The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 11 [Parts 1 to 5] by Natsu Hyuuga

Author:Natsu Hyuuga
Language: eng
Format: epub

The King, the opposing leader, sat smack in the center on the northern side of the board. A number of other pieces likewise seemed oddly out of position.

“Master Lihaku,” Maomao said.

“Yeah?”

“If you were to picture this Shogi board as the capital, how would it look to you?” She turned the board so he could see it.

“Hmm... I guess this King piece would have to represent the throne. Which would mean...” He gestured at the clusters of pieces. “These places where the pieces are all bunched up would have to be the market or the merchant district, or maybe a residential area.”

“What about the Jade General, then?”

“Huh... Maybe an enemy? A political enemy? Or maybe that’s the house of a particularly powerful bureaucrat?” He didn’t sound very sure.

Yes! That would make sense!

Maomao looked at Chue. “Miss Chue, do you have a map of the western capital?”

“Ha ha!” Lihaku laughed. “You say the strangest things. Who would carry a—”

“Here you go!” Chue pulled a map, drawn on parchment, out of the folds of her robes.

“Why do you have that?!” Lihaku exclaimed, supplying the quip in lieu of the absent Lahan’s Brother.

“Because I’m Miss Chue!” she declared. Indeed, Maomao knew she was; that was why she’d asked. It turned out she’d been right to do so.

Maomao opened the map and compared it to the Shogi board. “You see the Jade General here? If you match it with the map of the western capital, doesn’t it look like it corresponds exactly to this annex?”

The others almost jumped. Everyone crowded around, looking from the map to the board and back.

The western capital, like the royal capital in the central region, had been laid out in a grid pattern, with distinct sectors. But the divisions weren’t as neat as the royal capital, so they’d missed the resemblance.

“Then that would make the King piece...”

“The administrative office or Master Gyokuen’s residence, perhaps. But I would guess the office. That’s the location of the mansion that the Yi clan occupied seventeen years ago,” Small Lin told them. It was so helpful to have a local around, someone who could fill them in on past events.

“That would explain all the dragons around here,” Maomao said. “If I remember correctly, there was a store with the word Dragon in its name.”

Actual dragon designs were supposed to be taboo to everyone except members of the Imperial family, but sometimes the word “dragon” would sneak into the name of a shop. It was considered to be good luck.

“What about these, then?” Chue asked, pointing to the two pawns in a row.

“From the position, they seem to be along the main thoroughfare,” Maomao said.

“Maybe they represent a bookstore or a stationary shop? You know, somewhere you’d go to buy little things.”

“Hmm. Not sure I remember anyplace like that,” Lihaku muttered.

Piece by piece, Maomao tried to figure out what the Shogi tiles represented.

Then Chue said, “Miss Chue has a thought. Maybe a current map can’t help us.”

She was right. In seventeen years, shops could come and go, some businesses collapsing while other, new enterprises began.

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