Teaching games are a different matter from a proper match. Although it’s an open question whether my father understands what it means to teach. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure En’en gets her game another day.” Lahan was taking quick glances in the strategist’s direction.

“Another day? I thought it was supposed to be later today, after this was all done.”

“Yes, well. I think he might be reaching his limit. My guess is that he’ll go right to sleep as soon as the tournament is over.” Lahan began working his mental abacus.

Maomao’s old man had said that the freak slept away half of every day, but to drop off the minute his work was done? A child could stay awake better than that. Maomao had heard about an illness that caused sufferers to fall asleep unexpectedly, but that didn’t seem to be what was going on with the old fart.

Meanwhile, Lahan was muttering to himself. “If we tell those who have already paid that he’ll visit another day—no, that we’ll bring him to them individually—that would be a problem. There has to be some way to knock him out, then wake him up again... No, that won’t work...”

“Blinded by the gleam of money, eh?” Maomao gave him an exasperated look, then turned to watch Jinshi, who had found his next opponent. “He won’t beat that one,” she said: it was the pro from earlier.

She kept one eye on their match, wondering absently what had moved him to take part in this tournament. A crowd was gathering around the board; a man in a mask aroused curiosity.

Maomao knew a thing or two about Shogi, but not so much about Go, so she contented herself with doing check-in and keeping an eye out for anyone feeling poorly. I wish people would tidy up after themselves before they go, she thought, spotting crumbs on a number of the seats. She was just cleaning them up when there came a disappointed groan from the spectators surrounding Jinshi. Much of the crowd consisted of other players who had given up any hope of victory in the tournament.

Maomao went over to Lahan, who had worked his way in among them. “What happened?” she asked.

“He played a decent game, but this was just the wrong opponent. He’s got him on the run now.”

In other words, Jinshi had lost.

“I see,” Maomao said, nodding. About what she’d expected. “No hope of an upset?”

“It’s conceivable, but unlikely so long as his opponent doesn’t make any serious mistakes. And I don’t think this is someone who’s likely to make enough of a rookie error to exploit...”

Just as Lahan said that, there was a buzz in the crowd. The mask, so out of place here, came off. Lustrous black hair danced in the air, accompanied by the wafting aroma of perfume worked into elegant robes. It was like a heavenly nymph descending from the clouds, robes fluttering... A risible analogy, but inescapable—because it was true.

Haven’t seen that for a while, Maomao thought, observing a sight she’d witnessed ad nauseam in the rear palace: Jinshi at his sparkliest. There was a collective intake of breath; people wanted to gasp or exclaim, but the sounds caught in their throats. The figure before them was like a dweller in the heavenly realm, normally seen only in picture scrolls.

He was so lovely that at first glance one might have mistaken him for a woman, but the lump in his throat and his broad shoulders gave him away. There was a modicum of disappointment to be detected amidst the breathless amazement: on Jinshi’s right cheek was a scar that would never fade, like a scratch on an otherwise flawless gem.

Jinshi’s beauty had been exceptional even among the many and varied flowers of the rear palace. Here, it was more than enough to stun the onlookers into silence.

I’d forgotten his looks were enough to be downright hazardous to the health. When Jinshi placed a stone on the board with a firm, clear click, he looked the quintessence of a man playing Go. The crowd reacted to each move with an appreciative “Ahh!” Maomao wasn’t sure what had inspired Jinshi to take off his mask, but it clearly threw his opponent off his game. The other man had been well in control until that moment, but now his face was pale.

Had Jinshi turned the game around? Maomao wondered. No, not as such; not yet. But if it was true that Jinshi’s opponent had once taught Go to the nobility, then he would know something about the inhabitants of the royal palace. Perhaps he had met Jinshi, or perhaps he simply suspected, by reputation, who the man with the scar on his right cheek was.

There’s a chance for victory there.

The crowd in general didn’t seem to have realized who this gorgeous character was. Rumors about the Emperor’s younger brother receiving a scar on his right cheek had made the rounds of the populace, yes, but they didn’t suspect that he would be here, now, playing Go.

There were a few besides Jinshi’s opponent who recognized him, though, and to a person, their faces were busy changing colors, flushing or paling. But none of them could say anything; their mouths worked open and shut like fish.

As long as he doesn’t make a serious mistake, huh? Maomao thought, but then Jinshi’s opponent did just that.

Face bloodless and fingers slick with sweat, the man lowered his head. “I’ve lost,” he said. He was shaking—because of the mistake, or because of the fear that he had unknowingly offended Jinshi?

I feel kind of bad for him, Maomao thought, but she could only offer him her silent sympathy.

Why had Jinshi been wearing that mask? If he wasn’t going to keep it on, why not just go without it? Surely he hadn’t worn it specifically so that he could reveal himself and rattle his opponent at an opportune moment?

That’s a dirty trick, Maomao thought—but Jinshi had won his second game. A win was a win; he hadn’t broken any rules.

Dirty his tactics may have been, but Maomao was reminded that Jinshi had always been willing to stoop to such levels. He’d milked that face of his for all it was worth in the rear palace, convincing palace ladies and eunuchs to bend over backward for him. Why should he scoff at such methods just because he had a little worldly power now?

He’s really here to win, Maomao realized. Was he that desperate for a game with the freak strategist? Maomao gave him a look: he hadn’t seriously bought into Lahan’s rumor, had he?

She suddenly felt a shiver down her spine. She turned to discover a bestubbled old fart looking in their direction from the stage. It was the strategist.

“Step away, Maomao, if you’d be so kind. My honored father can’t concentrate on his game,” Lahan said.

“Sure.”

“But he has learned to distinguish the Moon Prince.”

“You mean he couldn’t before?!”

“I guess it’s the scar that gives him away.”

It was some burden, not being able to tell people apart.

Maomao went back to the waiting area, cleaning implements in hand. There was another young man at the reception desk, fresh from his victories outside, so she gave him tea and a snack. He could hardly have been more than twenty years old, and the naivete was written on his face. Maomao could see him clench his fist, his eyes wide and sparkling: he clearly believed his triumph had only just begun.

I feel sorry for this guy, Maomao thought. He had no way of knowing that his next game would be against someone roughly his own age, blindingly bright, who would break him like a brittle piece of kindling and send him home with his spirit in tatters.