Midsummer, when the scent of autumn was still some ways off. The capital was brimming with a festive air. When people arrived from foreign lands, the economy hummed along. As a result, events naturally increased in number, growing into full-fledged festivals.
She didn't dislike festivals, per se. One way or another, they brought a certain liveliness to one's surroundings. That effect was especially pronounced within the palace.
And how, exactly, did it manifest?
"You're working too hard."
That was what the pale-faced civil official heard upon being brought before the stone-faced physician. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his gaze was vacant and unfocused.
"Get some proper sleep, or you'll literally die."
Sleep was essential. People who swaggered about boasting that they could go a day or two without rest often dropped dead once they got on in years. For a time, even Jinshi had gone dangerously long stretches without sleep.
Setting up a shop in the capital required official permission. While plenty of street vendors simply spread out their wares without authorization, anyone hoping to establish a proper, large-scale operation needed a permit on account of taxes. If caught, one could face anything from a fine to imprisonment.
Festivals drew crowds. With foreigners pouring in, trade goods had increased compared to before, and no small number of people had settled in the capital hoping to cash in on the boom.
The civil officials, for their part, were buried in paperwork.
The military officials weren't any less busy either. The silver lining was that the eccentric military strategist had been making fewer visits of late.
As more people flowed in, public order deteriorated. Keeping things in line was the military's job. The trouble was, unlike civil officials, soldiers could simply redirect their training hours to actual work—and being the brutes they were, no single remark could bring them down.
Still, injuries had increased.
"Ow! Can't you be a little gentler?!"
Yao
She was applying medicine to a soldier's arm. A red line some three inches long marked the cut on his skin.
(It was just a scrape, from the looks of it.)
She had apparently set up an unlicensed stall and was selling dubious medicine. When someone tried to shut her down, she'd flown into a rage and pulled a blade on them.
"I'm sorry."
Yao replied in her usual flat tone, but her lips were slightly pursed. She looked less angry than someone fighting back tears.
En'en
She quietly went to help her mistress, offering well-chilled tea and calling it "a pain reliever"—though it was surely nothing more than ordinary cold-brewed tea.
Physicians rarely entrusted patients to court ladies just yet, but they seemed to appreciate this sort of thoughtfulness from En'en. Complaints against the medical office had apparently decreased.
And as for what Maomao was doing...
Crunch, crunch, making medicine.
She had been entrusted with the task on the assumption that she could at least handle simple ointments. As long as she kept her desire to make more unusual medicines in check, it wasn't a bad arrangement. Maomao was ill-suited to customer service, and her looks were inferior to the other two, so it seemed just right.
"Maomao, the ointment."
Since the incident with the baked sweets, En'en had become considerably more casual in her manner of speaking. However, when Yao saw En'en adopting that attitude, she would puff out her cheeks a little. There were times Maomao suspected En'en was deliberately provoking her young mistress into childish behavior.
"The ointment, right."
Maomao reached to hand over the ointment, then glanced toward the injured person. It was the military officer who had been shouting earlier. He was making a fuss over what was hardly a serious wound.
"..."
Maomao quietly pulled out the ointment she had tucked in her bosom and swapped it with the one she had been about to hand over.
(Perfect timing.)
She had thought that if he was that full of energy, using him as a test subject for a new ointment wouldn't be out of the question.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Startled by the voice behind her, Maomao turned around to find the court physician watching her with narrowed eyes.
"You just switched the medicine, didn't you?"
"What do you mean?"
Maomao feigned ignorance, but the physician snatched the ointment she had been about to hand him. Narrowing his eyes, he examined the ointment with his fingertips.
"Hey, you've mixed something else into this, haven't you? This."
"What do you mean?"
When Maomao continued to feign ignorance, a knuckle rapped down on her head.
"I've been told to keep a strict eye on you, since you're Luomen's..."
Being her father's acquaintance certainly made things awkward.
"What did you put in?"
"A bit of frog."
She had heard that frog oil made a good ingredient and decided to try it. In practice, almost no oil could be extracted from a frog, and what she had managed to produce was the small amount she now carried.
"I had heard that in foreign lands, frog oil is used as medicine."
"Just so you know, I've never heard of that."
Come to think of it, Maomao had never heard of it either. Still, she had wondered whether it might have some medicinal properties and decided to test it. She carefully selected non-poisonous frogs and was monitoring her own body for any adverse effects. She wasn't so heartless as to experiment with something when she didn't even know whether it was toxic or not.
"For the time being, I'm confiscating them."
"Ahhh!"
They were taken away. And all the trouble she had gone to, tramping out to the rice paddies on her day off to hunt for them.
"You... frogs..."
Yao stared at her with a pale face, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.
"Putting such things into medicine — you must be out of your mind!"
Maomao scratched at one ear and let the words wash over her. Her attitude must have been too dismissive, because En'en jabbed her with an elbow.
"I don't think frogs are something Yao would ever encounter, but among the common people they're eaten quite regularly."
Yao again made a face of disbelief and glanced toward En'en, as if seeking her opinion.
"Yes. They're eaten normally. Sometimes even sliced snake is sold under the guise of fish."
At the word "snake," her face went deathly pale.
"Rest assured. Nothing of questionable nature is included in anything Yao-sama eats."
"Snake is fine too, you know."
The small bones were a bit of a nuisance, but deep-frying them until crispy solved the problem entirely. If the gamey smell was a concern, herbs and spices could take care of it easily.
When she happened to be
a little hungry,
she had brought along dried snake meat as a snack substitute. She held it out, asking "Want some?" but Yao slumped weakly against the wall and shook her head feebly.
Maomao had no choice but to put it back in her robes.
"Hey, you lot — stop slacking off!"
