Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Apothecary's Other Diary ❯ Murder Plot ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

FOUR

 

Murder Plot

The double suicide murder plot was handled by my Father, I mean Great Uncle. The hush money helped pay for materials to put on a new roof, and a new stovepipe for the improved wood stove, which heated better than an open fire and a lot of open windows to let the smoke out. Great Uncle said such conveniences were somewhat common in Europe, on the other side of the world. I remember wood stoves well, as Tanya.

The plotting girl and prostitute did not succeed in killing the spoiled merchant’s son, though fleecing him for years with his reputation soiled through word of mouth meant he’d pay far more for access to women who knew better than to believe him. They still wanted his silver, of course, and would have it, bit by bit. The tale sounded awful, and I marveled at Great Uncle’s recovery from a man nearing his end years as a cripple, to a man restored some twenty years worth of health, and his parts apparently returned through some means unknown.

“I woke up one morning and they were back, along with my kneecap. And my aching bones don’t ache anymore. I would be the first man to discount tales of miracles, but I have no medicine which can do this,” he explained.

Later that day I gathered my thing and returned to Verdigris to recover the addled Lihaku and the very pleased looking Pairin. She showed all the signs of having enjoyed his company.

On return to the palace and the customary search of my souvenirs and personal objects, I was allowed entry. In the Jade Palace, Jinshi was waiting and lady Gyokuyou could barely restrain her laughter.

“And I gave him a night of pleasure. I think he was very pleased. I worked hard!” explained with pride. Jinshi dropped his teacup, shattering on the tabletop. I immediately fussed over him, patting down the stain on his fine robe, and reminding him not to touch the sharp fragments of ceramic, sharper than knives.

Sometime later, Gyokuyou explained the actual situation to Jinshi, breaking him out of his apoplexy.

“So you just wanted to visit your family? Why didn’t you ask me?” he said to me, finding me later with a cleaning rag in my hands. I had been dusting.

“I was kidnapped, and my home is a brothel. You’re important and I can’t imagine a brothel would interest you.”

“Are they well?” he asked, curious.

“Strangely, better than in years. Mother has recovered. And Great Uncle experienced a similar miracle,” I answered vaguely.

“Have you heard rumors of a Great Sage?” Jinshi asked. “He is rumored to possess the bodies of people and heal them of injuries.”

“This is just speculation, but I have my suspicions about the identity of the sage. If he does turn up in the palace, be sure to order the guards not to attack him. The body is probably unaware they are being possessed by a Buddha.”

“Eh? A Buddha?” Jinshi asked.

“Let’s just leave that until I can confirm his identity. If he turns up, come get me so I can speak to him.”

Jinshi was wearing a black ribbon, indicating mourning.

“Is there something the matter, Jinshi-sama?” I asked him.

“My mentor when I was younger, a master of the sword, has passed away. Poisoning is suspected, but the vessel which contained it broke. I have a jar of rice wine similar to what he’d been drinking at the party. See if you can detect any poisons,” he offered. It has been three lifetimes since I’d been able to have sake. He presented the vessel and I poured some into a silver cup, examining it for reactions. No strange smells. I gave it a brief taste. Salt. Lots of salt.

“This tastes like salt. Any number of poisons can be salts, including metallic salts. I don’t taste strange metals, however. Other than the silver of the cup, this tastes like ordinary salt and sake, I mean rice wine.”

“So what does that mean?” he asked. Discussion followed on the history of the man who died, and my intuition told me he lost the ability to taste salt due to trauma or something having to do with the epidemic that killed his wife and child.

“So you think someone was putting salt in Master Kounen’s drink out of revenge for being hard to work with and he couldn’t taste it?” Jinshi summarized.

“Very likely. Since he couldn’t taste it, they added more until there was so much salt he died from it,” I confirmed. And didn’t add it had to be someone he worked with and was attending the party with him. The list of suspects was probably short, but it was out of my hands.

“I see. Thank you Maomao. You’ve been very helpful. As a reward, here is a bottle of rice wine untainted by salt.” My eyes lit up at this.

“Thank you, Jinshi-sama,” I bowed respectfully. A shame he’s a eunuch.

 

“Sir, I have identified the one with burns. It is Fengming, the head maid for Lady Ah-Duo,” Gao-shun explained. Jinshi looked resigned.  

 

Why Is It Always Thus?

