Three days later, the masked nobleman finally made his appearance at the apothecary just as the sun was reaching its zenith.
"Welcome!"
It was Jinshi who flinched at Maomao's spirited greeting. Behind him stood Gaoshun, his mouth hanging wide open as if to say, "What in the world happened?"
"Wh-what's going on?"
"Maomao, the person here is Lord Jinshi — you haven't mistaken him for someone else, have you?"
Maomao scowled. What was that supposed to mean? Gaoshun glanced at Jinshi as if he'd let something slip, while Jinshi peered back through the gap in his mask with a look of deep suspicion.
Jinshi entered the apothecary and sat down on the senbei cushion. The inside was quite cramped, so Gaoshun always waited at the
entrance
of Ryokuseikan. Once the sliding door was closed, Jinshi finally removed his mask.
There was the same stunning beauty as always, but a single scar now marred his cheek where it didn't belong. The stitches had been removed and the rawness had faded considerably, yet anyone who saw it couldn't help but sigh — out of sheer waste that such beauty should be marred.
Among the common folk, last year's
Zi
clan rebellion was being dramatized in entertaining fashion. The lead roles were taken by the beautiful imperial brother as the hero and Loulan as the villain. One would think Zishou, head of the Zi clan, should appear here, but Loulan steals the show instead. The reason was probably Jinshi's scar.
A villainess who had scarred otherworldly beauty — she would surely be talked about for ages to come.
Remembering the cheerful, insect-loving lady-in-waiting who had smiled so brightly, Maomao gazed off into the distance.
"Didn't you have some business here?"
At Jinshi's question, Maomao flinched.
(That's right.)
Maomao retrieved the illustrated catalog she had bought at the bookshop from the cabinet.
"What's this?"
"It appears to be something some fire-looting thief stole from the fortress and sold off."
She kept quiet about the man who had escaped from the fortress. Since she had left things to the head of the men,
Ukyou,
handing the man over on her own would anger that ever-conscientious fellow.
The man who had fled from the fortress decided to go by the name of
Sanzen.
Just in case the Evil Hungry Ghost—that is, Zhao Wu—might recall old times, he was given a false name to use. The man seemed to have no lingering attachment to his former name, and was learning the trade from Ukyou.
(The portion sold to the bookshops could be recovered.)
Ukyou had collected them swiftly. It so happened that the town he visited was one where a familiar female trafficker had been selling off her catalogs. She apparently spoke to her and bought them back.
That left one remaining problem.
"I believe the rest of those catalogs are still at the fortress. I'd like you to collect them."
Jinshi narrowed one eye and looked at Maomao.
"Why collect those?"
In answer to the question, she produced the real thing and showed him.
She plonked down a large bowl in front of Jinshi. Inside was a revolting mound of insects, simmered into a stew.
Jinshi's face contorted, and he recoiled.
"What on earth is this?"
"A stew of locusts. Though most of them are migratory locusts, actually."
Maomao picked one up with her chopsticks and thrust it toward Jinshi. He leaned back even further.
"I'm not eating that!"
"I never asked you to."
Maomao set the locust back on the plate, then produced a sheet of paper with insects drawn on it. It depicted both migratory locusts and common locusts. She had drawn them based on the stewed specimens, though she felt the key features were well captured.
"Apparently, migratory locusts appeared in massive numbers last year. Have you not heard reports from the farming villages about the locust plague?"
"..."
Jinshi's expression clouded over. He scratched his head and let out a long breath.
"I have received those reports. The damage to the northern farming villages was considerable."
However, it hadn't been severe enough to cause deaths from starvation. Whether fortunate or not, autumn had been cold that year, which apparently made the locusts easier to deal with.
"Locust damage can persist for several years. What about this year?"
Jinshi's face twisted.
Had he also foreseen this situation?
The north was almost entirely under the direct governance of the Zi clan's territory. Now that they were gone, it would fall to the Emperor to shoulder that burden.
"Arrangements have already been made to divert reserves from the south to cover last year's poor harvest."
But beyond that, his reach likely hadn't yet extended.
"If it happens again this year, things will become quite difficult."
A locust plague would be said to occur because the Emperor failed to govern the country properly. They were "merely insects," yet historically, they had actually been the cause of a kingdom's ruin.
And what would the people think, knowing this came in the very year the Zi clan had been destroyed?
(Foolish superstition.)
Not everyone could be brushed off with such words.
And it was the Emperor, along with his bloodline, who had to govern even those people as his subjects.