Ordered by the medical officer, Maomao and the others stopped their chattering and went back to work.
Maomao and the others ate lunch in the dining hall. Meals were provided, but the portions were small, so many people brought extra food to supplement them.
The officials and the court ladies ate in separate areas. Yao, who was usually cold toward Maomao, at this one time came a little closer.
The reason was the atmosphere around them.
Whether in the inner palace or the pleasure district, women had a nature they only revealed when it was just women. In a corner of the dining hall where no male eyes could reach, gossip and risqué talk flew freely.
"You know, military officers really are no good. The pay's only so-so despite how busy they are, and they eat like horses, so the food bill is nothing to laugh at. They can't even spring for a proper meal."
"Ugh, the worst. But civil officials aren't all great either. There was one who asked me out the other day — by the window seat. Seriously. The type who just shelves moldy documents all day with no hope of ever getting ahead. He gave me a hairpin, which was nice, but it was so out of style it was practically offensive."
"At least he gave you something. You're just going to pawn it anyway, right?"
Court ladies were mostly daughters of good families. But that didn't mean every single one of them had the manners to match.
It was apparently a reality that was hard to accept for truly well-bred young ladies. Whenever Maomao sat down in a corner of the dining hall, they would quietly follow her there.
The reason was that when Maomao was present, those people — especially those who looked down on the newly created position of medical officer assistant — wouldn't dare approach.
(All I did was give them a little talking-to.)
And now they wouldn't come near at all.
What had happened was, a court lady had shown up with her entourage, looking to launch a preemptive strike against the naive-sounding medical officer assistants. She trailed a gaggle of followers and had the same aura as Yao in the beginning. The difference was that rather than being someone who lived for her work, she radiated the energy of someone who had come to the palace for one reason: to bag men. She rather seemed to take pride in the air of "I like to try something different every time."
The textbook
type.
Maomao noticed a rash around the woman's mouth.
"Forgive me for asking, but it appears you have more than one partner. Are you aware of the risks of disease?"
she inquired.
"I don't date sick men!"
the woman shot back, but Maomao explained about incubation periods. Even setting that aside, even if a partner himself wasn't sick, if that partner's other partners were, there was a high chance the disease had already been transmitted. There was no guarantee that she was the only one juggling multiple partners.
She also explained that sexually transmitted infections didn't come one at a time — they could be contracted in a bundle.
"Have you been feeling sluggish lately? And have you noticed any sores, lumps, or bleeding in your genital area?"
By the time Maomao finished her line of questioning, the woman had gone white as a sheet and stopped showing up entirely.
Maomao had been perfectly serious about it, but Yao's face had turned scarlet. Enen, who apparently had no prior knowledge of sexually transmitted infections, had been
taking
notes.
Anyway, to get back on track, today's meal was rice porridge with
consommé
and
Side dishes
were the one course. There were several to choose from — you could pick whichever you liked, but if you came late, they'd sell out and your options would shrink.
I mentioned the portions being small, but normally you'd only eat twice a day — morning and evening. At midday,
dim sum
is served in place of a snack break.
Maomao chose the steamed chicken cold plate from the side dishes. Meat dishes were popular, so you had to arrive early or they'd be gone in no time. Both of them had picked the same thing.
"It's not like I was copying you or anything."
(Yeah, I know — you didn't say that.)
Depending on how you looked at it, it was rather a cute reaction.
The other side dishes included a fish dish and a vinegar-based one. The sliced fish could, if you looked at it a certain way, pass for snake. That was probably why she'd avoided the fish.
And when you got a reaction like that, it made you want to be just a little bit mean — which was exactly the kind of contrarian Maomao was.
She'd staked out a corner of the dining hall. Normally she'd just eat in silence, but today...
"Come to think of it, I heard there's going to be an important visitor from another country."
That had been the talk of the town lately.
"I hear that in the desert, snakes and lizards are considered precious sources of nutrition, and people there do eat them. I wonder how they prepare them?"
If you traveled west, you'd find out for yourself — their food culture was different. She'd learned that the last time she was taken west. It wasn't exactly a sightseeing trip, but the street stalls had quite a few curious trinkets.
"Maomao."
Yanyan shot her a slightly reproachful look. Yao had frozen with her spoon still in hand.
"...I've completely lost my appetite."
She quietly set down her spoon.
"Lady Yao, you really ought to eat properly."
"I'll have dim sum later."
She said this to Yanyan with a slightly sullen expression. Yanyan looked troubled and produced a cloth-wrapped bundle. Inside was a bamboo-tube water flask. Yao, being at the age where she ate voraciously, found the dining hall meals alone weren't enough and always brought her own snacks.
"You're allowed to eat after the meal, you know."
Yanyan glanced at Yao. Yao twisted her face into a sour grimace and reluctantly began working on her porridge.
(They sure know how to handle things.)
As for the contents of the bamboo tube, she removed a container and emptied it out. A sweet scent and something translucent and jiggly emerged.
"This is..."
As expected of a wealthy household. A high-end confection, perfect for summer—
A water sweet.
It was nourishing and invigorating, with beautifying effects on the skin—something that occasionally showed up as Gyokuyou's late-night snack.
"It's Yao's favorite."
Yanyan softly pressed her index finger to her lips. She must have been acting on the assumption that Maomao already knew what this water sweet was.
"(What dubious ingredients might be in it, I wonder.)"
What they were doing was cruel.
"Ahhh, it's a little lukewarm, but it's delicious."
Yao was savoring the jiggly confection with deep, heartfelt appreciation.
The name of that sweet was "Snow Frog."
Better to keep quiet about the fact that its main ingredient was frog ovaries—for Yao's sake.