Raucous voices and the scent of incense drifted through the air.
Maomao
was
at the Rokushōkan,
sprawled out in a room, limbs spread wide like the character for "big." Half the space was crammed with trunks and shelves, cluttered like a storage closet. When extra courtesans arrived, they would clear away the luggage and use it as sleeping quarters.
(Exhausted.)
For the New Year's holiday, she'd only managed to return to the pleasure district for the last two days.
The days spent at the lair of those insufferable men had been worthwhile, but also more than a little taxing.
Partly because she wanted to make copies,
Yao's
movements also needed to be kept track of.
She'd figured things were probably fine, which was why she'd finally returned to the Rokushōkan—
"Pay your rent."
The madam looked down at Maomao sprawled on the floor, pipe clamped between her teeth.
Maomao's old place was currently being used by
Sasayuki,
the apprentice pharmacist. The ogre known as
Chou,
had also stayed there before, but moved to the Rokushōkan for safety and comfort. No one said anything about it because he had a well-paying
patron
backing him.
Sasayuki had previously been a nuisance in the men's quarters, which wasn't suitable for compounding medicine. So he'd ended up living in Maomao's house, which nobody was using anymore.
As for Maomao, she wouldn't have minded sharing the same room, but Sasayuki had gone deathly pale and told her to stop, so she'd decided to stay at the Rokushōkan for the time being—
"...How much?"
"How about this much?"
"That's expensive!"
Maomao grimaced at the fingers the old woman held up.
"My, my—you're the one asking to rent a room at this well-established Rokushōkan. What a bargain, wouldn't you say?"
"What room? It's half a storage closet."
"If you don't like it, get out. You going to kick out Sazen, who works hard every day? Or are you going to sleep on the roadside?
I'll even lend you a straw mat,
for free."
(What a stubborn old woman.)
Maomao resigned herself and took out her money pouch. The old woman counted the coins with a cackling laugh like something boiling in a hell's cauldron, then left.
(She was only half a full worker, but she couldn't bring herself to kick Sazen out.)
She let out a sigh and heaved herself up. She wanted to flop down and rest, but first she needed to check on the apothecary. She pulled a book from her luggage and left the storage room.
Heading toward a room rented out on the first floor of the Rokushōkan, she heard voices from inside.
"Ah, good. Very good. Delicious. You've gotten better!"
"R-Really?"
"Honestly, at first it was so rough I didn't know what to do."
"That's only because you taught me so carefully."
"Is that so? Then, won't you show me right here in front of me?"
"Huh? I have to show you?"
She knew who the voices belonged to. One was Sazen, and the other was
Katsuyō,
a pharmacist working in a nearby village. He had ugly scars on half his face from smallpox, but the other half was quite handsome.
And yet, there were idle courtesans with nothing better to do than eavesdrop on two men talking in a private room.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh my. Fufufufu."
He left in a hurry with a somewhat guilty expression. No doubt he'd been indulging in some unsavory daydream again.
"Coming in!"
He flung the door open to find Sazen grinding herbs in a mortar and Keyou peeking over his shoulder.
"Oh, come on! You said you'd be here all day off!"
"I had all sorts of things to take care of, and it was a real pain. But seriously, don't lock up the shop just because it's cold — not when it's just the two of us here."
"Brrr, it's so cold~"
Keyou exaggerated a shiver for effect. His easygoing personality hadn't changed one bit.
Maomao surveyed the apothecary.
(The herbs are stored properly. The ledger has everything recorded.)
Not bad. There had been improvement since before.
Maomao handed Sazen the book she'd brought along.
"We're closing up shop for now. It doesn't feel right to keep having you make nothing but cold remedies and painkillers forever. Time to work on a new medicine."
It was the book she'd copied yesterday. There were a few things even Maomao didn't recognize, so she'd planned to review and make them for practice, but one particular herb had caught her eye. She decided to prioritize that.
"Yay, this is gonna be fun! Mix, mix~"
Keyou leaned his face in close, so Maomao pushed him back. Having an extra pair of male hands around was convenient, so she didn't stop him from tagging along.
(Dad used to grow the ingredients outside of town.)
Despite his bad leg, he'd taken to planting herb gardens beyond the outer walls without permission. He just couldn't help himself — the moment he saw an empty plot, he wanted to fill it with medicinal plants. That quirk had been there since his days at the rear palace. He was normally so sensible, but every so often he'd do something eccentric. Must run in the blood.
(Somehow, he reminds me of the real father behind Rouhan.)
Relatives were relatives, after all. She recalled a middle-aged man with absolutely no ambition who'd created a vast potato field and watched it gleam with starry eyes.
