"At it again, I see."
Jinshi His refined face was tinged with sorrow. His delicate features—so fine they could be mistaken for a woman's—framed those narrow, elongated eyes, while his silken hair was bound in cloth, the rest flowing freely down his back.
Keeping the flowers of the court from causing a scene in such a place was unseemly, and quelling such disturbances was one of his duties.
As the crowd began to part, one figure alone approached with an air of complete indifference.
She was a small maidservant, her nose and cheeks peppered with freckles. Nothing else about her appearance stood out, yet the image of her muttering to herself without so much as a glance his way left a lasting impression.
Or so he thought.
The Crown Prince had passed away—and word of this reached them not even a month later.
Wailing, Rifa Consort had grown even thinner than before, and the magnificent rose she had once been called was gone. Was she now afflicted by the same illness as her son, or had her grief simply grown too heavy?
At this rate, she could hardly hope for another child.
The Crown Prince's half-sister, Lingli, Princess, had recovered from her brief illness and now took to comforting the Emperor—bereft of the Crown Prince—alongside her mother.
From the frequency of the Emperor's visits, another child might come soon.
Both the Princess and the Crown Prince had suffered from an illness of unknown origin. One recovered; the other did not.
Perhaps it was a matter of age—even a difference of three months could have a significant impact on an infant's strength.
But what of Consort Rifa?
If the princess had recovered, then surely Consort Rifa should have recovered as well. Or perhaps it was a matter of the mind—the grief of losing her son.
Jinshi turned the thoughts over and over in his mind as he worked through the documents, pressing his seal on each one.
If there was any difference, it would be with Consort Gyokuyou.
"I'll be out for a little while."
After pressing the last seal, Jinshi left the room.
With cheeks like freshly steamed mantou, the princess wore an innocent baby's smile. Her tiny palms were clenched into little fists, and she gripped Jinshi's index finger.
"There, there, say something."
The red-haired beauty gently wrapped her daughter in a swaddle and laid her in a basket.
The baby, feeling hot, kicked off the swaddle and looked toward the visitor, chirping happily in wordless cries.
"It seems you have something you'd like to ask."
The perceptive consort seemed to have sensed Jinshi's intentions.
"Why did the princess recover?"
When he asked point-blank, Consort Gyokuyou let a small smile escape and pulled a piece of cloth from inside her robe.
On the cloth—torn without even using scissors— clumsily written characters had been inscribed. Not because the handwriting was poor, but because it had been written with plant juice, which had smeared and made it difficult to read.
"The face powder is poisonous— do not let the baby touch it."
Was the clumsy handwriting deliberate as well?
Jinshi tilted his head.
「Face powder?」
「Yes.」
Gyokuyou handed the princess off to a maidservant, then pulled something from a drawer.
Wrapped in cloth, it was a ceramic container. When she opened the lid, a fine white powder drifted into the air.
「Face powder?」
「Yes, face powder.」
He pinched a bit between his fingers, wondering what could be special about a powder that was simply white. Come to think of it, Gyokuyou had naturally beautiful skin and never wore face powder, while Rifa had been caking it on to hide her sallow complexion.
「The princess is a greedy little thing, and my milk alone wasn't enough, so I had the wet nurse supplement what I couldn't provide.」
She had hired a woman who had lost her own child shortly after birth, bringing her on as the princess's wet nurse.
「This was what the wet nurse used. She favored it because its whiteness stood out compared to other face powders.」
「And where is this wet nurse now?」
「She seemed to be in poor health, so I gave her leave. I'm sure she received a generous severance as well.」
Those were the words of a consort who was too intelligent and too kind for her own good.
What if there was some poison hidden in the face powder?
If the person using it was the mother, it could affect the fetus, and even after birth, it might find its way into the baby's mouth during nursing.
Neither Jinshi nor Gyokuyou knew what the poison was, but they understood that it was the very substance that had killed the Crown Prince.
「Ignorance is a sin, isn't it? If it's something going into an infant's mouth, I should have been more careful.」
「I'm in the same position.」
As a result, she had lost four of the Emperor's children. And if they counted the ones lost before birth, there might be even more.
「I tried telling Rifa as well, but it seems my words only had the opposite effect.」
Rifa was still caking her sickly, dark-circled face with face powder—doing so without ever knowing it was poison.
Jinshi looked at the undyed scrap of cloth. Strangely, it felt familiar somehow, as though he had seen it somewhere before.
The clumsy handwriting could also have been an attempt to disguise one's true script. Still, there was something distinctly feminine about the characters.
「Who on earth would put something like this together?」
「It was that day, when I told the physician to examine my daughter. After it was all over and we'd troubled you for nothing, it was left sitting by the window.」
Mountain Laurel "...tied to the branch of."
So perhaps someone who noticed something because of that commotion had offered advice.
But who, exactly?
"The court physicians wouldn't do something so roundabout."
"No. They didn't seem to know what to do about the Crown Prince even at the very end."
That commotion from back then.
Come to think of it, he recalled hearing that among the rubberneckers, there had been one maidservant who kept her distance.
She had been muttering something under her breath.
What was she saying?
"Is there... any sort of written message?"
Suddenly, something clicked in his mind.
A soft chuckle escaped. A celestial beauty's alluring smile surfaced.
"Lady Gyokuyou, if we find the author of this letter, what would you do?"
"Why, they'd be a benefactor. I simply must express my gratitude."
"Understood. May I hold on to this for a while?"
"I'll look forward to good news."
Jinshi let his fingers trace the pleasant fabric as memories resurfaced.
"If it's a wish of the favored consort, then I shall certainly have to find them."
Added to the celestial beauty's smile was the innocent excitement of a child searching for treasure.