Yao
The shrine maiden — the shrine maiden's other poison taster.
Of the three, Yao had it the worst. She'd briefly reached a stable condition, but had relapsed. Three days had passed now, and while she seemed to have settled down considerably, there was no room for letting her guard down.
Maomao had taken Yao's place and was staying at the shrine maiden's villa to nurse the maidens. That said, their symptoms were mild, so she was really only there as a precaution.
More pressing than that, however, was the matter of the person suspected of having poisoned them.
(Why is it)
Airin
again?
The woman from Sha'ou — the same country as the shrine maiden — why would she have poisoned the shrine maiden?
(She's being treated as a suspect for now, I suppose)
There was witness testimony. They had learned that she'd procured the toxic incense before the dinner, and that her seat had been close to the shrine maiden's, given they hailed from the same country. More importantly, Maomao knew that while everyone assumed there were eyes watching at all hours, that wasn't quite the case. When the incense was being carried, there had been no attendants around Airin whatsoever. She must have seized that opportunity to slip it into the food dish.
It wasn't impossible.
Given the witness testimony and the circumstances, Airin was apparently being questioned.
(The culprit has to be found right away)
This could escalate into an international incident.
(But if the culprit turns out to be from the same country)
Then it would be convenient for Li. The attempted poisoning of the shrine maiden could be chalked up to internal strife within Sha'ou, and the blame shifted accordingly. Having Airin be the culprit would be the most convenient outcome of all.
(In that case,)
Rahan
what's he going to do?
Maomao thought back to the small, plain man who always had numbers on his mind. It had originally been Rahan who brought Airin in, on the pretext of food exports or perhaps asylum. That calculating man would surely never allow himself to be mistaken for an accomplice, but this couldn't be sitting well with him.
(There might be something more going on)
Above all, there were too many things that didn't add up, and it was making Maomao deeply uncomfortable.
"The shrine maiden is no longer in any danger."
The attendant spoke to Maomao on the morning of the fifth day.
"The shrine maiden still doesn't look well."
"It's a matter of feeling, s. Since the person in question is who it is, she can't very well feel good about it, yo."
(I suppose not.)
She had been told someone tried to take her life in a far-off foreign land, only to discover the culprit was from her homeland.
"Indeed. So you knew each other?"
"...Yes. They originally came here as candidates for the next shrine maiden, la."
(I see.)
Maomao nodded in understanding.
When she left the shrine maiden's villa, a carriage was waiting. Maomao climbed in, but it was her father who sat inside.
"Is Yao going to be all right?"
"For now, yes. En'en is watching over her, and I've told her to send word immediately if things worsen."
Apparently, Yao had deteriorated from her stable condition and then settled down once more. They couldn't afford to let their guard down, but there had to be a reason her father came to fetch her in person. And sure enough, he spoke as he gazed out the window.
"We're not heading back to the medical office. We're going a bit further in."
Further past the medical office meant the section of the palace where the important officials gathered. Maomao had an inkling of why they might be headed there.
"...The banquet?"
Maomao had been tending the shrine maiden and her attendant, while her father had tended Yao—each nursing a person who had been poisoned. Given that Airin was being treated as a suspect, it wasn't surprising that they were being summoned as witnesses.
The carriage passed the medical office and continued toward its destination: Jinshi's palace.
"Please, come in."
The one who greeted them with refined courtesy was Suirei. The middle-aged maid with streaks of white in her hair took one look at Maomao and gave a faint, knowing smile. Maomao bowed respectfully in return to this inscrutable older woman.
In the room they were shown to, Jinshi was there, along with—
Bashen,
and then—
Rahan.
For a moment, Maomao wondered what Rahan was doing there, but he had been the one to arrange Airin's entry into the rear palace in the first place. The little bespectacled man appeared worn down by the whole affair, his thin lips twisted into an awkward grimace.
"Have you been briefed on the matter?"
"Is this regarding Consort Airin?"
"Then this should be straightforward. First, I'd like to hear from Lord Luomen."
Without any preamble, the conversation moves ahead.
"I can only speak about Yao, the lady-in-waiting assigned to the medical officer."
