"Thin, well-drained soil is preferred, and planting year after year without crop rotation causes no soil depletion."
Maomao jotted notes on paper with practiced ease.
The field was vast, its green leaves thick with growth.
"If you want to improve the flavor, don't let the vines grow too dense. Cut any roots that spread out from the vines."
With that, Rahan's father demonstrated for Maomao.
The neighboring farmers had come to help, it being the off-season after rice planting. Their wages, he explained, were paid in last year's sweet potatoes. He mentioned selling processed goods, but it seemed he still had last year's harvest to spare, given how large the fields were.
"Why didn't you sell them?"
"I'm not really good at that sort of thing."
It was a strikingly clumsy answer. He had originally started selling processed goods because the sweet potatoes he'd grown for himself turned out to be surprisingly delicious, and he'd sold them with the simple intention of sharing them with others.
"The people who ate them liked them plenty, but they didn't even realize they were sweet potatoes—they thought they were pumpkin or chestnut. Oh, and besides the tubers, you can eat the stems too."
Indeed, the resemblance to pumpkin wasn't entirely absent. For pumpkin, they were a bit too dry, and for chestnut, a bit too sticky.
As for the stems, they probably looked something like butterbur.
Rather than hoarding them, it seemed the sweet potatoes had simply remained unknown due to this man's lack of ambition.
"Besides, if I'd tried selling them on a big scale, there would have been annoying people involved. I tried consulting Rahan about it, but it didn't work out."
It was a roundabout way of putting it, but he was probably referring to family. Rahan's older brother didn't know, but the old man and Rahan's mother despised this sort of rough work. Yet they had no qualms about spending the money it earned—so if the profits grew too large, there was no telling what they might use the money for.
It seemed he had kept in regular written contact with Rahan, but it was his family who had been keeping an eye on things.
"Even so, calling people here with a method like this—couldn't you have put a little more thought into how to do it?"
It was Rahan who spoke with exasperation. He seemed to dislike getting mud on his feet, walking on tiptoe to keep them clean.
"You know as well as I do that I'm not smart enough to think up methods. If I were, I wouldn't have moved out to this countryside in a way that left a stain on brother Rakan's reputation."
"The people caught up in it were put to considerable trouble."
The eccentric strategist had driven out his father, the previous head of the household, and his half-brother, the next in line, from the capital, then inherited the family headship. He then adopted Rahan, his nephew. That was about all Maomao knew, but it was undoubtedly the truth.
However, being driven out seemed to have been more of a blessing for Rahan's father.
"This place is wonderful. The more you till, the more fields you can create. Back in the capital, all I could do was enjoy potted plants."
Rahan's father smiled—a surprisingly refreshing smile for a middle-aged man, beads of sweat glistening on his face.
"Well, isn't that great? This might actually save people who are starving, right? Let's make the whole country covered in sweet potatoes!"
He was incredibly animated.
"You'd sell Grandfather for that?"
"It's not so much selling him as—without doing that, the family will be destroyed, won't it? That man's
pride
won't change even after ten years. Besides, his life will just continue as before. For Father, it'll be the same tedious days of crushing bitter herbs."
His expression was oddly cold.
"Grandfather does tend to accumulate unsightly numbers, after all."
Rahan's words were something between understandable and incomprehensible. She could at least gather that he wasn't a man who handled money very cleanly.
Once Maomao had finished recording the cultivation methods, she put away her writing implements.
Rahan was calculating the size of the fields and how many sweet potato seedlings could be produced. The seedlings that had already been cut were being loaded onto arranged carriages and transported away. Apparently, if kept in water, the vines could last several days.
Honestly, even if they started growing them now, there was no guarantee of a good harvest this year. Just as there was no cure-all medicine, there was no perfect policy. All one could do was weigh the negatives against the positives and choose whichever side offered more benefit.
Maomao watched the carriages carrying away the seedlings, squinting into the sun.
"The execution is impressive."
"Yes, the men from Rokuyoukan really are well put-together. Apparently, there was a horse lender he knew in a neighboring village."
Rahan nodded in admiration.
In other words, it wasn't Rahan but Ukyō who had arranged everything.
"..."
Maomao tucked her notebook into her bosom and left the fields behind.
