The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 9 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Secret Lessons

Maomao went to the pleasure district to check on Sazen, and to Jinshi’s villa to look after him, and then her break was over. She wrote a letter to Luomen telling him that her determination remained set, and she wanted to learn more of the medical arts. The vacation ended before she received an answer.

When she returned to the medical office, she discovered a mountain of laundry waiting. There’s nothing worse than work that’s piled up over a long break.

“Do the laundry. Right away, if you don’t mind,” Dr. Liu said. He made it sound so simple, but doing laundry in winter was a cold prospect. Her hands were going to go numb. She would have liked to give him a good glare, but now that she knew how much trouble Luomen had put him to in their younger days, she felt like she couldn’t say anything—except “Yes, sir.”

There was only one thing to do: what she was told. The pile of laundry revealed that while Maomao and the other ladies had been on break, the physicians had been working.

“Guess I’d better get to it,” Maomao said.

The bulk of the laundry consisted of dressings that needed to be disinfected. The first step would be to separate them into bandages that were relatively clean and those that were filthy with blood or bodily fluids. The dirtiest would be thrown away, while they would cut the stains from the cleaner ones and reuse them. Bandages were consumables; it was expected that they would be discarded after enough use. Maomao especially didn’t want to use anything with blood on it—human blood could be a source of contamination.

“What’s this?” Yao said, chewing worriedly on her thumb. She was looking at someone’s white coat. They must have been treating a severely wounded patient, because it was covered in blood. It smelled faintly of alcohol, perhaps from an attempt to disinfect it.

“We can’t have the doctors throwing their coats in this pile. Whose is that?” En’en said. She looked at the lining—all the doctors’ outfits looked alike, so their names were embroidered on the inside. She didn’t say anything, but her brow furrowed. Maomao looked over her shoulder to discover the name Tianyu. One of the young doctors, a rather...freewheeling man. He’d tried to ask En’en out several times, but she always ignored him.

She just flung it aside...

En’en continued sorting bandages as if nothing had happened.

Both of them had been troubled by the conversation with Luomen, but as far as Maomao could see, it looked like En’en had recovered over the remainder of the break. I don’t know what answer they gave him, though.

Luomen hadn’t even replied to her yet; she doubted he had answered En’en and Yao.

“Since we’re doing the laundry anyway, En’en, why don’t we go ahead and wash it for him?” Yao said.

“Lady Yao, you mustn’t indulge these people, even if they are doctors. Rules are rules.”

Specifically, the rule in question was that the physicians were to wash their own medical attire.

“But they were working while we were on break...”

En’en adopted a most uncharacteristic expression of restrained anger. No doubt she was unhappy to hear Yao giving Tianyu any benefit of the doubt.

“I’m not sure how to get the bloodstains out, though,” Yao said.

En’en made no move to solve that particular problem, so Maomao stepped forward. “Give me that for a second,” she said. She looked at the faded bloodstains. Enough time had passed that they had taken on a dark crimson color. Maomao wasn’t sure they would come out, but nonetheless she filled a bucket with cold water and dunked the coat in it.

“What’s your plan? Are you going to use ash?” Yao asked. That was a common tactic for getting filth off of laundry. The young mistress had learned a thing or two in her months of doing the wash. Something else was called for here, though.

“I’m going to go get some materials,” Maomao said. She headed back to the office and started rifling through the stock of medical supplies.

“What are you looking for?” asked Dr. Liu, who was in the room.

“I was thinking of daikon to help get some stains out.”

She knew the oversized radish was also used as a cure for a cough. It wasn’t just a delicious vegetable, it was also a salubrious medicine.

“Stains? Ah, you mean the blood.” Dr. Liu, of course, was quick to connect the dots at the mention of daikon. “If you’re doing that anyway, then wash these too.” He handed her another bloodstained white jacket—then another, and another. Soon she was holding five or six of them.

She didn’t say anything.

“Got a problem?”

“Perish the thought, sir.”

He was such an ogre, this doctor—she could hear the barb in his voice. The strong features of his face must have made him quite the popular guy in his younger days, but with age they simply made him a harsh-looking old man.

Yet, she’d heard how he had helped Luomen, and for that she would put up with this.

“Was there a major surgery?” she asked.

“Eh.”

With that ambiguous answer, Dr. Liu went back to working on the daily report.

To have soiled so many jackets, there must’ve been several people who needed surgery—or one person who needed it very, very badly.