 

Awakening in a woman’s body, my feet feel strange. I unwrap bandages from around them and find my feet are folding in half. What is this, the eighth century… sigh. I heal them with a quick burst and come to my now repaired feet and peer around. I am inside a palace of some kind. It can only be a palace. There is gold leaf all over the place, and carved jade, and various statuary. The gentle snores of maids nearby prompt me to keep down the noise as I traipse barefoot towards something I feel I must resolve. I push open the doors of the grandest chamber and find a beautiful woman sleeping there. My magic reaches out and discovers scars and a missing uterus. I begin the process of regrowing it and her ovaries, gently using my magic to coax her body into becoming what it is supposed to be without wasting what mana I have in a fitful burst. In a place like this with no magic at all, I must be thrifty.

“What are you doing?” asked the voice nearby. I keep up the spell.

“Helping. Don’t interrupt,” I answered in her tongue. I don’t actually know Chinese. Up to this point I’d been healing the ones I occupied, including a lot of poor people in the slum outside a palace, like I was near my sister, but never quite finding her. I can feel her nearby, even now. I used enough magic to regrow the missing cervix, unsealing the scar tissue within and restoring the connection between the fallopian tubes and the ovaries, thickening the muscles and tissues on the uterine wall so she will be able to carry to term and birth a child.

“There. Finished,” I announce. I feel the approach of my sister and turn towards the door. Some guards approach and a girl with freckles and a green smock staggers in.

“Oniichan? Is that you?” she asked in Japanese.

“Komachi. I missed you,” I said, and passed out as my magic ended.

I woke, first light leaving my room grey and shadowed. Street lights were turning off across Chiba City as the day approached, sun nearly risen over the Pacific. I’d found her. Or dreamed I did. My dreams show signs of obsession, but the location has been mystifying. I’d been to the library, and found Ming China in the 16th century is the likely time period, more or less confirmed by vague conditions. I dressed in a daze, descending the stairs and prepared coffee, staring again and again at my sister’s shrine. My parents finished their breakfast and quietly left the house together. They worked in the same office since before I was born.

 

Great Sage

 

“What just happened?” asked Fengming, staring between Lady Ah-Duo, who was cradling her belly in wonder, the maid whose bare feet and dazed expression of a sleepwalker awoken in a strange place, and the guards who’d led me here after Fengming had rung the intruder alarm. Jinshi had briefed the guards on the existence of the Great Sage, and once again he has possessed someone and healed them. In this case, it was a maid and the lady healed was first Concubine, Lady Ah-Duo. Looking at her and the guards I turned to one and simply said: “Get Gaoshun and Jinshi. They will want to be here.”

Am I disappointed that my brother was here only a moment after I arrived and then vanished, or am I happy I can confirm it was actually him?

“I can feel… I can feel. I am whole,” whispered Lady Ah-Duo. “Where is Jinshi?”

“I’ve sent for him. Should we send for the Emperor?” I asked her. “Yes. Please.”

Fengming was looking around the chamber, and rose to get clothes ready, ushering out the guards and staring at first the maid who’d been possessed and was currently probing her feet with confusion, and me, since I clearly knew something. She dressed Lady Ah-Duo in robes, then she covered the maid in a blanket to protect her modesty, and went to get the fire going to make tea. It was the middle of the night, of course, and I’d only slept a few hours after a long day. Good thing I hadn’t drunk that sake or I’d be totally useless right now. I was saving it for a special occasion.

Is finding out your brother is a legendary Buddha a special occasion?

There was noise outside and the doors slid open, Jinshi appearing. He rushed to Lady Ah-Duo and held her gently. The maid sat there looking miserable and confused. Fengming arrived with tea, pouring cups for everyone. Jinshi spotted me and stared in confusion before remembering just what he’d ordered me to do.

“The Great Sage came,” I said. “It is who I thought it was. He possessed this maid, and healed Lady Ah-Duo, greeted me, and then he was gone once more.”

“Is this going to happen again?” Jinshi asked, half horrified at the idea of some mystical being able to possess people and use magic.

“Uh… probably yes. The Great Sage knows me.”

“Maomao,” rumbled Gaoshun,” could you explain better please?”

“This information is delicate and not for just any ears,” I said carefully. “It should probably only be shared with Jinshi and the Emperor himself, and only them.”

Gaoshun did not look pleased at this.

“Maomao, your freckles are missing,” Jinshi commented. I sighed.

“That isn’t important. Lady Ah-Duo, do you want anyone else here?” I asked her. She nodded.

“Suiren. Please ask her to come,” she requested softly, and obviously overcome by emotion. Fengming went to the door and spoke to a guard outside, who rushed away. Some time later the Emperor arrived, shortly followed by the nice old lady I had seen tending to Jinshi in his chambers. She approached Lady Ah-Duo and I realized, looking at them, this was her mother. And looking at Jinshi, the familial resemblance was painfully obvious. I regarded Fengming, staring at this poorly kept secret, and the maid who was still out of it and looked half asleep. I wonder if getting your mana drained here is exhausting. I think I might have done that myself as a baby to heal my finger, but being a baby brain I probably wasted it on a poor healing. If only I had more I could fix my arm wound and straighten my finger.

