Some coincidence or other, Maomao was at Jinshi's palace.
"Alright, alright, dinner isn't ready yet. I've already prepared everything, though."
Suiren even went so far as to start preparing meals like some doting aunt.
There were plenty of dishes Maomao wanted to gobble up right away, but she had to maintain a modicum of decorum. She wasn't the host, and she couldn't exactly dig in ravenously in front of royalty.
She often ended up eating first in her capacity as a food taster, but judging by today's spread, they were clearly meant to eat together.
Jinshi took a sip of his porridge.
"...You may eat."
(I've been waiting for you to say that!)
Having received Jinshi's go-ahead, Maomao helped herself to the porridge first. The broth was rich with the flavor of chicken, with rice and meat floating throughout.
Jinshi stared intently at Maomao as he sipped his pre-dinner wine.
"How has work been lately?"
Maomao swallowed the food in her mouth.
"No changes on my end."
"None on mine either."
(None on yours either, huh.)
For Maomao, Yao and Yanyan As for Yu, it meant there had been a change, but there was no need to correct anyone about it.
She wouldn't bother saying, "No, I wasn't asking about you."
Jinshi looked like he wanted to talk about something but couldn't figure out what to say.
(You don't have to force yourself to make conversation.)
Maomao ate in silence, recalling that the official purpose of this visit was to check on the Imperial Prince's condition. She chewed thoroughly on a soup dumpling overflowing with broth, then set down her chopsticks.
"You seem to be in good health, Jinshi."
He had always looked exhausted from overwork, but that no longer seemed to be the case.
"Indeed. I've got a subordinate who'll lighten my workload, even though you hate the idea."
"Ha ha ha. If we're talking about the man with the tiger character in his name, let's arrange a convenient accident — for the future, of course."
Maomao despised Korou.
"Don't, don't. As it is, Sparrow is already trying to do away with him at every opportunity."
(Hang in there, Sparrow.)
Maomao picked up her chopsticks and pinched a piece of pickled vegetable.
"Besides, he's quite useful for intelligence work and such."
"Is that so~? What a shame."
Maomao munch-munched on her pickled vegetables.
"You seem to be in good health too, Maomao."
"Well, the job that was making my stomach ache is finally over."
"I see. Has anything unusual happened?"
"Come to think of it, I did receive a letter from a friend from my days in the rear palace."
"...A friend of yours, you say... Then it must be the girl who used to attend the writing school."
"Yes. You remember well."
She wondered whether Xiaolan's attendance at the writing school was of any use to her current life.
"Can you say for certain she learned her letters well enough to send a letter?"
"Yes. But she always forgets to write where she is, so they can never send anything back."
Jinshi stroked his chin with a hum.
"Shall I look into it?"
"No, please leave it be."
Maomao took a sip of tea.
"Why is that?"
"I'll reply once. I'll write, 'Don't contact me in the pleasure district. Strange rumors will start,' and that will have to be the end of it."
Letters were not something one sent to a brothel in the first place.
"You could arrange a different address to send them to, surely."
"Wouldn't that just mean more work for Suzu?"
As long as Xiaolan seemed happy, that was enough. If Maomao got involved, Xiaolan would likely end up under some form of surveillance too. Her letters would be censored, and Maomao's replies would have to be nothing but safe, inoffensive things. If Xiaolan was living peacefully, then the right answer was for Maomao not to associate with her.
There were simply too many things Maomao could not let slip casually—the Emperor's surgery, the smallpox, and more.
At the same time, she was conscious of the wrong she had done Xiaolan.
Maomao did not want to reply because she wanted to keep knowing Xiaolan's carefree, ordinary days as they were. Until the day Xiaolan gave up and stopped writing altogether.
"...Have you heard anything about the smallpox, Lord Jinshi?"
Even with Jinshi, she had to choose her words carefully.
"Kurou is looking into various things about the smallpox right now. Apparently they still don't know the route of infection."
"Yes."
Among the things the court physicians discussed, there were matters understood tacitly to be off-limits for casual conversation. Jinshi had taken that into account as well when he used the phrase 'route of infection.' "
Keyou —I heard that a man called Keyou is suspected. They say he deliberately infected children with smallpox and spread it."
"So you know that much."
