The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 9 - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: The Quack Vanishes

Sunlight pried at Maomao’s eyelids, and she heard birds twittering outside.

“Hm... Mmm...”

She slowly opened her eyes and gave a great stretch. The bed was soft and smelled lovely, and since they were on land, it didn’t even rock. She felt like she’d had her first deep sleep in a long time.

This is Anan, right? she thought, trying to recall where they were through the haze of a freshly awakened brain.

When she got out of bed, she found breakfast, consisting of congee and a medley of relatively sumptuous dishes on the table. She also saw that Chue was already eating.

“You’re prompt,” she remarked.

“Yep. Miss Chue is an early riser—otherwise her mother-in-law gets mad. Come on, let’s have breakfast!” She continued stuffing food into her face. The richness of the dishes suggested they were leftovers from last night’s banquet—except Maomao didn’t recognize any of them. Apparently, guests were guests, and were not to be served leftovers.

“I don’t need much,” Maomao said, putting some vinegar on the porridge and starting to eat. On the surface, it looked like a fairly ordinary Li-style breakfast, but the unmistakable tang of fish sauce in the vinegar reminded her that she was in another country.

Notwithstanding the impossibility of keeping up with the necessary quips, Maomao didn’t have to be on any kind of special behavior around Chue, so she didn’t worry about eating daintily. When she had finished breakfast and was brushing her teeth, the door flew open with a bang.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Young lady!” said Maomao’s bodyguard, Lihaku. He looked mildly distressed. “I was informed a few minutes ago that that friendly old doctor isn’t on the ship.”

“What?”

Why would the quack doctor be missing?

Did someone kidnap him?

The whole reason the quack had been brought along was to be a body double for Luomen. Lihaku was supposed to be the quack’s bodyguard as well, but at the moment he was with Maomao. There were other soldiers stationed on the ship, though, and abducting the quack shouldn’t have been an easy task.

“I don’t understand what you mean. I mean... Why?”

Maomao held her head in her hands; Chue looked very intrigued.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Lihaku. “I’m going to go back to the ship and see what’s happening. What about you, miss?”

“What about me?” Maomao said. She couldn’t just walk around on her own out here. Someone would need to know where she was going...

“All right, I’ve heard the story,” said, of all people, Chue. “This smells like a mystery! Don’t you worry—I already went ahead and got permission.” She winked at them, her teeth sparkling.

“How could you already go ahead and do that? We just found out about this,” said Maomao, sadly picking the most ordinary and least interesting response. She knew this might be a good time for an amusing comeback, but she had the feeling that if she started dealing them out, they’d never stop, so she let the opportunity pass.

“Simple. They told me that if you went outside, Mister Lihaku and I could go with you. And since I figured you’d have nothing but time to kill today, I went ahead and got permission for you to go out. If you just stayed here all day, Miss Chue would have to stay with you, and then we would miss the chance to see Anan, and I would have to sit here fretting about whether my mother-in-law might drop in for a visit.”

In other words, she had been ready and eager to make herself scarce all along.

Hey, if they’ll let me go, I might as well.

Chue’s eagerness turned out to be rather helpful.

“If it’s all right, I think I’ll start by going back to the ship,” Maomao said, looking to Lihaku for confirmation.

“Sure. I thought you would, miss; that’s why I told you. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem, but...” He looked away.

“But what?”

“Er, well, when I was talking with the messenger, I was spotted by...someone I would rather not have been spotted by.”

“Someone you would rather...”

With mounting dread, Maomao looked toward the entrance to the room. Chue pattered over to the door and opened it.

“Yikes!” said an eavesdropping monocled freak.

“Good morning, sir,” Miss Chue said, although her greeting was purely for form’s sake.

“Good morning! Maomaoooo! What lovely weather we’re having, eh?”

She didn’t say a word, only gave him her most scathing possible look.

“So! I hear you’re going out! Maybe Daddy should come with you!”

“Please don’t.” Maomao’s expression was like ice, but it failed to dampen the freak strategist’s spirits.

“All those stores! Oh, what shall I buy you? Some clothes? A hair ornament? Oh! Or maybe you’d like some nice medicine!”

He was, as ever, not listening to her.

“Miss Maomao,” Chue said, nudging her. “It doesn’t look like we can keep him from coming with us. Why not give in and let the nice wallet come along?”

“Wallet? I think we’d be lucky if he had two coins on him to rub together.” Maomao had the distinct impression that it was typically Lahan or the like who handled any money matters for the strategist.

“Well, then I’ll go grab the aide. He must have the purse.” With that, Lihaku was off to go call the man.

“Master Lihaku! Wait!” Maomao called after him.

“Maomaaaooooo! Ooh, I hope they have lots of medicines! We have to find a souvenir for my honored uncle too.” The fox eyes arched excitedly.

“The purse! We need money. It’ll cost time to leave him here,” Chue said. “If the master physician might be in trouble, we haven’t a moment to lose. Also, I want a hair stick with Ananese coral.”

“You’re always ready to mooch, aren’t you, Miss Chue?”

Chue was a very friendly person, let it be said.

