When one hears "forbidden text," what exactly is the problem?
Maomao
examined the warped book, checking its contents.
Surgery itself was permitted in Li. Otherwise, the Empress Dowager would never have been able to safely deliver the Emperor.
So what was the problem?
The parchment depicted the human body in painstaking detail. Blades cutting into skin, internal organs clearly rendered. It could not have been drawn without a dissected human body before one's eyes, and a dissected human could not possibly still be alive.
"Carving up a corpse..."
Yao
was still pale.
En'en
brought water and offered it to Yao.
(You must not tamper with the dead.)
That was what Maomao had been told by her father. It went so far as to say: do not even touch them.
Death is not the end—or so many people believe. Yao was particularly shaken. Well-versed in fortune-telling as she was, she would have deeper thoughts on the matter.
Human dissection was fundamentally prohibited.
"You wouldn't be able to be reborn as a human."
One must not damage the corpse. Because then one cannot become human again—
Many eunuchs carefully preserved the parts they had lost. If you lost those parts, in the next life you would not be reborn as a human, but rather as
a donkey
—so it was said.
The reason criminals were cremated was also said to be to prevent them from being reborn as humans. In the case of criminals, dissection might sometimes be carried out due to special circumstances, but even then it was often avoided out of moral considerations.
On the other hand, one of the most severe punishments consisted of dismembering a person while still alive, piece by piece.
How ridiculous. As if there were such a thing as an afterlife.
She wished she could dismiss it all with a single kick, but alas, Maomao could not definitively say she had no past life. She herself might well be someone's reincarnation—or she might not be.
Even if she died to check, she would never be able to verify it.
Even if she had been reborn, she would have no memories of such a thing. Perhaps her current life was the reincarnation of someone from the past, but she had absolutely no recollection of any previous existence.
Maomao groaned and tried to turn the pages of the book. But Yao grabbed it. Maomao hurriedly seized Yao's hand.
"Let go."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"It needs to be burned. This isn't something that should ever see the light of day."
A perfectly reasonable opinion. But Maomao could not suppress the itching restlessness she felt.
"Yao. Have you ever witnessed a surgical procedure?"
Maomao lowered her voice, speaking carefully so as not to get worked up.
"...If it's just stitching a wound."
"Not that. What if a blade had pierced the stomach? And with proper treatment, the patient wouldn't die?"
"..."
Yao bit her lip. She was still a fifteen-year-old girl. Mentally she retained a certain childishness, but she was sharp. Moreover, she possessed the wisdom to try to accept things objectively.
"Can you tell which organ has been damaged, just from the first look?"
"...I could learn to tell."
"How many people will be beyond saving before you reach that point?"
"..."
Maomao snatched the book from Yao's hand.
She understood what Yao was trying to say. Maomao also knew, as common sense dictated, that this was a forbidden book.
Normally, only
executioners
were permitted to damage a human body.
Of course, war was another matter entirely.
On the other hand, medical practice absolutely required knowledge of the body's structure. Setting aside her father Luomen, what about the other court physicians?
"I understand why you find it repulsive that a physician would carve up people like an executioner. And to actually take notes on top of that is utterly out of the question, I'm sure."
"Yes, that's right."
"But what if the dissected corpse happened to be a criminal's?"
"..."
Human moral standards are a nebulous thing. Define something as forbidden, and they won't tolerate anyone defying that rule. But provide a doctrine that carves out an exception, and they'll accept it.
Sometimes it's called politics; sometimes it's called religion.
Ever since Maomao started working at the medical office, she'd had a nagging question—the remarkably high standard of the physicians in surgery. Town doctors in the common quarters could easily treat even grave injuries that would ordinarily call for amputation of a limb.
The one surgery she had witnessed once
was Lu—
Physician Lu's. By now, Maomao had been given different assignments from Yae and the others, and she helped assist during operations.
A military officer who loathed doctors had left a wound untreated until it festered. They restrained the thrashing officer and made him drink a potion to ease the pain.
The infection had spread far, and Maomao had been sure amputation was the only option. But Physician Lu removed only the minimum necessary infected tissue without resorting to cutting off the limb. There would be lingering aftereffects, but she'd heard his post-operative recovery went well.
Without a thorough understanding of the shape of the muscles in the arm, that kind of efficient surgery would have been impossible.
(She probably shouldn't let Yae hear her questions about this.)
Right now, the matter at hand was what to do about the book.
"I believe there's no question that this book is forbidden for you, Lady Yae. But what about breaking into someone else's home to rummage through their belongings and then disposing of it on your own authority?"
"B-but—"
"Judging by the paper and the writing instruments used, it's a compilation of texts from the Western Regions. Li and the Western Regions have entirely different standards of common sense. What's practiced as routine medicine over there is simply considered abnormal here, wouldn't you say?"
"...Even so, I still can't accept it... But..."
"Lady Yae."
En'en, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up.
"Why don't we just return this book to where it was for the time being? After all, sometimes the wiser choice is simply to pretend you never saw it."
"But..."
Yae was an upright person. Admirable as that was, it meant she lacked flexibility.
Still, she seemed to have at least enough time to cool her head.
"Let's have a meal. I've prepared plenty of your favorite sweets today, Lady Yae."
