The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 2 (Light Novel)

This time, he wouldn’t lose.

He rolled up his sleeves and began setting out his pieces.

The woman named Fengxian had her pride as a courtesan if nothing else. Perhaps it was because she had been born in a brothel. She sometimes said that she had no mother, only a woman who bore her—for in the pleasure district, courtesans could not be mothers.

Their acquaintance continued for years and years, and during their meetings they would focus on one thing only: playing Go or Shogi. Gradually, though, they saw each other less frequently. As accomplished courtesans grew more popular, they also became more reluctant to take customers, and Fengxian was no exception.

Fengxian was intelligent, but flinty and hard; this might not have appealed to most people, but there was a small cadre of diehards who ate it up. Perhaps there’s no accounting for taste.

Her price kept going up, until it was all he could do to see her once every few months.

Once when he went to the brothel to see her after a long absence, he found her painting her nails, looking as disinterested as ever. Red balsam flowers and some thin grass sat on a plate in front of her. When he asked what the latter was, she replied, “It’s cat’s paw.” A plant with medicinal properties, evidently, useful to counteract bug bites and some poisons.

Interestingly, balsam and cat’s paw shared an unusual characteristic: if you so much as touched the ripe seed pods, they would burst and send seeds everywhere. He picked up one of the yellow flowers, thinking that maybe he would try touching one the next time he had a chance, just to see what happened—when Fengxian said, “When will you come next?”

How strange—this from the woman who only ever sent the most impersonal notices to remind him her services were available.

“Another three months on.”

“Very well.”

Fengxian told an apprentice to clean up her manicure supplies, then began setting up a game of Shogi.

It was about that time that he first heard talk of Fengxian’s contract being bought out. Sometimes the price had little to do with a courtesan’s perceived value: some people would drive up the amount simply because they didn’t like one of the other bidders.

He had managed to earn some promotions in the military, but meanwhile, his position as heir to his family’s fortune had been usurped by a younger half-brother, and the bidding ultimately became impossible for him to keep up with.

So, what to do?

An awful idea entered his head, but he immediately snuffed it out.

It would have been unimaginable to actually do it.

Another three months, another trip to the brothel, and now Fengxian sat before him with two game boards ready to play, one of Go, one of Shogi.

The first words out of her mouth were: “Perhaps a wager today?”

If you win, I’ll give you anything you like. And if I win, I’ll take something I want.

“Choose your game.”

It was Shogi at which he held the upper hand—yet when he sat, it was in front of the Go board.

Fengxian dismissed her apprentice, saying she wished to focus on the game.

He didn’t know which of them had been victorious, but the next thing he knew their hands were intertwined. There were no sweet nothings from Fengxian. Nor did he feel compelled to offer any vapid words of sentiment. In that respect, perhaps, they were alike.

He heard Fengxian, cradled in his arms, whisper, “I want to play Go.”

Personally, he had been thinking about some Shogi.

The misfortune began after that. The uncle with whom he had been so close was dismissed from his position. The man never had known how to play the game, and Lakan’s father declared the uncle a disgrace to the family. The uncle’s misadventure had not in fact done any harm to the family, but Lakan now found himself persona non grata for having been too close to him; he was told to go on a long trip and not come back for a while.

He could have ignored this, but it would only have been a headache later. His father was in the military, too, making him not just a parent but a superior officer. At last, he wrote to the brothel saying he would return in half a year’s time. This was after he had received a letter saying the contract buy-out had fallen through.

Thus, for a time, he labored under the impression that all would be well.

Little did he imagine that it would be some three years before he came back.

When he finally returned home, he found a mountain of letters had been tossed carelessly into his dust-choked room. The branches tied to them were withered and dry, making the passage of time painfully evident.

His gaze fell on one letter that showed signs of having been opened. It was full of all the familiar banalities—but in the corner of the letter, there was a dark-red stain. He glanced into the half-open pouch beside the letter. It, too, was stained.

He opened the pouch to discover what looked like two small twigs, or maybe lumps of clay. One of them was tiny; it looked delicate enough to crush in his hand.

He was too late realizing what they were: he had ten of them himself. This gave new meaning to the term “pinky swear.”

He rewrapped the two twigs and shoved them back into the pouch, then raced for the pleasure district as fast as his horse would carry him.

When he reached the brothel, which he found looking substantially more dilapidated than when he had seen it last, there were only Go stones there. There was no one who resembled balsam, although a woman came at him with a broom. It was the old madam; he could tell by her voice.