“I have to be! My husband’s income isn’t stable enough for anything else. By the time we’d gotten married and even had a child, he was still studying for the civil service exams. Once he passed them, I thought we were set, but then he didn’t get along with his colleagues and retired. At least his connections finally got him a new job. But it all meant Miss Chue had to go to work almost as soon as the baby was born.”

Chue waved a string of small flags as she spoke. She certainly didn’t look like someone who had it as rough as all that, but, well, who knew?

“Incidentally, ever since my husband got his new job, I’ve been under pressure to pop out the next kid. Sure, goes the logic, maybe my brother-in-law will end up head of the family, but who knows if he’ll produce a child? I think the big lady’s just bullying her daughter-in-law.”

“I can’t say I don’t see her point.”

If Basen really was guaranteed to inherit, then it was understandable to worry about heirs given his distinctly shy attitude toward women.

Even things with former consort Lishu could be over if he’s not careful how he goes about it. Maomao thought of the luckless princess who had gone to a nunnery the year before.

What was Basen doing on that separate overland route?

Maomao and Chue’s conversation concluded when Lihaku returned. “All right! I got him!” he shouted. He had the purse—er, the freak strategist’s aide—with him.

When they got back to the ship, they found it awfully quiet. Maybe everyone had gone out. The sailors were making sure everything was shipshape, while the cleaners, a group of middle-aged women dressed in men’s clothing, removed trash from the rooms, swept the deck, and industriously polished every surface on the ship. The cleaners also made the travelers’ meals, and most of them seemed to be family members of the sailors.

“Maomao! Let’s not waste too much time doing whatever we have to do here—we should go shopping!”

An obnoxious old man was jabbering about something, but Maomao ignored him. The handful of soldiers remaining on board scurried away the moment they saw the strategist, eager not to be caught up in whatever he was doing.

“Here,” said one of the soldiers who’d been appointed to guard the quack doctor—the man who had informed Lihaku of his disappearance.

“What in the world were you doing?” asked Lihaku, who seemed to know the man, slapping him on the back.

“I—I’m sorry. We only took our eyes off him for a moment, while we were changing the guard, and he vanished. Then we tried to get into the medical office...”

Maomao tried the office door, but it wouldn’t open. “It’s locked,” she observed.

With all the medicines inside, the door had to lock to keep anyone from waltzing in and helping themselves to the supplies. The office was always kept locked when there was no one there.

“I tried to peek in, but I didn’t see anyone there, so when the physician didn’t show any sign of coming back, I thought I should tell you.” The soldier bowed his head.

“All right, I see. You said you were changing the guard. Go get the guy who was on duty before you.”

“Yes sir!” The soldier rushed off.

“A locked room! This smells like a mystery,” Chue announced with glee.

“Where’d the old guy go?” Lihaku mused.

“If we’re lucky, he just fell asleep somewhere,” said Maomao. She had a backup key, so she opened the door—but the quack doctor was not in the room. “Nothing too unusual here,” she said. If there was anything out of the ordinary, it was that the quack’s sleepwear lay on the bed in a heap.

“Not a very neat guy, I take it,” Lihaku said.

“I don’t know. That’s not what he normally does with his pajamas.”

He might toss them aside for a moment, but he would be sure to fold them later. He might be incompetent, but he wasn’t uncivilized.

Out of the corner of her vision, Maomao saw the freak strategist reaching for the medicine cabinet, so she slapped his hand away. She would have sworn he looked happy about it—but it made her feel ill, so she ignored it. The aide bowed his head repeatedly toward her in apology.

“If I were the quack, and I was in a hurry...” Maomao muttered. She tried to picture what he would do once he had gotten up in the morning and changed his clothes. They’d spent the last several days living their lives with only a curtain between them, so she had a pretty good idea of what made him tick.

“He probably went to the bathroom,” she said.

The bathroom was at the prow of the ship. A eunuch’s missing equipment made the need to urinate more frequent. It was possible quack had woken up and badly needed to go to the toilet, so he’d sloughed off his sleepwear in a rush. Last night, there had been classy food aboard the ships as well as on land, and there was a good chance alcohol had been served. It was impressive that the quack had even remembered to lock the door in his hungover haze.

“I think we should try the bathroom,” said Maomao. They took the quickest route from the office to the head, passing one of the cleaning ladies as they went. She was busily working near the stove, trying to get out some stubborn stain, maybe oil that had jumped out of a pot or pan.

They eventually reached the toilet at the ship’s prow, but there was no quack there.

“We’re pretty sure he didn’t fall in, right?” Lihaku said, and he was mostly joking—but it was true that the toilet was a hole that simply let waste fall directly into the sea.

“No, he didn’t. With his waistline, he would just get stuck,” said Chue.

Maomao didn’t say anything, but crossed her arms and cocked her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the old fart snacking on some dried fruit, but she decided to ignore him. His aide was offering him some tea in a bamboo tube.

“What’s the matter, Miss Maomao?”

“I was just thinking... The master physician might get stuck, but what about something else? Something that wouldn’t?”

“Such as?”

Maomao took the key to the medical office out of the folds of her robes. “What if he was sleepy and in a hurry, and dropped this? Seems like a possibility, doesn’t it?”

“Yikes!” was Chue’s reaction.