Were they even wearing the smocks? Maomao wondered. The actual quantity of blood wasn’t that great, but some of the stains bothered her. And that smell. She knew the laundry service was closed over the winter, but she wished the doctors hadn’t left these so long.

She put the jackets in a laundry basket and grated some daikon.

“Just take the whole thing. We don’t need half a daikon sitting around,” Dr. Liu said.

“Yes, sir... Should I take this to mean we’re to get all the stains out?”

This was a direct order from a superior, so there was nothing to do but obey—but it made Maomao regret that she hadn’t simply come in, grabbed the daikon, and ducked out again.

Yao made a sour face when she saw all the new work Maomao was carrying.

Sorry...

Maomao dunked the white coats, then placed fabric under the stains. Then she began pounding the stains with a cloth ball—a piece of cotton filled with grated daikon.

“And this is going to get the stains out?” Yao asked, peering down at her.

“Yes. Daikon has nutrients that break down blood. It also works if you’ve wet the bed or spilled some egg.”

“Huh! I never knew that.”

Maomao pulled out the cloth she’d put under the coats, making sure the openly impressed Yao could see. The bloodstains had faded from the white jackets and transferred to the cloth beneath. The real question was whether they could get the stains out entirely given how much time had passed.

“See how it works? If it’s making sense, then help out, if you’d be so kind. We need to do this while the radish is fresh.”

“R-Right, of course.”

En’en pitched in as well, and they started pounding grated daikon into the soiled garments.

“I’m done!” Yao said.

“Then let’s wash them. It defeats the point if we just replace the bloodstains with daikon stains.”

“Right!”

Yao was a quick study. As long as she understood what someone was doing and why, she was happy to go along with it—although by the same token, if she had any doubts, she could dig in her heels and hold everything up.

They had finished the washing and hung the bandages up to dry when a young doctor came walking by. It was Tianyu, the apprentice physician.

“Excuse me?” Maomao said. En’en took a dim view of Tianyu, and nobody wanted him to start talking to Yao, so by process of elimination Maomao became the group’s spokeswoman. “I’m sorry, but I think your jacket got mixed into our load of laundry.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry about that. Think you could wash it for me?” The response was light enough, but Tianyu seemed subdued compared to his usual self.

“Did you have to help with a surgery?” Maomao asked.

“Yeah... I mean, I guess.”

The vague answer nagged at Maomao. First the bloodstained coat, now the obviously fatigued Tianyu.

“You seem very tired. Please understand that we won’t wash your coat in the future. As for today, it’s hanging over there. Take it when it’s dry, if you would.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Tianyu said with minimal enthusiasm, and then he went off somewhere.

“I’ve never seen such a listless doctor!” Yao said, angrily cleaning up the bucket they’d used. The jackets were out to dry, but the bandages still had to be boiled to disinfect them. From a sanitation standpoint, it might have been a good idea to boil the jackets as well, but it would damage the fabric, and they weren’t consumables. Ironing them would be a better choice, but Maomao didn’t feel like going to that much effort.

Sigh. Fine. When they dried, she would at least put them under the cots in the medical office.

She was spent from doing all that laundry and wanted a break. “Since we’ll be boiling things anyway, how about we cook up some potatoes too?”

“Potatoes!” Yao said eagerly. She and En’en had brought back armloads of potatoes from Lahan when they returned to the dormitory. So many, in fact, that they had brought some to supply the medical office.

Guess it was a bumper crop this year, Maomao thought. Sweet potatoes yielded a larger harvest than rice, but didn’t store as well. The starch syrup she had used to make the basi hongxiu had been made from sweet potatoes too—the kitchen servant, who had been finding all kinds of uses for the sweet potatoes including grinding them up into powder, had told her as much.

But making them is easy and delicious. The thought put a bit of the spring back in Maomao’s step. Yao’s eyes were shining.

“Better keep up, Maomao!”

“Coming!”

With her arms full of sopping bandages, Maomao followed after Yao and En’en.

The sun was already starting to get low in the sky by the time they were done disinfecting the bandages and hanging them to dry.

“I didn’t have a chance to do anything...”

The time had vanished partly to the quantity of laundry, but also to cooking potatoes. As the three of them were enjoying their snack, a parade of other physicians had appeared to request some for themselves.

Wish I could mix up some medicine, Maomao thought. As long as she was in the medical office, she wanted to experiment. Unfortunately, as soon as it got dark, the ladies would be sent home. Not to mention that once the bandages were anywhere near dry they had to be brought inside, lest they frost during the night.

