The Apothecary Diaries Book 3

Epilogue

She still didn't feel good about it. As with the case of Suirei, Maomao hated to leave things unresolved. But she knew that losing her head wouldn't serve any purpose.

Gaoshun was attending the evening's banquet, which was being held on a boat out on the lake. That meant a minimum of bodyguards, and Maomao stayed home. She was in her room, enjoying the night breeze.

Those feifa, she thought. They'd looked unusual. Someone had said they were the newest model. One could surmise they came from the west.

The west...

Maomao thought about the envoys who had come angling to make themselves the Emperor's bride. What had they been doing when they went sneaking out of their rooms? Gaoshun had asked about women who carried secrets instead of children, but one might also carry out a plot. Maomao had thought that perhaps the women had been seducing court officials to turn them into coconspirators, but there was another possibility.

Every country desired the newest weaponry, but if one nation were to sell it openly to another, war could be the only result. The envoys' country thus couldn't sell arms openly. Yet neither could they sell them secretly, without going through the court...could they?

Perhaps the bridge we're crossing is even more dangerous than I realized, Maomao thought.

Then again, perhaps they had an even bigger and more powerful backer.

There was no telling how much the men who had been arrested today would say, or even how much they knew. Maomao just hoped that whatever was going on would be nipped in the bud. She wasn't soft enough to wish for the joy and happiness of other people, but if things around her were peaceful, it meant she, too, could live in peace.

She was just closing the curtain, thinking she might get some sleep, when there was a knock at the door. She jumped a little in spite of herself. Then she crept over and opened the door ever so slightly. She found herself confronted with the one person she least wanted to see at that moment.

Gaoshun was at the banquet, and Basen was probably with him. Why was this man the only one not attending?

"You don't have to let me in if you don't want to." The lovely voice sounded subdued. Through the crack in the door, Maomao could see Jinshi turn and lean against the wall. "I'm sorry for upsetting you."

Maomao didn't say anything, but she leaned against the wall on her side, mirroring Jinshi. From the hallway she heard him sigh. Then came the sound of him scratching his head, scuffing his feet across the floor in frustration, and finally the sound of his hair hitting against the wall. (Was he shaking his head?) She didn't have to be able to see him to know exactly how he must look at that moment. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn't find the words. Maomao felt the same way.

She scratched the tip of her nose, a little annoyed. "I haven't given it a second thought. In fact, I should apologize to you." She'd been so insistent about "decently sized," after all. Anyone would lash out. Even Jinshi. Even at Maomao.

On the other side of the wall, Jinshi grunted.

I wonder what he's thinking. Maomao was borderline oblivious to people's feelings, partly because she had never been that interested in them and partly because of the way she'd been raised. The inhabitants of the Verdigris House had taken good care of her when she was a baby, but work always came first, and she'd often been left by herself. She could cry, but no one would come to help her until they were done with their job. She was told she eventually ceased crying much at all—maybe she'd learned the lesson.

Perhaps that was behind it all, and perhaps not; Maomao didn't know. But whatever the reason, she'd grown up not very sensitive to when people felt affection or, for that matter, hatred for her. It was what had allowed her to weather the storm in the Crystal Pavilion. She didn't enjoy it, of course, but it bothered her much less than it did most people.