With the garden party set to begin in
half a period
or so,
Gyokuyou
and her attendants were waiting in the garden pavilion.
Colorful koi splashed about in the pond, and the crimson maple leaves scattered their few remaining foliage.
"Thanks to you, we were saved."
There was plenty of sunlight, but the wind was cold and dry. Normally, all one could do was shiver—
but thanks to the heated stones
tucked into their undergarments, no one was suffering too much.
The anxious
Lingli
was curled up inside a basket. Heated stones had been placed inside it as well.
"For the princess, please unwrap and rewrap the cloth from time to time. There is a risk of low-temperature burns. Also, be careful—if she licks the candy too much, her mouth will sting."
Maomao
had placed extra heated stones in the hand basket. The princess's diapers and change of clothes were in there as well. She had already asked a eunuch to bring in the brazier for warming the stones.
"Understood. Still..."
"Fufufu"—a mischievous laugh slipped out. The other attendants smiled wryly.
"You are my attendant, after all."
She pointed to the jade necklace.
"Indeed so."
Maomao decided to take the words at face value.
○●○
Gaoshun
Gaoshun watched his master as he probed Consort Tokuko's mood.
She who bore the smile of a celestial maiden and heavenly sweet dew—
Jinshi
was, despite being young, more resplendent than Consort Tokuko, who
had been
lauded as a beautiful princess.
He had merely added a touch of embroidery to his usual plain official's robes and slid a silver hairpin into his hair, yet he outshone even the consort draped in her splendid, ornate garments.
At this level, he was an outright nuisance, but since the eclipsed consort herself was dewy-eyed and swooning, there was probably no problem.
Truly a sinful man.
After making his rounds to the three consorts, he headed next toward Consort Gyokuyou.
He spotted her in the pavilion across the pond.
Though Jinshi should have treated all four consorts equally, lately his favoritism toward Consort Gyokuyou was rather strong. Well, as the Emperor's beloved consort, it wasn't particularly problematic, but it was clear there were other reasons as well.
He bowed to the consort and complimented her on how well the red robes suited her.
Indeed, they suited her beautifully. The mystery of a Western barbarian princess and her innate coquettishness seemed to mingle into the very air.
Perhaps the only person in the rear palace whose glamour could rival Jinshi's was Consort Gyokuyou.
That said, the ladies-in-waiting around her were not without beauty either—each drew out her own particular charm.
What made Jinshi remarkable was his willingness to say so explicitly.
Everyone wanted to be praised for the parts of themselves they were fond of, and he struck that note perfectly.
Jinshi never lied.
He simply didn't tell the whole truth.
He appeared calm, but the left corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly upward. A retainer who had served him for years could tell—it was the expression of a child presented with a toy. How troublesome.
Pretending to glance at the princess's face, he sidled up to the petite maid.
However.
There stood an unfamiliar maid, wearing an expressionless and somehow contemptuous look of extreme insolence.
○●○
[[[en]]] "Good day, Lord Jinshi."
She was careful not to let her face show what she was really thinking: You're here again, you idle lout.
With Gaoshun watching, she wanted to keep things as civil as possible.
"Are you wearing makeup?"
"No, I'm not."
All she had done was apply a bit of rouge to her lips and the corners of her eyes—otherwise her face was completely bare.
There was a faint discoloration around her nose, but nothing to fuss over.
"Your freckles have disappeared."
"Yes, I removed them."
What remained was the mark she had once given herself, pricking a needle into her own skin—
a punishment brand.
She hadn't pricked too deep. With the light dye she'd used, it would fade in about a year.
Even though it would eventually fade, the old men had still been dead set against it—after all, it was the same punishment given to criminals.
"You covered it up with makeup, didn't you?"
"It disappeared because I washed the makeup off."
(Ugh, I should have just gone along with whatever he said.)
Maomao realized she had given the wrong response, but it was already too late.
"What you're saying doesn't add up. It's contradictory."
"No. That's not the case at all."
Makeup isn't solely about making oneself look beautiful. There are even married women who deliberately apply it to make themselves look ugly.
Every day, Maomao had been applying a mixture of dried clay and dissolved dye around her nose. It blurred the tattooed freckles just enough to make them look like natural blemishes. It simply hadn't occurred to anyone that she would do something like that, so no one had noticed.
A woman with freckles, blemishes, and an utterly unremarkable face.
That was why
"ugly woman"
was what they called her.
In other words, without her freckles and blemishes, she would have nothing distinctive about her — an average, unremarkably well-proportioned face.
Even a touch of rouge completely changed the atmosphere, giving her a face entirely different from Maomao's usual look.
Jinshi held his head, looking somewhat bewildered by Maomao's explanation.
"Why do you put on makeup like that? Does it even serve a purpose?"
"Yes. It's to keep from being dragged into back alleys."
Even in the pleasure district, there were men desperate for women. Most of them had no money, were violent, and some even carried venereal diseases.
Naturally, she wanted no part of that.
Jinshi looked dumbfounded, then cautiously asked, for some reason.
"Were you actually dragged in?"
"It was an attempted one."
She caught the meaning of what he was about to say and glared at him sideways.
"Instead, I was abducted by a human trafficker, though."
The women sold off to the inner palace were better off being easy on the eyes. That particular day, she had simply forgotten to put on makeup and gone out to gather herbs — to remove the dye of a fading tattoo.
"My apologies. The management clearly hasn't been up to standard."
"It's fine. They probably can't tell the difference between being trafficked through abduction and being sold off due to famine anyway, so it doesn't matter."
The former was a crime, while the latter was perfectly legal. Even with abduction, if the buyer claimed ignorance, they would face no punishment.
The reason she still wore such makeup in the inner palace was the same as why she had hidden her ability to write. She no longer cared either way, but she had no idea when the right moment to suddenly show her bare face would come, so
the timing
never came, and she simply left things as they were.
"Ah, I'm sorry about that."
(He's being unusually honest.)
When she tried to look up at him, something pricked into her head with a sharp pain.
"That hurts, you know."
"Oh? My mistake."
It wasn't just a sweet smile — there was a face tinged with something between wistfulness and embarrassment.
When she touched her head, her fingers met cold metal where there should have been nothing but hair.
"Well then, I'll see you at the venue."
With his back still turned, Jinshi departed from the garden pavilion.
What had been pinned there was a man's silver
hairpin
lodged in her hair.
"Aah, I want one too~"
Yinghua
was looking at it so longingly that Maomao thought about giving it to her, but the other two wore the same expression, so she had no choice but to pull her hand back.
Hongniang
gave a wry smile.
"Honestly, you've already broken your promise."
Consort Gyokuyou was pulling a sour face.
Taking the hairpin Maomao had been holding, she carefully tucked it into her tied-up hair.
"You're not just my personal attendant anymore, are you?"
Fortunately or unfortunately, Maomao was ill-informed about the inner court, especially matters concerning the upper class.
She didn't even understand what it all signified.