Maomao wondered why something like this was here.
She was fairly certain that afterward,
Shishou's
fortress had been sealed off. It didn't make sense for items from that place to be showing up here. Even if the fortress's goods had been relocated, the fact that they were circulating in the market like this meant someone had been fencing them.
(Hmm.)
If that was the case...
Maomao had an idea of her own.
Within two days, the culprit was found.
As for how she found them—it was simple enough.
"Don't go calling me out over something like this, miss."
The one speaking in an exasperated tone was—
Li Bai.
Even as he said this, he was restlessly scanning the interior of the Rokushoukan.
The meeting place was Maomao's medicine shop, where Li Bai had crammed his hulking frame into the narrow space.
"It's not like I've got nothing better to do than play watchman for some petty thief."
Even as he spoke, his gaze kept drifting up through the open ceiling, hunting for the flower on the floor above—
seeking her
face.
His acquaintance, the military officer Li Bai, was head over heels for one of the three top courtesans of the Rokushoukan—
Byakurin.
However, frequenting a pleasure house cost money. So when Maomao, who was on good terms with Byakurin, asked for a favor, he would find a way to make it happen, one way or another.
She had asked him to keep watch—the library had been ransacked, and the stolen goods might be circulating in the market.
That was the favor she'd requested.
If something as rare as an illustrated catalog was stolen, it would be easy to trace the moment it was listed for sale. There was a chance it could be sold somewhere other than that particular bookstore, which was why she had turned to Li Bai.
"Hehe, I was staking the place out since morning, so show some gratitude."
"You didn't ask your subordinates to do it for you?"
He apparently wanted to show off badly enough that he did it himself. A stakeout in the dead of winter — what a chore that must have been.
Li Bai handed Maomao the bundle he was carrying. It seemed to be dumplings, a little gift. Then he kept glancing toward the pass-through again.
The meaning was probably: have some tea together, and go call Byakuren.
But there was something she needed him to do first.
"So, where's the culprit?"
"I've got your men and some of mine watching the front."
"I see."
Maomao looked out the window.
Surrounded by two guards was a thin, shabby-looking man. His face bore a rash, and he looked every bit the part.
(Hmm?)
"Hey—"
Ignoring Li Bai's voice, Maomao
slipped on her
slippers and headed toward the guards.
The thief, hemmed in by two burly guards, looked even smaller than he otherwise might have.
"Careful now — don't get too close."
A veteran guard grabbed the collar of Maomao's kimono and said.
Being handled like a cat was irksome, but it had been that way since childhood, so there was nothing to be done about it. Still in the same position, Maomao peered at the thief.
"..."
"..."
The thief and Maomao locked eyes.
What she had assumed was a rash turned out to be some kind of allergic reaction. It was mostly healed but still quite noticeable.
The thief stared hard at Maomao's face, and then turned deathly pale.
And then, of all things, what did he come out with...
"Poison girl!"
He spat the words out, spraying saliva as he went.
Maomao narrowed her eyes, and the two male servants looked at each other and burst out laughing.
(This guy...)
She wasn't great at remembering faces to begin with, and between that and the rash she couldn't make him out clearly, but she was fairly sure this man was from the fortress. The one whose face she had smeared with lacquer before stomping on his crotch until he passed out.
(Ah, I see.)
So that's how it was, Maomao realized.
In other words, he was one of the ones who had seized the chaos at the fortress to escape.
Maomao crossed her arms and pondered for a moment.
"What's the matter, miss?"
Li Bai came over and glared at the criminal.
The criminal visibly trembled.
(Hmm.)
This could be useful, Maomao thought.
"I'm sorry about this. I know him."
Maomao said in a perfectly nonchalant tone, then grinned and flashed the criminal a smile.
Li Bai seemed to find Maomao's attitude a little odd, but once she brought out tea snacks and called for Bailin, he promptly went off wagging his tail.
And so, at present, the people in Maomao's pharmacy were Maomao, the aforementioned thief, and...
"Old man, you really don't need to stand guard or anything."
