The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 9 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Kada’s Book (Part 2)

Maomao and Yao had been scouring the bookshelves for a while when En’en returned. “Food’s ready!” she said. She’d brought a nice, hot meal. A small man followed behind her, carrying what she couldn’t hold. The annex had a kitchen of its own, but for serious cooking, she must have borrowed the kitchen in the main house.

They moved from the library to a living area, where the meal was placed on a table.

“My apologies for intruding on your afternoon. Thank you for inviting me,” said Lahan with a smile. He showed no sign of actual contrition.

No one invited you! On this one point, Maomao and En’en were in perfect accord. Lahan had, however, brought a gift. Maomao didn’t know how he had figured it out, but he’d brought hasma—Yao’s favorite. He must have pulled a few strings.

Incidentally, whenever Yao tried to ask about what it was, En’en dissembled. It seemed the young mistress still didn’t know that her favorite snack was made of frogs.

Lahan really must have raked it in at the Go tournament. Plus he seemed to be into some sort of business involving sweet potatoes, and had other hustles besides. It seemed like enough work for several of him, yet he somehow kept all the plates spinning. That much, she had to give him.

“I’m so happy to have all these lovely flowers around me as I eat. A rose, an iris...and wood sorrel.” He didn’t have to explain who that last one was.

“It’s a little early, but why don’t we eat?” Yao said, gesturing at the food on the round table. There were four chairs around it, and they sat with Yao facing En’en and Maomao facing Lahan. That put a “flower” at each hand for Lahan, but every time he looked up and saw Maomao, he looked vaguely annoyed. Frankly, Maomao could barely restrain a derisive snort herself.

In the center of the table, glistening with its own juices, was the main dish: a whole roast duck. Maomao found herself swallowing heavily. If it was as good as it looked, then by the end of this meal, Yao wouldn’t be the only fan of this dish.

Lahan’s eyes were also glimmering. He was still a young man, just twenty-one, and there was so much more to eat in his life.

En’en, observing the scene, stood up from her chair. “I’m going to chop some more vegetables. Maomao, would you help me?”

Did she think they didn’t have enough? She looked rather displeased—and well she might be. Here she’d thought she was going to enjoy a little break alone with her mistress, only to find intrusive insects crawling about.

“I’ll help too!” Yao said.

En’en, however, was adamant: “You needn’t, young mistress. I won’t be long. Please, eat up, before it goes cold.”

Sigh...

Yao pouted. For all her devotion, En’en had some strange blind spots when it came to the young mistress’s feelings. Maybe there was such a thing as being too close to see.

The vegetables were in the next room, a simple kitchen. Maomao wondered to herself if Luomen had prepared medicines here long ago, and smiled at the thought.

“Shall we?” she said. She started mincing some leeks while En’en cooked more flatbread. It didn’t take long; the fire in the oven had been left burning for heat. “Are you sure about leaving Yao with tousle-glasses?” Maomao asked. She just wanted to be sure. Even if they were just in the next room, they were still a young man and woman alone together.

“Mister Tousle-glasses wouldn’t lay a finger on the young mistress. He would never meddle in her affairs, unless he thought there was a political marriage in the offing. And as long as they’re simply going to talk, then he’s a better conversationalist than the average oaf. No, I’m not concerned.”

Lahan could be perceptive at the strangest of times. Yes, Yao had some family members who could mean real trouble for him if he pulled anything—and a servant who could mean even worse. Nothing would happen, not even for a single night.

Still, Maomao was surprised to realize he could have a proper conversation with a young woman. I would have assumed he would bore her to death with talk about numbers. Yao would have a hard time contributing to the discussion, but she would just have to try to offer a hmm or an uh-huh as best she could.

“If you don’t mind my asking, is there something on your mind?” Maomao said. En’en was too scrupulous to have really messed up the amount of vegetables. It had to be a pretext to talk to Maomao about something. The fact that she’d waited until Lahan was present meant it was something she didn’t want Yao to hear.

“On my mind? I thought there might be something on yours.” En’en adroitly turned the question back on Maomao as she continued working on the flatbread. Maomao put the leeks on a tray and started in on some daikon.

Maomao decided to take the opportunity to clarify something. “Yao is really set on standing on her own two feet, isn’t she? She wants to be one of the assistants in the medical office, but I can’t believe that’s her final goal.” If it was as Maomao imagined, then she absolutely couldn’t let Yao see Kada’s Book. “If what my father proposes to teach us goes against your morals or ethics, what would you do?”

En’en put the finished flatbread on a tray and looked at the ceiling. “You mean it’s that kind of book?”

“I suspect so.”

The two of them shared an assumption that enabled this conversation.

“I appreciate your consideration, Maomao, but I’ll respect the young mistress’s opinion.”

“Even though you guided her to it?” Maomao studied En’en closely; the other woman started baking more bread as if she didn’t know what Maomao meant.

