Ada's palace had the same atmosphere as always.
"Ada, read us a book!"
Children were gathered around Ada. Under the pavilion, the sight of her reading aloud to them looked like a painting from the West.
It seemed that while no one could quite bring themselves to interrupt, Ada had noticed them on her own. She gently closed the book, soothed the children, and rose to her feet.
"Oh, are we done already?"
"Haha. It's almost dinnertime. I'll read to you before bed, so make sure you brush your teeth properly beforehand."
After patting the children on their heads, the beautiful woman in her Hu-style robes approached Jinshi. She had always been youthful, but since moving to the separate palace, she seemed to have grown even younger.
"Lord Moon, it has been quite some time."
Ada knelt and clasped both hands together in a formal greeting, as though she were a court official. Her manner appeared perfectly deferential, but Jinshi smirked, suspecting that with her head bowed like that, she was probably sticking her tongue out.
"You seem to be doing well."
Jinshi gently placed his hand over hers. As if that were the cue, Ada raised her head—and sure enough, her tongue was sticking out.
For Jinshi, who was usually observed from a distance, Ada was one of the very few people who treated him as something close to an equal.
The bodyguard who was always nagging—
Basen—
he had left behind.
He hadn't spelled it out, but the man clearly hadn't been happy about it.
If anyone ought to be giving a warning, it would be his own sister, but he simply couldn't bring himself to do it. For all his physical strength, he was a spineless man. If he ever took a wife, he would surely—
Gaoshun—
have nothing on how henpecked he'd end up.
"Well, I suppose it depends on the person."
"Is something wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing."
Led inside the palace, a sweet fragrance wafted over to them.
"What is this?"
On the table, several bottles of wine were lined up. From the smell alone, they were quite potent.
"This is..."
I couldn't help but double-check.
"
Water lily
His Majesty had gifted me those water lily sweets. But I must say, I've rather taken a fancy to the liquor used to make them. He was kind enough to set some aside for me specially."
The guards had been left outside the room, and only Jinshi and Ada remained within. Ada's speech grew even more casual.
"..."
I recalled the time I'd shared drinks with Ada before. That must have been the night before Ada left the rear palace. I'd summoned him, only to end up being plied with drink and ultimately told, "Well, that's enough," and kicked out of the palace.
Besides the wine, a Go board had been set on the table as well.
Ada picked up a single Go stone and toyed with it.
"I hear you had an interesting match the other day."
"Word got around?"
Jinshi quietly averted his gaze. I had a bad feeling about this. Without meaning to, the roles had reversed, and Jinshi's manner of speaking had become polite.
After years of dealing with the rear palace, this felt closer to natural.
Since we were finally alone, I continued the conversation.
"Indeed. When I heard that eccentric strategist had been cornered, I couldn't help but laugh. I wonder what methods you used."
From how he was sloshing the wine bottles around, he clearly already knew.
"Well, I lost in the end."
A loss was a loss.
Rakhan
To beat Rakhan — no matter the method — was a win as far as Jinshi was concerned.
"But I hear you had quite the upper hand."
"Yes, I was quite sure of it. Who would have thought they'd stage a comeback from a position where only a paper-thin connection remained?"
Even so, I hadn't been careless. I'd been preparing for a rematch, considering every possible move, only to have them all overturned.
"Never Think of Your Opponent as Human."
Those words from the Chess Saint proved exactly right.
That was precisely why she had stacked one underhanded trick after another, determined to win even if it meant boxing him in completely.
As if she had foreseen this, Ada poured amber-hued liquor into a crystal vessel. A rich, mellow fragrance swept through the room in an instant.
"Now then—the opponent you wanted so desperately to beat. What were you going to do once you won?"
"...Indeed, what was I planning to do?"
Jinshi returned a question with a question.
Looking unimpressed, Ada held out the drink she had poured for herself over to Jinshi.
"If you had defeated Lord Rakan in any shape or form, the number of fools who dismiss me as nothing but a pretty-faced imperial brother would surely decrease."
"As always, you're brimming with confidence about your looks alone. People won't be able to say a nasty thing about it, will they?"
"On that front, perhaps I should express my gratitude to the mother who gave birth to me."
Jinshi's appearance was at times so formidable it bordered on troublesome—it was a weapon in its own right.
"..."
Ada fell silent. She wondered whether her unwavering confidence in her looks had finally exhausted his patience.
She peered at him over the rim of her
cup to gauge his reaction.
"Lady Ada?"
On the other side of the amber liquid sat a woman wearing a strangely anguished expression. For a moment, she looked nothing like her usual composed self in masculine dress.
"Are you feeling unwell?"
"No, it's nothing. This stuff is stronger than I expected, though."
Ada set down her cup. The anguished expression was gone, replaced by a sharp, dignified face reminiscent of a young official.
"You didn't have to go out of your way to defeat an eccentric strategist. You didn't need to add to your reputation either—with the matter of the Chi clan's rebellion, no one thinks of you as a sickly, reclusive imperial brother anymore."
"The matter with the Chi clan was not my doing."
