The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 9 [Complete] by Natsu Hyuuga

Author:Natsu Hyuuga
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

When their “special class” was over, the students changed and headed for the bathhouse. They went to one right next to a temple—one imagined that the bathhouse had started as a place for clergy to purify themselves, but by now the establishment demanded secular currency.

The baths were divided by gender, not mixed, and here in the middle of the day the place wasn’t very busy, but nonetheless the changing room felt cramped. Even so, the closely packed shelves probably had room for fifteen sets of clothes. There were a number of bathhouses in the capital, and if this wasn’t the most lavish, it was clean and well-maintained.

“Phew...” The water was good and hot, and the other bathers were few and far between—in Maomao’s mind, this was paradise.

The students had been told they could go home after they washed up, so she would take the time to clean her hair today. She washed off the clinging feel of the dampness and the dark. It mattered so much to have these moments when you could simply soak in the bath and think about nothing.

It sucks that we couldn’t write anything down, she thought. But if they did, their notes would constitute a forbidden book in their own right.

Today they had only observed, but in the future Maomao and the others would be expected to do the dissection themselves. Maomao had been surprised by how calm and rational she had remained in the presence of a corpse. Maybe it’s because I’d never seen him before. Because he was a criminal. Because I could tell myself it was his own fault he died.

Would she have been able to do the same if it were someone she knew? Or perhaps it helped that they were cutting not into a live person, but only something that had formerly been a person.

Maomao thought of Luomen’s hidden book. He’d said that it was his teacher on the last page. She hadn’t looked very old, though, not in his drawings. I can’t imagine how he felt when he was making those illustrations. What must Luomen’s teacher have meant to him?

Just as Maomao was letting out another sigh, some young women came into the bath.

“Think they’d take me?” one of them said.

“Sure! Definitely,” the other replied.

Maomao listened, wondering what they were talking about.

“I heard they haven’t put out a call in a long time, though. You know, for ladies for the rear palace?”

“That’s exactly it! They must be getting low on numbers. Now’s your chance!”

A call for ladies for the rear palace? Maomao frowned thoughtfully. Hadn’t Jinshi said that Gyoku-ou’s daughter, Empress Gyokuyou’s niece, was going to enter the palace? Even if they had found a way to postpone it. So they do ask for volunteers.

Such a young woman couldn’t have exclusively ladies-in-waiting from the western capital around her; and anyway, she was the child of someone very important and influential.

“Everyone talks about the Crown Prince, but the Emperor only has two sons right now. Plenty of chances to find your place.

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