The Apothecary Diaries Book 11

The Coal Mine

"Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao!"

"What is it, Miss Chue?"

This kind of exchange had nearly become a routine for them. It was unusual, however, for Chue to show up after a day's work, just before Maomao went to bed.

"What brings you here so late?" Maomao asked.

"Well! I have a little something to tell you about Mister Lahan's coal code!"

Maomao had told Jinshi about Lahan's letter—and if Chue was coming to her at this hour, it suggested something had come of the matter.

"The fact is, not many letters have come from Mister Lahan for the Moon Prince."

"I kind of thought not."

"We estimate that only half his letters have made it here. But even on a long, difficult journey like this one, doesn't it seem weird that so many letters addressed personally to the Moon Prince should accidentally disappear?"

"Ahh..."

In other words, someone was deliberately disposing of Lahan's communications. If he was trying to tell them something, it would explain why he'd sent Maomao these riddling letters. A backup plan in case he didn't reach Jinshi, the message conveyed in a way that only Maomao and her companions were likely to notice.

"It was still pretty lucky we spotted it," she said.

"It sure was! Without you and Lahan's Brother putting your heads together, you'd never have figured it out. And imagine if you'd eaten Lahan's letter before you noticed!"

"I'm not going to eat any letters," Maomao said. Sometimes she didn't understand Chue's jokes.

"Maybe not, but Miss Chue's goats sometimes do."

"You're still trying to raise those goats, huh?"

"Yes! Thanks to them, I can drink nice, fresh, funny-smelling milk anytime I want."

"You don't make it sound very appetizing. Every time I see goat meat at dinner, I think maybe your friends finally met the butcher."

"The momma goat had a baby and gives milk now. The kid is a boy, so he can be the husband of the third goat. As for the daddy goat, he went on a very long trip to a faraway place. They come, they go—but there are always three of them. Daddy Goat will live forever in Miss Chue's heart...and stomach."

Which all seemed to work out to such: one of the goats had been eaten. Maybe that was the animal Tianyu had been practicing his dissection on.

"Now! Maybe let's get back on subject."

"Yes, please," Maomao said. If she entertained all Chue's digressions, it would be morning before long.

"About that coal—it seems I-sei Province did mine some, although only a little bit."

"Oh?"

"Indeed! But that was almost twenty years ago. There are no records of any recent mining operations."

Still, what an intriguing thought.

"Let me guess—there are no records left from twenty years ago?" Maomao asked. The suppression of the Yi had occurred seventeen years past, during which time much of the era's paper trail had been burned.

"You're exactly right! Our suspicion is that there was someone among the suppress-ees who was in charge of the coal mining."

"Well, that doesn't help us much, then. But there must have been some people who did the actual mining, right?"