Maomao looked at the veteran male servant with an annoyed expression. While everyone else had gone off to have tea, this one alone had made his way over to Maomao. He had even had the foresight to bring along rice dumplings.
"Can't exactly do that. If some weird bug shows up on her, the Fox and the Mask will both have my hide."
The Fox was the monocle-wearing strategist, and the Mask was...
Jinshi.
...probably. Even with a scarred and disfigured face, he was still a man of considerable worth. His appearance alone was striking enough, and when you factored in his position, all the more so.
An imperial prince had no business wandering around the pleasure district. Yet here he was, this eccentric, making his way over every ten days.
"Nothing, nothing—I'm just sitting here eating dumplings in silence, haven't asked a single thing."
So saying, he leaned against the wall.
He had been here since before Maomao was born, not yet forty himself.
A man who handled everything without fault, his name was—
Mikyaku.
—so called, presumably at the insistence of the madam. He claimed he hadn't asked anything, but if the madam pressed him, he would obviously talk.
Which meant he could only speak up to the point where the madam hearing about it wouldn't cause problems.
(Would it matter if things came to light?)
Maomao studied the man seated before her as she thought this. Two books lay on the wooden-plank floor—one she had found at the bookshop, and one the man had brought in to sell today.
"What happened to the other books?"
At Maomao's question, the man turned his face away with a huff. She could understand the reaction, but honestly, she had no patience for games.
If they had been sold elsewhere, someone else might buy them.
Maomao thumped the floor with her fist.
"That military officer over there—the man involved in the capture of that fortress—I could tell him you were present at the scene. Would that be all right?"
Maomao spoke in a slow, low voice.
The man's complexion worsened further. Seeing the rash on his face still looking sore, Maomao felt a twinge of guilt, but she hadn't held back at the time because there had been no room for mercy when the man was trying to escape. She didn't regret it.
Mikyaku stuffed dumplings into his mouth, cheeks bulging, and chewed slowly.
The man twisted his mouth in a grimace, then bowed his head in resignation.
"There are still three books in my possession. I sold two in another town, and the rest I couldn't bring along."
If the fire from the gunpowder explosion hadn't spread as far as that room, the remaining books left behind might be salvageable.
If so, the two books already sold elsewhere were the problem.
The ones on hand were illustrated compendiums of birds and fish.
"Did you sell the insect compendium?"
"No, I have one copy left on me."
"What about the one copy?"
Maomao tilted her head. The bird compendium had numbers on it. If it was labeled "Volume One," there had to be a "Volume Two."
"Can you bring that compendium here quickly?"
"Can you promise you won't hand me over?"
"That depends on your attitude."
Ukyo, who had been standing off to the side the whole time, let out a deep sigh at Maomao's threatening tone.
"Come on, Maomao. That's no different from a threat."
With that, Ukyo sat down on the floorboards of the cramped apothecary and clapped the man on the shoulder.
"You hungry? Sounds like you've been through a lot. Might want to let your guard down a little."
"......"
The man said nothing, but Ukyo quietly slipped out of the shop. Before long, she returned carrying a tray with a bowl brimming with rice and a side dish.
The only side available was leftover braised locusts, but when Ukyo offered the man a pair of chopsticks, he dove into the bowl without a moment's hesitation.
The ferocity of it took Maomao by surprise.
"......"
"You've still got a ways to go."
Ukyo patted Maomao on the shoulder. The man cramming rice into his mouth didn't so much as glance her way.
Ukyo murmured in a low voice.
"Judging by the state he's in, he probably ran into all sorts of trouble on the way to the capital. Even if he says he's here to sell books, he's clearly half-starved and out of options. But he handles the books themselves with care. I don't think he's a bad person."
"Hmm, hard to say."
Maomao's first impression had been unfavorable, so she wasn't about to weigh in.
"You've got to know how to use both the carrot and the stick."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
If the madam of Ryokuseikan was the stick, then this head of the male staff was the carrot. He was a middling-looking, middle-aged man of average height, but that was precisely why the courtesans were fond of him.
"Hm? What's wrong?"
The man, who had been wolfing down his rice, had stopped mid-bite. Ukyo cocked her head and looked.