“Y’know, with that guy, I could just see it,” said Lihaku. Neither of them contradicted Maomao.

Without the key, the quack wouldn’t be able to get back into the office.

“Excuse me,” Maomao said to one of the sailors.

“Yeah? What?”

“You didn’t happen to see the master physician around the toilet this morning, did you? Maybe in a tizzy?”

The sailor looked at her, confused, then called over some of his mates. One of them clapped his hands. “I d’nno if it was your physician or not, but I did see a fat little man in an awful hurry. He was getting in the way of cleaning the deck, so I told him to go somewhere else.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“Hrm... Well, he was going to be in the way of cleaning anywhere belowdecks, so I told him he could be on deck, just once I was done swabbing.” The sailor pointed to the wharf. On it there was a wooden chest, and on that Maomao could easily picture a quack doctor, sitting and looking quite dejected.

“Even if he thought of trying to get in touch with you to borrow your key, miss, most of the soldiers were away,” said Lihaku. The timid quack would have had a hard time stopping one of the obviously busy sailors to ask a favor—and his qualms would only have been compounded by the guilt of having lost the key in the first place.

Maomao sat down on the chest where she imagined the quack doctor had sat. Sailors and cleaning people bustled around the pier. As Maomao sat there, just looking around, several of them gave her dirty looks: she was definitely in the way.

I can see why the soldiers all left.

It would be awfully awkward, being on the ship at that moment. No doubt the men standing guard in the halls had been the subjects of many a reproving glare from the cleaners, who saw them as mere obstacles. No wonder the guard hadn’t waited for his relief to arrive before leaving his post.

“Where could he have gone?” Maomao mumbled.

As she sat there, staring into the distance, one of the cleaners, a plump middle-aged woman, bustled right up to her and her companions and said, “You wouldn’t happen to be the extra help, would you?”

“No. Do we look like it?”

If it had been just Maomao and Chue, it might have made sense, but Lihaku was standing right there. Not to mention the old fart and his aide—the former of whom had started climbing up the mast, the latter of whom had followed, trying to stop him, and both of whom had been dragged down by the sailors the moment they were spotted.

“I can’t say you do. I was just hoping for a few more pairs of hands. The lady we sent to do the shopping hasn’t come back in all this time and I’m at the end of my rope. If you’re not busy, maybe you could take a message for me?”

The lady they sent to do the shopping?

Maomao pictured the quack as he must have looked most recently: changed out of his sleepwear but not into his physician’s uniform. A clean-shaven eunuch. Eunuchs often looked somewhat gender-neutral, so it was possible someone could have mistaken him for a middle-aged woman. It wouldn’t have helped that the cleaners wore men’s clothes for ease of movement.

“Pardon me, but could you describe the person you sent to go shopping?” Maomao said.

“Well, she was a helper sent over from one of the other ships. They told me they couldn’t spare anyone too young, but even so—what a piece of work they came up with! Just sitting there, no idea what she should be doing. So I gave her this errand, and now here we are. It’s been more than two hours and she’s still not back!” The woman spread her hands in frustration.

“Hullooooo!” came a woman’s shout from the pier. “The help’s here! What do you need us to do?”

Maomao, her companions, and the cleaner all looked at the woman coming down the jetty toward them.

“It looks like your helper has arrived,” Maomao said.

“Yes, well... But then...who did I send shopping?”

The quack spent most of his time cooped up in the medical office, so the woman hadn’t recognized him.

Maomao and the others shook their heads at each other. “What did you ask ‘her’ to buy?”

“Well, soap. Cheap bar soap is easy to get at Anan’s port. Cheap liquid soap always smells. No one likes it on a ship.”

Bar soap wasn’t much used in Li.

“Do you know where they sell it?”

“Probably one of the stalls around town. Would you be so kind as to go and get some?”

“All right,” Maomao said. She and the others now knew where they had to go next.

“Ooh, those clothes look nice! Maybe I should buy them.”

“Ah, not bad, not bad. This hair stick would look lovely on you, Maomao!”

“How’s the juice at that shop? Bit of a strange color, but I think it looks drinkable.”

The freak strategist had been going on like this ever since they’d gotten to the marketplace. Incidentally, all of his hair stick and clothing choices were at least a thousand years ahead of their time, and the juice looked like it would do a number on your stomach. Maomao repeatedly stopped his aide from producing the purse.

“My. He doesn’t slow down, does he, Miss Maomao?” Chue, who seemed totally unfazed by the strategist’s antics, had several skewers of grilled bird meat in her hand. It wasn’t chicken—it was leaner and bonier. Probably a sparrow or some other pest bird from the fields.

I thought orders had gone out not to catch sparrows for the time being, Maomao thought. It was one of Jinshi’s attempts to forestall the swarm of locusts. Maybe Anan wasn’t subject to the command, even if it was a vassal state.

“Are you sure that’s not cannibalism?” Maomao asked.

“It tastes good, and that’s what counts! Here, have a bite.”

“Thanks.”

Chue offered Maomao one of the skewers, and she gladly took it. The meat was tough, but some people liked it this way.