If anything, she was the one who had been manipulated. By that vixen who was no longer here.
She had been offered the drink, but she still hadn't taken a sip. Before that, she needed to get to the main topic.
"More to the point, Lord Ada. I heard the palace was set on fire."
"Ah, word travels fast."
He replied in a perfectly nonchalant tone.
"Fast? That was ten days ago!"
He pressed, asking why nothing had been reported.
"Report, what report? It was just a"
"little fire."
"Besides, nothing was stolen."
"Then why wasn't a report filed?"
Ada grinned from ear to ear.
"Don't try to laugh your way out of this."
"Fine, you got me. That usually works on the ladies-in-waiting and eunuchs, though."
"I'm neither a lady-in-waiting nor a eunuch. And more to the point — were you actually trying to charm me?"
"You're not exactly in a position to criticize me for that, are you?"
Jinshi was struck speechless.
If anything, he had used that very trick constantly when he was stationed in the rear palace, and he still got to pull it out from time to time.
"So? What was the reason you kept quiet?"
"You're a smart one. I'm sure you can guess."
Ada brought out some grilled
ham
for a snack. She held thin slices between both fingers, fluttering them about.
If Suiren had seen that, she would have jumped in with corrections in an instant.
"The intruder was"
"looking for Cuiling,"
"it seems."
Just as I had broadly predicted.
Cuiling was the granddaughter of the previous Emperor — one of the surviving members of the Child Clan.
Someone who should by rights have been executed was living in Ada's palace. This was a grave problem.
"What about the children?"
In addition to the surviving members of the Child Clan, they were also raising orphans who had no parents.
"They're living healthy lives. The small fire commotion happened in the middle of the night, so they didn't even notice. They're all good children and still young. As for their past memories — from now on, we'll build new happy ones and wash away the sad ones."
All they had to do was completely forget that they belonged to the Child Clan. That way, Jinshi and the rest wouldn't have to agonize over it.
If anything happened, they would be dealt with immediately.
It was under that promise that the children's lives were being spared.
One,
Zhao Yu,
was the only child who had completely lost their memories. So as an exceptional measure, the place where Ichisei cared for Maomao and the others—
Rokushoukan—
was where he was placed.
Placing a child in a brothel had seemed questionable at first, but in a sense, it was the place where eyes could be kept on them most closely.
"So, what about Cuiling?"
"The children kept pestering her, so she was reading a book to them, and she ended up falling asleep right there in the children's room."
Jinshi couldn't help but make a bewildered expression. When it came to Cuiling, she was a tall woman who mostly dressed in men's clothing. It was hard for Jinshi to picture. After all, she always wore a blank expression — it was difficult to imagine how she could possibly look after children.
"She was probably tired from the daytime too, since she'd been asked to trim the garden trees. She kept screaming in surprise every time a caterpillar showed up, you know."
Making someone who should by rights have been kept locked up play at being a gardener — that was so typical of Ada.
"Lord Ada."
To think he would treat a woman who had once caused such an uproar in the palace this way.
Jinshi thought to himself with deep resignation that he simply could not compete with Ada.
"So to put it together, while the culprit did get away, we can take it that they didn't manage to obtain any useful evidence?"
"That's right. And regarding the reason they kept quiet—"
Ada gently pulled a cloth bundle from inside her robe. Within was a rod-shaped object about the size of a fingertip.
"This is—"
"It was found at the scene of the small fire. It's stained with soot, but you can tell by touching it."
"..."
She verified it with her fingertips. The cool material—could it be glass? It seemed to be glass that had been shaped into a thin, long rod and then cut, but when she looked inside, it was hollow.
"It's been turned"
"into prayer"
"beads."
Prayer beads were not unusual as ornaments, but from what Jinshi could see, these were remarkably small. They weren't individual beads linked together—these were the kind meant to be sewn onto garments or footwear.
Having spent many years in the rear palace, Jinshi could recall which consorts had worn clothing adorned with prayer beads.
"Could they be from the Western Regions?"
In the Western Regions, embroidery was considered essential training for a bride, and women would embroider all manner of garments or sew prayer beads onto them.
"That's why I kept quiet about it."
People from the Western Regions. How many people would react to that?
With the Emperor strengthening ties to the West, there was also considerable opposition.
"I suspect"
"Gyoen's"
"relatives might be behind this. What do you think?"
Gyoen, the father of Consort Gyokuyou—
he rules the western
region of Ri. He should be in the capital at present.
"This isn't something we can casually bring up."
"No, it isn't."
Ada sliced the piece of ham she'd been toying with clean in half and popped it into her mouth. Jinshi took some ham as well and ate it. The meat was well-salted and quite good. Suiren usually prepared sweets to accompany their drinks, so something savory was a nice change for once.
"Well, now that we've noticed it, we can't very well ignore it."
Ada wiped her fingertips with a hand towel and downed the wine in her cup.
"You're too soft. That's why you need to watch yourself."
With that, Ada set her cup down on the table.
The vibration from the impact caused the contents of Jinshi's untouched cup to ripple. In the trembling amber surface, Jinshi's face was reflected, distorted.