Status Updates From The Apothecary Diaries: Vol...

good grief I can’t. gaoshun looks spectacular in that end illustration 😼

gosh I loved this book a lot 🥲 why is it over

Their conversation, along with their meal, wound on slowly. Maomao should have been starving, but she found herself strangely sated, and her chopsticks moved at a glacial pace. Jinshi, likewise, started tearing little bits off the bean bun.
The feast gradually went cold, yet somehow they still enjoyed eating it.
It was, Maomao thought, an unusually serene moment.

awww my babiesss 🥹💗

The round table filled with food, and Maomao's stomach growled.
"Miss Maomao, Miss Chue hopes you'll leave enough for her," Chue said—she was even hungrier than Maomao.
"You, over here," said Taomei, grabbing Chue by the collar. "You look liable to eat this whole thing!"
"Noooo! My feast!"
Taomei dragged Chue off somewhere.

LMAOO my feast chue pls 😭

"Yurgh!" he exclaimed.
"'Yurgh'? What's that mean?" Maomao asked.
"Young Master, what crass behavior," Suiren said gently.
"Master Jinshi, would you like something to eat?"
After a second he said, "Yeah..."
"And while you're at it, perhaps you could bless me with a meal as well? I'm very, very hungry."
"Eat your fill," he replied.
"Thank you, sir.

Maomao locked in on securing her meal LMAO real

It was felt that the Emperor's doctors could hardly eat better than he did, so every meal that was presented to them was pathetic stuff like that. If Dr. Liu and Luomen hadn't smuggled in some snacks for them when they came to do their exams, the postsurgical team might have started to suffer from malnutrition.
Food time, food time!

awww so sweet 🥹💗 and suiren & auntie liu becoming bfs aw

"People speak of the jade body, but yes, it's made of flesh. And I don't bleed gold, but regular red blood."
"Ho ho ho ho ho!" Maomao said-the closest thing to a laugh she could manage with her face twitching so hard.
How calm and collected is he that he could stay silent and wait through everything that was happening?!

Heeeelp no fr omg with all that chaos

"I’ll be going, then!" Suiren said and left the room.
Maomao made to follow her, but the Emperor said, "Lakan's daughter. Maomao, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir." Maomao halted and turned around.
"If I should die, will I be nothing but a lump of meat?"
Maomao almost choked, and sweat started pouring off of her.

HELPPPP DONT TELL ME HE HEARD HER LMFAO 💀

ughh I love suiren LOLL the only one who rlly can back up all that talk to him

aww auntie liu

"Okay, yes, fine work," said Auntie Liu, hustling the nearly immobile Maomao from where she had collapsed in the hallway. While Auntie Liu hadn't been directly involved in the surgery, there was the distinct sense that without her, things would not have gone nearly so well. She was just that talented a helper.
Maomao remembered Auntie Liu wrapping her arms around her and dragging her away.
After that, nothing.

damn even auntie liu came in guys 😭 how many people entering and exiting this operating room 😭

I can do this.
"Hullo. Trade out, if you please."
Maomao's attempts to psych herself up were interrupted by a breezy voice. A man was standing next to her, and the coverings around his mouth and head couldn't conceal the intense curiosity in his eyes.
"What are you here for, Tianyu?"
"You were always nasty to me, Niangniang, but now you've given up even the pretense of being polite."

Can you blame her

Maomao felt his weight slump against her; she struggled to hold him up, but he fell to his knees.
"Are you all right?!" Senior Wang Wang ex-claimed, helping Luomen up.
"Do pardon me..."
Luomen was white as a sheet. He was pushing himself, and they all knew it. His hand was trembling.

Luomen omg.

"My given name is also Wang, sir. A different character."
"Ah, I see. I'll remember that."
Wang Wang...
In that moment, Maomao learned Tall Senior's name. She found it inspired an unexpected sense of closeness to him.

hmmm this gotta be a clue for something. hmm how old is he? could he lowkey be someone she recommends to hongniang 😼??

"Hey, what about me?" Tianyu asked, obviously
puzzled.
"We don't need you," said not Luomen, but Mao-mao. "You'll just get in the way. You can stay out here sucking your thumb. It's the only thing your hand is good for if you're not willing to do surgery with it.”
She was careful not to raise her voice, but she was angry—of course she was. He vexed her to no end.

TELL EM MAOMAO!!! aggravating!!!

ain’t no way tianyu ✋🏽😭

oh sht maomao you’re rt. too zen too fast

AWWW stop 😭 maomao changing the plans to go out to eat noodles lowkey to include jinshi 🥹💗

"I told you, stop assuming I'm going to die," Yoh said, but he got out a writing set. "I see your handwriting is still awful."
"Pipe down."
So Ah-Duo and Yoh began writing his will, bantering like children of ten.
Yoh was Heaven, and Ah-Duo was human. Yet they could, at least, act as if they were friends.

😭😭😭😭😭✋🏽

"Maomao and her adoptive father are helping with the surgery. If it doesn't work out, you'll find yourself with the La clan for enemies."
"Stop, stop! Lakan gave me enough trouble for banishing his uncle."
"He won't give you any trouble when those doctors mess up, because you won't be in this world anymore."
>>

"Not going to write your will after all?"
"I don't plan to die."
"Write it anyway. At least put down that it's no
crime if the physicians fail."
Ah-Duo let Yoh go.
"Why, you're assuming they’ll kill me!" He gave her a sulky look like someone much younger than he was.

>>

What an emperor needed was not kindness, but compassion, something that flowed from high to low. A ruler who saw himself as equal to his subjects would grow ill—and Yue had shown that he refused to involve the person who might cure that illness.

my heart is on the floor 😭

Yoh was trying to raise his head; Ah-Duo did everything she could not to let him. "No, I'll be with you until the end. The baggage in my pavilion is too heavy for anyone else to carry."
"In exchange," she whispered softly in his ear, "just let Yue do as he wishes. I'll listen to you complain all you like. Until my very bones creak."
Ah-Duo knew what hubris her request represented.

😭😭

"Listen. I have a favor to ask." Ah-Duo let go of Yoh's beard and wrapped her arms around his neck instead. She leaned in close to him, her palms picking up some of the whitening powder on his skin. "TIl vacate our promise myself."
"You mean you'll leave me?"
>>>

"Ah-Duo... If you had become a merchant, could you have been my friend?"
"If you had allowed me to supply the Imperial court, I would have been very friendly indeed."
"Ha ha ha." Yoh's eyes narrowed, his face crinkling as he laughed.
>>>

"I didn't want to let you go anywhere," he said.
"So I tried to keep my promise."
"A promise that benefits no one? Even though you knew I didn't really want to be mother of the nation?”
"That's right."
As Heaven, Yoh possessed, owned, the human called Ah-Duo.

🎶 it’s funny. I had big dreams till I tied myself to you 🎶
BUT AH DUO NEVER EVEN DID THE TYING 😭 IM IN AGONY!!!

free my women

"You would have left me here and never come back."
"What does it matter if I'd stayed or if I'd gone? Without an order from you, I would never even see you, would I, Yoh?"

AGONYYY-DUO 😭