“Excellent. Now, my good aide, I’ll be needing another skewer.” Chue stuck out her hand and the aide, looking defeated, dropped a few coins into it. It looked like the most natural thing in the world.

She’s not even paying for it!

Chue was definitely too shrewd for her own good, or at least for everyone else’s. The freak strategist was munching on fruit he’d skewered on a chopstick.

Maomao, taking a bite off her own skewer, looked around for anywhere selling soap.

“Bar soap isn’t cheap. Should they really be using it to clean the ovens?” Lihaku asked. He was right—even Maomao and the others had no better than ash, or maybe liquid soap, when they washed. Bar soap wasn’t very familiar in Li and wasn’t widely sold.

“I don’t think it’s the same in Anan.” Maomao patted a nearby tree. It looked similar to a windmill palm, but it lacked the bushy trunk. Large berries grew high overhead. “This is a palm tree,” she said. She’d only seen them in pictures in books, but this one was also known as the betel palm. The nuts could be chewed like tobacco, or ground into a powder to clean the teeth, and also to flush worms out of the body.

The plant they were looking at just then, however, was a little different.

“Some kinds of palm are used for their fruits or berries, and others are used for their oil. Some palms have a berry that’s a lot like a red date. The oil palm is used to make oil, just like the name implies, and if you mix the oil with seaweed ash, you can make soap.”

She didn’t know, though, how it was hardened into shape—by reducing it, drying it, or perhaps by mixing in another ingredient.

Maomao looked at the shops. Just by the palm trees was one selling their berries, large fruit in which the vendor put a hole and inserted a straw.

“One please...er, for each of us,” said the considerate aide, purchasing enough of the fruit for all of them. Maomao decided to accept his hospitality, since they were here. What came through the straw was both somewhat sweet and somewhat salty.

“Wish this were a bit sweeter. Sugar! Don’t you have any sugar?” The insatiably sweet-toothed old fart was disappointed.

“I’m fond of the salty stuff myself,” said Lihaku. At that, the aide offered him a leaf piled with something white.

“The shopkeeper says this is on the house. Palm meat, he claims.”

It was pale, translucent stuff doused in fish sauce. Maomao and Lihaku both took a piece and tasted it.

“It’s a bit like raw squid,” Maomao remarked. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t like the al dente quality—it would be a good side dish with some wine.

“Hmm. Not quite my thing. It’s a bit...rubbery.” Lihaku wasn’t as enamored. Oh well. That meant more for Maomao and Chue.

“Excuse me. Do you know where we might find a soap vendor?” Maomao asked the palm seller.

“Soap vendor? Bit farther in. He sets up right next to the fried food places a lot of the time. There’s a square just ahead. He’s often there,” came a reply colored with a distinct Ananese accent. Apparently the shopkeeper was willing to indulge customers who had spent some money. He added, “You all are Linese, yeah? Your stout friend there should keep you safe, I think—but be careful.”

“Careful of what?” Lihaku asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Lot of Linese around these days. Seems you’re not like most of them, but there are plenty who like to make fun of us. Last night, there was even a fight at the bar. Taxes have gone up, see, and there’s talk that our princess got chased out of the rear palace because they didn’t like her enough. Just try not to give anyone an excuse, that’s all I’m saying.”

Taxes had been raised as a protective measure against locusts. Meanwhile, the princess “chased out” of the rear palace must have been Fuyou, who had left after causing a scare about a ghost.

They’re not exactly wrong. Maomao wanted to push back, but it was true: some of the Linese visitors had a bad attitude. There was a lot of pent-up frustration from the unaccustomed ship travel, not to mention some people were convinced that they were suffering a punitive demotion.

“Huh,” said Lihaku, and Maomao saw a new look come into his eyes. “We’d better find that old doctor fast, then.” The flighty quack would make an easy target all by himself.

Maomao and the others finished their drinks and threw the shells away, then headed deeper into the market as the shopkeeper had suggested.

“Boy, something smells really sweet,” Lihaku said.

“And really oily,” said Maomao.

The air seemed thick. The square itself was paved with flagstones, and something that looked like a mausoleum stood in the center. Trees lined the area. Some of them were even fruit trees, sprouting small mangoes. There might even be some lychees among the plant life, but it was probably the wrong season for them.

The shops seemed calculated to catch the interest of passersby. Maomao felt like she would be overpowered by the sweet smell, but there were also places selling incense, candles, and cards. Available snacks included sesame dumplings and fried bread, among others. The freak strategist bought some immediately, and just as quickly Chue started sponging off him. The aide was kept very busy.

“Where’s the soap?” Maomao muttered. She looked around until she spotted a place with what looked like white bricks piled up at the stall. She trotted over, to be greeted by a scowl from the shopkeeper.

“You Linese?” he demanded as they walked up. His accent was less noticeable than that of the palm seller.

“Who cares what I am? I’m a customer. I want to buy some soap. How much?” Lihaku said.

“Doesn’t matter, because I don’t have any to sell you. Try somewhere else.” The shopkeeper pointedly turned away.

“Well, that’s a problem. Want to tell me why you won’t sell to me?” It was easy to assume that Lihaku must literally have muscles for brains, but he was making a wise choice here. Maomao, seeing that she couldn’t be of help, took a step back and watched.