"Locust plagues occur naturally. What can be done about it? Shall we light signal fires to lure the insects in, or crush them one by one?"
A fair point. There was no efficient way to deal with them.
"That's why I've been looking into this."
Maomao presented an illustrated guide on insects to Jinshi.
The same kind the man who had fled the fortress — Zazen — had carried. An entomological reference, densely annotated in the margins.
"At the fortress, I saw another book on insects. It contained detailed accounts of locust plagues."
She had a vague feeling it had indeed been there, but honestly she was guessing. She had only leafed through it in passing while reading other passages. Still, if she was going to speak without revealing Zazen, this was the only approach.
"The pharmacist who was previously stationed at the fortress appears to have been conducting research on locust plagues."
"Is that true?"
"I don't know how far the research progressed."
She conveyed that it would at least be worth investigating.
"Mm." Jinshi stroked his chin. He then opened the door and called for Gaoshun. Gaoshun immediately summoned an attendant who had been waiting outside the Rokushōkan.
"You should have it within a few days."
"Thank you."
Maomao let out a long breath.
It wasn't as though everything was resolved, but getting those swirling thoughts out of her head had lifted a weight off her.
In exchange, Jinshi's complexion had grown worse. With his position as a eunuch now changed, he was already worn thin.
What Maomao had said ultimately only added to Jinshi's workload.
"Are you tired?"
"Somewhat. But I'm fine."
The dark circles under his eyes were pronounced. Yet the officials and court ladies around him would likely interpret them not as fatigue, but as worry.
Even with a scar on his face, this man's almost inhuman beauty remained intact — and precisely because of that, people misread what lay within.
(If this keeps up, he'll collapse.)
A person so exhausted that their senses had gone numb would lose the ability to even recognize their own fatigue. Even Gaoshun, if Jinshi said he was fine, couldn't stop him.
(He should just sleep.)
If he was going to come all the way out here, wouldn't it have been better to rest quietly in his room?
Maomao turned a look of exasperation toward Jinshi.
"Jinshi, won't you get some sleep?"
"What's this all of a sudden?"
"I'll prepare a sleeping quarters right away. Please rest."
Maomao stared intently at Jinshi. The scar on his right cheek came into view. She nearly leaned in to examine the neat stitching and had to look away.
Her father's sutures. The ointment layered on top. She found herself wanting to study it all closely. Jinshi's scar would remain, but the healing seemed to be progressing well, and she wanted to keep watching it.
"You want me to sleep? In a place like this?"
"Can you not sleep alone?"
Maomao said it with a hint of a joke. But she'd probably gone too far in treating him like a child.
"I was just kidding —"
"No, I can't. Not alone."
She'd tried to take it back, but he cut her off midway.
It seemed sleeping alone was too lonely for him.
(That explains it.)
Maomao poked her head out from the apothecary's door and spotted someone nearby—
A shaved head.
She called out to him and had him fetch the old procuress.
"What is it?"
When she explained her errand to the listless old procuress, a gleam sparked deep within her wrinkled eyelids.
"Give me a quarter-hour."
(Can she really get it ready that fast?)
With the surprisingly energetic procuress bustling off behind her, Maomao offered Jinshi a cup of tea meant to soothe fatigue.
"This way."
And with that, Maomao led Jinshi to a different part of the building.
She brought him to the top floor of the Rokushōkan. Surrounded by the finest furnishings, the room held a complete set of
Bedding.
Incense had been lit, filling the space with a sweet fragrance.
"Please rest. Work is important, but so is recovery."
She had expected the old procuress to harangue her again, but the woman apparently had her own thoughts on the matter—she let them use the finest room free of charge. The procuress had prepared this room in a quarter-hour. Remarkable, truly.
Perhaps she figured it would be wise to leave a good impression on a person of such standing.
"If you'd like a bath, herbal water has been prepared. I'm not sure if these will fit, but please use these nightclothes."
Maomao handed over a set of soft cotton nightclothes.
Jinshi's expression of surprise gradually melted into a gentle smile. It was no longer the smile of a heavenly maiden, but its power to
Mesmerize
anyone—man or woman alike—remained unchanged.
"I think I'll take a bath."
Jinshi headed for the adjacent bathhouse. The men had made trip after trip to fill the tub, so the water should be at just the right temperature.
Maomao let out a sigh of relief.
Even Gaoshun, standing in the corner of the room, seemed to have the furrow between his brows soften.
