The spring garden party was held among the spring peonies.
Normally, it would have taken place a bit earlier, but with the cold weather continuing to claim casualties one after another, this was how things ended up.
It would have been better to hold it sooner, but changing tradition was no easy feat.
In the garden, red carpets had been laid out, with long tables and chairs arranged in rows.
The band was nervously waiting their turn, polishing and tending to their instruments.
Attendants bustled about checking that no preparations were amiss, while young military officers stroked their still-thin mustaches and watched the proceedings with amusement.
Screens had been set up behind them as partitions, and behind them, someone was making a commotion.
A gaunt, diminutive lady-in-waiting was carrying an enormous flower vase.
What had been arranged inside were roses of every color—a season still too early for them, roses, but there they were.
"Did you really pull it off?"
Jinshi gazed at the flowers, whose buds had not yet fully opened. The colors spanned red, yellow, white, pink, blue—and not just those, but even black, purple, and green. They had said they would create blue roses, but who could have imagined they would turn out this magnificent?
What on earth is going on?—Jinshi blinked in confusion.
"As expected, it was quite difficult. They didn't quite manage to bloom."
Maomao said this with genuine disappointment.
Those words stemmed less from guilt toward Jinshi than from sheer frustration at her own powerlessness. Jinshi knew perfectly well what kind of girl she was—he knew, and yet it still grated on him.
It truly grated on him.
"No, this is more than enough."
Jinshi plucked a single rose. Droplets dripped from the stem.
"Hm?"
Jinshi felt something was amiss, but decided it didn't matter and returned the rose to the vase.
Still, for a blue rose, it had bloomed quite spectacularly.
Jinshi left the girl on the verge of collapsing from overwork to the care of the Emerald Palace maid, and set the vase at the head of the banquet table.
The rosebuds, still tightly closed, seemed more than enough to steal attention from the magnificent peonies.
Everyone watching from a distance was stunned.
The high-ranking officials who had scoffed, thinking it impossible, began to buzz with agitation.
Jinshi was a eunuch who had won the Emperor's favor. Even he himself might find it awkward to say, but most anyone could tell that his appearance was enough to take one's breath away. Still, he was not without enemies.
Not all officials were so disinterested that they would enjoy watching a young upstart eunuch strut about.
Jinshi maintained his heavenly maiden's smile, gracing the room with an elegant grin as he straightened his back and headed for the dais. He made his way toward the seat where the bearded Emperor sat surrounded by his beautiful consorts.
The gazes directed at Jinshi concealed all manner of intentions. Lust was still manageable—there were countless ways to exploit it. Jealousy was likewise fine; it was easy to handle. So long as he knew what someone was thinking, any emotion could be dealt with.
The truly troublesome ones, though— Jinshi looked at the official seated at the Emperor's left. Plump cheeks, eyes that gave no hint of what he was thinking.
If asked whether he found the man difficult, Jinshi might well have said yes.
In this man's eyes, Jinshi was nothing more than a young upstart and one of many eunuchs.
He seemed to be staring intently, yet also as if gazing into empty space.
That inscrutable, ambiguous smile.
One of the consorts currently in the rear palace— Loulan's— biological father— was Shoushou.
He had received the favor of the late Emperor—no, of the Empress who was the late Emperor's mother—and even now, the Emperor could not defy him.
Not in a good way.
Jinshi still did not let his smile falter…
Or rather, he was not supposed to.
Shifting his gaze to the left of Shoukou, he locked eyes with the man seated to the Emperor's right.
The man with fox-like eyes and a monocle was gobbling up chicken wings without a care for the atmosphere of the room. He probably thought he was being subtle about it—take a bite, tuck it into his sleeve, take another bite, and tuck it away again.
Right now, the most troublesome person here was this man, Rakkan.
That alone would have been one thing, but Rakkan then fixed his gaze on the head of the high official standing next to him, and for reasons known only to himself, gently plucked at the man's crown.
Beneath the crown was a clump of black hair. Rakkan made a great show of surprise.
The official's bare scalp was now on full display, and the three or so officials sitting across from him were utterly mortified.
What a cruel thing to do.
