A cool early morning in autumn. A package had arrived for Maomao, who was trying to go about her usual work at the medical office. The delivered package was, to put it mildly, far from refreshing.
"Say, aren't you being bullied or something?"
The one giving her such a pitying look—one she would never normally direct her way—was
Yoyu.
Maomao flinched backward, her face contorting.
"It's not like that..."
She could hardly be blamed for the suspicion. The package was filled with a huge number of insect carcasses.
Maomao grimaced as she examined the insects. They were locusts.
Collecting this many would normally be quite difficult. But the fact that they were piled up here in such quantities meant there had been an environment where they could be gathered in abundance.
"I brought them down from upstairs, so they're just sitting here. Take them away quickly."
Speaking in a brusque tone was the elderly
Liu—
a senior physician. Holding a high position within the medical office, he treated everyone with severity, regardless of who they were.
(Even if you tell me to take them away...)
She didn't want to bring home a basket full of locusts. She could more or less guess who had sent them, which only left her at a loss for what to do.
Physician Liu seemed to realize that even he couldn't push this. He beckoned her over. "Come here."
"Use the vacant room in the building next door. It's technically outside my jurisdiction, but grab whoever's free and take a few people with you to get it done quickly."
It seemed the priority was higher than routine medical office chores.
If that was the case, then—
"H-hey, what?"
She tugged on Yoyu's sleeve.
Maomao grinned and decided to lead the grimacing Yoyu to where the insects were.
Yoyu, her face turning green, placed the insects on a scale.
And En'en watched Yoyu, her cheeks flushed red.
Maomao silently measured the length of the flying locusts' legs and wings.
"Wh-when will this be over..."
Yoyu, who loathed insects, gingerly picked them up with chopsticks and set them down one by one. She arranged ten on a plate and calculated their average weight.
"I don't think you need to measure every single one. But the more data points we have, the better."
Maomao sorted the locusts by size, setting aside any that differed in color from the rest.
"My lady, if it becomes too much, I can take over for you,"
En'en said with a show of concern toward Yoyu.
"I-I'm fine. This is... this is part of the job, you know..."
That only stoked Yoyu's stubborn pride. Of course, En'en had surely said it knowing full well it would have that exact effect.
"My lady..."
Maomao watched Yoyu pinch the insects between her chopsticks, her heart thudding and goosebumps rising all over her arms.
Maomao observed the pair with narrowed eyes as she continued working.
When about a third of the locusts had been sorted, a visitor arrived.
"Hello there."
The grinning, curly-haired little man in round glasses needed no introduction.
Rahān.
had come.
Maomao kept working with a sour look on her face. Rahān seemed entirely unbothered, leaning in to examine the numbers they had gathered.
"Maomao, would you mind giving your big brother a quick explanation?"
"..."
She ignored him.
"I brought the payment I mentioned before. Has Maomao forgotten about it?"
He whispered softly in her ear.
Maomao glanced briefly at Yoyu and En'en. Yoyu didn't notice anything, while En'en was aware of the exchange but deliberately pretended not to be. It had to do with the secret investigation into the Western priestess they had carried out on Rahān's behalf. The attempted poisoning of the priestess had swept the whole matter under the rug, but he apparently still remembered.
Maomao set down her work.
"This should be roughly three hundred specimens. I'm counting the length of their legs and wings, color, and weight, as well as how many eggs the females are carrying. I believe these locusts flew in from distant lands."
"Mhm, mhm."
Flipping through the papers one after another, Rahān was deep in thought. At first glance, it was a collection of dull, uninteresting numbers, but to this small man, it must have been more fascinating than anything.
Yoyu, who looked haggard, finally seemed to notice Rahān, and offered a weary greeting in her own way. Maomao thought it might be best for her to rest for a bit and moved to prepare some tea, but pressing food or drink on Yoyu right now would be too much.
"Here you go."
En'en placed tea only in front of Rahān. Rahān, absorbed in the numbers and paying no mind to the mountain of locust carcasses, slurped his tea.
