The Apothecary Diaries Book 7

The Rear Palace

Be they a palace woman or a eunuch, all those entering the rear palace were subject to a physical inspection. Maomao and her old man were used to it, but Yao and En'en seemed to find it pretty embarrassing. They recoiled at the idea of being touched by a eunuch; the looks on their faces all but screamed Don't touch us! Luomen finally gave up and summoned one of the rear palace women.

"This is the only time," he advised them.

"Yes, sir," they said. At least it looked like they weren't going to argue with him. Still, Maomao couldn't shake the sense that their attitudes toward him had taken a turn for the worse since they'd found out that he was a eunuch. That's hardly unusual. Eunuchs were widely dismissed and looked down on. Luomen himself was all too used to this, and it seemed to roll off his back, but it still made Maomao angry.

It felt so familiar to be back in the rear palace. In this garden of women, the only men around were eunuchs. It was a strange situation—and yet here, it was also perfectly ordinary. The combination created some real characters.

People kept sneaking glances at Maomao and the others; when you couldn't come or go freely, you developed a sensitivity to anyone from the outside world. Eyes shone as they fixed on the newcomers, wondering if they might have any interesting gossip to share. Maomao even recognized a few of the faces they saw. It was no one she was especially close to, just maids who had been around sometimes when everyone was chatting at the laundry area. They were openly perplexed by the way that every time Maomao got out of the rear palace, she seemed to wind up coming back.

To begin with, Luomen headed straight for the medical office. The two other court ladies looked around in fascination as they went, but Maomao and her old man betrayed no special interest in the place as they walked along. That must have bothered Yao, because for once, she spoke to Maomao.

"Why do you look so used to this?" she asked.

"Because I worked here for two years." Not quite consecutively, but she'd been there until the past autumn. "That's the term of service for ladies in the rear palace."

Telling the whole tale would have been a pain, so she left it at that and hoped Yao would too. That put an end to the conversation, and they were silent until they arrived at the medical office, where they found a familiar loach-mustached man fast asleep.

"Hello?" Luomen said apologetically, catching the man right in the middle of a snore, which turned into a snuffle, then a grunt, and then the quack doctor sat bolt upright.

"Oh! Oh, Luomen, it's you," he said. "And the young lady! It's been quite a while." He walked over to them, his hands clasped around his large belly. It had been several months since Maomao had accompanied him to his home village.

Speaking of nepotism, she thought, remembering what the medical officer over by the military camp had said.

"And who are your friends there?" the quack asked, looking at Yao and En'en. The two of them seemed a bit conflicted. This man was a eunuch, but he was also a medical officer, and while that was easy enough to grasp intellectually, they seemed to be struggling to decide exactly how to behave toward him.

Either unable or unwilling to read the look on their faces, the quack said, "Who wants some tea and snacks?" He started rifling through the medicine cabinet. In one sense, his ignorance was indeed his bliss.

"These three are court ladies who are going to be helping in the palace medical offices in the future," Luomen explained. "I've brought them with me today as an experiment. You and I alone can't handle the entire rear palace forever. Didn't you get my message?"