The man with the eyepatch
Keyou
introduced himself. He looked like a traveler, as one could guess from his shabby appearance. According to him, he was supposed to be a doctor, but—
"Yeah. To put it simply, they told him he was cursed and to get out. Pretty awful, huh?"
It didn't sound awful at all. There was no dark emotion behind it whatsoever—just the tone of an old woman gossiping at the well.
"I'd been staying in the same place for a few years, but last year there was a locust plague and the village took damage. Then all of a sudden, the village sorcerer started going on about curses and whatnot."
It was Keyou, the most recent arrival, who had been driven out. Doctors and sorcerers had never gotten along. Maomao thought it was foolish to believe in curses with no basis whatsoever, but that was common knowledge. It was irritating.
Contrary to his lighthearted tone, the seasickness medicine worked remarkably well. Even Ranhan, who hadn't left
the bucket,
had managed to join the conversation to some degree. The ship had grown larger and the swaying had lessened, which also helped—Ranhan was quite satisfied.
"Hmm. So you're heading to the capital to seek work."
"Yes, well. Something like that."
Ranhan stroked his chin thoughtfully. He seemed to be scheming about something, and Maomao nudged him with her elbow.
(Don't go dragging any more weirdos along.)
He was an odd man, but if his skills as a doctor were genuine, he could make a living in the capital too. He'd just have to keep those smallpox scars hidden.
Ranhan glanced at Maomao, as if to say he understood.
Saying that, he pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve and began writing something in a flowing hand.
"If anything comes up, come see me here. I think I could be of some help."
What was written there was the address of a house in the capital.
Keyou took it and broke into a carefree smile.
"Ahaha, I sure met some nice people."
(It's not exactly out of the goodness of his heart.)
Ranhan was a calculating person. He'd only handed over the address because he thought this man might prove useful.
"By the way, how was the locust plague last year?"
She wanted to dig deep into his medical knowledge as well, but Maomao started with this question first.
"Hmm. They weren't eating tree roots or thinning out babies or anything like that. But the little ones were wasting away from malnutrition, one by one."
Keyou said with a slightly sorrowful look on his face. When someone became malnourished, they were more susceptible to illness. Treating that was a doctor's job. What had become of the village that drove this man out?
"If this year's harvest is good, I think there won't be any problems, but—"
Maomao didn't think it would go that smoothly, and this man seemed to share the same opinion.
"As long as everyone in the village helps each other out until then, it'll be fine, I suppose."
The phrase "help each other" sounded nice enough. But there was a condition attached.
Whether you actually had enough surplus to help someone else. You secured enough food for yourself first, then handed over what remained. That was what most "helping" really meant. There was no point in giving to others while starving yourself. There were certainly people so selfless they'd give away what they had without a second thought for themselves, but those were generally the saints you only found in stories, or just plain fools.
If you thought doctors and pharmacists were some kind of saints, then you should provide them with a position that would allow them to be one. Without surplus, medicine couldn't be practiced. Living modestly, falling ill, and then spreading it to those around you—that would accomplish nothing.
The village that had driven this man out might want a new physician now, but it would be too late.
No matter what happened, spilled water could never be returned to the basin.
After several more days, the river journey came to an end, and Maomao and the others finally returned to the capital. After disembarking, the eye-patch man said he had other business and parted ways with them there.
As they were about to leave, Ranhan tried to dodge paying the carriage fare, but she made sure to collect every last coin. That—
Rikuson—
was laughing at it. She simply couldn't make heads or tails of this gentle-seeming man.
When she was let off the carriage in front of Ryokuseikan,—
Hatsu—
came dashing toward her from outside. Flapping her mouth and trying desperately to tell her something was—
Shirin—
that mute young girl.
"What's wrong?"
Even if she asked, the girl couldn't speak. She just tugged at Maomao's sleeve. With no other choice, Maomao followed along.
Shirin threw open the door to the apothecary with force, and inside, amidst scattered bundles of paper, busy at work sorting medicinal herbs by their parts was—
Sazen—
She'd just gone and cleaned him up, but he'd reverted to looking like the vagrant he'd been when he'd first drifted to the capital. His beard had grown out, his hair was a tangled mess, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
Maomao had made preparations so that simple compounding could be handled during her long absence, but it seemed he had actually been working hard.
Sazen looked at her with hollow eyes.
"…Ki…"
Stumbling over the papers scattered across the floor, Sazen made his way to Maomao and grabbed her shoulder firmly.
"You didn't tell me! You didn't tell me it'd be this busy!"
His runny nose and sunken cheeks certainly spoke to how overworked he'd been.
Maomao looked at what had been placed on the low table.
The account books.
She studied them.
It seemed he had taken on three times his usual workload.
No wonder the stockpiled medicine had run dry long ago.
"…Yeah. Sorry about that."
