Meimei May Have Secretly Loved Lakan in The Apothecary Diaries

Scene Locator

• Volume 2, Chapter 8: Meimei cares for the sick Fengxian and talks about the difficulty of finding a suitable husband as a courtesan.
• Volume 2, Chapter 20: Lakan remembers knowing Meimei as a girl; she opens the window during his choice of a courtesan and later cries beside Fengxian.
• Volume 2, final chapter: Maomao reflects on the woman she hoped Lakan would choose and on Meimei's account of his visits.
• Volume 13, Chapter 12: Maomao learns that a Go master has bought out Meimei's contract after Lakan introduced them.

These are separate scenes, not one continuous confession. Chapter numbers follow the novel's volume structure; the final chapter is listed separately from Chapter 20.

The Short Answer

Meimei may have loved Lakan without expecting him to say it back. The strongest clue is not simply that she welcomes him. It is her grief when Lakan and Fengxian finally reunite: she wishes their story had been resolved before she herself began to hope.

Placed beside Lakan's brief movement toward choosing her, those words suggest a personal future she had started to imagine. Yet the scene does not tell us exactly how much of that hope was romantic love, a wish to leave the Verdigris House, or affection for a man she had known for years. Those motives can overlap.

The careful conclusion is therefore not that Meimei and Lakan were secretly a couple. It is that Meimei may have wanted something he was never truly offering, and still helped him return to the woman he loved.

A History Before the Hope

She Is Not Just Another Customer's Hostess

Lakan remembers Meimei as a young attendant near Fengxian. He sometimes played Go with her, and she became shy when he praised her ability. This establishes a shared past, not proof that a childhood attachment was already romantic.

Years later, Meimei becomes the woman willing to receive him when the Verdigris House is otherwise hostile to him. Familiarity helps explain her sympathy. So does her connection to Fengxian. A later romantic reading has to account for both, rather than treating every act of kindness as a declaration.

Courtesan Courtesy and Personal Feeling Can Coexist

Meimei is skilled at entertaining and reading people. A gracious welcome belongs to her work, but that does not mean every feeling behind it is manufactured. What makes her interesting is the possibility that professional composure allows private attachment to remain unnoticed.

In Chapter 8, she speaks about how difficult it is for a courtesan to find a suitable husband while tending Fengxian. The scene puts care, livelihood, and emotional uncertainty in the same room. It prepares the later disappointment without giving it a simple label.

The Expectation Behind Her Tears

During the redemption scene, Lakan approaches Meimei. His own reasoning is practical: she has treated him kindly, and he thinks he owes her something. He interprets her concern partly as guilt connected to the past. That is Lakan's explanation, not privileged access to Meimei's feelings.

Meimei answers with dignity. She indicates that she would not hesitate if he truly wanted her, but asks him to choose properly. After he finds Fengxian, her composure breaks. Her regret that she had already begun to hope makes the moment more personal than ordinary disappointment over losing a customer.

This is why the hidden-affection reading is persuasive. Meimei seems to lose a possibility at the very moment Fengxian regains one. Still, the novel leaves the contents of that possibility partly unstated. An expected marriage, security, and love need not be three separate desires.

The Window She Opens

Meimei does not merely stand aside while Lakan discovers Fengxian by accident. She opens the courtyard-facing window. Fengxian's singing reaches him, and he runs toward it despite the madam's attempt to stop him.

The action matters more than an imagined confession. Meimei could have let him continue choosing from the women in front of him. Instead, she makes a genuine choice possible by allowing the hidden woman to be heard. If Meimei hopes to be chosen herself, she acts against that hope.

It would be too narrow to call this only romantic self-sacrifice. Fengxian was once the woman she served, and Meimei still cares for her. Loyalty to Fengxian and possible affection for Lakan can explain the same action together. Meimei's sorrow does not cancel her generosity.

Where Lakan's Attention Remains

The Volume 2 final chapter provides an important limit on the romantic interpretation. According to Meimei's account, Lakan's visits center on questions about Maomao and the woman who gave birth to her. When he sits at the Go board, he reconstructs old positions rather than playing new games with Meimei.

His body is in her room, but his attention keeps returning to another history. That contrast makes the possible unrequited affection especially painful: being the person who welcomes him is not the same as being the person he longs for.

The childhood games and the later visits should not be confused. Lakan remembers playing with the young Meimei; the final chapter describes his later visits differently. Nor does Maomao independently verify every detail of Meimei's account. She even wonders whether Meimei is being considerate of her feelings.

Nothing here establishes mutual romance. Lakan chooses Fengxian once he knows she is alive. For a separate, later part of that attachment, see what happens to Lakan in Volume 6. His relationship with Go is also explored in the reason he publishes a Go book, although that later episode is not evidence of a romance with Meimei.

Maomao's Wish Is Not Proof

Maomao thinks Lakan should have chosen Meimei. She imagines Meimei as a capable wife and believes he could give her a comfortable life. She also remembers that Meimei taught her the farewell dance and wanted Maomao to perform it when she left.

These details tell us that Meimei's departure mattered to Maomao. They do not turn Maomao into an all-knowing narrator of Meimei's love life. Her wish includes affection, practical judgment, and her own difficult feelings about her biological parents.

A reader can therefore take Maomao's reaction seriously without treating it as a verdict. Meimei's tears remain the stronger clue to her inner disappointment; Maomao's hopes show how that disappointment affects someone who wants good things for her.

The wider pressure on women at the Verdigris House is explored from another angle in Joka's special yet tragic position. Meimei, too, deserves to be read as a person navigating limited choices, not merely as the unsuccessful rival in someone else's romance.

Meimei's Life Beyond Lakan

Volume 13, Chapter 12 prevents this interpretation from becoming a claim that Meimei waits forever. Maomao learns that a celebrated Go master has bought out her contract. Lakan introduced him to Meimei when the master wanted a good opponent; after visiting for roughly half a year, he proposed the arrangement.

The report also says that he wants to take her as a pupil. Meimei is initially reluctant, and the madam encourages her. This is a later development in which her ability matters, not evidence that every uncertainty in her emotional life has vanished.

There is a quiet irony in Lakan helping make that introduction. The man she may once have hoped would choose her connects her to someone who recognizes her Go skill. We need not invent a confession, a rejection speech, or a plan by Lakan to make amends to see the change in her circumstances.

Meimei's possible love for Lakan is moving because it is not the whole of her life. She can care for Fengxian, entertain a private hope, let that hope hurt, and still have a future beyond it.

FAQ

Does Meimei love Lakan?

Volume 2 gives readers good reason to suspect unspoken affection, especially when Meimei cries about having begun to hope. The scene does not give her an explicit confession naming Lakan, so possible love is a more careful description than confirmed romance.

Does Lakan return Meimei's feelings?

The scenes do not establish that he does. His visits focus on Maomao and Fengxian, and he chooses Fengxian when he discovers she is still alive.

Why does Meimei open the window?

It lets Lakan hear Fengxian singing and find her. The action supports both loyalty to Fengxian and a willingness to let Lakan make an informed choice, even if that means losing her own chance.

Who eventually buys out Meimei's contract?

Volume 13, Chapter 12 reports that a Go master introduced by Lakan does so. He also wishes to take Meimei as a pupil. This later event is distinct from Lakan's choice in Volume 2.