“My mistress can be quite willful. Once she gets an idea in her head, she’ll see it through—it doesn’t matter what I say. When she saw the announcement of the new post, she swore she would get herself appointed. She spent every day at her desk studying.”

En’en expertly flipped the bread over with a pair of chopsticks. Maomao considered herself a decent cook, but she couldn’t hold a candle to En’en.

“She was bent on not even being beaten by the men, so it must have stung when you outscored her on the entrance exam. She was acting quite out of character.”

Did that refer to tripping Maomao and generally harassing her? It had really been more her hangers-on who had done that, so Maomao didn’t hold it against Yao and hardly thought about it anymore.

“I do feel sort of bad about that.” Maomao had never expected to score as well as she had. The madam’s educational methods were a force to be reckoned with. “Uncle or no uncle, why does Yao feel she needs to work so hard?” Maomao asked. Partly, of course, it was because if she was at home, her uncle would be forever pressing her to get married, but Maomao sensed there was something more at play.

“It’s...her mother. She’s the reason,” En’en said after a moment. “To Lady Yao, her mother is as good as dead. She often says she disappeared the same time her father died.”

“Why is that?” Maomao asked. She didn’t have a lot of what you would call empathy on the subject of mothers, but she knew she and Yao had been raised in very different situations.

“I’m sure you understand what happens to a widow who can’t manage her own household.”

“You mean Yao’s uncle took over.”

“Yes, but Lady Yao’s mother remained head of the household.”

The wife of the former master of the house remained the wife. Presumably that meant Yao’s mother had then married the uncle. It wasn’t that unusual—but for a young woman, it could cause a lot of conflicting feelings, and resentment or even hatred might be among them.

Yao would also have learned that women who couldn’t work had few options. If she simply went along and did as her uncle said, she would end up just like her mother.

“I see,” said Maomao. She could understand why En’en didn’t want Yao to overhear this conversation. She’d known it might go somewhere like this and had wisely chosen a change of venue.

Maomao put the sliced daikon on a tray. That’ll do, I think.

She wanted to hurry up and eat before everything got cold.

Just as En’en had predicted, when the two women got back to the living room, Yao and Lahan were engaged in a lively conversation.

“Our capable En’en’s cooking is the stuff of rumors, and I hoped I would have a chance to try it. So strangely enough, this turn of events is quite congenial to me,” Lahan was saying.

“Yes, her cooking is wonderful. She could hold her head up anywhere as a chef, and it’s nutritious, to boot!”

Where’d he hear rumors about En’en’s cooking?

Maomao’s question was soon answered.

“Her older brother’s restaurant is very popular, and word is that his little sister is nearly as good as he is.”

“Yes, I think she’s every bit as skilled as any head chef,” Yao said, the acclaim coming easily to her lips. Maomao remembered hearing that Yao had helped En’en’s brother, making him her family’s chef. Apparently he’d struck out on his own sometime after that.

Was it because of the change in family headship? If En’en’s brother had been let go by Yao’s uncle, that would do something to explain her antipathy toward him.

“I’ve had the privilege of dining three times at his restaurant. Ahh! It was a meal to remember each and every time.”

“Three times? When did you go? The menu changes every season, right, En’en?”

“Yes. In fact, he finds the freshest ingredients each month.”

Talk of En’en’s brother was enough to get Yao really engaged. She passed the conversation to En’en, who joined in. So far from delivering a lecture about numbers and calculations, Lahan turned out to be quite the conversationalist—a fact Maomao didn’t necessarily like.

Instead, she focused on savoring the crispy duck skin. The mixture of oil and herbs was caught up in the flatbread, which she topped off with some sweet, spicy jiang. Each bite filled her mouth with the rich flavor of meat, the herbs providing a pleasing texture, all complemented by the sublimely simple flatbread. It was enough to make her mouth water.

It was, in a word, delicious.

“Ahh, that’s wonderful,” said Lahan, evidently of the same opinion. He was, as we’ve said, an excellent talker. He must have been, to have gotten the reticent Yao to open up to him so readily. If anything, the conversation had gone a little too well, and En’en was somewhat perturbed.

For a while, the only sound that came from Maomao was chewing. Her plate was empty before she knew it, and there was just enough space left in her stomach for dessert.

“I’ll go get some fruit,” En’en said. She left the room and returned with a glass vessel containing tangerines. The peels had been removed, the seeds carefully extracted, and they’d been steeped in sugar water. The acidity would work wonders in cutting through the fat and oil from the duck.

“That was delicious,” Maomao said as she set down her chopsticks. She was eager to get to the real topic. “Lahan, you haven’t taken any books off the bookshelves, have you?”

“Books from the bookshelves?” he asked, giving her a questioning look as he took another scoop of fruit. “No, I haven’t. And I’m sure my honored father wouldn’t do anything with my granduncle’s possessions. In fact, he sends servants into that room to clean regularly.”