"Maomao, what about these numbers?"
Rahān pointed to a separate set of figures.
"Those are from these locusts here. From their color, shape, and weight, I thought they might not be ones that flew in but rather locusts that were originally in the area, so I sorted them out."
When locusts undergo a swarm outbreak, changes occur in the locusts themselves. Locusts that fly in from distant places are lighter individuals with well-developed wings.
"Right? So if these locusts were to fly, how far would they travel?"
"..."
This wasn't Maomao's area of expertise. Yoyu and En'en also joined the conversation, tilting their heads.
"They probably can't fly that far, can they? A few ri at most, I'd imagine. They're insects, after all."
When Yoyu voiced this, Rahān nodded and continued.
"Interestingly, in the areas surrounding villages where locusts had swarmed, there was no other locust damage. With this many locusts, they'd need to have been feeding somewhere to grow this large."
However, no locusts had appeared in the surrounding villages.
Rahān pulled a map from his robes. It was a large map depicting the entirety of Li.
"Earlier, you said they could only fly a few ri since they're insects, right?"
"Yes, and a few ri is already a generous estimate."
"But—"
Rahān took out a piece of string and laid it across the map. He seemed to dislike drawing directly on the map, so he used the string to trace a line. It ran diagonally from the northwest toward the location where the village had been.
"There's a seasonal wind that blows through here."
"You mean it rode the wind here?"
"That's right. In that case, instead of a few ri, it would be possible for them to travel dozens of ri."
This time, he placed go stones onto the map.
"And this stone?"
En'en pointed at a white stone.
"These are the regions that suffered locust damage. It would be reasonable to assume that this area served as a relay point, and that the locusts flowed in from even further northwest."
"That's the direction where
the North Asian Union
is, isn't it?"
"..."
A cold sweat trickled down.
Yō had merely stated a fact without realizing the implications. What Raban was getting at went much further. En'en seemed to understand, but she had no intention of pressing the matter—she was simply doting on her young lady.
Raban gathered the slips of paper with the collected data into a bundle.
"This should be more than enough. I'll prepare someone else to take over, so hand things off and relieve me."
"...You should have just done that from the beginning."
When Maomao grumbled, Raban wagged his index finger, saying "No, no."
"If you collect inaccurate data, you won't be able to see what needs to be seen. At the start, I need proper measurements."
She understood what he was trying to say. He had probably already obtained the useful data he needed.
As Raban turned to leave, Maomao grabbed his sleeve.
"You haven't forgotten something, have you?"
"Oh, right!"
Raban exaggeratedly pulled out his luggage. Inside a cloth bundle was a single root vegetable.
"‼"
Maomao couldn't help but sniff loudly through her nostrils.
"Well then, I'll be heading home."
Once she'd gotten what she came for, Raban was of no further use.
"What's that— a carrot?"
Yao leaned in to take a look.
"It's definitely a carrot, but that's..."
Yanyan seemed to know what it was.
But Maomao could only stare at the carrot, completely transfixed.
"Nnffuffuffuffu"
"W-w-what's wrong?"
"Nfffuffuffuffuffu"
"Yanyan, Maomao's acting weird!"
"My lady, Maomao has always been a bit odd."
Their words passed right through her ears. Compared to what was right in front of her now, nothing else mattered.
"Nfffuffuffuffuffuffuffuffu"
"See, I told you something's wrong! That thing you got from her isn't some kind of strange drug, is it?"
"My lady, it's perfectly fine. It is a medicine, but nothing strange."
Maomao hoisted the bundle of carrots high into the air and spun round and round.
"It's carrots!"
Carrots.
But calling them carrots didn't quite capture it. These were medicinal ginseng carrots — for ages, they couldn't be cultivated and had to be found growing wild. They were also known as bōchuí.
Blanched and dried without peeling — red ginseng. A specimen this size would have been a truly premium product.
Surrounded by a room full of dead bugs, flustered Yao and calm Yanyan looking on, Maomao danced her dance of pure, unrestrained joy for the first time in ages.