Light Novel Volume 04

Volume 4

Japanese
English

Japanese

薬屋のひとりごと４

Romaji

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 4

Trans. Title

Apothecary's Monologue 4

English

The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 4

Cover Character(s)
Maomao, "Maomao, the Cat"

Release Info

Format

Light Novel

Release (JP)

September 30, 2015 (Hero Bunko)

ISBN (JP)

ISBN-13：ISBN 978-4-07-403100-9
ISBN-10：ISBN 4-074-03100-0

Pages (JP)

392

Release (EN)

Digital：January 5, 2022 (J-Novel Club)
Print：Expected February 4, 2025 (Square Enix Manga & Books)

ISBN (EN)

ISBN-13：ISBN Digital: 978-1-71-836124-9
Print: 978-1-64-609297-0
ISBN-10：ISBN Digital: 1-718-36124-6
Print: 1-646-09297-X

Pages (EN)

Digital: 224
Print: 336

Adapted

From
To

Web Novel

Chapter ?-?

Manga

Main：Ch.65-
Notebook：Ch.54-Ch.84

Anime

Episode 37-

Volumes
◄ Previous	Next ►
Volume 3	Volume 5

"The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 4" ( 薬屋のひとりごと４, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 4 ) is the 4th volume of the The Apothecary Diaries light novel series written by Natsu Hyūga and illustrated by Touko Shino. It was first published in Japan on September 30, 2015. The translated digital English version was published via J-Novel Club on January 5, 2022. The translated print English version was published on February 4, 2025.

Blurb[]

Though her main duty is still looking after Consort Gyokuyou, Maomao finds time to help her friends and acquaintances in the rear palace, including Xiaolan, who will need a job after her term of service ends, and Consort Lishu, who's convinced she's seen a ghost! When complications arise with Gyokuyou's pregnancy, however, Maomao knows she's not skilled enough to handle a situation that could threaten the life of both mother and child. She knows someone who is, but they haven't been welcome in the rear palace for a very long time… Meanwhile, Maomao begins to discern what seem to be links between otherwise unrelated incidents in the rear palace. But what if her dawning knowledge makes her the next victim?

Chapters[]

Prologue
Chapter 1: The Baths (湯殿, Yudono^?)
Chapter 2: Seki-u (赤羽, Sekiu^?)
Chapter 3: The Dancing Ghost (踊る幽霊, Odoru Yūrei^?)
Chapter 4: The Rumored Eunuchs (噂の宦官, Uwasa no Kangan^?)
Chapter 5: Ice (氷菓, Aisu^?)
Chapter 6: Breech Birth (逆子, Sakago^?)
Chapter 7: Festering Resentment (Part One) (巣食う悪意　前編, Sukū Akui Zenpen^?)
Chapter 8: Festering Resentment (Part Two) (巣食う悪意　後編, Sukū Akui Kōhen^?)
Chapter 9: The Fox and the Tanuki Match Wits (狐と狸の化かし合い, Kitsune to Tanuki no Bakashiai^?)
Chapter 10: Traces (足跡, Sokuseki^?)
Chapter 11: The Fox Village (狐の里, Kitsune no Sato^?)
Chapter 12: Lantern Plant (鬼灯, Hōzuki^?)
Chapter 13: Festival (祭り, Matsuri^?)
Chapter 14: The Worksite (取引現場, Torihiki Genba^?)
Chapter 15: The Stronghold (砦, Toride^?)
Chapter 16: Lahan (羅半, Rahan^?)
Chapter 17: Taibon (蟇盆, Taibon^?)
Chapter 18: Feifa (飛発, Feifa^?)
Chapter 19: The Army Marches (行軍, Kōgun^?)
Chapter 20: The Ambush (奇襲作戦, Kishū Sakusen^?)
Chapter 21: How it Began (事の始まり, Koto no Hajimari^?)
Chapter 22: In the Clutches of the Fox (狐につままれた, Kitsune ni Tsumamareta^?)
Epilogue

Synopsis[]

Xiaolan asks Maomao and Shisui for possible places to work, once her contract is up. Shisui brings them both to the bathhouse, where they give consorts body treatments. She explains that connections made by attending to consorts there, can lead to a job offer or contract extension. They also discuss the arrival of new eunuchs, who were former slaves, at the rear palace.

Maomao meets Gyokuyou's recently hired ladies-in-waiting: Haku-u, Koku-u, and Seki-u. Seki-u, the youngest, joins Maomao as attendants at the bathhouse with Xiaolan and Shisui to acclimate to rear palace life. They attend to Lishu, who has been coming to the bathhouse in lieu of the Diamond Pavilion bath, due to a ghost sighting.

The next day, Jinshi requests Maomao investigate the Diamond Pavilion for the ghost. Though her ladies-in-waiting (except Kanan, the chief lady-in-waiting) attempt to gaslight her, Lishu recounts that she saw a floating face while in the changing room, through a window facing a storage room. With a blueprint of the pavilion, Maomao deduces that when light hits the storage room window, it also hits a brass mirror within the room. The mirror, being a magic mirror, then projected an image onto the wall, the "face" to which Lishu saw.