Maomao looked at the white coats drying along one edge of the laundry area. There was one fewer than earlier—somebody must have come to collect his garments. Would it have killed him to take in the rest with him? she thought.

She checked the linings of the coats, curious to see whose jackets were still there. She found Dr. Liu’s coat. That wasn’t so surprising—but the names on the other jackets made her stop and think.

He did say something about surgery, right? A major surgery would require a large team of doctors—but why was Dr. Liu the only experienced physician among the entire group? All the other names on all the other jackets belonged, as best Maomao could recall, to the apprentice physicians.

“Don’t tell me...”

Could the doctors have been doing a dissection? The apprentices had begun to settle into the work; it would be reasonable for them to take the next step.

If that was what they were doing, Maomao absolutely had to be a part of it. Any chance my old man got in touch with Dr. Liu? With some trepidation, Maomao took the white jackets back to the medical office.

Tianyu was the only one there. He was ironing his jacket, which he had collected. Couldn’t be bothered to do anyone else’s? Maomao thought, but took care that her vitriol didn’t escape her mouth. Instead she said, “I’ll leave these here.”

“Sure. Right,” replied Tianyu, who looked just as tired ironing as he had walking by earlier. He might not be enthusiastic about ironing, but Dr. Liu would chew him out if his uniform was wrinkled, and it was probably more convenient to use the iron here than to get one going at home.

He didn’t so much as look at Maomao—was he concentrating that hard, or did he just not care enough to look up? Either way, it didn’t bother Maomao, who put Dr. Liu’s jacket by his desk. It was still a bit damp, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Hm?

On the desk was the daily report he had been writing. Maomao picked it up and paged through it. Nothing incriminating. Then, however, she looked back over the entries for the past several days.

There are none...

If she was to take Dr. Liu’s words at face value, a surgery had taken place, one that had required the attention of a veritable crowd of doctors. She would expect at least a word about it in the report. Instead the entries for recent days each read simply: Nothing unusual.

He’s got to be hiding something, she thought, looking at Tianyu.

“That surgery must have been a real nightmare, huh, Tianyu?” she said.

After a beat he said, “It sure was. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.” Was the slight delay because he was ironing, or was it a second of confusion or hesitation?

“What kind of surgery was it?” Maomao asked as she folded the jackets.

“What’s it matter? Nobody likes doing surgery,” Tianyu said, his reaction still indeterminate.

Did they do something to shut him up? Maomao wondered. Tianyu’s attitude toward En’en made him seem like a jackass incapable of taking a hint, but he was at least intelligent enough to pass the medical exam—and he did talk more than the other apprentice physicians. He could probably manage a lie or two if he needed to.

Maybe I should have talked to someone else, Maomao thought—or at least used En’en to get to Tianyu. Feeling a pang of regret, she patted the folded jackets. I’ll try one of the other apprentices.

She looked out into the gathering dark, then went to collect the drying bandages.

Maomao was sure of it: the doctors were secretly doing something that everyone around them considered taboo. Even with this certainty, however, she hadn’t yet found out precisely what was going on. She couldn’t exactly walk up to one of the apprentices and say, “Are you doing dissections?” It didn’t help that few of them were as gregarious as Tianyu; most were quiet and reserved. Then there was the rumor that talking to Maomao could draw the ire of the freak strategist, which left most people unwilling to speak with her one-on-one.

Maybe I could get Yao and En’en to help me somehow?

No. She couldn’t involve them in this when she didn’t know what answer they had given Luomen. Her father had told them to forget all about the subject if they chose not to pursue it.

So time passed, wasted and meaningless.

When will we be going to the western capital? Jinshi had said two months—Maomao was starting to feel the pressure. However, she couldn’t let it get in the way of her daily duties. Today, Yao and En’en were doing the laundry, while Maomao stayed to watch the medical office.

Huh? She realized that one corner of the office suddenly looked quite empty. Once crowded with equipment, books, and other supplies that one of the apprentices had been using, it was now neat, orderly, and much less cluttered than before.

“Somebody decide to do some cleaning?” she asked.

“He was transferred,” said Dr. Liu.

“He finished his apprenticeship?”

“More or less,” Dr. Liu replied as he made some notes in a book.

In point of fact, the medical office near the military camp was a prime place for doctors to work. There were always plenty of injuries, giving them a chance to hone their skills. Thus, apprentices were sent here first, to reap the fruits of ample practice, and then after an apprenticeship of several months, they would be transferred to a different medical office. The more talented a physician was, the busier a place he could expect to be posted. If you’re curious, the reason Maomao’s old man—that is, Luomen—wasn’t stationed near the military camp was due to the intervention of the freak strategist.

