(Two volumes, maybe?)
Maomao
was writing down the numbers of the missing books. There seemed to be two volumes that were clearly absent.
"Hmm."
Maomao tilted her head over the desk. Once again today, she had been copying books. Last night, she had been thinking about pulling an all-nighter, but
Yao
and
En'en
had dragged her off and forced her to go to sleep. Apparently, staying up late was bad for one's skin.
Most of the books on the shelves were in the old man's handwriting. They contained much knowledge from his days studying abroad in the West, with foreign words mixed in throughout. Some of them were things even Maomao didn't recognize. Even when she asked En'en, the spellings didn't ring a bell, so she surmised they must be specialized terms that couldn't be translated into the Li language.
She wanted to read everything, but there was no time. She'd heard the eccentric strategist would be back tomorrow, so she wanted to copy as much as she could before then, but that seemed impossible. In that case, she'd have to extract just the most important parts.
"Maomao, don't overwork yourself."
En'en came over carrying vegetables in one hand. Yesterday's meal had been extravagant, so she'd said today would be something lighter. She was probably thinking about Yao's diet.
"Don't worry."
"Lady Yao will follow along."
It wasn't Maomao's concern. This was just En'en being her usual self.
"Where did Yao go?"
Maomao felt like Yao had been reading books with her that morning. She'd disappeared at some point. Yao had said she had no intention of leaving the eccentric strategist's estate grounds during her time off, since she didn't want to run into "that uncle."
"It looks like she took a few books with her, so I'd appreciate it if she could return them soon."
"Those aren't your books, are they? The young lady is upstairs."
"...It's such a waste if no one reads them."
If she were simply going to let them sit and deteriorate, would it be all right for her to take the entire collection? But she had nowhere to put them. They'd never fit in her quarters, and if she left them at her ramshackle house in the pleasure quarter, the old man would find out when he came back.
The old man had taught Maomao a great deal of medical knowledge, but he drew the line somewhere. He'd been happy for her to become a pharmacist, but he didn't approve of touching human corpses, so he'd told her not to become a doctor. The only reason he'd allowed her to work now as a court lady attached to a medical officer was that she was, at the end of the day, merely serving in an assistant's capacity.
(Surgical procedures really aren't looked upon favorably, are they.)
Minor cuts and bruises were one thing, but any procedure that involved stitching wounds or making incisions to drain pus—Luomen wouldn't let Maomao do those; he handled them himself. Of course, whenever the old man was away, she had carried out the procedures on her own by watching and imitating, so she knew how they were done.
Glancing up, Maomao spotted a string of numbers.
"Human anatomy, surgical procedures..."
The missing pages were sure to contain the very subjects the old man had refused to teach her.
(That makes me even more curious.)
Maomao frowned and growled softly under her breath when a loud crash echoed from above. Something heavy seemed to have toppled over. Dust rained down from the ceiling in a fine patter.
"Yao!"
En'en dashed up the stairs with a panicked expression. Maomao set her book aside and followed.
The door to a room on the second floor stood open. En'en slipped inside without hesitation.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow..."
Yao had landed flat on her backside. Beside her lay a toppled chest of drawers—the source of the noise.
"Are you all right? You're not hurt?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry."
Maomao looked around the room. It was such a peculiarly built space that she couldn't help but stare.
"What on earth is this? It's a rather unsettling room."
She had never seen walls in this style before. She could tell the floor and walls were wooden, but two different shades of timber had been used to create a strange, patchwork pattern. Paintings of animals adorned the ceiling. Honestly, it was a room with no sense of harmony whatsoever.
"...I was surprised too, the first time I saw it. But once I heard that this detached wing also belongs to the Lu family, it sort of made sense."
"They've produced eccentrics for generations, after all. It wouldn't be surprising if they had someone in the family capable of designing an oddball room."
Yao and En'en turned to look at Maomao.
"...In any case, what were you doing up here?"
Maomao, eager to change the subject, turned the question on Yao.
"This."
What Yao produced was a book written by the old man. It read:
One
—2—I
"What's wrong?"
It was a book whose number she had confirmed on the cover but whose contents she had not yet examined.
"Look—check the last page."
Yao opened the book. At the edge of the last page, a small circle had been drawn.
"Could this be a taijitu?"
A taijitu—also called a taiji fish. It was a shape formed by black and white fish pressing together to form a circle, as though blending into one another. In Maomao's mind, it was nothing more than a diagram commonly used in fortune-telling.
"What is it this time?"
All she could do was tilt her head.
"If it's a yin-yang diagram..."
En'en went down to the first floor and came back carrying a book.
"There's one here too."
In the book was written:
1
—2—III
"This one has it written on the first page, I see."
"..."
Maomao placed the two books side by side.
"I get the feeling that the book which should have been here was missing."
"Yes, exactly. That's what I was thinking."
Yao rapped the wall of the room with confident assurance.
"That there might be a book hidden in this room."