When Maomao said this, Sazen finally showed a look of relief before collapsing face-down onto the floor. She poked him a few times to check if he was alive. A faint sound of breathing could be heard.
She had no choice but to drape the throw blanket she'd placed nearby over him. It was in the way, so she'd have to carry him out later.
As she slipped off her shoes and was about to step up into the apothecary, she was shoved hard in the back. Wondering what was going on, she found the little brat headbutting her.
"What?"
"'What' nothing! It took you long enough to come back!"
"I told you I'd be gone a long while."
Chou U.
That was his name. While Maomao was away, she had left him in the care of the head of the men's quarters—
Ukyou.
But whatever he had to be upset about, he kept headbutting Maomao over and over.
"Out of the way."
Maomao grabbed his head firmly. "Eeeek!" — Chou U bared his gums, his front teeth only half grown in.
"So, what's this?"
Maomao asked to get a handle on the situation.
Shaolin couldn't explain it, and the courtesans had likely finished their night's work and gone to sleep. The brothel was very quiet.
"Hey, old man, he's been sleeping in this room around here. Apparently there's a cold going around."
"Hmm."
It did feel a bit out of season, but that might be exactly why they'd run short on medicine. Maomao hadn't prepared much in the way of cold remedies either.
"Then what's this?"
Maomao looked at the papers scattered about. They weren't account books but letters. Here and there, small tree branches had been tucked in.
"Oh, those. Half are from usual-nii-chan. But I don't know about the other half."
If he meant the usual, they must be from Jinshi. The handwriting did look familiar. And yet, reading the contents made one want to tilt one's head in puzzlement.
"Nii-chan, isn't it a bit late for this? Bringing up the weather and such as a topic. We don't normally talk about stuff like that."
"So you just read them without permission?"
"For studying characters!"
There wasn't a shred of remorse. Maomao lightly rubbed the little mischief-maker's head.
But if they'd been important letters, she would have handed them over more carefully. In truth, they were nothing but harmless letters. Normally, she only brought a letter along when delivering some troublesome matter.
"And yet she brought them even knowing I'd be away. Did you tell her properly when I'd be back?"
Judging by the number of letters picked up, she must have come at least four times.
As for the remaining letters, though...
"?"
"Hahahaha, those are a hoot. Those are love letters, right?"
The attached branches were seasonal flowers. Each letter was from a different sender. But their contents were unmistakably love letters.
Maomao tilted her head, set the letters aside in a pile, and resumed the mixing Left Banquet had abandoned.
"Don't know who they are, but somebody's caught his scent, it seems."
The one who said this while cleaning her kiseru was the madam.
"That weirdo makes a racket here every single time. Honestly."
Needless to say, that weirdo was Jinshi.
The guy with the monocle, you know.
"I won't let you have my daughter!" — that's the kind of thing he'd go around shouting.
"......"
(What the hell is his deal?)
The eccentric strategist making a scene in front of Verdigris House was honestly a pretty familiar sight. But until now, he'd only ever been treated as one of the brothel's banned customers.
The eccentric strategist was famous enough, but the madam of Verdigris House was famous in the pleasure district too. People figured that even that man—who had no enemies at court—would get thrown out by the madam, no questions asked.
The madam, for her part, had apparently warned him not to go tossing around words like "daughter" that would only cause trouble. He'd been obedient about it for the longest time, but apparently he'd broken that promise now.
As for why...
"That time he ran into the masked gentleman, now that was really something to see."
The letter from Jinshi that had been left in the room—it was far too indirect to make heads or tails of, but apparently it was one of *those* kinds of letters.
"Oh yes, oh yes. Sparks were flying everywhere. Hehe, it was so entertaining~"
—Shirisu.
The young lady had appeared from out of nowhere and butted into the conversation, wearing that uncomfortable smirk of hers.
(What's gotten into him?)
Putting all the pieces together, it went something like this:
Jinshi had apparently made some kind of mistake, and had ended up proposing to Maomao.
And the eccentric strategist, upon learning this, kept showing up at Verdigris House to make a scene. That led to rumors that some relation of his eccentric self was hanging around the place.
Before long, a handful of officials blinded by death-defying ambition got wind of it, and figuring that to shoot the general you first aim for his horse, they started passing love letters to Maomao.
"So they bring the letters over, right? And we have no idea who any of them are, so we just hand them off to the baldy. Everyone was so fed up they started just throwing them into the room. Oh, and occasionally a customer would actually buy one, so that part wasn't so bad."
"That's right~. Two fresh new girls—they should sell for a pretty penny."
The madam was brimming with the desire to swindle people. Maomao wondered what would happen when the lie was eventually exposed, but the madam was probably planning to train the newcomers to wrap men around their fingers before that ever came to pass.
Maomao lightly touched her own lips, then pulled her hand away.
(What could he possibly be thinking?)
With a certain nobleman's face floating through her mind, Maomao got back to work.