Such a well-crafted wig —and it had been such a fine one, too.
Some smiled wryly at his childlike antics, some were simply exasperated, and some were desperately fighting the urge to burst out laughing.
Jinshi was not the only one struggling to keep a straight face.
However, Jinshi could not very well burst out laughing there, and somehow managing to keep his expression from cracking, he knelt down upon the scarlet felt carpet.
He presented a colorful array of roses to the Emperor, who nodded with satisfaction while stroking his magnificent beard.
Jinshi suppressed the urge to let out a deep sigh and stepped back.
Rakkan peered into the rose vase with theatrical interest, and was now picking at some dried grapes.
Jinshi could not help but wonder why this man never seemed to cross the line into outright discourtesy.
○●○ "You can't go back to the Crystal Pavilion anymore, you hear?"
At a pavilion some distance from the banquet hall, Yinghua was using Maomao as a lap pillow.
Yinghua had stayed close to Maomao's side because she was worried about her.
Her pregnancy was nearly confirmed Gyokuyou The consort had declined to attend this time's banquet. On the surface, she had made way for Rouran, the Virtuous Consort's debut— that was the shape of it.
There was a reason why Maomao had grown so thin that Yinghua was worried about her.
It seemed that whenever Maomao went to the Crystal Palace, she ended up overworking herself.
For the past month or so, Maomao had been visiting the Crystal Palace again.
The maids of the Crystal Palace still regarded her as they would a specter, but she didn't mind.
Even so, Maomao needed to come here to make the blue roses. She had already arranged this through Jinshi, who had given his approval.
The place she had arranged through Jinshi in advance was the Crystal Palace's steam bath.
That was it.
It had been built in a rush back when Maomao had it constructed for Consort Rifa's treatment.
Consort Rifa was as noble as ever, but she had granted permission without a moment's hesitation. Maomao had known she was quite generous, which was why she had made the request.
Maomao felt it would be wrong to use it for free, so "This is His Majesty's favorite book,"
she said, presenting a book she had recently procured from the pleasure quarters.
The Emperor had asked for something different, after all.
Once Consort Rifa noticed what the book contained, she returned to her chambers with graceful steps.
Maomao remembered how the maids had whispered among themselves while watching her retreating figure with cold stares.
No one would have guessed that something like that could serve as a bribe to someone of such noble standing.
Having won the favor of the lady of the manor, she had a small pavilion built in the garden where steam from the bath could flow in. It was a peculiar structure with large windows and a large skylight in the ceiling as well. It cost money like water, but since it came from Jinshi's pocket, she didn't worry about it. Still, she wondered just how much he earned.
The potted roses were carried in — not just one or two, but dozens, no, well over a hundred of them.
She grew the roses in the steam-warmed air, positioning them to catch as much sunlight as possible, and on fair-weather days she moved them outside.
On days when frost still threatened, she doused heated stones with water and stayed up through the night keeping the pavilion warm.
If one wondered what Maomao was trying to do — she wanted to make the roses bloom out of season. Flowers normally opened in step with the seasons, though occasionally, for reasons unknown, they flowered at unexpected times.
In short, Maomao wanted to force a premature bloom.
For that reason, she never expected every pot to bud, so she had prepared them in large quantities. She also selected early-blooming varieties whenever possible, ensuring a wide diversity of types.
The window was barely over a month, with no certainty it could be done — yet the delight she felt upon seeing buds begin to form was beyond words.
Above all, coaxing the buds to form had been far more laborious than coloring the blooms themselves.
Jinshi had sent over a few eunuchs to help, but the delicate task of temperature regulation still fell to Maomao alone. If she accidentally let all the roses wither, it would be all over.
Periodically, court ladies from the Crystal Palace would drift through — whether out of curiosity or morbid fascination — so — annoying — she would deliberately turn her attention to other things.
Staring at her fingertips and wondering what she could do, she hit upon an idea.
She painted her nails with rouge and carefully smoothed them with a cloth.
A perfectly ordinary practice in the pleasure quarter, nail rouge was something seldom seen within the rear palace. It probably interfered with work, but the maids — who didn't do much actual labor on a daily basis — latched onto it with keen interest.