Jinshi and Gaoshun discuss the best way to let Maomao know the truth, while also dealing with Lakan. On a visit to the rear palace, they observe a new and attractive eunuch, who is mildly paralyzed on their left side. Suddenly, Xiaolan runs into a cart carrying ice, overturning it. Maomao intervenes and assures the eunuch carrying the ice that she will make a substitute with it, to be given to Consort Loulan. After agreeing to Jinshi's demands including wearing his hair stick, Maomao and Xiaolan prepare ice cream mixed with fruit in the provided kitchen space. Shisui also arrives for a taste once the ice cream is sent to Loulan.

Maomao examines Gyokuyou to check for the possibility of a breech birth, based on the baby's kicking patterns. Despite Hongniang's objections due to his criminal status, Maomao suggests Luomen to help with the birth, who arrives two days later and begins visiting both Gyokuyou and Lihua for their pregnancies.

Luomen tasks Maomao to deliver paper to be used for practice at the rear palace school, along with her errands of bringing alcohol for the clinic and some sleeping medicine for Gyokuyou. At the school, the teacher mentions that several of the new eunuchs have begun working at the clinic. Maomao goes to the clinic to investigate, under the pretext of delivering alcohol.

Meeting with Shenlü, Maomao realizes that the women there carry a grudge against the imperial family due to the Former Emperor ruining their lives, so may have been behind the miscarriage-inducing perfumes. While looking at an encyclopedia of insects, Suirei, in the guise of a eunuch with a paralyzed left arm, arrives with Shisui as her hostage. Left with no choice (and enticed by Suirei's offer of the resurrection drug recipe), Maomao is forced to leave with them.

Lakan invites Shishou and the imperial younger brother, attended by Basen, to a conversation over drinks. Showing a picture of a gun, he questions Shishou on its origin regarding a prior incident, which he answers evasively. Lakan then spends the rest of the time joyfully describing his Go games with his wife, to everyone else's exhaustion. Later, Ah-Duo, having stood in for the imperial younger brother, comments on Maomao's importance to Lakan.

Jinshi is alerted to Maomao's disappearance by Hongniang. After coming up with some possible motives at the Jade Pavilion, he retraces her steps to the medical office. Realizing that the cat is also missing along with some catnip berries, Jinshi and Luomen search for it nearby. They find the cat next to a tree, with a piece of paper stuffed inside the tree hollow. Exposing the paper to fire reveals the word for shrine and another illegible word. Returning to the Jade Pavilion, Seki-u reads the second word as jade, which clues Jinshi into Shisui, who is missing along with one of the new eunuchs.

Maomao and Shisui are led to a nearby shrine with a hole leading to a tunnel out of the rear palace. While Suirei is busy, Maomao discreetly writes her message and hides it. They travel 10 days north by boat, then on foot through the woods. En route, Maomao throws a snake at Suirei to gauge the reaction, revealing that Suirei has a severe fear of snakes, and that Shisui and Suirei are working together. Arriving at a hot-springs village, they are greeted by Kyou-u, who has been preparing for a festival. Maomao notices that a foreign emissary is present as well.

Jinshi and Gaoshun head to a graveyard of women from the time of the former emperor, where the missing eunuch was last spotted. They find Shenlü sitting in front of a grave, whose smell of alcohol gives her away. Jinshi tries to interrogate her, but Shenlü becomes angered over his resemblance to the former emperor, distracting him and overdosing on a bottle of alcohol. Shaken, Jinshi notices the grave for Taihou, who supposedly had a child with a court physician and was a servant to Loulan's mother when she was a consort.

Based on that, Jinshi then heads to the Garnet Pavilion to question Loulan. Through discrepancies on the number of ladies-in-waiting and Loulan's facial features, he deduces that the current Loulan is an imposter, and further learns that the true Loulan had already fled the rear palace. At the same time, Shishou also goes missing.

At the inn where Maomao, Shisui, and Suirei are staying, Maomao passes time by reading books on medicine. Shisui compliments Jinshi's hair stick while giving Maomao one of her own hairpins, and Suirei mentions that the resurrection drug could potentially cause amnesia.

After finishing all the books, Maomao notices a plot of unharvested rice out of the window from her room on the third floor. With Kyou-u's help, Maomao sneaks out of the inn to the storehouse beside the plot. She finds several gun parts, before getting caught by Shenmei, accompanied by her daughter Loulan, also known as Shisui.

Maomao is brought to an old fortress, along with Kyou-u and the other Shi clan children. Suirei reveals that she and Loulan are half-sisters with different mothers, and that the name "Shisui" was originally hers. Due to Shenmei's hatred of her, Suirei was traumatized and abused from a young age. From the presence of the foreign emissary, Ayla, and the guns at the storehouse, Maomao fears that the Shi clan's attempt at rebellion could lead to their extermination.