In front of the estate's gate, Ukyō was talking with the horse lender. The man spoke amiably while stroking the horse—one of the long-standing regulars at Rokuyoukan, whom Maomao had known since she was old enough to be aware of things.
When he finished talking and noticed Maomao, he waved.
"Going smoothly?"
"Yeah, smoothly."
She gave the bundles of seedlings a couple of pats. The carriage, with its sun-faded canopy, was one normally used for shared transport.
"Still, Kitsune-dono—was it really okay to send him back while he was asleep?"
"Staying here would just be a nuisance."
She had put the eccentric strategist in the carriage he had originally arrived in. The carriage would head straight back to the capital. Of course, sending the eccentric alone wouldn't get anything done, so Rikuson was going along. It was cruel to impose on him again when he was still injured and exhausted, but he was the right person for the job.
(Even so...)
Maomao stared intently at the head of the male servants.
Mikyaku noticed her gaze and scratched his cheek.
"Hey, hey, what's the matter? Is there something on my face?"
He was of medium build and height, skilled in his work, and quick-witted. Women found him attractive, but he was married, if she remembered right. He had taken in a courtesan who had passed her prime when she retired from the profession.
He was fond of children and often played with Chouu and Hatsu. In the past, Maomao had gotten piggyback rides from him many times.
He had blended in so naturally that she wondered why she hadn't noticed before.
Mikyaku was too perfect.
And the fact that the white lady happened to be sheltered in this residence was also too convenient.
"Kitsune-dono's younger brother is a good fellow. He gave me this as a souvenir."
Mikyaku brought a small jar that fit in the palm of his hand. He opened the lid and stirred the contents with a chopstick he had stuck inside. Something viscous stretched into threads.
"He said it's candy made from those yams, boiled down. The little ones will love it."
Still wearing his carefree smile, he licked the candy. He thrust the chopstick toward Maomao and offered, "Want some?" but she shook her head, declining.
She had always been lenient toward Chouu, but couldn't she change her way of thinking about this?
Chouu's existence was under surveillance by the court. Maomao had met his watchers a few times, but they weren't keeping a round-the-clock watch.
If anything, wasn't Mikyaku the one who had been around longer?
Then she recalled the time when Rikuson had been treated for his injuries.
Maomao had been the one doing the treatment, but midway through, Mikyaku had taken over. He already knew perfectly well that Maomao wouldn't mind examining a patient's lower half. That must have been to shield Rikuson's dignity. That was what she had thought, but it was true in a different sense.
What if there was something on Rikuson that shouldn't be seen by Maomao?
(...)
Once something caught her attention, she couldn't let it go. She knew that pressing further would be foolish, but her curiosity was impossible to suppress.
So she aimed to push just barely to the line.
"Why are you working as a guard at the Rokushokan? You could have landed a better job than that."
"Hah, what are you saying at this point?"
Ukyō paused for a breath.
"This
job
I like it. Let me keep doing it a while longer."
To words that could be taken either way, Maomao replied with a halfhearted "Sure, sure."
So that was how it was, then.
The current Emperor, for all his seeming indolence, was not the type to leave things to chance.
The subordinates in his possession were surely not just ordinary officials.
The Emperor's "ears," scattered throughout the land, might each be living perfectly ordinary lives while gathering information.
Fleshing out that wild fantasy was rather entertaining.
They could be found in the brothels frequented by high-ranking officials, or lurking among the direct subordinates of officials too powerful to challenge.
In some cases, certain people might even know about it and deliberately let them stay.
Day to day, they would wear blank expressions and go about their work, only moving when circumstances demanded it.
Well, let's drop the outline of some three-coins-per-chapter novel here.
"What about that white woman?"
The white lady had also been taken to the capital. Two bodyguards were assigned to watch over her.
Still, the fact that she alone had been left behind in this estate was nagging at him.
And as of now, the white lady had yet to say a single word.
"Who knows. It's not for me to say, I'm afraid."
So saying, Ukyō set down the jar of malt candy.
(Who can say how it'll turn out.)
Maomao climbed into the carriage and picked at a sweet potato vine snack. Since it was uncooked, it was, of course, not the least bit good.