The Apothecary Diaries - Vol. 8 Ch. 38 - Balsam and Wood Sorrel (Part 2)

[himi-cat]

I think there are two reasons why Maomao dislikes Rakan so much. The first is the way he treated her when he first discovered her - he went way overboard and freaked her out. And then he spent years afterwards continuing to go overboard with her, embarrassing her, annoying her, etcetera. So she had an unfavourable first impression, which was then reinforced by subsequent experience.

He's not a bad person, but he's definitely not easy to deal with - it's a running joke pretty much from this point on in the story (not a spoiler - it's pretty obvious from the get go that he's difficult). His main redeeming feature in that sense is how much he cares about Maomao, but from her perspective that just manifests as a whole lot of him getting in the way of how she wants to live her life.

 

[Anstelon]

The lyrics on the TL Notes are incorrectly translated, because you definitely don't shake a baby, lol.

Rock-ah, Rock-ah, Rock,
Rock all the way to Grandma's Bridge
Grandma* said I was a good baby**
Asked me if my mother was well,
I said my mother was well.

The song is about a mother rocking a baby/ toddler to sleep.
Rocking that baby/toddler all the way to Grandma's home by a bridge. The entire song actually says it is a tiny house by the bridge.

* This is the grandma on the mother's side.
** The term used in place of "baby" in the song is "Treasure", as young children are the treasure of the family.

Shake and shake, shake me to Grandma's lake.
Grandma praised me that I've behaved,
Asked me whether Mom's been treating me great,
I said I have no complaints

From a dead baby's perspective. He got shaken and then drowned at grandma's lake by his mother. His dead grandmother asks the innocent baby if mom's been treating him well? Why, of course. lol

 

[moozooh]

@VermillionOcean
She had wanted to cut it off but evidently only lacerated the inner part of her nail, so it warped a little. When I was a kid I accidentally did a similar thing by walking down the river stream and unknowingly shoving my bare foot into a broken bottle. Since then my toenail has been a little warped but the finger itself is intact. It's the same story here; at no point did we see Mao Mao having a missing or disfigured pinky on her left hand—only the nail itself. There's a close-up in chapter 36.2, page 16.

 

[Yanagi]

That was a good redemption arc

Unfortunate that her mind's deteriorated

 

[havyzarre]

😭😭😭 I'm not crying, I'm not...

 

[VermillionOcean]

@moozooh
No, it was the tip of the pinkie. Take a closer look at the image on page 20 and you can see the nail is attached to the flesh.

Also relevant excerpts from the WN:

Spoiler

Upon opening it, there were two things wrapped in dirty paper – twigs or clay or something, he had no idea. One was very small. When he picked it up, he felt like he was going to crush it.

When he identified that there was something attached to the end of the small twig, he finally realised what it was.

He had ten of those on his hands. He was too slow to realise.

Pinky promise. He heard that curse was popular.

Maomao lifted her left hand and looked at the tip of her pinky. “Jinshi-sama, did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Even if you cut off the tip of your finger, you can grow it back. If it’s just the tip.”

 

[ansnurm]

iM CRYING DAMN IT. I THOUGHT THE FATHER DOESN'T HAVE ANY FEELING FOR MAOMAO AND HER MOTHER BUT NOW I CAN FEEL THE PAIN 😭

 

[baskinbobin]

what a perfect build-up story

 

[moozooh]

@VermillionOcean
Lol'd at "just the tip". Well, okay then.

 

[mrjacky]

It seem to rain quite heavy in here

 

[lajza]

I'm still trying to process what's going on. My mind is still all jumbled up from the last chapter.

 

[toluenocz]

T.T

 

[Someone2Love]

Omg, finally, a fated reunion even though it's so sad. 😢

 

[Sparrow75]

DAMN THIS DIDNT HAPPEN IN THE WN
I WAS NOT EXPECTIGN THIS DAMN

 

[Yoshiko09]

My eyes are sweating. I'm happy they reunited but I guess her disease is mostly incurable since the disease must have got to her brain or something.Rakan really loves his wife and daughter but I guess Mao Mao hates him because he can be too over whelming and getting in the way. but still I'm happy now that they're together again

 

[nyanpass]

can someone give me a recap on what happened? Rakan thought Maomao's mother had died and sent him his finger and Maomao thought he abandoned her? It was just a misunderstanding?

 

[rokegle135]

@nyanpass mother took dick wasn't a virgin anymore so her price plummeted so she became a legitimate prostitute in the brothel and the dude went off to war some s*** for three years came back grandma told the dude that his girl was dead

 

[Aria321]

Thanks for the chapter ! =D

 

[PostImpressionism]

@rokegle135 not quite. Her price plummetted due to her pregnancy. All the courtesians (except Mao Mao) engage in sexual activity quite frequently. From there, she lost her mind and ruined her body, but had nowhere to go so basically got trapped in the brothel as some girl with no value.

 

[PostImpressionism]

@nyanpass Rakan and the lady fell in love. However, he was unable to get her out at the time. So, they made a promise, stating he will get her out with any means possible. As such, he got her pregnant, plummeting her price so that he could afford it, but was sent to wage war for 3 years before he could.
As soon as he was discharged, he rushed back in order to try and get her out, but she had lost her mind and body by then, so the grandma simply lied to him and hid her. He finds out that Mao Mao is his daughter, but can't do anything to make either of their lives better.