"Why do you think so?"
Maomao furrowed her brow in confusion, but En'en's eyes went wide and she clapped her hands together.
"Lady Yao, how brilliant of you!"
Just because En'en was a cute young lady didn't mean everything she praised was worthy of praise. What exactly was so brilliant about this?
"This wall and floor—
the Eight Trigrams—
that's what they represent, isn't it?"
"See!"
"The what?"
Maomao tilted her head, mentally converting the word.
(Hakke, white crane, hundred families, Eight Trigrams...)
"Eight Trigrams?"
She had a vague memory that it was something related to yin-yang diagrams, but unfortunately it fell outside Maomao's expertise. When it came to fields she had no interest in, Maomao's memory deteriorated dramatically.
"The Eight Trigrams. Look, these patterns—
the lines—
that's what they represent, don't you think?"
"Like this?"
Not only were the words unfamiliar, but she couldn't even begin to imagine what they might refer to.
"Don't tell me you don't know?"
Yao looked surprised. And just a little pleased.
"Wouldn't there be more people who don't know about them?"
Maomao pouted slightly. She felt somewhat vexed.
"Do you at least recognize these kinds of patterns?"
Yao traced the floorboards with her fingertip. The light-colored floorboards and the dark-colored ones. She was only tracing the dark ones.
"The Eight Trigrams are made of lines—three combinations of one long line and two short lines each. Each line is called yang and yin, or firm and yielding."
Maomao counted on her fingers. Two types of lines, three at a time, produced a total of eight figures. That was why they were called the Eight Trigrams.
Looking at the floor, only the center had a face of white wood; the remaining faces formed eight figures.
"You tipped over the cupboard to check the floorboards hidden underneath—you were trying to move it?"
"...That's right."
Yao nodded, looking somewhat awkward.
"It represented the Earlier Heaven Diagram."
Once again, a term came up that Maomao didn't understand. She thought about asking for clarification, but that would stall the conversation, so she pretended to know and moved on.
"I understand the Earlier Heaven Diagram. So, where are the books?"
"..."
Yao said nothing. She apparently didn't know any further.
If her father had added the Taiji Diagram for some meaningful reason, there had to be something that would properly lead to the answer.
Maomao's eyes fell on two books. They concerned the structure of the human body—one covered the hands in detail, the other the feet.
"...Miss Yao. Do the Eight Trigrams each have some meaning?"
"They also represent directions, animals, family members, and other things."
"Does the human body not fit into that?"
"It does!"
Yao looked at the books in surprise.
"Excluding the incomplete books, there were eight volumes marked—"
"One"
"—two."
"Eight volumes. If we have the hands and feet, the remaining six would be the neck, mouth, eyes, groin, ears, and abdomen."
"I brought them."
En'en, who grasped things quickly, had already fetched the remaining books from the first floor. When Maomao checked their contents, they matched what Yao had said.
"Thinking in terms of the Taiji Diagram, there shouldn't be any missing spots."
But the numbering had gaps.
Maomao stood in the center of the room, at the spot where no Bagua diagram was placed. She looked up idly.
"There are quite a lot of animals drawn up there."
"You can tell just by looking. Horses, dogs, pheasants—and there even seems to be something that looks like a dragon. Is that alright?"
"Dragons are certainly troublemakers."
Using something that signifies royalty without permission can sometimes be punishable.
"…Also, the ceiling paintings are bagua too."
Yao narrows her eyes. The colors have faded with age, but they're still distinguishable.
"Yao, right in the center of the ceiling — there's one horse and two sheep. What do they mean?"
"For the horse, it's 'Qian.' On the innate trigram diagram, it's south; in the family, it's the father; on the body, it's the head; among the five elements, it's metal; and in numbers, it's one."
"Numbers? What number is the sheep?"
"For the sheep, it's two or eight, but on the innate trigram diagram, it'd be two."
"One and two, two of each."
Maomao looks at the book. As if by coincidence — or should she say, by some twist of fate — the incomplete sequence of numbers reads:
1
-2-Ⅱ
Maomao turns her neck back to normal and shifts her gaze to the wall. The white and black tiles are arranged more densely here than on the floor.
"Yao."
"What?"
"Which bagua corresponds to one and two?"
Yao moves across the floor.
"One is this — three long lines. Two has two short lines on top, with two long lines below."
☰ and ☱.
Maomao carefully searches the wall in front of her.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for a sequence of one, two, two."
The combinations all look so similar that her eyes are about to hurt, and more importantly, the moment she looks away even slightly, she'll lose track of where she left off.
"Then I'll look from the opposite side."
"In that case, I'll cheer you on. Let me prepare some tea and snacks."
Yanyan fled. Wait — Maomao wants to chase after her, but if she takes her eyes off the wall, she'll immediately lose her place. She'd like to mark the wall, but she can't exactly use a brush to make marks. It's nothing but an exercise in making her eyes hurt.
"......"
"......"
"......"
