The next day, the meeting was held.
It was over before she knew it.
The reason was simple: Maomao had not been invited to the meeting itself—only to the dinner banquet.
One might say it was over before she even finished her nap.
The dinner banquet, apparently, was to be conducted in the Western style—standing while eating. Various dishes would be spread across tables, and each guest would take a plate and serve themselves as they pleased.
(They might as well hand out poison to everyone.)
Honestly, it wasn't a style she was accustomed to. But there were certain advantages.
For one thing, it seemed customary in this format to attend in male-female pairs. Typically, one would bring a wife or a lover, but if neither was available, a sister or relative might fill the role.
Raban had tried to introduce Maomao under the title of "younger sister," but since she had ground her heel into his toes, they settled on "relative" instead.
For another, while it made it easier to slip poison into a dish, it also made it harder to target a specific person. Since no one knew who would eat what, the format was ill-suited for assassination. Of course, indiscriminate poisoning was another matter entirely.
And for yet another, tasting the food for poison wouldn't look out of place. She could simply hover nearby, nibbling away. But that might come across as rather brazen, so Raban had gone the extra mile, claiming Maomao was fifteen to disguise her age. Maomao, expression unchanged, ground her heel into Raban's remaining uninjured toe.
If only she could get everyone to eat nothing at all—that would be ideal in her book—but that would hardly make for a pleasant experience for the guests.
"You're only there as a precaution."
"Hmph."
Maomao replied with an expression somewhere between nonchalant and bored.
"Still, though..."
Raban was eyeing Maomao up and down.
"You certainly don't look the part."
"Shut up."
Maomao dragged her heavy
trailing hem
along behind her.
Since the meal was to be in the Western style, the clothing had been arranged to match. They couldn't very well prepare something exactly the same, but its
silhouette
Just to approximate the silhouette, a framework had been inserted to puff out the skirt around the waist. Western
fashion
furthermore cinched the waist tight and emphasized the chest by baring half of it, but unfortunately she lacked such impressive assets and it would look indecent, so she wore large flowing sleeves on her upper body and only cinched the waist tightly with a sash.
Her hair had been supplemented with added pieces and elaborately styled upward, but hair was still hair. It should have been better than before, yet there were far more impressive comparisons all around her. It was like a dandelion mixed in among roses and peonies.
"Rest assured,
a dandelion
is roughly what you've achieved."
For some reason, this cousin of hers had a sharp eye for exactly these sorts of things.
"..."
Half-glaring at Rakan, she made her way into the venue.
(The ceiling is high.)
That was her first thought.
The space was about twice the size of Rokushōkan's
entrance hall,
but the high ceiling gave it a sense of openness.
Part of the room was open to the upper floor, and from the ceiling hung multiple layers of textiles unique to this region.
Despite being a shoes-on establishment, short-pile carpets covered the floor. These were probably local specialties too. It would be a shame to get them dirty.
The quality and construction of the building couldn't compare to those in the capital, but she could still feel the atmosphere of people doing their very best to be hospitable.
For Maomao, who had never seen genuine Western fashion, it didn't look half bad in its own way, but she wondered how it appeared from their perspective.
She had worried it might be laughable, but thinking more carefully, they were a people who lived on sandy soil too, so maybe they wouldn't mind that much.
"So do we just eat whatever's available for now?"
"No, just follow behind me."
"?"
What was with that? He had invited her along as a food taster, and this was how he spoke to her.
She wished he would take responsibility and at least have some poison prepared.
Paying no mind to Maomao's sour expression, Raban surveyed the other guests. Since this was a companion-based event, there were many women present.
"..."
Behind those glasses, his fox-like eyes glinted sharply.
Saou —
their people were heavily intermixed, so there were many beauties.
According to this fellow, what made a beauty beautiful was the underlying numbers — not the woman herself, but the proportions that made up her features. It was utter nonsense, but given that he was the nephew of that eccentric strategist, he was bound to be an oddball too. Perhaps he could see a world utterly beyond Maomao's comprehension.