When she made a deliberate show of letting them catch a glimpse, the maids hurried off to their own rooms to dig out their rouge.
(This works in my favor.)
With just a hint of mischief in mind, she also recommended nail rouge to Consort Rifa.
In the rear palace, trends held enormous influence. And when it came to the cutting edge of those trends, it was invariably the favored consorts who led the way.
Even if she was merely a serving girl, once she caught the Emperor's eye, she would be elevated to consort. So it wasn't strange at all to imitate a woman the Emperor had taken a fancy to.
If you had to choose the most fashionable woman in the rear palace right now, it would probably be Consort Loulan—but given how rapidly the trends changed there, she could never become the source of a lasting fashion.
When she returned to the Jade Palace for poison testing, she showed the nail rouge to Gyokuyou and her attendants.
Hongniang called it inefficient, but the rest all seemed intrigued.
(If only I had henna and buckwheat, that would be nice.)
Nail rouge was made by crushing henna—the flower that gave nail rouge its name—and buckwheat, known as "cat's foot," kneading them together and applying the paste to the nails. The buckwheat enhanced the red coloring of the henna.
By the time the nail rouge became fashionable among the ladies of the rear palace, the rosebuds had swelled, each one revealing white petals.
All of the roses Maomao had chosen were white.
"What on earth did you do to those?"
After the rose unveiling, Jinshi returned and spoke, a furrow between his brows.
Standing behind him, Gaoshun was watching with equal interest.
Yinghua had left after Jinshi and the others assured her everything was fine. Officially, Maomao was an attendant assigned to Gyokuyou, but her employment arrangement still had her assigned to Jinshi.
"I just dyed them."
"Dyed them? That can't be right—there was nothing on the petals."
Jinshi said, miming the act of touching a petal with his finger.
"It wasn't from the outside. The color was dyed from the inside."
Maomao pulled out a single rose.
Then she pressed her finger to the cut end. Blue liquid clung to the stem of the blue rose.
She had simply soaked white roses in colored water and left them alone.
That was all there was to it.
The roses drew up the pigment along with the water through their stems, staining the white petals.
So it didn't matter what color the water was, so long as the roses could absorb it.
The only issue was that the leaves turned a murky, unsightly color, so when arranging them in vases, she had stripped every rose of its leaves except the white ones.
The roses all appeared to be arranged in the same vase, but the base of each stem had been wrapped in wet, dyed cotton— —sealed with oiled paper.
She hadn't removed any of it until just before presenting the roses.
It was a perfectly simple trick.
But precisely because the method was so simple, someone might try to make a fuss about it. As a precaution, she had explained the trick to the Emperor when he visited the Emerald Palace the night before. Everyone seemed to be delighted at being the first to learn a secret, so no matter what anyone said, he would explain it with great enthusiasm.
It appeared Jinshi had left before hearing the Emperor's explanation.
"So in other words, when you saw blue roses before, it was because some idle person had been making roses drink blue-colored water day after day after day."
Maomao said this while looking in the direction of the rose garden.
"Why on earth would anyone do that?"
"Who knows? Perhaps they wanted a tool for courting women."
Maomao said this bluntly, then pulled a slender paulownia box from inside her garment. It resembled the box of cordyceps, but its contents were entirely different—something she had picked up on the side when fetching the rare book.
"Now that's rare."
Jinshi leaned in for a peek.
"Are those dyed nails?"
"Yes, though they don't really suit me."
Her hands, roughened by medicine, poison, and waterwork, bore a nail on the left pinky that was warped into a peculiar shape. Even dyed red, the distortion remained.
This was, in fact, an improvement over how it used to look.
Since he kept staring at her with such amused interest, she couldn't help but give him that same look again — like watching a fish bobbing on the surface of the water.
(No good, no good.)
Maomao shook her head. If she got worked up over something like this, she wouldn't last through what came next.
There was still work to be done.
"Gaoshun. About what I asked you to prepare—"
"Yes. Just as you said."
"Thank you."
The stage was put in place for her.
Now all that remained was to give that insufferable lout a taste of his own medicine.