It was on one of her rare days off that she learned there really was something else going on behind the scenes.
She'd been told not to come and go too often, but she couldn't stop worrying about the situation in the flower district. Slipping out of the dormitory, she quietly made her way to Ryokuseikan.
The letter had said there was nothing particularly alarming, and that seemed to be the case. The daytime establishment was leisurely and relaxed, with Baldy busy sweeping the entrance and Bad Brat playing with the cat Mao Mao.
"Freckles!!"
Still clutching Mao Mao, Chou U came running up. Mao Mao squirmed wildly, kicked Chou U in the stomach, and broke free to scramble behind Maomao.
It seemed Mao Mao still remembered Maomao, more or less. Maomao picked up the little furball and set it on top of the wall, whereupon Mao Mao promptly scampered off. What an ungrateful little furball. She half-wished it would bring back some rare medicinal herbs as a thank-you.
"Hey, what's the deal with you never coming back?"
"I've been working. Can't be helped."
Maomao pushed Chou U away with a hand on his head, looking thoroughly annoyed as he tried to throw his arms around her.
(Hmm?)
He hadn't grown at all, had he? Maomao studied Chou U. He'd probably been playing outside every day—his skin was a bit tanned. His front teeth had filled in properly, and he'd lost some of that dopey look.
"Is Sazen around?"
She was asking about the pharmacist apprentice.
"Yeah, he's with One-Eye right now."
Koyou seemed to be there too.
Maomao greeted the familiar courtesans in passing and stepped into the medicine shop being borrowed out of Ryokuseikan.
"Mm, the key is to grind it carefully, thoroughly, and evenly. Because if it's even slightly lopsided when you mix it, the efficacy of the pills goes down."
"Hmm."
Kokuyou was carefully instructing Sazen, who was grinding powder with a mortar and pestle. He seemed to be doing his job properly, which was commendable, but watching two guys crammed together working in the tiny medicine shop was just plain ugly.
He seemed aware of the heat — the windows and doors were wide open for good ventilation — but that too was a problem.
It reeked.
Several courtesans were watching the two men chatting up close with smirking grins. Kokuyou would have been considered handsome if he just covered half his face, and Sazen had a plain, unremarkable face but wasn't exactly ugly.
Ryokuseikan didn't deal in male prostitutes, so this was apparently quite entertaining for the courtesans.
Completely oblivious to being watched like that, Maomao boldly pushed her way past the two and headed toward the back.
"Doesn't seem to be any problems."
"Mm, everything's being handled, yessir."
Kokuyou replied in his usual idiotic tone.
"No, it's actually pretty rough,"
Sazen said with a slightly resentful look.
"I'm glad there don't seem to be any particular problems."
"Hey, listen to what I'm saying!"
Even if she listened, he'd just grumble and whine about it. Sazen was quite the nag.
Maomao quickly surveyed the medicine shop, checking whether anything unusual had been added or anything was running low.
"What's this?"
It wasn't medicine, but something she'd never seen before was sitting on the shelf. It looked like a thin rice cracker — it could pass for a sweet snack.
Dim sum?
Or was it?
"Ah, that. It looked like a medicine that doesn't exist here, so I tried making it."
Kokuyou picked up a thin cracker and placed some crushed medicine on top.
"This is how you take it. Or you dissolve it, soften it, wrap it up, and swallow it."
"Oh. First time I've seen that."
Maomao nodded in genuine admiration. There was the old saying that good medicine tastes bitter, but bitterness was also a reason people avoided buying medicine altogether. Maomao had been mixing honey and the like into doses to make them palatable, but honey was a luxury item in its own right. If you could swallow without letting the medicine touch your tongue, there was no need to worry about the taste.
"But isn't that hard to swallow?"
"Right. I wouldn't recommend it for children or the elderly."
He shook the water pitcher as if to say he had water ready as well.
"Apparently, it's actually a pretty common way of taking medicine in the Western regions. I heard it's because their race tends to produce more saliva."
"...You know a lot about this."
Maomao's eyes brightened slightly.
"Come to think of it, where did you learn medicine? It can't be that you're self-taught."
It was obvious from how solid his fundamentals were—he'd been watching Kokuyou teach Sazen earlier.