Yanyan was preparing tea. The smell of the fragrant snacks was something she had learned before from
Shuilian.
After teaching Yanyan the recipe, Yanyan had started making them on her own.
With this many diagrams, there should have been something arranged in the order one, two, two, but there wasn't. After one and two, the next number shouldn't be two again.
(It should be coming out around now,)
she thought, when she bumped into Yao with a soft thud.
"Find anything?"
"No."
"What do you mean?"
"Could I have overlooked it?"
She blinked at the wall. She needed to check once more, but she really didn't want to.
"Would you like some tea?"
Yanyan held up the tea set.
"Yes!"
"Please!"
Yao and Maomao's voices overlapped.
There was no table in the room, so they spread a mat on the floor and drank. The snacks made from Shuilian's secret
recipe
were delicious. The dormitory didn't have enough cooking equipment, so she could only steam them, but Yanyan went out of her way to borrow a baking kiln from somewhere else to make them.
"Delish!"
Yao was thoroughly satisfied, but afterward they would have to check once more. If it wasn't there, would that mean Maomao's prediction had been wrong?
"It's such a shame — one, two, and then the next number is different."
"Right. Only the last digit is different. It would be nice if there was even one like it."
Maomao agreed with Yao.
"Exactly. Just one different line turns it into a different number. I was wishing the Yang would turn into a Yin right here."
Yang is the long line, Yin is the two short lines.
"...Yang into Yin."
Maomao looked at the Eight Trigrams on the floor.
Changing the topmost Yang of ☰ to Yin produced ☱.
Maomao stood up and stared intently at the wall again.
*(I'm sure it was somewhere around here)*
One, two, one—they were lined up in that order.
She didn't think there was any other arrangement like it.
Maomao touched the third one, the topmost Yang of the ☰ trigram.
There was a faint, subtle sense of something off at her fingertip.
She pressed firmly into the middle of the long line with her finger.
The center of the Yang line gave way inward.
*(Yang becomes Yin)*
With a soft *click*, something popped out from the wall. A drawer had emerged.
"Seriously?"
Yao's eyes went wide.
"I'm surprised."
Yanyan stared fixedly at the drawer.
Maomao took a single book from the drawer.
『
One
－２－Ⅱ』
Chapter 17. Luomen
A book with missing pages, but compared to the other bindings, its construction was remarkably rough. The pages were uneven and the thickness was inconsistent.
"Could it be parchment?"
"Judging by the texture, it seems so."
Maomao gingerly turned the pages. The text was written not with a brush, but with a Western writing instrument. Most of the content was not in the characters of
Li
It was mostly in a cursive Western script, with occasional annotations written in the Li language.
(From his study-abroad days)
Her father,
Luomen, had studied abroad in the West in his youth. His medical knowledge, which far surpassed that of everyone else, had been learned at his overseas institution.
Maomao could read the Western script, though only haltingly. There were gaps where she didn't understand certain words, but she pressed on little by little—and then.
Her face went pale.
"Maomao..."
En'en wore a worried expression as well.
"What's wrong? What does it say?"
Yao was the only one who couldn't read the Western script, so she grew increasingly frustrated at the reactions of the other two.
Maomao didn't open to the next page.
"Hey, what is it?"
Yao reached for the book. She snatched the page from Maomao and turned it.
What lay on the opened page was precisely what Maomao and En'en had both feared.
"What is this?"
A meticulously drawn human body. That alone would have been fine. But the illustration depicted a person's skin peeled away, with the flesh underneath rendered in painstaking detail.
"...!"
Yao turned away with a look of revulsion. To draw it from imagination was far too
realistic
A brushwork of that caliber couldn't possibly have been rendered without the real thing in front of him.
Maomao turned the page.
A human abdomen, sliced open, with the organs inside drawn in detail.
(Old man used techniques he learned in the West to cut open the Empress Dowager's belly.)
A C-section. Originally, it was a method used during dangerous births where only the child could be saved.
But Luomen managed to save both mother and child.
That wasn't something achievable with knowledge alone.
He must have cut open a great many people before.
And then—
He must have carved up countless bodies as practice.
The reason old man had kept Maomao away from corpses. The reason he'd encouraged her to become a pharmacist rather than a doctor.
(So that's why.)
Maomao closed the warped book.
She didn't deny what old man had done. Knowing the human body was fundamental to practicing medicine, and Maomao herself conducted repeated experiments on her own body for that very reason.
But the average person's reaction would probably be much the same as Yao's.
Yao clamped a hand over her mouth while glaring at the warped book with loathing.
She didn't know how things were in the West. But for the average person of Li, the contents of this book would be utterly unacceptable.
Faith held its taboos, and this book's content violated them.
Maomao looked at the back cover of the book she had set down.
*witchcraft*
It was written in broken, jagged letters.
Whatever its meaning, she now understood why old man had hidden this book.
If it ever saw the light of day, it would be burned as a forbidden text—an abomination that should never exist.