Apothecary Diaries: Volume 13 (Light Novel) (eBook)

Natsu Hyuuga (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
9781718361423 (ISBN)

Infos

Maomao, Jinshi, and the others finally return to the royal capital to discover that life went on while they were away: Lahan is still working his abacus, Maamei is still pondering the future of both the Ma clan and her little brother Basen, and Yao and En'en are still pursuing their dreams (to become a doctor and to geek out over Yao, respectively). Maomao might have hoped that things would quiet down now that she no longer has to deal with locust swarms and succession crises, but it turns out things are livelier than ever as she reconnects with people and places she hasn't seen in almost a year. Meanwhile, the seeds of a new mystery are being planted...

Textauszug

“Kan Junjie...”

His name explained everything.

Lahan was a quick thinker, and when he heard this familiar moniker, he connected it with the fact that his own older brother had not returned from the western capital. Why was he there, while this boy Lahan had never seen was here? Now he understood.

His brother and this boy shared the same family name and the same given name, so they must have been mistakenly swapped. It was patently ridiculous, but that was exactly the kind of star under which Lahan’s older brother had been born.

“Now I get it.” Lahan nodded. In his opinion, his brother was a real jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none—except for pulling the short straw, if that were a trade. He’d been left behind in a far land, where he was probably working industriously at that very moment.

Lahan bore no ill will toward his older brother; in fact, he thought he was quite a good brother, and hoped to introduce him to a pretty girl someday.

Sanfan came into the room. “Master Lahan,” she said.

“Yes, what?”

“I’m terribly sorry, but I found this among the master’s clothing, and I thought you’d want to see it.”

Sanfan held out a letter that smelled of a simple but high-class perfume. The sender wasn’t immediately apparent, but Lahan could tell who it was from the writing—lovely characters with just a hint of strength in them.

It was a message from the Moon Prince to Lahan explaining, in terms at once indirect and apologetic, who Kan Junjie was and why he was there.

It was largely as Lahan had surmised: Once his brother had returned to the central region, they would send Kan Junjie back home, and the Moon Prince wished the boy to remain in Lakan’s care until that time. With apologies to his brother, Lahan jumped at the chance to have the Moon Prince in his debt. He would love to do more favors for him, in fact—more and more, until there were so many they could never be repaid.

Lakan had finally finished his congee, and Sifan was wiping his mouth. Wufan and Liufan brought him his dessert fruit.

“Honored Father,” Lahan began, “before you go to court, I’d like to inform you of a few things that are currently going on.”

“Hrm? Everyone’s still doing their jobs, aren’t they?”

“Well, with you gone for a whole year, some breakdown was inevitable.” Lahan placed a Shogi board in front of Lakan. Lakan thought of his subordinates as pieces in a game, and indicated their disposition via the board. It had confused Lahan as much as anyone at first, but after seeing it time and time again, he’d begun to discern certain rules. He wasn’t perfect at it, but he could largely understand what Lakan wanted to communicate from the board.

“How are the pieces moving?” Lakan asked.

“Well, you see, this one has gone here, and this has moved here...” Lahan moved a Silver General inside the enemy camp and took away a Pawn. At the same time, a Lance was stolen by a Bishop.

“The Lance, eh? Always had good spirit, but seemed like a liar.”

As a matter of politics, Lakan never joined any faction—but it was only natural for a faction to form around him, even if that was never his intention. During his absence, his faction had exerted enough pressure to keep opposing groups from running roughshod, but over the course of an entire year, the unwritten rule that one should never cross Lakan had all but eroded. One of Lakan’s subordinates had gone over to another faction—but at the same time, his own group had succeeded in drawing someone from another group to them.

Before he’d left for the western capital, Lakan had given just one order to his people: “When I get back, I want everything to be exactly the same as when I left.”

The result of that order had been the loss of a Lance and the taking of a Pawn. No doubt his subordinates awaited his return with fear and trembling.

Lahan had a thought: Perhaps it had simply been too much to ask a bunch of soldiers, people not normally versed in political negotiations, to maintain the balance of power within the court. He thought they should still get passing marks, but there was no telling how Lakan would react.

“I suppose we should at least see this Pawn we’ve picked up,” Lakan said.

“Certainly.”

Lahan picked up a brush, while Wufan and Liufan brought ink and paper, and then he wrote out the orders in such a way that the aide, Onsou, would be able to understand them. He felt bad for Onsou, telling him to come to work the very day after he had finally gotten to see his wife and child for the first time in a year, but from the moment one became Lakan’s assistant, there was no such thing as time off.

