While wondering what that had been all about, Maomao returned to her seat.
Cheers were rising from all around her. Everyone seemed pleasantly tipsy, their voices bright and lively.
Only Jinshi and his companions sat quietly, waiting for Maomao to come back.
"Hey, what was that about?"
"What do you mean, 'what'?"
It was Basen who asked, brimming with curiosity.
"You—did somebody slip you some money or something?"
Maomao thought that was rude of him. Before she could say so, Gaoshun's fist came down on Basen's head, silencing him.
"I wasn't given anything at all."
Maomao opened her palms and even turned her sleeves inside out to prove it.
"Were you seen by anyone?"
"No."
There had only been the White Lady and her male assistant up on the stage. They probably hadn't glimpsed the characters she'd written either, and since she'd covered the tops of the tubes with cloth, there was no way to tell which one she'd slipped her paper into.
(Could it be...)
Maomao glanced up at the stage. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, their red tassels swaying gently.
She wondered whether a mirror might have allowed them to read what she'd written—but no. It would be difficult to affix something like that to the ceiling, and more importantly, they'd need a mirror of sufficient quality. With that much haze in the air and such dim visibility, even a mirror would have fogged over. Even if they'd used a high-grade imported mirror instead of a common bronze one, it wouldn't have worked.
Besides, the White Lady had seemed to have poor eyesight.
She probably couldn't see anything clearly beyond a foot in front of her.
Just as Maomao was wondering how on earth they'd pulled it off, the next event had already begun.
A new table stood on the stage, with all manner of implements arranged on top.
From among them, the White Lady used chopsticks to pick up a small, thin piece of metal. A plate was also prepared separately.
The male assistant took the metal piece and the plate, set them on a tray, and proceeded to make his rounds through the theater. The metal piece looked like nothing more than a polished copper fragment. The plate was deep enough to keep its liquid contents from spilling.
He apparently didn't have time to make it all the way up to the second floor, and scattered complaints drifted down from above. That was simply a difference in seating price—they'd just have to accept it.
When the assistant returned, the White Lady took back the metal piece and the plate. Then the metal piece was dropped into the plate, and the plate was set over a fire that had been prepared without anyone noticing.
The White Lady placed it inside, began chanting something like an incantation, and started to dance. In the dim, misty room, her entire body seemed to glow.
When the dance was over, the White Lady picked up her chopsticks and held up the metal piece from within.
(The color's changed.)
It had gone from the reddish hue of copper to a silvery color.
Those nearby let out cries of "Ohhh!"
"It changed from copper to silver!"
"Really!?"
Those farther away couldn't see, but watching the reactions of the others, they began pressing forward, jostling to get closer. They were stopped by the guards from climbing onto the stage, but if they got close enough, they would be able to see.
The White Lady washed it with a liquid and wiped it dry with a cloth. Then she held it directly over the flame.
The cheers grew even louder.
"Silver turned to gold!"
The silvery color had now transformed into a gleaming gold.
The Lady tossed it with her chopsticks to let the heat dissipate, then placed it on a plate. A man held up the gleaming golden plate and passed it around so all the men could see it clearly.
"…Can you explain this?"
Jinshi said, arms crossed.
"Later, perhaps. Why not enjoy the entertainment for now?"
Maomao said this with her eyes sparkling. Honestly, she thought it would be a waste to look away.
Even if the woman wasn't a celestial maiden, the performance alone was well worth it.
After that, the White Lady performed a number of interesting tricks.
She placed a wet stone on a piece of paper. After casting an incantation on it, a fire soon sprang to life.
One moment she seemed to produce butterflies from thin air, and then they flew off, burst into flames, and vanished into ash.
Every trick drew cheers from the audience. And then, at last—
The White Lady brought forth a gleaming silvery liquid.
As everyone fixated on the mysterious liquid, the woman poured it into a small cup and gulped it down in one swallow.
"!?"
Maomao nearly sprang to her feet.
But just as she had risen halfway, she caught sight of the hand that was holding her back.
"Did you enjoy tonight's performance as well?"
Niangniang descended from the stage with her smile still intact.
Inside the theater, the heat had yet to die down as the audience chattered excitedly about what had just occurred. Some had a fire burning in their eyes, while others gazed reverently at the spot where the celestial maiden had stood.
Only the four of them, Maomao included, remained comparatively composed.
"Something feels off."
Jinshi finally reached for his wine cup.
"Lord Jinshi."
Maomao instinctively stopped his hand.
"How rude."
Bashan shot her a disapproving look.
"Testing for poison?"
Jinshi set his cup down.
"Yes."