The Emperor nodded to Jinshi and approached Lady Ah-Duo, his first love. Childhood friends, he’d been raised with her. Her athletic tomboy looks and mature charm, a year older than the Emperor had given him two children, the second costing her her womb… which apparently was now regrown. Of all the strange things in the world.

“Apothecary. You seem to know something of what is going on. Explain,” ordered the Emperor.

“There are secrets which would affect the empire. Might we go somewhere there are fewer ears to hear?” I asked as politely as I could. Spilling imperial secrets is a fast way to get beheaded.

“In consideration of your assistances with Lady Lifa, I will do as you request. Follow.” The emperor briefly hugged his lady, then we went with them into his personal quarters. I had never been in this building and remained on my best behavior, eyes downcast, sleeves lifted to cover my mouth as I’d been trained. We eventually entered a corridor and the Emperor ordered away the guards into a position further from the door and we entered the room, then into a smaller room beyond. He sank into a comfortable chair, showing his real age and eyed Jinshi.

“What have your told her?” he asked the eunuch.

“Nothing yet,” Jinshi admitted.

“I think it is time to dispense with your illusions. The game has changed. What do you know, Apothecary?” the Emperor asked. I swallow hard.

“Sir Jinshi bears a remarkable likeness to his mother,” I answered. “I think it is unlikely those with even a modicum of awareness would possibly miss this. This implies he is your son, and considering you would not be plucking off the royal fruit, and his startling fitness and build… I suspect Sir Jinshi is not a eunuch, and likely goes by another name during official events?” I asked, meeting the eyes of the Emperor. He stared back coldly, but without anger.

“She is as perceptive as you suspected. Who is your father?” he asked.

“Lakan,” I answered with a dry throat. His eyes revealed he knew this already. “But my mother might be the more important name. She called herself Fengxian, but her eyes are the same as yours. A princess was born before you, highness, and expelled by the Dowager Empress over claims of infidelity with a physician at that time. His expulsion lead to my Great Uncle becoming your doctor, delivering Jinshi and your brother, but in the course of being dragged away to attend to your mother left Ah-Duo to lose her uterus. And the Great Sage has since regrown that a short time ago.”

“Many people were expelled by my grandmother, justly and not. I have spent my time as Emperor trying to repair the damages she did to the Empire and put down the rebellions she caused so indiscriminately.”

“I do not know this Fenxian, but she is not the daughter of that concubine. The expelled concubine is married to the Prime Minister, and their daughter… I do not know what became of her. She does not bear the royal eyes. Her younger daughter will be my next concubine, a point that is likely a trap.” 

"Hmm. Not as I'd presumed. This grows more convoluted. My mother's origin is a mystery, though she might be a child of the old madam. As a high class consort, the father could be any high status man. This also explains her care for me." 

“I expect you offered shelter to Lishu to protect her from external harm, correct?” I confirmed. He nodded.

“So who is this Great Sage?” the Emperor asked, no he ordered me to answer.

“He is my brother. But the answer is more complicated than at. At present I am an only child, though I suspect my mother means to correct that. Lakan will soon find himself married. My brother healed her a few weeks ago. He was searching for me at the time.”

“So your brother died and ascended to Heaven?” asked Jinshi in confusion.

“No. I did. I was reborn here. Reincarnation is real. We live again and again. I died, probably recently to his life, and in his grief he has somehow become a sage and has found a means to travel here, briefly, in search of me,” I explained.

“How is that possible?” asked the Emperor.

“I do not know. Such things were only speculated in our time,” I answered, then winced.

“What time?” asked the Emperor.

“Around four hundred and sixty years from now, give or take? Nobody ever said reincarnation was serial,” I pointed out. He and Jinshi exchanged looks.

“I don’t know how he does it. Maybe some higher power is aiding him. Buddha has been said to take pity on those it deems to have potential. Let’s set the how aside and focus on what he is doing. He is arriving and healing people. Generally, healing people is not a hostile act. And he’s healed your first love. Then he seems to run out of energy and goes away. It is reasonable he will return, and continue to seek me. We were close, as siblings. We lived in a peaceful time and place. Common people had great luxuries because of the advancement of science. I was a school girl, younger than I am now. I was killed in an accident in the road, and my brother is probably overcome with grief.”

“How does he heal people? Only stories in old books make such claims and no modern people can do that. This is why I hired doctors,” reminded the Emperor. I agree he is forward thinking.

“That I have no idea. He never did that when we were children. This is probably some kind of thing from a higher power, again. I far prefer it to him blowing up cities with black fire,” I explained.