They could see the gears turning in the shopkeeper’s head. Lihaku simply stood with an easy smile on his face.

“If you want to buy soap, go directly to where they make it. We need soap for our daily lives around here. What are we supposed to do when you buy up all our stock just because of the novelty of it? The price of materials has gone up recently. When I sell out of this batch, I’m going to have to raise my prices.”

It turned out even a surly shopkeeper had a story. He should have just said so upfront. Why did bitter people always have to take so long getting to the point? He would make the same money no matter who he sold to, but he was trying to keep his price low for the locals. There were some residential areas nearby: this was a perfect place for them to come buy their soap.

“Materials are more expensive?” Lihaku asked. “You mean because the Linese are buying everything?”

“No—because the materials we had burned up. There was a fire.”

A major ingredient in soap was oil—practically made for burning.

“I see... Well, thanks. The place that makes the soap, is it farther along here?” Lihaku asked with his friendliest smile. The shopkeeper made a point of looking put-upon, but he pointed the way nonetheless.

“Walk straight that way and look for the signs of the fire. There’s a little hut there where they’re working on more soap. There’ll be plenty of craftspeople around; I’m sure you can ask one of them. I warn you, though, they’re not as nice as I am.”

“All right, well, we appreciate it. And since you’re so nice, maybe you could tell me one more thing. Did an older guy, a Linese like us, happen to come by earlier today trying to buy soap?”

“An older guy? Wait... You mean the old lady? Pudgy, with kind of droopy eyebrows?”

“Yeah, that’s him! He’s no old lady, though. Where’d he go?”

“He asked the same questions as you lot, and I gave him the same answer. He went toward the soap makers’. Would’ve been about half an hour ago by now.”

“Great! You’ve been such a big help. We really appreciate it.” Lihaku shook the man’s hand, and Maomao offered a bow. By that point, the strategist had purchased all of the snacks at the snack stall, and Chue was busy mooching off him. At least he was relatively calm while he was eating.

Maomao couldn’t help being impressed by Chue’s adaptability. She felt bad for the aide, though, who had to be in about three places at once.

“Maomaaaoooo! Look! Fried bread!” The freak strategist stuck the bread out at her, trying to stuff it straight into her mouth, but she dodged him. Chue moved to intercept and got the mouthful instead.

“Delicious!” she said, wiping her lips as if this were nothing out of the ordinary. Just what kind of stomach was she packing?

After a bit of walking in the direction the soap seller had indicated, the group found themselves among a cluster of houses. Windmill palms grew here and there in lieu of other garden plants.

“Do these trees produce any kind of fruit, I wonder?” Chue asked, eyeing them closely.

“They do, and it can be used in medicine, but no one seems to think it tastes very good,” Maomao said.

“Why are they here, then?”

“I think maybe because they can also be used to make brooms, ropes, that sort of thing. The leaves have medicinal properties too.”

The palms were quite versatile, in fact, but Chue seemed uninterested in anything that wasn’t edible.

“Please stop, Master Lakan!” said the aide, who looked like he was at the end of his rope. If this was what he had to deal with every day, Maomao hoped he kept some stomach medicine on hand.

“Think that’s it?” Chue asked when she spotted a half-burned building. There was some sort of crowd near it. Maomao hurried over, her bad feeling growing. When she got there, she spotted a very familiar back.

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me!” the back’s owner pleaded. It was the quack doctor, practically in tears. He was surrounded by several men, one of whom had him by the collar.

“Master Physician!” Maomao exclaimed, running up. The quack, snotty nose and all, grabbed hold of her. She tried to peel him off—he wasn’t going to make it any easier to talk to anyone—but that was when the freak strategist broke in.

“What are you doing to my little girl?!” demanded the old fart, who still had sugar around his mouth.

“My! Is this man your father, young lady?” the quack asked. The fact that, in spite of his obvious fear, he still sounded somehow unconcerned was, well, just him.

“He’s a total stranger,” Maomao replied promptly.

“Who is this person? Tell me his name!” Lakan demanded.

“I could, but you would never remember it, Master Lakan,” his aide said. The aide did, however, imitate Lakan in staring at the quack. “You’re the master physician, aren’t you?”

“Er, ahem, yes, that’s, er, that’s right,” said the quack. He wiped away the worst of the snot with a handkerchief, but he still looked pretty pathetic.

“Oi, you bunch! You know this guy?” said one of the men. He had a thick accent, filthy clothes, and comparatively dark skin. He was young, and obviously his blood was all in his head. By his feet was a jar full of cloudy oil.

The quack tried to hide behind Maomao, so she found herself out in front by default—until the freak strategist stepped in front of her protectively.

Knock it off. You’re not going to do anyone any good here.

She’d hardly had the thought when Lihaku stepped in front of the strategist, that ingratiating smile on his face again. “That’s right, this old guy is with us. Something seem to be the matter?” He was their bodyguard, and he was doing his job. He might be a big mutt, but he made a decent guard dog. The Ananese men started muttering among themselves.