However, the moment Jinshi opened the door leading to the bathhouse, he froze solid.
After
a while, he slammed the door shut and hurried over to Maomao.
"Why are there half-dressed women in the bathhouse?!"
"
They're professionals,
so there's no problem."
He was the kind of boy who'd have his nurse peel tangerines for him, so she never expected he would bathe alone. She had prepared the same robes used for the Emperor's baths, and since it was a convenient opportunity,
massage—
she asked him to receive one.
"...Do you dislike massages?"
"Will it only be a massage?"
"More often than not, it doesn't end there."
Because it was a service profession,
if a client requested it, some workers would provide additional services that were difficult to ask for out loud, while others would not. In the pleasure quarters, this was common knowledge.
Jinshi returned, ignoring the bathhouse entirely.
"What about the bath?"
"I'll pass after all."
"Changing clothes?"
"I'll do it myself."
With that, Jinshi stripped off his robe and donned a nightshirt.
(He's pretty muscular.)
She had no particular feelings about this candid observation.
Maomao carefully picked up the fallen robe, folded it neatly, and
placed it in the trunk.
She placed it inside.
Maomao picked up the cup and teapot that had been set beside the bed. She poured liquid from the teapot and handed it to Jinshi.
"Is this some kind of sleeping drug?"
Jinshi said after taking a sip. It must have tasted strange.
"It's a tonic."
At Maomao's words, tea sprayed from Jinshi's mouth.
"Why a tonic of all things?"
"I heard it's the best thing for when gentlemen are feeling tired."
"...Do you even understand what you're saying?"
"What else would there be?"
When Maomao said this, Jinshi wore an expression caught somewhere between awkward and bashful.
(Bluntness may have been the wrong approach.)
No matter how much of a gentleman he might be, having such private physiological matters spoken aloud must be embarrassing. Jinshi was still young—perhaps he wasn't as mature in that regard as his appearance suggested.
Still, Jinshi's reaction did seem slightly different from what she'd expected, but there was no point dwelling on it.
Jinshi kept averting his eyes, and Maomao continued speaking.
"So, what kind of girl do you prefer?"
Maomao clapped her palms twice, and from the back room, five dazzling young women appeared in total.
They were all cute, with a lingering air of innocence.
Moreover, since he'd kept going on about chastity and such before,
virgins
—that's what she'd assembled. Since none of them had any diseases, that was preferable.
It had been difficult to round up all five from Rokushōkan, so she'd made arrangements with other brothels to borrow some as well.
The madam had furrowed her brows, but assembling this many in such a short time was no easy feat.
The girls had only been told their client was a nobleman, and they were quite eager about it. They sighed at the glimpse of breathtaking beauty visible through the gaps in Jinshi's mask.
As for that irresistible nobleman himself—he sat with his mouth hanging open, completely dumbfounded. Even through the mask, his stupefied movements were plain to see as he stared at Maomao.
In the corner of the room, Gaoshun wasn't merely holding his head in his hands—he had his forehead pressed flat against the wall.
"None of them were to your liking?"
It wasn't Jinshi who reacted to Maomao's question, but the courtesans instead. Each one struck a pose she considered alluring, directing it at Jinshi.
"All of them—
virgins,
every last one. The madam checked properly."
How she went about that check was best left to the imagination.
Jinshi, still moving with the stiff awkwardness of a puppet, turned his gaze toward Maomao.
"...For now, I'm just sleepy. Put me to sleep."
"I see."
Maomao's shoulders drooped in disappointment as she asked the displeased courtesans to withdraw.
She then went over to Gaoshun, whose shoulders were sagging even more,
and asked,
"How about you instead?"
"I'm afraid of my wife."
That was his reply. Ah, of course—offering courtesans to a married man was indeed rather problematic.
For the taciturn attendant, it wouldn't do to leave him standing, so she had him settle into a comfortable
long chair.
There was a spare futon set available and the room was vacant, but he politely declined.
Maomao carefully draped a blanket over Jinshi where he lay.
When she turned to leave as well, she found her arm being grabbed.
"Sing me a lullaby."
She wanted to refuse, but those puppy-dog eyes he occasionally let slip kept darting her way. Besides, so far everything had been spinning its wheels, and Jinshi's fatigue didn't seem to have eased in the slightest.
"I'm terrible at it."
"I don't mind."
Tapping the wall hanging slowly to keep time, Maomao began to sing. It was a lullaby sung by courtesans.
It did not take long before Jinshi's sleeping sounds could be heard.