"Right then, I'm going to gather ingredients. Bring your tools."
"O-oh, right."
"What is it? What is it? What is it?"
Sazen hung a "closed" sign on the apothecary's board. Keyou was getting excited over something that wasn't all that big a deal.
Maomao took several herbs from the shelf, lightly brewed them, and drank the decoction down.
"What are you drinking?"
Left Ration peered in.
"A stimulant and a mild tonic. I'm tired."
"Hmm. But are there even herbs in season right now? Also, the garden is around the outer wall, right? I heard there were herbs growing there, but I couldn't find anything that looked like one, so I just left it alone."
"Yeah, it's fine. Nothing too weird is planted there... I think. We'll see when we get there."
Maomao pulled on a jacket and stepped out of the Green Peacock House.
"Oh my, going out with two handsome men in tow? Impressive~"
"No way."
A courtesan around Maomao's age called out in jest.
Baldy.
They had known each other since childhood, so the tone was casual.
They headed south through the pleasure district, still sparsely populated at this hour. A beggar crouched in an alley, sizing them up to see if they looked like easy marks.
The old guard at the city gate was yawning, clearly bored. Keyou, who apparently knew him, was smiling and waving, but got a distinctly unpleasant look in return, so he must have caused trouble there more than once.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
Sure, right.
Outside the gate, they were surrounded by a moat. The structure was roughly the same as the rear palace.
Apparently, the rear palace had been built long ago, using the ruins of a dynasty that existed before—
Litchi—
had been created. Following the same logic, the outer wall here had probably been built over the remains of an old town as well.
They exited the gate and turned right, heading west.
"There, look."
"Look at what?"
Maomao pointed at the outer wall. Vine-like branches crept along its surface. It was winter so it was rather sparse, but come summer it would surely be thick with green leaves. Its vitality was remarkable, spreading across the waterway.
"It looks like dead branches, but what is this again?"
"The useful part isn't the stems."
Maomao grabbed a branch and traced it down to the base. She dug up the ground with a tool.
"Huh,"
"kudzu root..."
"huh?"
Keyou nodded and started helping.
"Kudzu root means..."
"kudzu,"
"right?"
"Yeah. Stop standing around and help me."
"R-right."
The three of them dug up the ground together.
"Um, can I ask a question?"
"Go ahead."
"I feel like that guy at the city gate is giving us weird looks."
"It's fine. Kudzu growing on the outer walls damages the masonry, and more importantly, it creates an infiltration route for enemies. So removing it is actually encouraged, apparently."
"Apparently?"
The old man had apparently been caught by sentries multiple times trying to convince them. So digging up kudzu root was apparently not a problem.
"Kudzu's got incredible vitality, but I'm surprised it grows in a place like this."
Keyou laughed in admiration.
"Apparently it started growing here about fifty years ago."
She recalled what the gate guard had told her. He was an old-timer who did guard duty on the side while semi-retired.
"...Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"This place is..."
"Luomen"
"You said this was a field your old man made, right?"
"..."
"Wait, so you were the one who planted the kudzu?"
"Aaah, look, your hands are free. Dig, dig!"
Maomao scraped away at the enormous roots with a grating sound.
She remembered how her father had once gazed at the outer wall with a helpless expression.
He had been abruptly sent abroad to study in the Western Regions, and after that had taken up a position in the rear palace.
In the blank span of several decades, the kudzu had grown thick and overgrown.
Her father had started working at the court again, and Maomao had become a lady-in-waiting serving as a physician's assistant, so it would only keep growing more and more.
Since they had Sanzen—a man with actual hands—to help, she wanted him to diligently dig up the kudzu root.
"There's a lot of kudzu root. Think we can use it all up?"
"I'll be selling kuzu starch as a cold remedy, so no amount is too much."
"Kuzu starch sounds nice. But isn't that pretty tedious to make? Normally it'd be cheaper to just buy it—"
"Look, your hands are free. Get to work, get to work!"
Maomao silenced Keyou, who kept running his mouth about unnecessary things. To shut up a chatty man, she felt more loquacious than usual.
(Sorry, Sanzen.)
It wasn't exactly wiping her father's backside, but she was having him help with the kudzu extermination.
Making kuzu starch would take more than a day or two, so she would need to explain the details later and also make Keyou promise to keep his mouth shut.
(Aaah, there's not enough time.)
Even as she grumbled about how busy she was, she was grateful that thinking about other things let her forget her other worries for a while.
Maomao dug away at the kudzu that had firmly rooted itself in the ground.