That was an unusual show of consideration by the freak strategist. No wonder the annex looked so clean.

“You think there’s something missing?” Lahan asked. “It would be natural to assume one of the servants was involved, but my father would never hire anyone less than ethical. He’s much too dangerous an enemy for that.”

Books were valuable objects, and as such liable to be stolen, but would any of the servants who worked at the strategist’s estate be capable of such a thing?

This is a tough one, Maomao thought.

“What is it that’s missing?”

“This.” En’en handed him her list. It bore the code of the missing book, 一-2-II.

“Just the kind of classification system my granduncle would devise. I have to admit, it’s the perfect way to organize the more than a thousand books in there.”

At the realization that Lahan could read the numbers too, Yao shot En’en a frustrated look. She hated being the only one who didn’t know what they meant.

En’en seemed to understand, for she started writing numbers on some new sheets of paper:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX

Yao’s expression softened, no longer quite so angry. She was staring hard at the numbers—trying to memorize every one of them. Finally, the paper covered with “I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX” seemed to click for her. “Would the next number be written like this?” she said, tracing an X on the table with her finger.

“Yes! Excellent job, Mistress!” En’en said, applauding. Yao looked a bit awkward.

“The books were lined up neatly on the shelves, though...” Yao said. At least, they had been when she and En’en had arrived.

“Yes, and there didn’t appear to be any obvious gaps. Now that we look at the numbers, though, one is definitely missing,” En’en added.

“Is it, now?” Lahan studied the number of the missing book.

“I thought a number-cruncher like you would have noticed right away,” Maomao said with a touch of vitriol.

“Sadly, I all too rarely come into this building. I have other things to do. Interesting though this place certainly is.”

“Other things to do, like eating a leisurely lunch? Or did you have something else in mind?” Oops. Her true feelings were showing.

“Maomao, please be more respectful in Lady Yao’s presence,” En’en said, entering her teacherly mode. Maomao had let her etiquette lapse because she was with Lahan.

“If the books are numbered, that must mean they go in order, right?” Yao said.

“Yes. The first two volumes are basic information. Volume 1 was about the anatomy of the human body, and volume 2 was about surgical treatment.” Maomao’s specialty was herbal medicine, but those were still subjects one would want to be familiar with as a practitioner of the healing arts.

The question was, where was the missing book?

Maomao stopped and looked at Lahan. “You said this was an interesting building. What the h—ahem. What, may I ask, did you mean by that?” she said, catching herself just in time. She thought she remembered Lahan saying something about the library in particular being an intriguing place.

“Oh, that? Don’t the walls and ceiling of this annex seem unusually lavishly decorated to you?”

“They do, now that you mention it,” Yao said, looking at the ceiling. The library had its own decorations; here in the living room, the ceiling was covered in paintings of all kinds of animals.

“And it’s not just the ceiling.” Lahan rolled back a corner of the rug on the floor to reveal a complicated pattern of wooden boards.

“Somebody put a great deal of craft into this,” En’en marveled.

“Before my granduncle lived here, it was the home of a rather eccentric architect. He was the one who built this house. He had a fondness for unusual patterns—and he loved gimmickry.”

“Say what you will about the La clan’s personalities, they do have a tendency toward genius,” En’en said, nodding. So had the architect been a member of Maomao’s family?

“Most unfortunately, in the grip of an idea for a new device, the architect got a little overeager and ended up...well, in the grip of his new device. By the time they found him, he was practically mummified. People had just been saying they hadn’t seen him around for a while, and there he was, a dry husk.”

Neither Maomao, Yao, or En’en said anything. Their gazes swept the room.

“Oh, relax. It wasn’t in this building—it was a different one. And we managed to sell it off. No mummies are going to pop out of the woodwork here.” That was reassuring as far as it went, but they were now doubly sure that this was a very strange place.

“There aren’t any, uh, mummifying gadgets in this house, are there?” Yao asked with an anxious look at Lahan.

“Nothing life-threatening, or so Granduncle said. Even I wouldn’t put a couple of young ladies up in a potentially murderous house.”

“Do you think these walls have some special meaning, then?” Yao asked.

“It’s possible. Maybe you can explore them, if you have a few minutes.”

“We really don’t,” said Maomao, who wanted to mop this up before the freak strategist came back. During the day today would be exquisite.

“Any other questions? I don’t know about your book, but I’ll try asking the servants.” Lahan straightened his glasses and got up from his chair. “I’ve got something to do tomorrow, so if you need anything, just shout for someone. Any of the servants can get in touch with me.”

“Thank you,” En’en said, though no more.

“Thank you for the meal. It was excellent. I’m sure you must be tired. You can leave the dishes—I’ll send someone to take care of them.”

Maomao had been planning to help clean up, but if she didn’t need to, then so much the better. She wanted to get back to looking for the book, and fast.