The Apothecary Diaries

Chapter 7: Branch

The four ladies-in-waiting who had always attended Consort Gyokuyou were exceptionally hard workers. Granted, the Jade Pavilion was not the largest place, but they kept it humming along neatly, just the four of them. Serving girls from the shangqin—the Housekeeping Service, those charged with keeping rooms clean—did come sometimes, but by and large the four ladies-in-waiting handled all the cleaning and tidying themselves. That was not, for the record, something ladies-in-waiting typically did.

All of this meant that the new girl, Maomao, had little to possess her other than tasting the food. Besides Hongniang, none of the other ladies-in waiting ever asked Maomao to do anything. Maybe they felt bad that she was stuck with the most unpleasant job, or maybe they simply didn't want her intruding on their turf. Whatever the reason, even when Maomao offered to help, they would gently rebuff her with an, "Oh, don't worry about it," and urge her to go back to her room.

How am I supposed to settle in here?

Cooped up in her room, she was summoned twice daily to meals, once to afternoon tea, and every few days to try one of the sumptuous banquets offered when the Emperor came calling. That was all. Hongniang was kind enough to try to find little tasks for Maomao to do, but they were never anything difficult, and didn't occupy her for long.

In addition to her tasting duties, she found her own meals became more elaborate. Sweet treats were offered at tea, and when there were extras, they would be sent to Maomao. And because she was no longer working like an ant as she once had been, all those extra nutrients went to flesh. I feel like some kind of livestock.

Her new appointment as food taster had brought with it another thing Maomao didn't like. She had always been rather slim, but this meant that if a poison caused her to waste away, it would be hard to detect. What was more, the dosage of any given toxin that might be deadly was in proportion to one's body size. A little extra weight could improve her chances of survival.

In Maomao's mind, there was no way she could miss a poison so powerful as to make her waste away, and meanwhile she was confident she could survive an ordinarily fatal dose of many toxins. But no one around her seemed to share her optimism. They only saw a small, delicate girl being treated like a disposable pawn, and they pitied her for it. And so they plied her with congee even after she was full, and always gave her an extra serving of vegetables.

They remind me of the girls from the brothels. Maomao could be cold, reticent, and unsentimental, but for some reason the women had always doted on her. They always had an extra treat or a bit of something for her to eat.

Although Maomao didn't realize it, there was a reason people were so inclined to look kindly on her. Running along her left arm was a collection of scars. Cuts, stabs, burns, and what seemed to be repeated piercing with a needle. That is to say, to others, Maomao looked like a petite, overthin girl with wounds on her arm. Her arms were frequently bandaged, her face sometimes pale, and once in a while she was given to fainting. People simply assumed, with a tear in their eye, that her coldness and reticence were the natural result of the treatment she had suffered to this point in her life. She had been abused, they were sure—but they were wrong. Maomao had done all of it to herself.

She was most interested in discovering the effects of various medicines, analgesics, and other concoctions firsthand. She would take small doses of poison to inure herself to them, and had been known to let herself be bitten by venomous snakes. And as for the fainting, well, she didn't always get the dosage quite right. This was also why the wounds were concentrated on her left arm: it was preferable to her dominant limb, her right.

None of this sprang from any masochistic proclivity for pain, but was fueled entirely by the interests of a girl whose intellectual curiosity inclined rather too much in the direction of medicines and poisons. It had been her father's burden to cope with her for her entire life. Yes, it was he who had taught Maomao her letters and first instructed her in the ways of medicine, in the hopes that she would see a way forward in life other than prostitution, even though he had been obliged to raise her in and around the red-light district. By the time he realized he had far too apt a student on his hands, it was too late, and the calumnies about him had already begun to spread. There were a few who understood, just a few; but most turned cold, hard gazes on Maomao's father. They never for a moment imagined that a girl of her age might commit self-harm in the name of experimentation.