"Haha. Well, the person who took me in was from a Western country. Golden hair, and very thick beard and body hair."
"From the Sand欧?"
"Hmm, maybe someone from even farther west?"
Maomao was not uninterested in that story.
"Can you speak their language?"
"A little bit."
"Where is your foster parent now?"
Ideally, Maomao would have liked to meet and talk with them, if at all possible.
"Ah, they're dead. From this."
Kokuyou pointed to the pockmarks on his face as he spoke.
"I see."
A slight sense of regret crossed her mind. It was not uncommon for doctors to fall ill and die. Rather, it was more common than not. Above all, they were the ones who spent the most time around the sick.
"Sorry to interrupt when things are getting interesting, but—"
Sazen, who had been lingering outside the mosquito net, poked Maomao.
"You're being called over there."
In the direction Sazen pointed, the Old Woman and Rahan were there.
She was taken to the usual room for their clandestine meetings.
The thing about the Old Woman was that the more valuable the return gift, the more luxurious the room became. Today's sweets were above average. Incidentally, whenever Rahan's adoptive father came to visit, he was apparently served nothing but a chipped bowl full of plain water.
"I heard you had today off, so I wondered if you'd be here — glad you are."
"No, you definitely scouted the place out first."
That was Rahan — always thorough and well-prepared.
"Anyway, enough with the preamble. Let's get straight to business. I'm busy over here."
"But you were just chatting away normally a moment ago."
"Somehow, just talking to you feels like a complete waste of time."
"'You'? What's with the attitude? Call me Big Brother."
This back-and-forth had gone on long enough. She wanted to move things along.
"So, the errand — it's about the court lady assigned to the physician, right?"
"I appreciate you getting straight to it."
Rahan was cautious by nature.
Yao and Yanyan had both been thoroughly vetted — their backgrounds investigated, their personalities checked for any issues — yet even so, they apparently couldn't just jump straight into the main topic.
"I want to check on the condition of Sai's Oracle, but there's something else on my mind."
"What do you mean?"
Maomao tilted her head.
"What if the Oracle isn't really an Oracle?"
"Don't be coy with the information — just lay it out directly."
Maomao picked up a steamed bun and broke it in half. Finding sweet bean paste inside, she clicked her tongue and ate only half, setting the rest on Rahan's plate.
(Plain or meat-filled would've been better.)
Maomao wasn't particularly fond of sweets. Unfortunately, the shrewd old woman prioritized Rahan's tastes over hers.
"You heard the conditions for being an Oracle, right? Limited to girls who haven't had their first period."
"Yes. But in reality, some women never have one at all."
It was rare, but you couldn't call it abnormal.
However.
"What if that Oracle had actually borne a child?"
"..."
Maomao's face twitched.
"The entire premise flips."
"...When was this?"
"Apparently the Oracle once fell ill and recuperated at a location far from the Sa'ou capital. About twenty years ago, for several years."
She suddenly recalled when the traveling painter had glimpsed the white-skinned beauty. There weren't exactly many white-skinned women around, and an important figure like an Oracle wouldn't have been someone a traveling artist would normally encounter.
But if she had been recuperating in the countryside, it made sense.
And if that Oracle had given birth during that time...
"Is there a chance a white-skinned Oracle could produce a white-skinned daughter?"
"I'd say only slightly more likely than what would occur naturally."
But if the father were also an albino, it would be almost certain.
If the Oracle had indeed borne a child, the problems it raised were more than one.
"Could that child be Bai Niangniang?"
Rahan smiled eerily.
"Honestly, I can't say for certain, but it fits. Bai Niangniang is currently locked away in confinement. But she refuses to divulge whose orders she was following."
It made sense that they were being so cautious toward Bai Niangniang.
Somehow, Bai Niangniang—the daughter of the current priestess—had caused trouble in a foreign land. From Shaoh's perspective, her very existence must have been nothing but a nuisance.
However, there might be someone who saw this as convenient.
Ailin —if the political enemy who expelled her had known that fact.
"Does Ailin know about this?"
"She does. But according to her own words, she claims to be on the priestess's side."
Claims to be—that was what made it truly frightening. In politics, you never knew who might become your enemy and when. But their interests aligned. In other words, Ailin must have known they were holding Bai Niangniang, and that was why she had entered the rear palace.