(Liar.)
Maomao thought. Her father was a cautious man. More accurately, he was the sort of person who would say "whether there is clear evidence for what I'm about to say." He was not one to speak on assumption alone.
"Yao's condition is severe—abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. She did stabilize briefly, but her condition worsened again, and she has only just settled down."
This matched what Maomao had heard. The symptoms were the same as the poison from incense.
Incense.
It was the same poison. Yet the severity of the symptoms, and the relapse, gave her pause.
Incense.
Shikimi.
Shikimi was an ingredient in the incense. It carried significant toxicity—a potent poison capable of killing, with the seeds being especially dangerous. What was used as incense was the leaves and bark ground into powder. But for that to cause these symptoms, she would have had to ingest a tremendous amount.
(Come to think of it...)
Maomao had taught Yao how to test for poison. She had told her to check by smelling it. However, before Yao could test for poison, her complexion had already gone pale—so there was a concern that perhaps her nose had been stuffed.
But the father's next remark transformed Maomao's nagging suspicion into something definitive.
"The poison is most likely mushroom toxin, not shikimi."
The words overturned the entire premise, and the room fell silent. They must have summoned her father here to definitively establish Airin's guilt, now that the evidence had all come together.
"I see..."
Maomao found herself convinced. Mushroom toxins were far more potent than shikimi in most cases. Above all, the symptoms were similar. The smell and taste of poisonous mushrooms—surely even Yao would not have been able to detect those.
In the stunned silence, Rahan leaned forward eagerly.
"Then can we consider that Lady Airin was framed? Great-Uncle!"
His voice was cheerful. And understandably so. If the person he had brought into the palace turned out to be problematic, the responsibility would fall on Rahan as well. For this small man, such an outcome must have been entirely unforeseen.
"I only said that the poison was not incense."
His old man's roundabout way of putting things sometimes got on everyone's nerves. To push the conversation along, Maomao spoke up with her own assessment. She tried to lay out the facts as objectively as possible, without getting swept up by whatever her old man was implying.
"Regarding the priestess and the other taster, the symptoms — abdominal pain and nausea — are the same. Compared to Yao, they appear to be considerably milder, and after about three days their condition has nearly returned to normal. If we're assuming mushroom poison, the points that bother me are that the amount the priestess and the other consumed seems far too small, and the poison seems to have taken effect unusually quickly."
Mushroom poison, judging by the symptoms —
Poison Crane Mushroom —
was what came to mind. That poison was potent and, moreover, slow-acting. By the time the poison began to take effect, it had already been absorbed into the body — a terrifying quality. Just when you thought it had been cured, the next set of symptoms would appear. She didn't think her old man's treatment had been wrong, but if Yao's condition was truly caused by mushroom poison, they would need to consider it far more serious than Shikimi's case.
Maomao had also thought the symptoms resembled mushroom poison, yet she had ruled it out. The reason was that the poison's symptoms would not begin to manifest until —
Three hours —
or more had passed. For symptoms to appear that quickly after the tasting, it was a bit too soon.
*(Your old man should know that much at least.)*
And yet he was saying this, which meant there had to be a reason. Could there be a drug that accelerated the poison's onset? Or was he talking about a different variety of mushroom poison, not the Poison Crane Mushroom? Or perhaps —
*(Could they have eaten it before the tasting…)*
… .
Maomao accidentally slammed her hand on the table.
Why hadn't she noticed? She recalled the conversation she had overheard in the detached palace where the priestess was staying.
"Lord Jinshi."
"What is it?"
"Have you told the priestess from Saō that Consort Airin is a suspect?"
"Not yet. I don't intend to tell them until we have clear proof. There's no point in stoking unnecessary anxiety."
Right, that was exactly what he'd said. But what the attendant in the detached palace had said was:
"It's a matter of feelings, su. The other party being who they are, it's not exactly pleasant, yo."
"… . Yes. They originally came here as candidates for the next priestess, after all, ra."
From this exchange, Maomao had assumed the priestess had already been told who the suspect was. Since Maomao had already heard the information herself, she had simply assumed the other party had too, and hadn't thought twice about it.
