The Apothecary Diaries - LN 15 

The Apothecary Diaries Volume 15 by Natsu Hyuuga, Illustrations by Touko Shino. Translated by Kevin Steinbach. Published by J-Novel Club.

With this volume, we're pretty much caught up with the Apothecary Diaries series. While Volume 16 was released in May in Japan, it takes time for J-Novel to license and translate the series. I'm glad we caught up, but it sucks because this was such a short volume and I'm always hungry for more precious Maomao antics. 

This was a short volume dealing with not the impending smallpox plague, but a different medical crisis entirely. I'm really interested in the medical aspects of the series, and this volume delivered on that aspect.

Maomao is basically a resident at this point, as she's been assigned a new post to help with an ongoing drug trial. Everyone is curious as to why this is happening, but Maomao quickly figures out that a VIP must be ill with the same illness that they're testing the drugs for. I really loved the scenes that go in-depth on how they must prepare to treat this VIP, and even prepare for death if they fail. 

I was even wondering if their diagnosis was correct in the initial parts of the story, but there is a very interesting twist there. 

Tianyu has been pushed as Maomao's foil in surgery, and I was expecting him to really show his stuff here. Let's just say that his actions in this book will leave the reader just as disappointed as Maomao was (haha). 

There was also some further character development with Ah Duo, the Emperor, and Gaoshun. Even 15 volumes in, I'm impressed that we're learning so much about the characters and seeing all the different facets of their personality. It's a treat to see. 

Ahead are spoiler thoughts for people who have already read this book: 

I find the Emperor's relationship with Ah Duo quite interesting. He clearly loves her, but also simultaneously does and doesn't regret trapping her into this relationship. She doesn't forgive him, but she still cares about him too. They have an interesting dynamic, and it was also quite heartwarming to see Ah Duo so happy to see her own son (Jinshi) not make the same mistakes as his father. 

I was honestly so exasperated with Tianyu when he refused to operate on the Emperor because it was "boring" (he was expecting the Emperor to be divine in some way). It's perfectly in character, but I also agree with Maomao threatening to cut off his fingers LOL.

I'm also trying something new with spoiler text, since I want to incorporate more spoiler thoughts into my posts in a smoother way. Hopefully it works well!