"Is he the culprit?"
Maomao slowly shook her head.
"It's not impossible, but there's no reason for him to do it."
"Then who do you think the culprit is?"
"You want me to speculate?"
"It's not speculation—it's deduction."
Jinshi had the look of someone wanting her to solve a harem-era mystery. How insensitive, Maomao thought, crossing her arms.
"Targeting children and infecting them with smallpox. What they're doing looks the same as what Keyou did, but there's a difference."
"What's the difference?"
"Keyou would have chosen a time when the children were healthy so their smallpox wouldn't become severe. But the culprit is attacking children who are complete strangers. Also, since these are random attacks, there's no way to observe the aftermath."
Maomao spoke as if organizing her thoughts.
"...It felt like a half-baked imitation."
"Imitation of what?"
"Imitation of a doctor, perhaps. Just tracing the surface without understanding what they're actually doing—it felt like children playing pretend."
"Playing pretend, eh? So someone was trying to administer treatment to prevent people from catching smallpox, but they botched it because they were just copying what they'd seen?"
"That's what I thought, but I can't imagine there are people who know that much about smallpox treatment. The villagers Keyou treated are almost all dead, apparently. ...Hmm?"
"What is it?"
"Come to think of it, someone mentioned that one adult from the village survived."
Maomao slapped her forehead. She thought it was something Yu had said, but her memory was fuzzy.
"If you ask the court lady named Yu, you might find out."
She had the feeling Yu had said something about it. Maomao nibbled on her pickles again. The salt level was just right, making her want to keep eating whatever was there.
"But this Keyou you keep mentioning—what kind of person is he?"
(Oh?)
Maomao wondered whether Jinshi had ever actually met him. When you dealt with all sorts of people day in and day out, it was easy to lose track of who knew whom and how far those connections went.
"He's a man with a smallpox scar across half his face—cheerful to an almost unsettling degree, but his knowledge of medicine is quite solid. Also, he's rather tightfisted when it comes to money."
"Knowledge of medicine, you say. And he's not a court physician, apparently?"
"No, he's a wandering doctor. Whether it's some misfortune of his constitution, he seems to drift from place to place. Come to think of it, he was asking all sorts of questions about horses and cows the other day."
"Horses and cows? Does that have anything to do with medicine?"
"Probably, I'd imagine."
Maomao was curious about it herself.
"I'm curious as well, so if Keyou puts in a request of some sort, would it be possible for me to go along?"
"I'll see that the word gets through, vaguely."
"Thank you."
Maomao bowed her head.
No matter what they talked about, their conversations inevitably veered toward work—that was a bad habit shared by Maomao and Jinshi.
But they didn't have much in common when it came to hobbies or tastes, so there was no helping it.
That said, Jinshi had been eating the stall food with evident relish, the noodles in particular. His palate, it seemed, extended to common street fare as well.
Maomao reached for her own noodles. The broth was deeply seasoned and delicious.
"Oh, speaking of which, Suzume mentioned there was a stall that serves really good knife-shaved noodles."
"Knife-shaved noodles. From a stall."
For Jinshi, it was something he might want to eat but couldn't. The imperial brother couldn't just wander around town and eat from street stalls. He'd have to borrow a servant's clothes again and scrub off every trace of his distinctive scent.
Even so, the scar on his right cheek was far too conspicuous for the kind of casual strolls he used to take. And if he tried to hide it by making it look like a burn, that would only draw more attention.
During his time as Eunuch Jinshi, his face had been known to everyone inside the inner palace, but no one outside in the streets had recognized him.
Now that the imperial brother's face had become known throughout the capital, he couldn't simply throw on a disguise and amble about at will.
"Shall I ask if they do takeout?"
"The noodles would go soggy and cold. Besides, what makes them so good is slurping them down piping hot in the cold air."
"My, you certainly know your eating habits."
Maomao glanced toward Suirei. The old woman, despite her age, would surely insist on practicing shaving noodles with a blade.
"Please call me when Lady Suirei learns to make knife-shaved noodles."
"I understand. Though you'll be called in for other reasons as well, you know."
"Yes."
Maomao thought, while finishing the last of the pickled vegetables, that she would need to write up a report.
*The Imperial Brother is in good health.*