The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 9 [Parts 1 to 7] by Natsu Hyuuga

Author:Natsu Hyuuga
Language: eng
Format: epub

Maomao looked back at the floor; it bore a more complex pattern of white and black planks than the ceiling did. “Yao?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Which are the trigrams representing one and two?”

Yao moved over to two spots on the floor. “One is this one, with three long lines. For two, the topmost line is broken, while the bottom two are long.”

☰ and ☱, then. Maomao looked so hard at the wall it seemed like she might burn a hole through it.

“What are you doing?” Yao asked.

“Trying to see if there’s an arrangement of one, two, and two.” It made her head hurt; all the combinations looked so similar. Worst of all, with the slightest lapse in concentration, she would lose her place and have to start again.

“I’ll start looking on the opposite side,” Yao said.

“And I’ll cheer you on! I’ll go make a snack,” En’en said, and made her escape. Maomao wanted to chase after her, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the wall. She wished she could mark the trigrams off, but she couldn’t go writing on the wall. The headache continued.

Maomao didn’t say anything.

Yao didn’t say anything.

En’en didn’t say anything, since she was preparing tea.

With so many trigrams, one would have expected there to be an arrangement of one, two, and two somewhere—but it didn’t look like it. One, then two, Maomao found repeatedly, but never with that elusive second two.

It’s got to be around here somewhere! she thought—and at exactly that moment, she bumped into Yao.

“Did you find it?”

“No, it’s not here,” Maomao said.

“How can that be?”

“Maybe we missed it?” Maomao blinked several times and looked at the walls. She would have to go through everything again, see if they had overlooked anything, but she really didn’t want to.

“Who wants tea?” En’en asked, coming in with a clatter of drinkware.

“I do!”

“Yes, please!” Yao and Maomao spoke simultaneously.

Since all the furnishings had been moved into the hallway, they unrolled a rug on the floor to have their drink.

“Thath’s delithiouth!” Yao said, very happy, but when they were done, they were going to have to check the walls again. If they still couldn’t find what they were looking for, they would have to admit that Maomao’s guess had been wrong. “It’s frustrating how many times one and two show up, but then the last number is different.”

“Yeah. We never find that last two. We only need it to show up once!” Maomao said.

“That’s right, but one different line makes it another number. Like here—if only this yin were a yang.”

Yang was a single long line; yin was two short ones.

“If yin were yang?” Maomao said, and looked at the trigrams on the floor. If you took the uppermost yang line of ☰ and changed it to yin, it became ☱.

She stood up and looked at the walls again. It was right around here...

She found a one, two, and one. She didn’t think this was a pattern that was repeated anywhere else. She went to the third one, the ☰, and touched the uppermost line.

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