I’d like to get out of here, myself...

The monocled old fart had shown up nearly every day since Maomao’s assignment here. Lately, she was pleased to note, there had been less of him, perhaps due to his Go game with Jinshi. Then again, he’d seemed quite busy with something since the tournament. She didn’t really care what it was; she was just glad not to see him.

Thankfully!

She knew how to be grateful when it counted.

She finished cleaning, as well as restocking some salves they’d been low on and changing the bed sheets. “There’s nothing else for me to do, so may I use the stove?” she asked.

“Planning to boil something up?”

“I want to heat some wine to extract the alcohol.” She needed enough to use on Jinshi.

“Luomen had the same idea once, quite a long time ago,” Dr. Liu said, the mixture of frustration and bitterness on his face bespeaking a woeful tale. “But then he stepped out to relieve himself, and some fool walked into the room with a lit pipe.”

“Yikes! I’ll bet he was a very singed fool after that.”

Anyone knew there could be just one outcome: boom! The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself, but Dr. Liu scowled. “It’s Luomen’s fault for not posting a warning!” His distress made it obvious who the fool had been. This time, Maomao was at least wise enough to keep her mouth shut.

Incidentally, the medical office bore a prominent sign forbidding smoking.

Maomao was happy for these occasional glimpses into her father’s past, courtesy of another physician who had known and worked with him for so long. She started to wonder if he might possibly tell her a little something about their time in the west.

I wish I could just bring it up with him... She knew, though, that if she broached the subject in the wrong way, it might do just the opposite of what she wanted. Better to wait and let things play out a little more.

“Anyway, it’s better not to use the stove. You never know when some idiot cutting work and smoking away might walk in. Here, use this brazier. Take it to the other room.”

“I don’t think it’s going to get hot enough, sir...”

“We don’t need that much. Besides, I know you. You’re wondering if there’s something you might be able to mix up to pass the time.”

Bull’s-eye...

He was sharp, as she would have expected of anyone who had studied alongside Luomen.

“You might also be thinking no one will notice if you help yourself to a cup of the wine.”

Why did he have to be so damn sharp?

Maomao took the large-ish brazier; she also got a teapot, a distilling device with a pipe coming out of it, some disinfectant spirits, and a bucket of cold water.

“Ah. Take these too,” Dr. Liu said, piling on scissors, medicine packets, and some powders. “Make up a hundred packages.”

“Yes, sir...”

Some make-work for her. He obviously didn’t intend to give her the chance to have any free time.

Maomao added some charcoal to the brazier and placed the distiller on it. Unlike the jerry-rigged distilling device she’d made in the Jade Pavilion using whatever was at hand, this was a distinguished piece of equipment. There were two things that appeared to be stewpots with upside-down teapot spouts attached to them, one above and one below. Wine was put into the lower one, heated to make it evaporate, and then it cooled in the upper pot, producing the distilled alcohol.

Wish I had one of these at the dorm, she thought. It was pretty specialized, so building one would take a lot of money. The device in front of her was made of ceramic; obtaining one made of metal would only add to the cost. Maybe they’d give me this one when it gets old and they don’t need it anymore?

Well, it was nice to want things. She let the thoughts amble through her mind as she packed the medicine into the packets. It would be given to the officials who inevitably came in with colds at this time of year. Medicine, like food, went bad if it wasn’t used promptly, but she expected these packets would be gone before long.

While Maomao was busily stuffing the little envelopes, she thought she heard someone arrive in the next room. Maybe someone with injuries! She tried to go back, but Dr. Liu was standing at the door; he met her with a sharp “Stay there and do your job.” Then he went on, “We have a visitor, but we won’t need tea. You don’t have to prepare anything for us.”

Someone he’d rather not see too much of? 

Or perhaps someone he didn’t want to waste the tea on? Maomao was puzzled, but went back to stuffing envelopes...for exactly as long as it took Dr. Liu to turn around.

I sure hope it’s not the freak strategist, she thought, pressing her ear to the door. She could hear Dr. Liu talking, although he sounded uncommonly respectful and polite. It would seem to indicate he was speaking to someone more important than he was.

“You want another capable physician, sir? I’m afraid you’re really squeezing me dry...”

Who could he be talking to? Maomao wondered. Her question was soon answered.

“I realize I’m asking a great deal. In fact, however, I could do with two more physicians.”

