The Apothecary Diaries (Light Novel): Volume 7

by Natsu Hyuuga

Jazgul had been sure she would become a “concubine.” She wasn’t so bad looking, and if her nose was a little bit low, well, her overall appearance was charming enough to make up for it.

She’d heard that its owner was a regular old pervert, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Instead, she found herself serving someone very, very lovely. Someone with pure, white hair and who was the slightest bit plump.

She discovered that she served someone very kind, and that drawing pictures was great fun. She would draw the scenery outside, or the owner of the house, or the senior servants. And, every once in a while, she would draw something she had seen in a dream.

This person Jazgul served was very important, someone who had the ear of the king. Why would someone so important have to go so far away? The reason was work. They were so special that they could do things the king could not.

Jazgul had it on good authority that the shrine maiden was already more than forty years old. Old enough for a person to be a grandmother or grandfather in Jazgul’s village, where people rarely lived very long.

“This country we’re going to—it has far more water than Shaoh.” Jazgul nodded obediently. The other ladies-in-waiting had told her that when she had decided to go. “They grow wheat and rice there, and it’s ever so green.”

Gaoshun wolfed down the second bun, then cleared his throat. “Xiaomao, do you have any intention of becoming a medical official?” “You know that’s not possible.” Women could not become court doctors, not under the nation’s laws as they stood. “Pardon me. I think I put the question the wrong way. Do you have any intention of reaching a station equivalent to that of a medical official?”

Still Maomao was silent, but she felt her cheek begin to twitch and the corners of her lips start to edge upward. No! Don’t give in! There’s a catch. There has to be.

“I assume you know that Aylin was recently admitted to the rear palace as a middle consort.” “Yes, sir. And if I may ask, are you sure it’s all right? Her arrival did seem awfully hasty.”

So that’s how this involves me?” Maomao asked. If she occupied a status equivalent to that of a medical officer, she could enter the rear palace easily. “Ordinarily, it would be ideal for you to enter as a lady-in-waiting. But...” Gaoshun’s expression was conflicted.

for her to turn around and become another woman’s attendant would have raised too many questions. Not to mention Empress Gyokuyou herself might have gotten a bit bent out of shape about it.

“Certainly. I have here a letter of recommendation from the Empress herself.” Totally unfazed, Gaoshun held out a letter to her. It was strange; she thought she’d seen something similar before somewhere. “And I have one from Master Jinshi as well.” Gaoshun came up with another letter. Maomao’s face began to twitch. “And here’s one from His Majesty.” “I can’t imagine why His Majesty would...” Maomao physically backed away from this last and most sumptuous letter.

flooded with recommendation letters - thats when you know you've MADE IT

“Just to make sure I’m clear, Xiaomao, it’s not that you’re incapable of learning things that don’t interest you, it’s just difficult for you, yes? For example, you learned the ways of the pleasure district.” “I wasn’t given a choice.”

Her father Luomen had tried to cover for her, but her retiring old man was never going to win with the madam. Thus, in order to survive, Maomao had learned the ways of the pleasure quarter, calling on her “older sisters” to help her.

Gaoshun was holding three letters: from Jinshi, Empress Gyokuyou, and the Emperor. They might not be official communiqués, but nonetheless she felt she was being stared down by three of the least say-no-to-able people in the nation. “By hook or by crook, Xiaomao, we need you to pass that test.”

Gaoshun threw open the door to the shop. A man who appeared to be one of his subordinates was waiting outside with a package wrapped in cloth, which he brought in and unwrapped to reveal a glittering pile of silver kernels. “This time,” Gaoshun said, and Maomao realized she could see the madam standing in the background holding one of her favorite disciplinary rods and eyeing the hill of silver hungrily. Trapped! Maomao thought.

They’d thought of everything. How much did this cost? she wondered. Cost or no cost, she frequently found herself wishing she could sneak in a little nap, but the madam made regular patrols,

“Can’t you recite even one of these poems?” she demanded. “It’s a medical exam! Why is poetry even on it?” Maomao shot back.

There were a number of qualifications necessary to become a court lady, but the position of a court lady specializing in medicine was something new. In Maomao’s opinion, if they were going to go to all the trouble of creating a new specialty, they should have taken the opportunity to get poetry off the test.

“No one knows if you’re beautiful or filthy on the inside,” the old woman said instead. “So you might as well write pretty.”

For the most part, the women who sought to become court ladies were the daughters of officials or rich merchant households; for them, court service was an achievement to boast as a potential bride, or else a way of finding a husband; very few women applied to the service out of a passion for the work.

“What? What do you mean, I can’t take the test?” There was some sort of argument happening in front of the testing center involving the official in charge of the examination and someone who looked like a test taker—but there was something strange about this particular examinee. They were dressed in women’s clothing, but they were physically pretty large. Sure, there were tall women around, but this person also had a low voice...one Maomao recognized.

True enough, the person looked something like a woman, if you only looked at their face. They had attractive, balanced, and delicate facial features, to say nothing of a perfectly good makeup job. But the person was clearly speaking in falsetto,

You can’t take it. You’re not qualified. Although if you’re looking to get castrated, I’d be happy to help...” “Oh, please don’t do thaaat!” Kokuyou said, shrinking back and squirming again.