Maomao picked up the cup in front of her. She sniffed it, placed a single drop on her skin, and after observing the reaction, touched it to the tip of her tongue.
"I can't say for certain, but it seems to have a fairly strong stimulating effect."
The alcohol content was low. It was easy to drink, closer to fruit water than wine, but beneath that she could detect a faintly complex undertone. Several things seemed to have been mixed in. She could make out a hint of salt.
"I don't believe it's poisoned."
But it had been engineered to produce a stronger kick than its alcohol content would suggest. That was all there was to it.
And besides...
The lanterns flickered gently.
The dim interior.
The mysterious haze and the ethereal celestial maiden.
The inexplicable phenomena unfolding right before their eyes.
My, my.
Surely that was reason enough to blindly trust someone.
And just what proportion of the people in this theater were like that?
Pondering to herself, Maomao took a small sip of her drink.
It really was a bit salty.
She had just thought that it would taste better without salt, when—
"!?"
Maomao suddenly dipped her finger into her sake cup. She then slid the fruit wine across the table like ink.
"What are you doing?"
"So that's what it was."
Without pausing to answer Jinshi's question, Maomao looked around.
If that was like this, then that too must have some
kind
of trick to it.
She regretted not having looked around more when she was on stage. What had been over there?
The haze had been thicker there than elsewhere—it was hot, her head ached, and her concentration had been oddly disrupted.
Haze...
Perhaps that was steam. Was it coming from backstage?
If so, the heat made sense.
But what about the headache?
It had been like the sensation of a mosquito buzzing.
What had that been?
Hmm?
Just as she was thinking that, she caught a glimpse of the White Maiden deep in the stage.
Maomao pressed a finger to her lips, pursed them, and blew.
"What, are you whistling or something?"
Maosen narrowed his eyes and looked at Maomao.
The sound wasn't particularly loud. Around them, people were chattering noisily—it shouldn't have been audible from far away.
Yet the White Maiden seemed to have flinched, her shoulders jerking as she looked around.
(Ah. So that's how it is.)
Maomao grinned and suggested to Jinshi and the others that they step outside.
It was cold outside. Ideally, she would have liked to duck into a nearby eatery to talk, but entering while wearing masks would be difficult. Reluctantly, they decided to have their conversation inside the carriage.
They could have waited until they returned to the Rokushoukan, but Jinshi and the other two seemed eager to know what was going on right away.
Maomao decided to first explain the method of transmuting copper into silver and gold.
"It's very similar to what's called the Yellow-White Art."
Would it be easier to understand if I said alchemy? Gunpowder, too, was a product of that.
The Yellow-White Art specifically refers to the branch that transmutes base metals into noble metals.
Alchemy is supposed to be the art of extending human life, but in truth, much of it is dubious. There are records of emperors in ancient times who sought immortality so desperately that they lost their lives through incorrect methods.
It was similar, yes, but if anything,
"it seems closer to something called"
"alchemy"
"from the Western lands."
"Western alchemy?"
"Yes."
Maomao nodded in response to Jinshi's question.
"I've only heard about it from my foster father—I've never actually seen it myself. However, my foster father had seen it firsthand several times and understood how it worked. It wasn't that the metal actually became silver or gold. He said all they did was"
"plate the surface"
"and then heat it with fire to transform it into something different."
Maomao would have liked to try it herself, but her father refused to divulge the crucial materials. Even if he had, she likely wouldn't have been able to gather them at an apothecary.
"If you'd like to know more, please ask Luomen. And if you could also have him teach me about it, I'd be grateful."
She stared intently.
As for the paper that ignited on its own, that would also be possible by utilizing a byproduct created during that process. The appearance of the butterflies would also make sense if that was indeed very well-made paper.
Everyone present had poor visibility due to the mist and were also drunk on a specially brewed intoxicating wine. Even the sober Jinshi and his companions had been deceived, so it was unlikely anyone else had noticed.
Incidentally, there should have been a similar kind of illusion to the butterflies made of paper, a trick passed down in an island nation to the east.
"Then, what was the reason your thoughts were seen through?"
"About that, too..."
Maomao asked Gaoshun to lend her two sheets of washi paper and a portable writing set. Then, she stacked the two sheets and wrote the character for 'seven' with a brush generously loaded with ink. Of the two sheets, she showed Jinshi's group the one that had been placed underneath.
"How is it?"
"How is it, how nothing—the ink has transferred to the back, hasn't it?"
There, faintly but clearly, the character 'seven' was transferred.
"Yes, that is the point."
"That may be so, but if there were paper that would show an ink transfer from what you wrote, it would be painfully obvious."