Lahan, Lakan's nephew and adopted son, arrives at Jinshi's office with evidence of the Shi clan's embezzlement, from the rising prices of metal and grain. He also pinpoints the fortress where the Shi clan may be hiding. Lakan arrives next, demanding Maomao's rescue while belittling Jinshi. Luomen then arrives just in time to calm Lakan down for his true request: Jinshi to shed his identity as a eunuch and to mobilize the army as the imperial younger brother against the Shi clan.

Maomao spends the next days working on an "elixir of immortality" and reporting her progress to Shenmei, who indulges in an orgy. Kyou-u tries to create a distraction so Maomao can escape, but fails, leading to Suirei confronting them both. Shenmei then appears, deciding to punish Kyou-u through torture. Maomao covers for him and is sent to the taibon, a two-foot-deep hole filled with various snakes, frogs, and bugs. Maomao easily subdues the snakes due to their slow movement. To a guard's disbelief, she roasts and eats snake meat using Shisui's hairpin as a skewer. The guard sets her free, and Maomao heads to the basement where gunpowder is manufactured, against his warning.

She soon runs into Shisui setting off explosions, and they head back upstairs, with Shisui revealing that Suirei is the former emperor's granddaughter, through Taihou. Shenmei would eventually kill Suirei's mother, torment Suirei, and treat Shisui as her puppet. Entering a room, Maomao realizes that Kyou-u and the other Shi clan children have been poisoned, which Shisui did to spare them from future execution. Though Maomao tries to convince her to escape the fortress, Shisui stays behind to keep up the façade of rebellion. Before Shisui leaves, Maomao offers her Jinshi's hair stick as a keepsake.

En route to the fortress, Jinshi decides to use Lakan and Lahan's plan of an ambush to deprive the Shi clan of gunpowder. Gaoshun reminds Jinshi that he will not be able to treat Maomao the same way he did as a eunuch.

Shishou wakes up to explosions. He goes to Shenmei's room to find her reveling in an orgy. Shisui then enters, berating the women for shirking their duties before rescuing Suirei from within a closet. Realizing that the imperial army had already rendered the gunpowder unusable via an avalanche, Shishou resolves to take responsibility for the rebellion and play as the villainous Shi clan head until the very end.

Lihaku attacks the Shi clan soldiers as part of the ambushing force, having worn a white cloak to blend in with the snow. He follows Jinshi and Basen into the fortress. Jinshi refuses Lihaku's request to leave the battlefront, as Maomao has yet to be located. Jinshi finds Maomao in a room and calls for Lihaku before exiting, though in the process his real identity is revealed. Lihaku then helps Maomao take the Shi clan children out of the fortress to be buried.

Jinshi and Basen fight their way through the fortress, searching for Shishou. Shishou then appears with a gun, seemingly calm and apathetic, before getting killed. Jinshi opens a chest in Shenmei's room to find a secret tunnel, only to be threatened by Loulan aiming a gun at his face.

Loulan brings him to another room with Suirei and Shenmei, where she explains how the Shi clan rebellion came to be: The Empress Regnant forced the Shi clan to stop exporting slaves out of the country, by making Shenmei, the previous clan head's daughter, a high consort. Shishou, as the adopted heir, restored the Shi clan's reputation by proposing to shelter would-be slaves who would have been exported out inside the rear palace. Shishou then married the former emperor's illegitimate daughter, who gave birth to Suirei. Once made clan head, Shishou requested Shenmei, as she had originally been betrothed to him. However, Shenmei's time in the rear palace led her to resent the imperial family, eventually culminating in the rebellion, while Shishou did nothing to stop her, out of love.

Shenmei attempts to fire at Jinshi, but her gun explodes, resulting in her death. Loulan gives Jinshi a warning of an upcoming disaster, and requests that he overlook the remaining Shi clan children. As a final act of "revenge" from Shenmei, Loulan claws Jinshi on his right cheek. She exits to the fortress rooftop, laughing while being shot at by soldiers, before falling off.

Jinshi receives stitches for his injury and finds Maomao in a carriage sleeping with the dead Shi clan children. Maomao awakens to see Jinshi's injury, which she regards positively. Suddenly, the Shi clan children begin breathing, having drank the resurrection drug.

At the imperial capital, Gyokuyou becomes the Empress after giving birth to the Crown Prince. Maomao returns to her old job as an apothecary in the pleasure district, as Jinshi had shed his eunuch identity, while Luomen remains at the imperial palace. From Seki-u, Maomao receives a letter from Xiaolan explaining that she became a servant to a consort's younger sister after her contract ended. Kyou-u, renamed Chou-u upon awakening with amnesia, now lives with Maomao in the pleasure district. The remaining Shi clan children, having been revived but have kept their memories, are sent to live with Ah-Duo, along with Suirei.

Jinshi arrives at the Verdigris House to meet with Maomao, who confesses that she gave away his hair stick to Shisui. He ends up falling asleep on Maomao's lap due to overwork.

Meanwhile, Tamamo, formerly Shisui, trades a hair stick bearing a bullet for another with a cicada design. She heads to the port to board a ship traveling east to an island country.