The Apothecary Diaries Book 3

The Clinic

There were always plenty of dark stories to go around in the world, Maomao thought as she sat on a wooden box behind the laundry area.

Xiaolan wasn't coming today, and there wouldn't have been much for Maomao to do if she'd gone back to the Jade Pavilion, so she was killing some time here. The "institute of practical studies" was beginning to get underway, and Xiaolan was among those who would go down in history as its first students.

Maomao considered going to the medical office to bum some snacks off the quack doctor, but thought better of it. He'd been busy ever since the recent commotion.

The commotion in question had to do with the matter of the perfume oil. The special envoys' visit had all but driven it from her mind, but it hadn't been entirely resolved yet. As part of the investigation, Jinshi had gone around to all the various consorts and discovered their ladies-in-waiting had all bought copious amounts of perfume.

It's hard to blame them, Maomao thought. It was a trade good that had come from a far land across deserts, oceans, and mountains. Practically calculated to inflame the fascination of a bunch of young women who lived like birds in a cage. Maomao couldn't pretend she was different: if she'd been confronted with a stall full of exotic medicines from the west, she would have borrowed money from the old madam herself to buy some.

Not all of the perfumes were dangerous, but they couldn't leave the ones that were lying about, even in small amounts. So, although it felt like a waste, the perfume had been disposed of. There was too much of it available—true, no one bottle held very much, but put them all together and they could make quite a potent poison.

The question then became: who had brought it here?

I can't vouch for the perfume and spices, but... She knew that the merchants had brought the upper consorts clothes suitable for a pregnant woman. It was possible that one of the envoys' goals in coming here had been to worm their way into the consorts' ranks. That seemed unlikely to be their nation's primary objective, but the haughty envoy had certainly appeared to believe she was capable of it. Sadly for her, she'd been left with her pride in tatters; Maomao had heard that after the banquet, she even spoke less in meetings.

It was conceivable that the perfume was also their doing, but one mustn't rush to conclusions. There were currently four upper consorts in the rear palace: Gyokuyou, Lihua, Lishu, and Loulan. Gyokuyou had the best part of the Emperor's affections, followed perhaps by Lihua. It was said that several of the middle-ranking consorts had also been His Majesty's bedmates. As for the lower consorts, rumor had it that His Majesty didn't see much of them; until recently, they'd been kept in line by the jealousy of one of the other consorts.

Loulan seemed like the consort His Majesty would most have to pay attention to, though, given how powerful her father was.

Hmm... Maomao grabbed a stick and sketched an orchid—the lan of Loulan—in the dirt.

In terms of powerful parents, Lihua ranked next, though this was only because they were the Emperor's maternal relatives; the family had never risen all that far in the world. Maomao followed the orchid with a fruit, for Lihua meant "pear blossom."

In fact, it was Lishu's family that had been on the rise over the past few generations, so ambitious that they had offered the previous emperor their young daughter for a wife. The shu of Lishu meant "tree," so that's what Maomao drew next in her row of symbols.

Gyokuyou's family was based at a trade junction in the west. They appeared to make a good deal of money from commerce, but they were close to the border and in fact paid much of what they made in taxes to sustain the national defense. On top of that, the land wasn't good for farming, so the place wasn't particularly abundant.