“Gramps said he would give me the house if I wanted to stay in the village,” Kokuyou remarked. “There’s plenty of medicinal herbs around there too.” “So you just take over for him. Sounds good to me. What’s the problem?” Maomao asked. “It’s not that simple. Gramps was a former medical officer, right? People came from far and wide to see him because he had that authority.

At that moment, Maomao held up her pointer finger. These problems solve each other! “Say, would you be interested in coming out to the pleasure district a few times a month?”

Maomao went on, “Your brief would be to teach medicinal and herbal knowledge to the apprentice apothecary there, and to continue supplying the herbs we’ve bought in the past. I’ll also want you to mix up any medicines the apprentice can’t manage, although he and our landlord, the madam, will need to vet anything you whip up.”

Sazen looked intensely relieved when Maomao told him she’d found another apothecary. “I’m so glad I won’t have to tend the shop all by myself again,” he said. Frankly, Maomao would have preferred to hear an indignant “I can handle this on my own!” But very well.

Some people claimed that it was mastery of fangzhongshu, the arts of the bedchamber, that left Pairin’s beauty undiminished despite the fact that, at well past thirty, she was the oldest courtesan at the establishment.

Maomao’s “older sister,” Pairin, couldn’t write very well; when she tried, the characters often came out backwards, as if in a mirror.

knowing that eight out of ten applicants had passed the test made her doubly glad she hadn’t washed out. On the other hand, she also found herself with a little more sympathy for how exasperated Jinshi and Gaoshun had seemed when she’d failed the last time.

Marrying too young was, in Maomao’s opinion, not a good idea. The pelvis has to be firm, or it’s tough to deliver the child, she thought, her hand brushing her hip. She didn’t expect her own body to do much more growing, but if she ever somehow found herself pregnant, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little more meat on her bones. Birth was considered kissing cousins with death.

Maomao was keen to try giving birth at least once, but that wasn’t something you could just go around saying. People might think you were simply being crass if you claimed you wanted to give birth as an experiment.

Maomao’s father had always sternly warned her not to use any part of a human as an ingredient in her medicines, and likewise not to have any contact with dead bodies, lest terrible curiosity boil up within her. But her own placenta—what about that? It wasn’t a dead body, and it wouldn’t be like she was using someone else for her ingredients. It was a part of herself! What would be wrong with taking it back in?

Maomao had simply worn the uniform as it was given to her. She didn’t think she should be at all conspicuous, so why did she feel like people were stealing little glances at her? Am I wearing it wrong? she wondered.

For her, the top was a light pink, the bottom red, but the colors varied by each person’s assigned department.

If there was anything that really stood out, maybe it was the band in Maomao’s hair. She felt like hers was a slightly darker color than everyone else’s.

Most women who became court ladies were the daughters of officials, or sometimes of prosperous merchant households, and it seemed that just as in the rear palace, squabbling amongst the ladies was not uncommon.

Maomao scowled: the western side of the palace grounds was home to many civil officials, while the east was the province of the soldiers. Her father had been assigned to the western office as an act of consideration, to allow him to avoid the soldiers as much as possible, although it hadn’t done him too much good in the long run. And why had he wanted to avoid the soldiers? For the same reason Maomao did. How did he find me already?

It didn’t matter that Maomao had Jinshi’s personal recommendation; she received no special treatment. If she wanted to go to the rear palace, she was going to have to prove herself through her work.

Yao was a well-developed and vivacious young woman; even without palace work on her resume, there must have been many people who would have been happy to have her for their bride. En’en was less outgoing, and didn’t show much expression, but she had a pretty enough face, and she exuded an unmistakable competence.

Doesn’t it hurt that the others are obviously ignoring you?” “Things might be easier for them if they would ask questions of me, sir, but the reverse isn’t really true.”

every time one of the doctors tried to give her a dressing down, he found a freak glaring at him through the window, and eventually the scoldings stopped. The freak’s appearances continued, however, such that he had to be dragged away by his subordinates several times each day.

Maomao did feel a little bad for them. “I’m afraid I’m not really sure how to make friends with them... But I might know a little something about how to handle that freak.” There was a beat. “Please, tell me.” The trick was simple: invoke Luomen’s name.

“What exactly is your relationship to the honored strategist?” “He’s a stranger to me,” Maomao said. “But surely...” “A total stranger,” she said firmly, and went back about her work.

This new woman certainly had her quirks, but when she’d come to the rear palace, she had done so alone. Why be so cautious of her? Maomao finished reading the letter and put it away in her letter box. Aylin, the report related, didn’t seem to have done anything suspicious yet.

Maomao didn’t much care if Yao didn’t want to remember her name, but she wished she wouldn’t try to interfere with her going to the rear palace. That was supposed to be the whole job she was here to do.

Just when she was thinking maybe she needed to say something back to them, the second medical officer—the elderly one who’d tested the women upon their arrival at the office—clapped a hand on the anonymous ladies’ shoulders, smiling, and said, “Yes, I see. You two can go home now.”

The doctor turned to Maomao, the other two remaining court ladies, and Luomen and said, “Now that it’s a little quieter in here, perhaps I should add one more thing. There’s something else I despise: nepotism.” Luomen’s eyebrows knitted in an expression of consternation.

Among the high consorts, Loulan had disappeared after the Shi rebellion, Gyokuyou had become Empress and left the rear palace, and Lishu was effectively stuck in her nunnery. Lihua was the only one remaining in the rear palace.