“Wh-What, can’t you see? Just look!” The dark-skinned man pointed at the wall. The scorched bricks were drenched with water, and on the ground was a wooden chest that appeared to be the source of the fire. “The fire came from there, and the old guy was right next to it. Meaning he started the fire! He must’ve started the one the other day too!”

“N-No! I didn’t! I just wanted to buy soap!” the quack moaned.

“I’ve seen him, lurking around here! I know this is all your fault!”

“Okay, just calm down. I hear what you’re saying, but I want you to get our side of the story too,” Lihaku said. He never raised his voice, but he gave the man a look like a large dog putting a puppy in its place. Five men surrounded the quack doctor, all of them vigorous and muscular—but not as well-built as Lihaku. The angry man considered shooting back, but fell silent under Lihaku’s gaze.

Maomao watched the man from behind her bodyguard. Between their dirty outfits, the jar of oil, and the fact that they were standing in front of a soap-makers’ shop, she suspected that they were soap makers. She could see the damp patch on the blackened wall and smell the scorched odor in the air. It seemed likely that after the first blaze had been put out, another, smaller one had started.

“First things first. I don’t know about this fire of yours, but this guy only came to Anan last night. Until then, he was rocking across the sea on a boat. That much, I can tell you for certain. You follow?”

That set them talking.

“Yeah, okay. But that box was set on fire, and he was the only guy around. What’s your excuse for that, huh?”

“Set on fire?” Lihaku looked at the quack for confirmation.

“N-No! Nooo! It caught fire on its own, I tell you! I didn’t do anything!”

“Liar! How’d it light itself, then?”

“Yeah!” said one of the other men.

“It couldn’t have just burst into flames by itself!” added a third.

“All right, all right, I hear you. Stay calm,” Lihaku said.

Maomao pushed past the quack and peered at the blackened box. There appeared to be fibers of some kind inside, along with grains of something, although both were thoroughly charred.

“Maomao! That’s filthy. Why don’t we get something nice from the snack stall and head on back?”

The freak strategist was the only one with no idea what they were doing there.

“Imagine what it’ll do to our diets if we only eat sweets. I think another savory skewer on the way back would be just the thing. Chicken wouldn’t go amiss, but some shrimp could also be really good.”

The strategist wasn’t the only eccentric character in attendance—there was another who thought only of eating.

“Y-You too, Miss Chue?!” wailed the quack.

“Well, we can’t leave empty-handed. Let’s buy some soap and hurry back,” said Maomao.

“Oi! You’re the ones who aren’t listening!” said the soapmaker, incensed.

“We are listening. In short, if we can prove that this man didn’t start your fire, you’ll let him go, yes?” Maomao said, looking at the man still holding the quack by the collar.

“Yeah, sure. But you better be real convincing.”

“Very well. If I can’t answer to your satisfaction, you’ll receive ample compensation. Just get it from the old fart over there.”

“L-Lady Maomao!” The strategist’s (that is, the old fart’s) aide looked like he was going to cry.

The craftsmen started muttering among themselves again. The huddle soon finished.

“All right. Get ready to pay up.”

“Of course. But if he’s innocent, you’ll sell us soap at the market price.”

“Done.”

“Very well.” Maomao looked at the burned box. “Were you using this for garbage?” She turned the box over. The sopping fibers were from the bark of the windmill palm. Some small, round things also rolled out.

“’Sright.”

“Is the bark of the windmill palm part of the soap-production process?”

“No. We make scrub brushes from the palms. Soap’s not the only thing we make here.”

Soap and scrub brushes. Two products that might well be used together—reasonable enough to manufacture them in the same place.

“So these blackened things, these are fried scraps?”

“Yeah.”

Fried scraps—that is, literally, leftovers from something being fried. Making soap required a great deal of oil, and no matter how abundant resources might be, they would have to find a way to keep expenses down if they were to sell it at a price people would accept for a daily consumable. What were they to do?

“Were you using used oil in the soap?”

Plenty of establishments in town sold fried food. Lots of places to get supplies.

“Not exclusively. What would that have to do with anything, anyway?”

“I see. And you were throwing away the batter scraps here?”

“Yeah.”

Maomao looked hard at the men, then glanced at the sun to check its position. It wasn’t yet high noon.

It’s not very nice of me, but maybe I can stretch the truth here.

“These fried bits, you filter them out of the oil?”

“See for yourself. Right over there.” The craftsman pointed toward a pot brimming with oil. Beside it was a wire strainer with a cloth over it.

“And you do this while the oil is still hot?”

Cold oil was harder to strain. The strainer was probably made of metal wire to allow the hot oil to flow through it. I suppose the cloth is cotton.

“That’s right. We go around and collect it while it’s still hot. These days it’s a bit of a race—other soap makers are also coming to this area to get oil.”

Maomao nodded and looked into the strainer. There weren’t too many scraps in it.

“So you throw away any scraps?” she asked.

“Sometimes we eat them—but there’s too much for us to eat everything.”

“Enough to fill this strainer?”

“Sometimes. But we throw ’em out before it gets full.”

Maomao raised an eyebrow and looked at the burned-out trash bin. “It seems to me that your trash box is quite a ways away. You didn’t move it, did you?”

The man paused. “Yeah, we have another receptacle here. What about it?” He went over to a large jar near the strainer and looked into it. “Hey, who emptied this?”