Even through a door, she recognized that gorgeous voice. It wasn’t quite as honeyed as it had been in the rear palace, but in place of honey it had some ineffable quality that drew people to it.

Less of a heavenly nymph and more of a heavenly immortal, huh?

It was, needless to say, Jinshi.

“I’ve been giving the apprentice physicians the best training I can, just as you asked, but they’re still only halfway to full competency at best. They have the fortitude but not the skill, or they have the skill but not the mind. Developing the skill and the mind takes time, if I may say so.”

Strength, mind, and skill? Those were the proverbial ingredients for becoming a doctor...

“Is it not possible to let them learn through, er, practical experience?”

“Hah! Practical experience? Please, sir, spare a thought for the patients they would be learning on! It’s true, practitioners of medicine seek to save people, but most unfortunately we have no guarantee of success. Sometimes we fail, and then the patients—or their next of kin—sometimes have very unkind things to say to us. If you don’t have an exceptionally strong heart, such moments will soon break you.”

Jinshi wanted a physician, but Dr. Liu was stonewalling him, claiming they didn’t have enough people. There were fresh young doctors learning their trade, but it wouldn’t happen overnight.

Is this about finding people to go with him to the western capital? Apparently Jinshi felt the need to take matters into his own hands. It wasn’t easy being at the top.

“Stronghearted people? I should think you have a few of those,” Jinshi said, almost lighthearted. Maomao began to suspect that the request for more medical personnel was a pretext to get Dr. Liu to send her with Jinshi.

Dr. Liu normally attends the Imperial family, Maomao recalled. If Jinshi suddenly stopped summoning him, he might start to suspect something. She knew how perceptive he was; that was what made him so formidable.

“If I had to choose, I’d pick someone without too many ties to the capital,” Dr. Liu said. “If they were to have, say, an overprotective parent, it could only make things more complicated. Besides, no one is eager to go that far away.”

His remark started rather...pointed. In fact, he seemed to have a very specific person in mind. They were talking about personnel for the trip to the western capital. Maybe getting Maomao into the entourage wasn’t the only reason to have more doctors around—it was, after all, a larger-scale trip than the last one.

The last time it was almost covert. Maomao had found herself brought along almost without knowing what was happening. The group hadn’t been small, but considering that Jinshi was a member of the Imperial family, well, it hadn’t been very large.

Shaoh was in the west, and Hokuaren was in the north. Li was separated from Hokuaren by a large mountain range, peaks several li tall, said to be all but impassable. The vast majority of armies from the north actually appeared from the northwest, where the mountains ended. That, at least, had been the claim of one of the reading problems on the court ladies’ exam.

In short, if Hokuaren were to make a move, they would appear north of the western capital.

I can’t believe I still remember that. I guess I can thank that old hag. The madam had not been about to allow Maomao to try to simply cram everything in a single night.

Maomao was so busy trying to listen in that she didn’t notice that the distiller was empty and had begun to produce a strange smoke. Until, that is, she sniffed the air and slowly, fearfully looked back. The moment she saw the smoke, she rushed over and dumped water on the brazier to put the fire out. Her reactions were swift, but there was no way the people in the next room would miss the noisy splash of water.

“What’s going on in here?” asked the exasperated visitor—Jinshi, as Maomao had guessed.

“Uh, just sort of fell asleep on fire watch,” said Maomao, who was gloomily using a handkerchief to mop up the water.

“Interesting! Does fire watch involve leaning against a door? Because I can clearly see the imprint of one on your cheek,” said Dr. Liu. Maomao slapped her hand over her right cheek, but it was too little, too late.

She didn’t say anything.

They didn’t say anything.

She’d been caught eavesdropping red-handed—or perhaps red-cheeked. She averted her gaze from Dr. Liu, but he refused to take his eyes off her. Instead he grabbed her and put her in a choke hold.

Yow ow ow!

She scrambled back onto her haunches. They couldn’t have been that concerned about being overheard or they wouldn’t have left her in the room right next door. Apparently it was the principle of the thing.

Jinshi looked like he was about to burst out laughing and was trying very hard not to. Basen stood beside him along with two other men Maomao took to be guards. Apparently, it wasn’t easy being handsome.

Jinshi successfully quashed the hilarity and coughed in his most somber manner. “Dr. Liu. May I ask you something?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You told me the apprentice physicians were still only half ready, but what’s your opinion of the occupants of the newly created post? The court ladies assigned to your office?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. They’re...well, they’re court ladies, sir.”