"I don't have much of an appetite."
"We also have..."
snow clam,
you know."
"...I'll have a little."
She didn't know what it was made of, but it was certainly one of Yae's favorites.
En'en pushed Yae by the back and led her to the sitting room.
Sighing, Maomao wrapped the strange book in cloth to keep it from being seen and returned it to its hiding place.
It was cold during the day, but even colder at night.
Still bundled in her blanket, Maomao continued copying the book. In the end, she'd been so consumed by the day's events that she hadn't gotten anywhere at all.
Heavy footsteps came clattering closer.
"Please go to bed. It's nighttime."
En'en had come.
"I can't finish."
"Of course you can't."
En'en sat down beside Maomao. Given how things stood, Yae was probably sound asleep by now.
"What will you do about that book?"
"What do you want me to do? I've already put it back where it was."
Putting everything back exactly as it had been, as though nothing happened, might have been the most discreet option. But she couldn't say for sure it was the right answer.
If she considered things from Yae's perspective, the woman would probably never rest easy unless the book's whereabouts were made clear.
At the same time, Maomao grew certain that Yae was not suited for work at the medical office.
"En'en, do you think it's really all right for Yae to keep working at the medical office?"
"Why do you ask that now?"
En'en had begun copying a different book from the one Maomao was working on. She was grateful for the help.
"It's not just the poison testing—I think her personality isn't suited for the work in various ways. Someone as capable as Yae would be in demand in any other department. She was remarkably well-informed about all the palace intrigue, too."
En'en continued copying without pause.
"The Eight Trigrams and Five Elements were required subjects for the department I originally intended to join."
"I see, I see."
"When I heard that women were permitted to be assigned to the medical office, I switched my plans. The Five Elements come up there, too."
The Five Elements were used in the medical office as well. Medicinal cuisine often drew upon Five Element principles.
"I was a bit surprised that you're unfamiliar with the Eight Trigrams, Maomao."
"I know a little about the Five Elements, but when it comes to the Eight Trigrams—"
"...curses..."
"—the curse element is just too overwhelming. It doesn't suit me at all."
She had no interest in studying curses or divination or anything of the sort.
"I see."
En'en nodded deeply.
"For someone like me who has no other particular skills, fine—but I think someone like Yao or En'en could put their abilities to much better use somewhere else."
The conversation had drifted off topic, so she tried to steer it back.
En'en set down her brush.
"I don't think Yao would ever leave her post at the medical office."
"No matter what?"
"No matter what. —Even if the medical office had been dabbling in the forbidden arts."
"..."
As expected, En'en was sharp. She had noticed the same thing Maomao had.
"When did you realize?"
"When I found today's book."
It was a book containing illustrations of human dissections.
In this country, surgery was permitted, but cutting up human corpses was not.
And yet, Physician Liu knew the structure of the human body all too well.
It was permissible to carve up criminals' bodies. Criminal corpses were not permitted to be reborn as human — they were cremated.
Sometimes, the imperial family even underwent surgery, and it was never the kind of thing that could afford to fail.
In other words, what this meant was that physicians honed their medical skills on the corpses of criminals. If the carved-up bodies were cremated, no evidence remained.
Physicians had to be respected people. That was precisely why they would want to conceal such bloody, cruel work as much as possible.
(So that's why Father didn't want me to become a physician.)
"Physician Luomen, Physician Liu, and a handful of others seem to have extensive knowledge of human anatomy. I'd imagine the newcomers and physicians who seem less capable aren't told about it from the start."
"I share that opinion."
Only those with talent might be informed. Character, too, should be considered part of suitability.
"If Yao-sama were to leave the medical bureau, she wouldn't be able to transfer to another department. There's a strong chance they'd apply pressure to make sure she couldn't go anywhere. The medical bureau was the one territory her uncle couldn't interfere with."
The
pinnacle
of physicians was Physician Liu. There couldn't be many who would stand against that person.
"I want to let her do as she pleases until we find a husband worthy of Yao-sama."
"...Husband."
"What's wrong, Maomao? You look so surprised."
Enen tilted her head.
"Well, knowing you, Enen, it seemed like you'd eliminate any man who tried to get close to Yao."
"That's not true at all. If they meet certain standards — family, appearance, temperament — and Yao-sama herself is willing, I wouldn't do anything drastic."
(Drastic...)
She was positively brimming with determination.
Maomao gazed off into the distance, wondering if such an ideal husband could ever be found.
"So I'd like her to continue working at the medical bureau as though nothing is amiss. Only excellent physicians require special training, so they wouldn't bother reaching out to us court ladies."
(In other words, keep quiet.)
Maomao pressed her fingertips to her own lips.
"If there is a problem at the moment, it would be about that book she found."
"...Yaou can't just ignore it silently, can she?"
At the very least, she wouldn't be able to act normally toward the old man.
"I hope she doesn't let slip any secrets about Physician Luomen."
The old man would be sensitive to it and realize immediately.
"As for Physician Luomen, I think the shock would be especially great for Lady Yaou since she respected him. However, since the story involves studying abroad in the Western Region, if we explain it as such, I believe she might accept it to some degree."
"...I hope that's the case."
Maomao picked up her brush and resumed copying the book where she had left off.