Maomao looked back to the workers, who had started mumbling again.

“Do you think you can help me, young lady?!” the quack pleaded, looking at her with a hangdog expression. Maomao braced herself, afraid that the freak strategist would jump in again, but he didn’t do anything. Surprised, she looked over to find him watching the soap makers. Occasionally he would creep very close, looking intently at them, inevitably to be rebuffed with a contemptuous look. His aide scurried back and forth apologizing. It couldn’t have been easy to be him.

Why’s he looking so close? He can’t tell one face from another. The strategist was oblivious to people’s faces, which was one reason he treated everyone but his own family so indifferently. It made Maomao wonder why he was staring at these people, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. The question is, what do I do?

She had most of what she needed to prove the quack’s innocence, but her explanation would be bolstered if she got one thing ready in advance.

“Miss Chue! Miss Chue!”

“Miss Maomao! Miss Maomao! What do you need?”

Maomao whispered to Chue. Chue’s small eyes went very wide; then she said, “Roger!” and set off running. It would be a while before she was back. Maomao would have to watch the men’s moods and judge her moment.

“Excuse me. I think I can explain how the fire started. If you would come over here?” she said to the chattering craftsmen.

“Yeah? Can’t wait to hear it.”

“Hope you’ve got a good story.”

“I believe I do. The fire wasn’t set; it started naturally. Therefore, this man is innocent.” Maomao patted the quack on the shoulder.

“Y-Young lady!” the quack looked at her, quaking violently.

“Is something the matter, Master Physician?” she asked.

“They’ll never just take your word for it! Look how they’re glaring at us!” The men were indeed fixing the visitors with scary looks.

“Yes, thank you. I understand. I don’t suppose that you all would take my word that the fire started naturally?”

“Damn right we wouldn’t. How’d this fire start? And don’t bullshit us just because you don’t want to pay!”

“It’s no such thing, I promise you. All those cast-off fried scraps—those are the source of your fire.” Maomao plucked some of the leftover scraps out of the strainer. “You have a lot of fried bits and pieces in one place. They retain heat inside them, and can potentially catch fire. As will, for example, oil-soaked rags that are with them.”

“Catch fire? On their own? I’ve never heard anything so stupid.”

“It can happen. Look.”

Chue came trotting back, a large pot almost overflowing with fried scraps in her arms. “Miss Maomao, I got it!”

“Thank you very much, Miss Chue.”

Maomao had sent Chue to collect fried scraps as quick as she could.

“Do you think we can expense this? They didn’t have enough just lying around, so I had to beg them to make more for me. It wasn’t cheap, I can tell you!”

“Kindly ask the good aide there,” Maomao said. She wasn’t about to pay for this. Instead she left it all to the freak strategist’s man, who was plying his master with occasional snacks to keep him from getting out of hand. The strategist was munching on a fried treat and still staring intently at the soapmakers. It was most unusual for a man who normally took no interest in other people.

“All right, you see the pile of scraps. What do you think will happen if I just leave it here?”

The soapmaker shook his head. “You’re tryin’ to say it’ll catch fire? Joke’s on you. It’ll just cool down!”

“Are you sure about that?” Maomao leered at him, then put the scraps in the jar that served as a trash receptacle.

A moment passed.

“See? Nothing’s happenin’.”

“Just wait.”

Maomao glanced at Chue, who had taken out some artificial flowers and was playing around with them.

“Hey, uh, young lady? Are you sure about this?” Lihaku didn’t look entirely convinced either. He was keeping his distance from the trash container, as befitted a man who had survived having his hair singed by an exploding box.

“Wait a little longer,” Maomao said.

“Screw waiting! This is a waste of time! I’m going back to work,” one of the craftsmen said. He turned to leave—and that was when they noticed it: warm air accompanied by a distinct burning odor. Smoke was coming from the jar.

“Is this for real?” one of the craftsmen asked, hurrying over to look.

“Wait, is it safe to get close to that thing?” asked another.

“It won’t explode. At least, I don’t think,” Maomao said, walking over to the jar herself. She couldn’t see any flames yet, but she expected some soon. “There you have it: spontaneous combustion of the fried scraps. You see now that this could very easily be the cause of your fire?”

“N—Now, just a minute! If it’s so easy for a fire to start, why hasn’t there been one before? We’ve been doing this work here for decades, and this is only the second fire we’ve had!”

“Have you always thrown away large quantities of hot scraps?”

“No... No, just recently. Wasn’t long ago we started doing it.”

Maomao remembered the man saying that they were in competition with other soap makers to get the supplies. That could well inspire someone to collect hot oil, even though it was dangerous, and simply toss out the hot scraps that came with it.

Maomao looked at the big jar and thought, It’s a risky business, collecting the oil while it’s still hot. She said, “I gather you still don’t believe me, but you can’t doubt your own eyes. The fire started naturally.”

The soap maker was silent and, as Maomao said, obviously incredulous. To be fair, she hadn’t thought it could be true either when she first heard about it. So she’d done an experiment.