“Yes, but from what I’ve heard, the work they do is very nearly the same as that of the apprentice physicians. Meaning that if they had the mind, skill, and strength you spoke of, they could conceivably be promoted to be physicians themselves, could they not?”

The people around Jinshi looked at him in astonishment.

Court ladies promoted to doctors? It wasn’t theoretically possible. There was no way Dr. Liu would stand there and let someone dictate such things to him, not even the Emperor’s younger brother. Pressing the point, however, would only make things harder for Maomao, so she kept quiet.

Over the course of her acquaintance with Jinshi, she’d come to have a fairly good understanding of how he thought. Not everything he did made sense to her, but she saw what he was trying to say here.

What should she do? How could she help?

“One such lady is right here, sir. If you would have her,” she said.

“Hoh. Well, how strong of heart is she?” Jinshi leered at Maomao, not a friendly smile but a mischievous one.

This son of a...! Whose fault was it that she had to be wiping his ass? Actually, maybe the skin of his ass would be the perfect solution...

She resisted shooting back at him out loud.

“Maomao here is audacious, and that’s it,” Dr. Liu said. “Above all, she’s a woman. She can never be a doctor.”

He’s got me there, she thought. She didn’t even specifically want to be a doctor—she’d just been cornered into needing a doctor’s skills. I’m an apothecary! That was how Luomen had raised her. She wanted surgical training in order to save more people, but it wouldn’t distract her from her true calling.

Meanwhile, she did have her pride as an apothecary. “Didn’t I hear you say I’m even better at mixing medicines than some of the apprentice physicians, Dr. Liu?” she asked.

He gave her a withering look. She trembled with the frustration of knowing this was not a situation where she could talk back to him—knowing she just had to ride this out.

“I don’t need a physician proper on this occasion. As long as they possess equivalent skills, I don’t care if it’s the town sawbones or even an apothecary. I can grant them special permission. Are you certain you can’t find me at least two more people under those conditions?” Jinshi said. It was clear he meant more than he was expressly stating. Maomao was quite familiar with this tone; in the rear palace, it had always presaged his most bothersome requests.

This was going to be as much of a nuisance as anything he had ever asked her to do, but at the same time, it promised to satisfy Maomao’s intellectual curiosity. She wouldn’t get another chance like this. If they could prevail upon Dr. Liu, she would get an opportunity to learn something entirely new. She felt her heart start to race, accompanied by a pleasant thrill and a decidedly less pleasant cold sweat.

She clenched her fists. Dr. Liu gave her a long, hard look, a look that clearly told her to refuse.

I can’t do that, she thought. Instead she knelt on one knee before Jinshi. “I’m an apothecary, sir, if you would indeed accept me.”

The corners of Jinshi’s mouth twitched upward. “You heard her. What’s your professional opinion, Dr. Liu?”

For a moment, Dr. Liu gave Maomao a silent glare. And here she’d expected that he would give her work a fair shake in comparison with the apprentices and the other assistants. Was it really that much of a problem that she was a woman?

Finally he said, “She is, as she says, an apothecary. But there are some problems that cannot be treated with herbs.”

“Isn’t it the job of her medical superior to do something about that? If she must know about more than herbs, can she not be taught?”

Maomao couldn’t see Dr. Liu from her obsequious bow, but she knew at that moment he had to be gritting his teeth and suppressing his rage.

“I’m sure I can trust you to do what needs to be done, doctor,” Jinshi said, and then he left the room. Basen obediently followed him, but not without a sympathetic glance at Dr. Liu.

With Jinshi gone, the silent stare only intensified. All Maomao could offer was a weak smile.

“Give me your head. One time, and we’ll call it even.”

“Yes, sir...”

His knuckle slammed into her skull. Actually, it was pretty painful—he could have given the old madam a run for her money.

“I’ll let you off with that. Argh! Curse that Luomen. He’s stuck me with a real troublemaker!” Dr. Liu fell into his chair and sucked angrily on his pipe. So he had heard the story from Luomen!

Maybe he was planning to play dumb.

In a way, then, it was very good luck that Jinshi had come.

Dr. Liu continued to puff away, still openly annoyed.

“Should you be smoking, sir?” Maomao asked, gesturing at the sign.

“Right now? Yes! Be good enough to look the other way this once. Don’t you have some cleanup left in the other room?”

Oof, look who’s feeling salty.

Still, Maomao knew better than to needle him further. She went into the next room, looked at the inundated brazier and broken distiller, and put her head in her hands.

The still alone was worth six months’ salary for her.