The Apothecary Diaries

Chapter 20: Fingers

Upon returning to the Jade Pavilion, Maomao found herself subjected to scrupulous nursing. She was changed into fresh clothes and thrown into bed, not in the cramped room she usually occupied, but in a much larger spare room made up with a proper bed. After a bit of rest on this new silk bedding, Maomao thought of the straw mat on which she usually slept and felt like she had ascended from a bog into the clouds.

"I've taken medicine, and there's nothing wrong with me physically," she protested. By medicine she meant the emetic, but there was no need to say that.

"Don't be ridiculous. You should have seen the minister who ate that food. I don't care if you did get the stuff out of your system, there's no way you're fine and dandy," Yinghua said, pressing a damp cloth to Maomao's forehead with concern.

Stupid, stupid minister, Maomao thought. She wondered if he had really managed to get it all out with the first medication he was given, but her curiosity wasn't going to win her freedom here. She resigned herself to this fact and closed her eyes.

It was an agonizingly long day.

Maomao must have been more tired than she thought, because it was almost noon when she woke up. That wasn't good for a lady-in-waiting.

She hopped out of bed and changed, then went looking for Hongniang.

No, wait. First...

Maomao went back to her own room to find the face powder she always used. Not the whitening powder everyone else was so concerned with, but the stuff that created the freckles on her face. Using a polished sheet of bronze as a mirror, she tapped the spots around her tattoos with her

fingertip, paying special attention to the ones above her nose.

I'm absolutely not going out without my makeup again. It was just too much trouble to explain. It crossed Maomao's mind that she could just pretend she had used makeup to hide her "freckles," but the idea only embarrassed her. She would probably be expected to react like a blushing virgin every time somebody mentioned it.

Maomao's stomach was rumbling, so she had one of the leftover mooncakes for a snack. She would have liked to wipe down her body, but she didn't have the time. She made a beeline for where the others were working.

Hongniang was with Consort Gyokuyou, watching over Princess Lingli.

She hardly looked away from the rather mobile young lady, moving her so that she stayed on the carpet, or supporting chairs so they wouldn't fall as the princess used them to try to stand up. She seemed quite precocious.

"My sincere apologies for oversleeping," Maomao said with a bow.

"Oversleeping? You should have taken the day off." Gyokuyou put a hand to Maomao's cheek, looking worried.

"Hardly, milady. If you have need of me, please call," Maomao said—but she knew full well that she was rarely given any serious work to do and would probably be left alone.

"Your freckles..." Gyokuyou said, fixing immediately on the one thing Maomao least wanted her to notice.

"I feel much better with them. If milady doesn't mind."

"Yes, of course," Gyokuyou said, letting the matter go much more readily than Maomao had expected. Maomao gave her a probing look, but Gyokuyou said: "Absolutely everyone wanted to know who that lady-in-waiting of mine was. I thought the questions would never end!"

"My apologies."

Maomao suspected people didn't look favorably on a serving girl who declared the presence of poison and then simply left a banquet of her own volition. Privately, she had even fretted over whether she would be punished for it, and she was relieved to discover no reprimand was forthcoming.