The boy with the exact same name as Lahan’s brother was agog from the moment he got out of the carriage.

“This is the royal court? My! It’s so much bigger than the administrative office in the western capital.”

Lahan had been thinking about what to do with the boy; normally, he might have simply left him with Sanfan, but there was a problem: His freeloaders—ahem, Yao and En’en—had stuck their noses in. For some reason, they’d made a big show of doting on the boy, Junjie.

Sanfan and Yao didn’t get along very well, and sparks constantly flew between them, although Lahan had no idea why—or at least, he wanted to pretend he didn’t.

In any case, at least Lakan and the boy seemed to get along all right, so Lahan had decided to assign him to Lakan as a sort of junior assistant. If that made Onsou’s burden lighter, it meant Lahan wouldn’t have quite so much paperwork piling up, for which he would be grateful. Still, he had trouble imagining it would go as smoothly as all that.

“Say, En’en, are my bangs straight?”

“They’re perfect. You look as beautiful as always.”

From behind Lahan came the voices of his freeloaders. Since they were sending Lakan by carriage, it had been decided to let the young ladies come along. He could hardly have put himself and his father in a vehicle while the women walked.

“Master Lahan, it’s all well and good to be courteous to women, but I don’t think you had to go quite so far,” Sanfan whispered to him. She was serving as their driver once again. Quite frankly, it would have been more efficient to have her doing other work, but Sanfan wouldn’t hear of it.

“That’s not your decision to make, Sanfan,” Lahan said.

After a moment she replied, “Understood.”

“All right. I’m going to see my father to his office.”

Starting tomorrow, he was going to leave Lakan with Onsou—Lahan certainly wasn’t going to spend his days babysitting him.

“En’en, let’s go to the medical office,” said Yao.

That would get the two of them out of the equation, which was something of a relief. Now that Maomao was back, Lahan fully intended to have them return to their dormitory. “See you later, Junjie!” Yao cooed.

“You too! Good luck at work today, Lady Yao. Lady En’en.”

“Gosh, you don’t have to be so formal.” Yao was surprisingly familiar with Junjie herself—and just when Lahan had been so sure she didn’t like men. Maybe it was because the boy was still so young that she was able to show him some decency. “You’ll be helping your brother and your uncle now.”

Yao and En’en were about to leave when Lahan motioned them to stop. “Pardon me, but the two of you seem to be under some sort of misapprehension.”

“What do you mean?” Yao asked, tilting her head.

Young Junjie supplied the answer himself. “Ma’am. My surname is Kan, but I’m not related to Master Lakan or Master Lahan.”

“Really? I heard what Master Lakan said yesterday. He said, ‘Junjie? I think he’s my nephew,’” En’en said, doing an uncannily accurate impression of Lakan. Come to think of it, she’d been making a midnight snack the night before—had she been trying to endear herself to Lakan? Lahan shivered at the thought.

“He’s not wrong, but he’s completely wrong,” Lahan informed them. “We’re out of time at the moment, so I’ll explain later.”

It was nothing short of a miracle that Lakan had remembered the name of Lahan’s biological older brother. He had not, however, managed to remember the man’s face. Thus he had presumably classified the young Junjie in terms like “he doesn’t not seem different somehow, but he’s probably my nephew.” Both of them were studious, hard workers, so perhaps they appeared to him similarly.

Lahan was seized by a fresh desire to help his brother settle down as soon as he could.

“Erm... Is my name causing any problems?” Junjie looked deeply uneasy. Lahan, Yao, and En’en all looked at each other.

“Eh. It’s all very complicated. Don’t worry yourself. More importantly, my honored father has fallen asleep again, so give him a good shove, would you?” Lahan said.

“Yes, sir!” Junjie said, and he and Lahan proceeded to shove the sleeping Lakan’s back.

Lahan was supposed to be done worrying about Lakan once he had deposited him at his office—but there was an unusual hubbub when they arrived. A crowd had formed.

“Well, now,” Lahan said.

“What do you suppose is the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.1.2025
• Reihe/Serie: The Apothecary Diaries
• Illustrationen: Natsu Hyuuga
• Übersetzer: Natsu Hyuuga
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller
• Schlagworte: Drama • eunuchs • female protagonist • History • Light Novel • Mystery
• ISBN-13: 9781718361423 / 9781718361423