(This is getting complicated.)
There were plenty of things that didn't add up. Claiming to be on the priestess's side while freely telling foreign nationals about Bai Niangniang—wasn't that a huge problem for Shaoh?
(There are probably all sorts of things going on, but...)
There were many things someone politically naive like Maomao couldn't understand. But she did grasp one thing: they couldn't simply execute Bai Niangniang. For now, that much was enough to understand.
"If I'm not making myself clear, perhaps this will help?"
Rahan seemed to read Maomao's thoughts.
"If the priestess's daughter turns out to be Bai Niangniang, then as long as we're protecting her, we'll have earned the priestess's gratitude. At the same time, as long as we have Bai Niangniang in our custody, it serves as leverage against Ailin and a check on whoever has been wielding more influence than the priestess. And if we believe Ailin's story, Bai Niangniang was being used by some political enemy or other."
So Bai Niangniang was the key to this whole diplomatic affair. Maomao's face twisted.
"Of course, I can't very well go into this much detail."
And who would he be telling? Yao and Yanyan.
"That still doesn't give you the right to drag me into this."
She felt an overwhelming urge to smash his glasses.
"Honestly, if you hadn't passed, I really wouldn't have known what to do. I'd have had no choice but to ask the Jade Noble for help, but given the circumstances, that would have been terribly troublesome."
The Jade Noble— Cuiling —was that who they meant? If they were going to use someone who officially didn't exist, they'd have to fabricate an identity from scratch. They could probably pass her off as some official's daughter, but her true background would be the real problem.
Maomao had been worried about what identity they'd assign her for the exam, so she'd asked them in advance to treat her as the adopted daughter of her foster father, Luomen. With Luomen now working as a proper court physician, having him as her family connection caused no problems at all.
"But now you're saying I have to go all the way to Sassou? The western capital alone was miserable enough."
She had no idea how long a round trip would take.
"No, that part's not a problem."
Rahan said, picking at a steamed bun Maomao had split in half.
"The priestess will come to the capital."
"What!?"
Maomao's voice was laced with fury.
Rahan, startled, choked on the bun in his throat and washed it down with tea.
"What do you mean? You're going to make someone who needs medical treatment travel all that way?"
Maomao said through clenched teeth.
Rahan, a drop of tea still clinging to the corner of his mouth, coolly raised a palm to silence her.
"That's politics. For Sassou too —"
"Li —"
"this country plays a great role. They'd certainly want to show their faces at a grand ceremony."
"A grand ceremony?"
"Haven't you heard? The official consort has been chosen, and her child will be named Crown Prince. Lady Gyokuyou's family will be formally granted a 'name.' They're a powerful consort's family near the border. Sassou would want to look good too."
"Oh."
In Li, there were several noble families known as "name holders." The lineages of princes had perished and the name holders had dwindled, but if the consort's birth family became one, there should be no issue.
With the Crown Prince's debut to boot, it would likely become quite a lavish affair.
(Because every Crown Prince until now had been a child who died young.)
They had all passed away before any ceremony could be held.
The current Crown Prince was still not even a year old, but perhaps that part of it was tangled up with political matters.
"Even though it's a long journey, Sassou has a major sea route. If you ride the seasonal winds, you'll get there far faster than overland."
"Even so—"
She worried that if something went wrong in a foreign country, the blame would be heaped on her. Welcoming a dignitary from another nation came with such drawbacks. For political rivals, that might have been exactly the point.
But if things went well, they could forge a strong connection with the Sand Countries.
"You might not want to do it, but it has to be done. That's why I'm asking you like this."
"......"
Maomao sulked as she drank her cold tea.
Now that she'd heard the request, she couldn't very well pretend she hadn't.
"By the way, the one who came up with this was Lord Jinshi."
(That bastard.)
Maomao nearly blurted it out but just barely stopped herself.
Jinshi, too, couldn't afford to be picky given his position. But she wished he'd know what it felt like to have someone impose on him like this.
"There will be special compensation, right?"
"Leave the negotiations on that part to me."
Rahan's glasses glinted as he thumped his chest. That was the one thing she could count on him for most.