And yet, stroking his chin,
"If that's the case, the Imperial Brother is far more well-proportioned."
He said such things so casually that it was clear he understood nothing about the ways of the heart.
Raban glanced at Maomao.
Those appraising eyes were probably sizing up less-than-ideal proportions once more.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
Even if her tone was a bit sharp, it was endearing. He wasn't the sort of man to mind that sort of thing.
Maomao, figuring she might as well, accepted a cup of wine from a maid. It came in a lapis-hued
glass
cup, filled to the brim with crimson liquid.
It was probably wine. Sweet, but not bad on the palate. Since she wasn't doing any poison-tasting, a little alcohol shouldn't be a problem.
"Why don't you ask the Imperial Brother to put a child in you?"
The fact that Maomao managed not to spray the wine she had just taken was probably a testament to her composure. The sweetness of the wine vanished, replaced by a sudden surge of bitterness, which she swallowed in one gulp.
There was no need to ask why.
"You just want to try having a baby — you have no real interest in children. If it's the Imperial Brother's child, I'll raise it properly, and you can do whatever you please after that. I'm not asking you to become his official wife — just a few happy accidents, and that'll do. For my part, having an heir would be cause for great celebration."
"Go make your own."
"I just can't find anyone who meets my ideal."
That ideal woman was surely some nation-toppling beauty who was essentially Jinshi turned female. Someone like that was an exceptional find — they didn't just fall out of the sky.
"His Imperial Highness is truly wasted potential. The fact that there's no one whose beauty surpasses even that scarred face is just a shame."
"Why don't you just carve something out and graft on a woman's womb yourself?"
"...Can you actually do that?"
Raohan's dead-serious expression was terrifying. When Maomao answered no, he looked slightly disappointed and looked away.
The Right Path
Anyway, sex reassignment apparently wasn't an issue. She didn't really understand what the criteria were, though.
Jinshi himself was no good, so perhaps he'd thought that if he could get someone else to bear Jinshi's child, the result would be something similar. With Maomao's child, he could probably find some excuse to claim custody.
Also, when it came to an heir, what if it turned out to be a daughter?
"I'll take full responsibility and raise her for life, so don't worry."
In other words, he was saying he'd raise the girl and then marry her off.
A Loli Fetish
She wanted to scream at him for that, but it only proved how fixated he was on Jinshi's face. Because the man was hopelessly useless, and even when asked if she knew anyone nice, the one person she absolutely would not introduce was him.
"So, please try asking around for me."
Maomao drained her cup, stepped on Raohan's toes, and went to return the vessel.
(Everyone around here is huge.)
Apparently, as interbreeding progressed, people got taller too. It was partly that people from the western regions were tall, but beyond that, mixed-lineage individuals likely grew larger than their parents' generation.
She wasn't sure about humans, but with plants, when you cross-pollinated closely related species, the resulting offspring often turned out larger than either parent.
While thinking she'd like to try that in a field if she ever had the chance, she went to head back — only to find that a wall of people had formed around the small Raohan.
One woman and two men.
Of the two men, one seemed to be an interpreter, but the other looked more like a servant than a master. Of the three, the one who looked most important was the woman dressed in clothes that emphasized her chest.
She was a beauty with light-colored hair and sky-blue eyes. She was already tall, and she wore even higher-heeled shoes on top of that.
"..."
Their eyes briefly met with Raohan.
He gestured with his fingertips for her to come over.
(Wasn't this supposed to be a meeting with a western merchant?)
The woman didn't give the impression of being a merchant. She didn't seem like a daughter, either—if she were a wife, her husband would have been there instead of a servant.
If anything,
(She was in the same mold as Consort Gyokuyou...)
She smelled more of politics than of commerce.
(So this is the real reason I'm here?)
"What western merchant?" Maomao thought to herself as she
pinched her skirt hem
and followed after Ranhan.