The Apothecary Diaries Book 9

Secret Lessons

Maomao went to the pleasure district to check on Sazen, and to Jinshi's villa to look after him, and then her break was over. She wrote a letter to Luomen telling him that her determination remained set, and she wanted to learn more of the medical arts. The vacation ended before she received an answer.

When she returned to the medical office, she discovered a mountain of laundry waiting. There's nothing worse than work that's piled up over a long break.

"Do the laundry. Right away, if you don't mind," Dr. Liu said. He made it sound so simple, but doing laundry in winter was a cold prospect. Her hands were going to go numb. She would have liked to give him a good glare, but now that she knew how much trouble Luomen had put him to in their younger days, she felt like she couldn't say anything—except "Yes, sir."

There was only one thing to do: what she was told. The pile of laundry revealed that while Maomao and the other ladies had been on break, the physicians had been working.

"Guess I'd better get to it," Maomao said.

The bulk of the laundry consisted of dressings that needed to be disinfected. The first step would be to separate them into bandages that were relatively clean and those that were filthy with blood or bodily fluids. The dirtiest would be thrown away, while they would cut the stains from the cleaner ones and reuse them. Bandages were consumables; it was expected that they would be discarded after enough use. Maomao especially didn't want to use anything with blood on it—human blood could be a source of contamination.

"What's this?" Yao said, chewing worriedly on her thumb. She was looking at someone's white coat. They must have been treating a severely wounded patient, because it was covered in blood. It smelled faintly of alcohol, perhaps from an attempt to disinfect it.

"We can't have the doctors throwing their coats in this pile. Whose is that?" En'en said. She looked at the lining—all the doctors' outfits looked alike, so their names were embroidered on the inside. She didn't say anything, but her brow furrowed. Maomao looked over her shoulder to discover the name Tianyu. One of the young doctors, a rather...freewheeling man. He'd tried to ask En'en out several times, but she always ignored him.

She just flung it aside...

En'en continued sorting bandages as if nothing had happened.

Both of them had been troubled by the conversation with Luomen, but as far as Maomao could see, it looked like En'en had recovered over the remainder of the break. I don't know what answer they gave him, though.

Luomen hadn't even replied to her yet; she doubted he had answered En'en and Yao.

"Since we're doing the laundry anyway, En'en, why don't we go ahead and wash it for him?" Yao said.

"Lady Yao, you mustn't indulge these people, even if they are doctors. Rules are rules."

Specifically, the rule in question was that the physicians were to wash their own medical attire.

"But they were working while we were on break..."

En'en adopted a most uncharacteristic expression of restrained anger. No doubt she was unhappy to hear Yao giving Tianyu any benefit of the doubt.

"I'm not sure how to get the bloodstains out, though," Yao said.

En'en made no move to solve that particular problem, so Maomao stepped forward. "Give me that for a second," she said. She looked at the faded bloodstains. Enough time had passed that they had taken on a dark crimson color. Maomao wasn't sure they would come out, but nonetheless she filled a bucket with cold water and dunked the coat in it.