Granted, today, she’d stacked the deck in her favor—in two particular ways. Normally, it would have taken longer for the scraps to catch fire, as she knew because she’d tried it herself before. I really had to wait that day.

She hadn’t been using fried-food scraps, but old rags soaked in highly flammable incense oil. Nothing at all happened with just a few of them, so she’d piled more on until they started to trap the heat. Still there had been no fire; she’d waited so long that she’d drifted off to sleep. Only then did they ignite. She’d woken up when someone doused her with water, thankfully before she was burned.

I really wanted to see the fire actually start.

She’d hoped to try again so she could confirm it with her own eyes, but she had been angrily informed that there were to be no more experiments in this field.

In this case, the craftsmen didn’t seem likely to put up with much waiting, so she’d had Chue pull a little trick: along with the copious amount of scraps, she’d asked her to procure a cinder. Chue, with her gift for sleight of hand, had easily slipped it to Maomao, who had surreptitiously included it when she dumped the scraps in the jar.

I’m glad it caught. She wasn’t proud of this modest con, but she hadn’t had much choice.

As for the second advantage she’d given herself—well, she was fairly confident that the cause of the first fire had been what she’d described. But the second one, the one that started while the quack had been standing there, that was harder to explain.

Not impossible, but it wouldn’t be very likely.

The trash container that had caught fire had been full of palm leaves and fried scraps—but not really enough of them to spontaneously combust. Maomao’s experiment had involved rags, not fried scraps, so it wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it seemed clear to her that they would need a hotter environment to catch fire.

Question: Why would they use a wooden chest to throw those things away?

Luomen would no doubt have warned her against saying things she couldn’t prove.

While Maomao was still thinking about it, the freak strategist abruptly broke off his study of the craftsmen and leaped into action. Maybe he’d run out of fried snacks to eat.

“Tell me something! Why’re you trying so hard to pin this on someone else?” the strategist demanded.

“’Scuse me?” one of the men said, befuddled. The strategist never made much sense, but this was above and beyond.

“Erm, Master Lakan is saying that someone here is lying, and that that person is the real culprit,” the aide said, helpfully interpreting.

“Wh-Who? Who would do such a thing?” asked the quack, looking at Lakan with pleading eyes.

“That black Go stone right on the edge of the group there.”

“Go stones are, ahem, how Master Lakan sees people whose faces he can’t distinguish.” It wasn’t easy being the strategist’s aide. He’d probably worked harder than any of them today—and Maomao didn’t even know his name.

“Oh yeah? You think I’m lyin’? You got any proof of that?” demanded the man Lakan had identified as a black Go stone.

“You’re blinking. Your heart is pounding—I can practically hear it. And you stink of sweat.”

“P-Pardon me. I’m not sure what to say about that one...” Even the aide was at a loss.

People blink more when they’re lying, and their heart rate increases. Sometimes they start to sweat.

A popular rumor around the Li court held that you couldn’t tell a lie in the presence of the strategist. Just when it seemed he was making wild pronouncements based on nothing more than pure instinct, Maomao discovered that in fact there was some method to his madness.

I remember Pops saying... The freak strategist might not be able to tell people’s faces apart, but he could discern the parts of faces. He could see eyes or noses, they just didn’t cohere into a human face for him. Instead, he had other ways of telling strangers apart. Their voices, their movements, their characteristic smells. He might be the most perceptive observer you could find.

It just doesn’t do us much good, because he usually doesn’t give a fig about other people.

No, that wasn’t quite true—in his work, it was perfectly helpful. This worthless old fart was a better judge of talent than anyone.

“Hey, you can’t talk about me like that!”

“No, no, I can smell it. Smoke. Tobacco. The soap fragrances—the honey, the aromatic leaves—they almost cover it, but you were smoking until a few minutes ago, weren’t you?” the monocled old man said. The rest of the soapmakers immediately looked at the new suspect.

“Hey! You said you quit!”

“We told you not to smoke around the oil. Don’t tell me you freakin’ did it out here!”

The others closed in on the accused man, and shortly tobacco leaves were discovered in his robes.

A tobacco fire! That would certainly explain how this blaze had started. Looking for a chance to take a puff, the man had said he was going to take out the trash as a pretext to have a smoke somewhere the others wouldn’t see him. In that trash had been leaves and scraps. The fibrous leaves were readily flammable, and the scraps may as well have simply been oil. When tobacco ashes were thrown on top of them...

The fire wouldn’t start immediately. First it would begin to smoke, and only after that would burst into flame—just as the quack doctor happened to be passing by. The freak strategist had probably been able to pinpoint that the smoker was lying because the man had suspected on some level that it was his tobacco that had started the blaze.

The other workers appeared to take the man’s tobacco leaves as proof; they had him surrounded and were giving him a piece of their minds.

“Ahem, er, thank you very much. You saved me,” the quack doctor said, straightening the front of his rumpled outfit.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Perhaps you could thank Miss Chue by buying her a coral hair stick,” Chue said, never one to miss an opportunity.

Maomao went over to the shouting men. “Excuse me,” she said. She was glad she had been able to establish the quack’s innocence, but there was one more thing she needed to do. “I’d like some soap, please.”

This errand was turning into quite an ordeal, and she just wanted to get it over with.