*(Why had the priestess's attendant already heard about this?)*
The reason Yao's symptoms were severe while the priestess and the other were mild. The discrepancy in the time it took the poison to take effect — this explained it.
"Old man… This is just a theory, but may I say it out loud?"
Chapter 477. Fists Breed Truth (Part 2)
Maomao looked at her father with earnest eyes. Her father made a troubled face.
"If you say it, can you take responsibility for what you've said?"
Once words had left one's mouth, there was no taking them back — no pretending they hadn't been spoken.
"But sometimes you have to say things whether you like it or not, right?"
Her father said nothing. Maomao took that as assent.
"Something's bothering you, isn't it?"
"Yes. This is just a theory, but..."
Speaking this way might be creating an escape route. Still, Maomao wasn't confident enough to state it as absolute fact.
"I don't believe Lady Airin was the one who poisoned her."
"On what grounds?"
He didn't simply swallow it at face value — he asked for an explanation. Rahan and Baseen both looked toward Maomao.
"If the poison is what Father — rather, what Court Physician Luomen — described as a mushroom toxin, then it's difficult to imagine Lady Airin being the one to administer it."
The time it took for the poison to take effect. If it was a variant of the poisonous crane mushroom, the poison would have had to be administered before the banquet. After leaving the inner palace, Airin had been under constant surveillance. While her maids may have looked away from time to time, she couldn't leave her room and had no allies nearby. Administering poison before the banquet would have been impossible.
"Then who do you suppose poisoned her before the banquet?"
"If the poison was administered, it would have had to be at the detached palace."
For several days prior, Yao had been eating the same meals as the priestesses at the detached palace. It was reasonable to assume she had ingested the poison while already at the detached palace, which meant the person who administered it would have been...
"One of the attendants accompanying the priestesses. In other words, it was staged."
"!?"
Everyone wore expressions of shock, except for her father, whose face hadn't changed at all. He must have had a similar speculation in mind. But her father was not one to voice guesses lightly — that was simply who he was.
If it was staged, it also explained why the other two had only mild symptoms. The only one who had actually ingested the poison was Yao. The other two were either acting or had taken a different, milder poison. Moreover, it explained how she had known who the suspects were despite supposedly not having that information — if it was all staged and meant to frame Airin, someone who had known her for years would surely be familiar with the fact she regularly used a type of incense with toxicity similar to that of the poisonous mushroom.
She understood the meaning behind her father's teaching — that one should not voice mere speculation. But even Maomao had moments that made her blood boil.
(But what reason was there to drag Yao into this!)
If the poison-tester for the Lychee section suffered severe symptoms, the shock of the poisoning would be all the greater. Yao had been used for that purpose. She was a bit proud, but at heart she was an earnest, hardworking girl.
Even if it wasn't Yanyan, Maomao felt the anger too.
She finally noticed her hands going numb and tingling, and Maomao reconsidered whether she had been speaking without her usual composure. Looking around, her father sat in silence while Jinshi and the others stared, dumbfounded.
"I have a question."
Maheen was the first to open his mouth. He was always quick to react in situations like this.
"Why would the shrine maiden have a reason to frame Consort Airin?"
"I have some idea about that."
Rahan raised his hand in Maomao's place.
"Consort Airin hinted to me that the shrine maiden may have borne a child — and that it was none other than Lady Shiranian. So I asked Maomao to verify whether she had ever given birth."
If she lacked the qualifications to serve as shrine maiden, her position would be stripped away. She might even be punished.
"So the shrine maiden is Lady Shiranian's mother... That's quite another bombshell."
If that were the case, then in addition to the existence of political enemies, the possibility that she had gotten her hands on some of the shrine maiden's secret could also explain why she had sought asylum.
And it would explain why the shrine maiden had come all the way to Lihua as well.
"If we consider it a matter of silencing her..."
Maomao felt a snag in Rahan's words.
Why was that? It should have been a perfectly sound deduction, yet something felt gratingly off, like food caught between her teeth.
Maomao looked to her father.
Her father simply sat there in silence, offering neither confirmation nor denial.