“He can blow up cities with black fire?” asked Jinshi, appalled.

“Of course not. He just wanted to when he was a boy,” I laughed. “Lots of boys want to blow up cities with black fire. Lucky for us it never existed so they can’t.”

“Right,” agreed the Emperor cautiously.

“So I have a question,” I requested, looking between the two men.

“Ask. But don’t be insolent,” ordered the Emperor.

“Why is Jinshi pretending to be a eunuch? Wouldn’t the existence of the crown prince negate most of the poisoners and infighting attacking your concubines and their children?” I asked slowly and politely as I could manage.

“They would focus on assassinating him and force me to replace him with a new prince, born to a concubine of their choice. The Shi clan was favored by my grandmother, so your being of the La clan complicates things. And my son likes you.”

“Now that Ah-Duo is healed, are you going to keep her as your Empress?” I asked him. He grimaced.

“I had already suffered negotiations with Prime Minister Shishou to accept a replacement concubine and retire Ah-Duo to a palace I manage in the South.”

“Well, if you choose to bed her again, you may find yourself with another heir. As Lady Gyokuyou’s poison taster, I can only suggest you continue to visit. Her daughter is a very sweet child. When is this new concubine arriving?” I asked.

“In another week. You were scheduled to assist in the cleanup and packing starting tomorrow, then this happened.”

“Hmm. I had better continue on schedule then. I believe we should keep the knowledge of Lady Ah-Duo’s health a modest secret, meaning no maids or guards should speak of it, but if they do mild rebuke rather than beheading. My brother is a kind boy. He would probably react badly to people being killed to hide his existence.”

“There is the other matter. The poisoning during the celebration. Do you know who is guilty?” the Emperor asked Jinshi.

“Lady Fengming has bandages on her arm, and she wears robes similar to the burned cloth found in the metal powder rash incident that the Apothecary helped investigate,” Jinshi explained. Yes. I had done that weeks before. It wasn’t interesting enough to write in my private diary.

“So she’s probably involved in the attempt to poison Lishu,” the Emperor confirmed.

“I had thought with all the effort involved in the exchange she would have figured out who you were before now,” the Emperor said aloud, regarding Jinshi. “And with the restoration of her Lady’s womb, and the potential to have more children, along with her exit from the palace itself, will her efforts to kill to keep a secret have any further point? Would the kinder thing be to expel her in advance, under the excuse of preparing her lady’s retirement home, or would she try to poison Lishu again? If so I’d have little choice but to take her head. Lishu has suffered enough.“

“I have no guidance on this issue, my Emperor. I have little doubt that Lishu feels strong affection towards Lady Ah-Duo, probably due to missing her mother, and Ah-Duo missing her son, or the child she would have raised in his place, lost to honey poisoning perhaps. In my time we knew not to give babies honey. There is poison in honey, and the tiny creatures which make it, called bacteria, can take root in a baby. We don’t give babies honey until after they pass a year old or more. Sending on Fengming would be merciful. And asking questions about who provided her poison might give other enemies pause about their own security, and perhaps delay or prevent further attacks,” I suggested.

“You have enough of your father’s mind to be useful. Are you pure?” he asked.

“Yes, highness.”

“Yue, I approve of her. Take her as your consort when you tire of this game,” the Emperor ordered. Jinshi, or Yue, the Moon Prince, sighed, and looked at me with an awkward expression.

“Well?” he asked me.

“Your man parts are intact?” I confirmed. He nodded. “Fine. I dislike eunuchs. I find them distasteful. It is probably because I was raised in a brothel. I gather most of the consorts know who you really are?” I asked. He shrugged.

“Gyoukuyou certainly. Lifa as well. Ah-Duo is my mother. Only Lishu is in the dark. And probably the new consort Loulan won’t be told.”

“So I play pretend. Should I keep sneering at you when you try to touch me in public?” I asked.

“Yes please,” he agreed.

“Masochist,” I noted. “How old are you really?”

“Eighteen. Same as you,” he said.

“I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen soon enough. Can we continue the standing order for when The Great Sage appears again?” I corrected him.

“Is he just going to keep showing up in other people’s bodies?” Jinshi asked.

“Until he figures out how to make his own. That probably has everything to do with this higher power that’s making this possible. He might stop once he’s convinced I’m happy living this life. Then again, you seem to be doing your best to suppress a rebellion, and it never seems to get dull here in the palace.”

Jinshi escorted me out of the Emperor’s private quarters and back to the Jade Palace. The Emperor was a lot less imposing towards family. I cleaned up and went back to bed, opting to sleep in. This worked until the head maid woke me up and called me lazy. Since I am now keeping secrets I couldn’t grumble and stumbled through my day on tea and delirium.