"Yes, that's right."
Underneath the paper Maomao wrote on was a black blotter. With that, a transfer wouldn't be visible even if it happened.
"But it did transfer."
When she was given the brush, it had been loaded with an unusual amount of ink. She remembered it being a strangely cheap ink, gritty in texture.
"What if, besides ink, something else was contained in it?"
For example, salt. It might have been dissolved in the ink. If you wrote with that, the ink would seep through the thin, soft paper and stain the black blotter. When dried, what would happen?
The salt dissolved in the ink would dry and rise to the surface.
Of course, that was just an example using salt, but in that case, you would know what had been written.
"Then, how did you know which container the paper had been in?"
"That would be the sound."
"Sound?"
Within that theater, the sounds of bells and gongs had been ringing out.
However, hidden within that, there had been one other important sound.
"I had a terrible headache being in that place. I believe there was a high-pitched sound at a level you wouldn't even notice."
High-pitched sounds cause ear pain. Even without consciously registering it as a sound, Maomao had apparently been experiencing subconscious discomfort.
"High-pitched sounds?"
"Yes."
Maomao whistled.
"You can all hear this, right?"
"My hearing is fine."
"Then how about this?"
She adjusted the pitch as high as she could manage.
Jinshi and Ma San appeared unaffected, but Gaoshun tilted his head for a moment.
"I can hear it."
"I can hear it."
"...I can hear it too."
Gaoshun's response came a beat late.
"Good. Hearing deteriorates with age, you know."
Gaoshun stiffened.
He still thought of himself as young, but his body was aging all the same.
"Everyone can hear different pitch ranges."
This varies even among people of the same age.
Just as some have better eyesight than others, the same applies to hearing.
And while she couldn't say for certain, people with poor eyesight sometimes compensated with sharper hearing.
"Those celestial maidens must have extremely sensitive ears."
From far away, amid all that background noise, she had responded to Maomao's whistle.
She must have trained herself to distinguish the sounds of flutes on a regular basis.
Which was why, Maomao concluded, there had been no flute-type instruments among the instruments in that theater.
Both vertical and horizontal flutes work by means of holes drilled in a tube; covering those holes changes the pitch. Suppose the hundred tubes protruding from that box served as substitutes for the holes in a flute. If Maomao had stuffed each tube to the brim with paper, that would amount to the same thing as covering the holes.
"In other words, you distinguished between a hundred different sounds and figured out which was which? And how exactly would you play it — if that box was acting as a flute?"
"That's one possibility, but there's a more reliable method."
The sound of a gong and a bell. What if those served as signals, and someone simply blew into a flute ten times? The box was covered with a cloth from above, so even having an assistant nearby would pose no problem — a man standing beside the box, operating the mechanism that fed air in.
There was no need to memorize a hundred sounds; it would suffice to distinguish ten.
"As for how it was played, that fog explains everything."
The fog was steam. Presume they were boiling water somewhere out of sight.
What if that steam was channeled in from underneath the desk? Everyone's attention was fixed on the surface of the desk; nobody bothered to examine the structure below it.
"Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
"It does."
Jinshi and the others nodded.
Only Gaoshun sat rubbing his ear, gazing off into the distance.
"Finally..."
Maomao went on to explain the silvery liquid that Lady Byakuren had drunk at the very end.
"That substance is a deadly poison. Could you arrange an opportunity to brief the senior officials, so that no one attempts to imitate her?"
Maomao fixed Jinshi with a serious gaze.
Jinshi was competent enough that saying one word was apt to produce two or three more without being asked.
Even so, his opponent had clearly been several ranks above him.
Lady Byakuren's performance vanished without a trace a few days later.
What remained in its place was a string of mysterious food-poisoning deaths among the capital's merchants.
What had she been trying to accomplish?
That fairy who had resembled a white serpent.
She had left behind that riddle, then disappeared.
Long ago, the powerful of the age had universally sought the elixir of immortality. In doing so, they consumed quicksilver — a metal that was nonetheless liquid, fluid as water — as part of that concoction.
Never once did they imagine it would shorten their lives instead.
The silvery liquid resembling water is simply
mercury
— just as the name implies.
Maomao wondered what had become of Lady Byakuyon, who had swallowed mercury in its liquid form. If mercury remains as a liquid and is expelled from the body, it is not fatally toxic. But when inhaled as vapor, or when it bonds with other substances and changes form, it becomes a deadly poison.
At times, it is even used as medicine. Both poison and remedy depend entirely on how they are employed.
Maomao gazed upon the vivid vermillion of
the cinnabar
and gently placed it back on the medicine shelf.