Manga Chapter 11: Returning Home

Returning Home
Name
Japanese	里帰り
Romaji	Satogaeri
Information
Format	Manga
Volume	Volume 3
Chapter No.	11
Pages	32
Adaptation
Light Novel	Volume 1 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 (partial)
Anime	Homecoming (season 1, episode 7) Wheat Stalks (season 1, episode 8)
Chronology
Previous	← Chapter 10
Next	Chapter 12 →

Returning Home (里帰り, Satogaeri^?) is the tenth chapter of Nekokurage's The Apothecary Diaries first manga adaptation.

Summary

Jinshi is stunned when he learns from Gyokuyou that Maomao had already left the inner court. Meanwhile, Maomao and Lihaku arrive at the Verdigris House. The Madam greets Maomao violently, but seemed interested in Lihaku as a client due to his rising career and youth. She asks for Pairin, one of the Three Princesses, to be brought to him. After Lihaku leaves, the Madam berates Maomao for disappearing for ten months, though Maomao reminds her that she sent her a letter. She gives the Madam some of her wages, but the Madam says that it isn't enough and suggests that Maomao becomes a courtesan. Maomao refuses, on account of her work contract. The Madam then tells her to go visit her father.

Maomao finally returns home to her father, Luomen. The two happily reunite, and Maomao tells Luomen about everything that happened since her kidnapping. When Maomao falls asleep, Luomen muses that it was fate that she ended up in the inner court. The next morning, Maomao wakes to find her father gone. As she goes outside to search the garden, she hears a banging on the door. A young apprentice from another brothel was looking for her father, but when she sees Maomao, she rushes and drags her to her mid-ranking brothel.

There, Maomao finds an apprentice courtesan with two lifeless victims: Her fellow courtesan peer breathing faintly, and a client with no signs of life, both seemingly having ingested poison and the apprentice courtesan already had the female victim vomit some of it out. Maomao then rushes over and attempts to resuscitate the client by administering chest compressions and artificial respiration, while the apprentice courtesan follows the cycle and starts rescue breathing the female victim until she vomits out more poison. Maomao then gives orders to bring some charcoal as she successfully rescues the client by thrusting on his sternum one more time as he vomits the rest of the poison out.

After rinsing the client's poison-laced drool out of her mouth with water given to her by the apprentice courtesan, Maomao later inspects the crime scene, which consists of two decanters of liquor, broken glass, stains of two different colors on the bed, a pipe, straw, and some tobacco. The young apprentice gives her the charcoal and writing tablet she asked for. Maomao writes a message to her father and instructs the apprentice to give it to him, but not before the young apprentice gives a dirty look at her back.

Characters

• Gaoshun
• Jinshi
• Lady Gyokuyou
• Hongniang
• Maomao
• Lihaku
• Three Princesses of the Verdigris House (in Maomao's recollection)
• Unknown apprentice courtesan from competing brothel
• Pairin
• Unknown Verdigris House apprentice courtesan
• The Madam
• The Quack Doctor (in Maomao's recollection)
• Luomen
• Poisoned client
• Poisoned courtesan

Notes

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