Fengxian was no longer there: that was the only thing the madam said to him. A courtesan who’d been abandoned by two important prospects, had dragged the name of her establishment through the mud, and was no longer trusted by anyone had no choice but to turn tricks like a common harlot. Did he not grasp what happened to such women?

A little thought might have revealed the answer, but his head was full of Go and Shogi and nothing else, and he had been unable to arrive at the truth. Throwing himself on the ground and crying, heedless of onlookers, wouldn’t turn back time.

It was all his fault for being so impulsive. All of it.

Lakan sat up abruptly in bed, gripping his still-throbbing head. He recognized the room he was in. Somewhere with a fragrant but not overpowering incense.

“Are you awake now, sir?” someone said gently. A face like a white Go stone appeared before him. He recognized her from the voice.

“What am I doing here, Meimei?”

Yes, he knew this courtesan of the Verdigris House. She’d been Fengxian’s apprentice long ago; the one Fengxian had ordered out of the room, in fact, if he recalled correctly. He’d seen her as an apprentice tentatively toying with Go stones from time to time, and so he had humored her with the occasional game. She always acted all embarrassed when he told her she was a pretty good player.

“A messenger from some noble brought you here and left you. My word, but you were a mess. I don’t know whether your face was more red or blue!”

Meimei was more or less the only courtesan at the Verdigris House who would entertain him. It was always her room to which he was shown on his visits.

“I sure didn’t think I’d end up this way.” He’d assumed that if his daughter was drinking it, the alcohol couldn’t be that strong. Then again, Lakan had never been very conversant with different types of alcoholic drink. Just a single swallow of this stuff had been enough to set his throat on fire. He grabbed a carafe of water from the bedside and drank lustily.

A bitter flavor spread through his mouth, and he spat the water out before he knew what he was doing. “Wh—What is this swill?!”

“Maomao prepared it,” Meimei said. He presumed she was smiling, for she covered her mouth with her sleeve. The drink was probably intended as a hangover cure, but the way it was delivered implied a touch of malice. Was it strange that, even so, he couldn’t keep a grin from his face?

Beside the carafe was a paulownia-wood box.

“Well, would you look at that...”

He had sent it along with a letter a long time ago, jokingly, as if it were loot. He opened it to find a single dried rose. He hadn’t realized it would retain its shape so well despite having dried out. He thought of his daughter, who reminded him of woodsorrel—cat’s paw.

After those long-ago events, he had come knocking on the door of the Verdigris House again and again, each time to be met with the madam’s recriminations. There’s no baby here, go on home, she would shout as she thrashed him with the broom. She could be terrifying indeed.

Once, as he was sitting, exhausted, with blood dribbling down the side of his head, he noticed a child rooting around nearby. There had been grasses with some sort of yellow flowers growing by the building. When he asked the child what she was doing, she said she was going to turn the grass into medicine. Instead of the Go stone he expected to see, he perceived an emotionless face.

The girl set off running with two handfuls of grass. She was heading for someone who walked with a limp like an old man. And his face, which might have been expected to look like a Go stone, instead looked like a Shogi tile. And not simply a pawn or a knight, but a dragon king, a powerful and important piece.

He knew now who it was who had opened the one letter out of all those he had received, and the dirty pouch. For here was his uncle Luomen, who had disappeared after being banished from the rear palace. The girl with the cat’s paw went trotting about after him; he called her Maomao.

Lakan pulled out the dirty pouch. It was even more worn than it used to be, since he carried it with him at all times. He knew the two twig-like objects would still be inside, wrapped in paper.

Maomao’s hand had looked unsteady as she moved her tiles. Partly that could have been because she didn’t play the game much. But partly it was because she was playing with her left hand. When he had looked at the red-colored fingertips, he had noted that her pinky finger on that hand was deformed.

He couldn’t blame her for hating him. Not considering all he had done. But even so, he wanted to put himself near her. He was tired of a life of nothing but Go stones and Shogi tiles. That had given him the incentive he had needed to steal back his birthright, to expel his half-brother, and to adopt his nephew as his own. Then, in the course of much negotiating with the old madam and over some ten years, he had successfully paid off an amount of money equivalent to two times the damages.

It must have been around that time that he was finally allowed back into the rooms. Meimei naturally took on the role. Perhaps she was paying him back for teaching her Shogi all those years before.