"It's bad."
"You don't like locusts?"
"It's not locusts."
The man said, picking up a locust with his chopsticks.
"They're locusts, right?"
"Everyone around here might lump them together like that, but farmers call them different things."
"What do you mean?"
Maomao and Ukyo peered in at what the man was doing. He picked up from the mountain of simmered insects with his chopsticks, biting into them one by one to sort them apart.
He had separated them into two groups, in a ratio of roughly eight to one.
"These ones are locusts. The kind farmers simmer and eat. And these are
migratory locusts.
They look similar, but these ones taste bad."
"They taste that different?"
Ukyo asked back.
Honestly, she had no idea there was such a difference between migratory locusts and regular locusts. Maomao had been lumping them together without thinking much about it either.
"You'd know if you tried them. Since they tear the legs off before simmering, you can't even tell by color, so the shady ones peddle them off to ignorant merchants. That's why people think locusts taste bad."
No doubt about it — those merchants must have been excellent customers.
Regular locusts at one price, migratory locusts at eight. No wonder they tasted terrible.
Maomao reached for the regular locusts and popped one in her mouth. Sure enough, these had more meat and seemed to taste better.
The man wore a grave expression, staring intently at the migratory locusts.
"If something's on your mind, spit it out."
Ukyo asked on Maomao's behalf.
"There might be a famine this year."
At those words, Maomao pressed closer to the man.
"So it really is like that?"
"I don't have any proof. But in the year after a season where migratory locusts multiplied more than regular locusts, the insect damage was terrible."
Given the ratio of migratory locusts to regular ones, that should be reason enough.
Maomao stared at the man intently.
"Now that I think about it, you seem to know quite a lot, don't you? Not just about insects—I'm fairly sure there were things other than books in that room that could have fetched a decent price."
He probably didn't want the lacquered container on account of how it made him feel, but an ordinary person would have chosen something easier to sell off than books.
The man scratched the back of his neck, looking slightly embarrassed.
"And... honestly, I didn't really want to sell the illustrated guide."
"Didn't you tell the bookshop owner you'd come back to sell again?"
"Well, you have to be pleasant to them if you want them to offer a good price. Besides, I was hoping to buy it back if I ever had the means. Nobody goes out of their way to buy an illustrated guide, right?"
He kept the words "Well, there's someone right here who would" inside his mouth.
The man was, frankly, dressed in rags. It was still winter, so that was one thing, but his face was grimy with dirt, and honestly, she didn't want to let him up into the apothecary.
"That old man who used to live in that room in the fortress—I was the one who brought him his meals."
Maomao opened her eyes wide at the unexpected revelation.
"Apparently he was brought in to create new medicines or something, but he was researching all sorts of other things too."
"Like what?"
"This, for example."
What he pointed to was a migratory locust.
"How to prevent a locust plague from happening in the first place."
The man said that was what he had been investigating.
Maomao swallowed hard.
And in the very instant she opened her mouth to ask him more—
With a loud bang, the apothecary's door flew open.
"Freckles! Can I eat one of your dumplings!"
Zhao Yu
came striding in with dumplings in both hands.
The man blinked.
"Huh? Young Mas—"
Before he could finish, Maomao grabbed the crushed herbs nearby and stuffed them into his gaping mouth.
"Blegh!"
She felt bad about the man writhing in agony, but he had been about to say something extremely problematic, so there was nothing for it.
As far as public knowledge went, the children of that clan were supposed to have been exterminated.
Zhao Yu watched the man rolling around on the ground with amusement.
"I'll give you the dumplings, so scram."
"What's with the shooing? I'm not some stray cat or dog."
Zhao Yu didn't seem to remember the man at all and ignored him flatly.
"Zhao Yu, want Uncle to carry you on his shoulders?"
"Huh, really? Uncle, do it, do it!"
Maomao silently thanked Ukyou for smoothly deflecting the situation, then began counting on her fingers.
(There's no certainty, but)
She figured she should at least give a heads-up.
She counted how many more days it would be until Jinshi arrived.