Lakan continued to visit, time and time again, because the only thing he wanted was to be with his daughter. Unfortunately, one talent Lakan decidedly lacked was the ability to grasp how other people were feeling, and again and again the things he did seemed to backfire.

He tucked the pouch back among the folds of his robe. Maybe it was time to give up, at least this time. Somehow, though—call it stubbornness—he couldn’t bring himself to let the matter drop completely.

And besides, he didn’t like the man in her company. He stood much too close to her, and during their match, he had touched her shoulders no fewer than three times. Lakan had been peevishly pleased to see his daughter brush the hand away each time, though.

All right, how to make himself feel a little better? Lakan picked up the carafe and drank down the foul-tasting medicine. However disgusting it might have been, his daughter had made it herself.

Maybe he would spend some time deciding how to knock the bug off his flower. His thoughts were interrupted when the door flew open with a slam.

“Finally had enough sleep, have we?” a Go stone cried hoarsely. He could tell from the voice that it was the old madam. “So you’re looking to buy one of my girls, are you? You ought to know by now that a couple of thousand silver isn’t going to cut it.”

Still a skinflint, as ever. Lakan held his pounding head, but a wry smile appeared on his face. He put on the monocle (which he only wore for effect). “Try ten thousand. And if that’s not enough, how about twenty or thirty? Admittedly, a hundred might be a bit of a stretch.” Lakan winced inwardly as he spoke. They weren’t small sums, even in his position. He would have to beg from his nephew for a while; the boy had some side businesses he ran.

“Well, all right. Come this way, and make it snappy. I’ll even let you choose, whichever one you like.” He let the madam lead him into the main room of the brothel, in which there stood a whole row of gaudily attired Go stones. Even Meimei was mixed in among them.

“Hoh, I could even pick one of the Three Princesses?”

“I said whichever one you liked, and I meant it,” the madam veritably spat. “But you can expect to pay for it.”

Even with this dispensation to choose freely, Lakan faced a unique problem. However fancy the girls’ dresses, to him they all looked like nothing more than Go stones. He could practically hear the women smiling. He could smell their sweet fragrances. And the kaleidoscope of colors that was their outfits nearly blinded him. But that was all. He felt nothing more than that. None of them moved Lakan’s heart.

He had been told to choose, though, so choose he must. Once he had purchased the girl, he could do as he pleased with her. He had enough money to keep a lady, and if she was unhappy with that, then he would give her some cash and set her free to do as she wished. Fine; surely that would be fine.

With that in mind, he turned toward Meimei. He supposed it was guilt that induced her to be so kind to him. If she hadn’t left them that day, perhaps none of this would have happened. It would be well and good, he thought, to reward her decency.

At that moment, Meimei spoke. “Master Lakan.” He could hear a small smile in her voice. “You must know I have my courtesan’s pride. If I am your desire, then I will have no hesitation.” So saying, she pattered over to the great window that looked onto the courtyard and opened it. The curtain fluttered, and a few stray flower petals drifted into the room. “But if you’re going to choose, then choose with your eyes open.”

“Meimei, I didn’t give you permission to open that window!” the madam exclaimed, rushing to close it again.

But Lakan had already heard it, distantly. Laughter. Like a courtesan’s chuckle, but somehow more innocent. He thought he caught the words of a child’s song.

His eyes widened.

“What is it?” the madam asked suspiciously. Lakan gazed out the ornate window. The singing drifted to them in snatches. “What are you doing?!” Becoming increasingly agitated, she tried to grab his hand.

But she was too late. He jumped out the window and hit the ground running, dashing single-mindedly toward the source of the voice. He had never regretted his failure to exercise more bitterly than he did at this moment. Yet he ran on, even as his legs threatened to buckle underneath him.

For all the times he had been to the Verdigris House, he had never been to this particular part of it: a small building, almost a storage shed, at a distance from the main house. He could hear the song coming from within.

Trying to keep his heart from pounding clear out of his chest, Lakan opened the door. He caught a distinctive odor of medicine.

Inside was an emaciated woman. Her hair ringed her head but had no luster, and her arms lay atop her like withered branches. She reeked of illness. And there was something else: her left ring finger was deformed. Lakan could only stare in amazement. He realized then that he felt something on his cheeks.

Gaoshun explaining this, that, and the other thing, Maomao felt a peculiar prickling along her neck. She shot a glance behind her to discover

Gaoshun explaining this, that, and the other thing, Maomao felt a peculiar prickling along her neck. She shot a glance behind her to discover