The strange rumors had apparently been circulating for about twenty days.
The first person to see it was a servant boy, right after finishing his work.
Under the moonlight, as he wandered along in a daze, he noticed something white floating in the air.
Straining his eyes, he saw a single, perfectly white mask hovering there.
Someone must have been playing a prank. The weary servant paid it no mind and tried to walk right past.
That was when the mask slowly turned to face him.
The servant was startled, overcome with fear, and ran away.
The next morning, having calmed down, the servant figured he'd been tired and imagined the whole thing.
But there was nothing at the spot where the mask had appeared the night before.
That was when things truly began.
Stories of the strange mask began spreading well beyond the one servant.
One person said that when he followed a strange sound, the mask was laughing.
Another claimed the mask had been flying through the sky.
And for the past several days, people said a woman's head had been flying through the corridors.
So, someone came forward with a theory.
That mask was a "Flying Head."
◯●◯
A Flying Head — for those unfamiliar, it was a type of spirit or demon.
As far as Maomao knew, it was a spirit that flew through the night with its ears spread like wings, its head alone soaring through the sky.
"So that's why I got asked about it," Ri Haku said.
"Asked by whom, exactly?"
"The little servant boy. He took a shine to me after I gave him some candy."
(He's not a dog or cat, you know.)
Ever since he started frequenting the Verdigris House, Ri Haku had gotten remarkably good at handling children.
(Because if Shaved-Head dislikes me, Big Sister Byakuren won't get me an introduction.)
That said, Maomao thought, there was no need to show off out here in this remote western capital.
It was simply that the guards around the quack doctor had been at loose ends these past few days.
"Of course, I don't think it's anything supernatural. But you'd get curious if we just left it alone, wouldn't you? Not with the way you are."
(No, even if you say that...)
If he hadn't mentioned it, she probably wouldn't have given it a second thought.
How kind of him to spell it out.
In the end, Li Bai stayed late into the night, ostensibly checking on Maomao, but only made small talk before heading back.
If he knew she was tired, he could have waited until tomorrow—
The next day, while the three of them—the quack doctor, Ten'yu, and Maomao—were eating breakfast, a small child came rushing to the makeshift infirmary.
"Where is Master Bukan?"
She was deathly pale, clearly looking for someone.
The military officer currently guarding the door didn't appear to be who she was after.
"If you're looking for Li Bai, he's not here."
Maomao caught on right away.
Li Bai handled the night watch, so a different officer was on duty in the mornings.
Could this be the little girl Li Bai had mentioned last night?
"I-I see..."
The girl's face fell and she averted her gaze.
Maomao glanced briefly at the quack doctor and Ten'yu.
"Well then, shall we go find Li Bai?"
"I'll show you the way."
Recalling Li Bai's thoughtfulness—
He'd set things up this way because the quack doctor was too scared to handle it.
Maomao started to lead the girl toward Li Bai's room, then suddenly stopped.
"...Where does Lord Li Bai sleep?"
"Mm."
Tianyou pointed with his chopsticks, ungracefully. The room closest to the entrance on the first floor.
"I'll go show her the way, then."
"Go ahead. Little miss, you leaving your dishes?"
"I'll be clearing up, so please leave them as they are."
"If you're not eating, I'll put them away."
The quack doctor flashed a friendly smile and took Maomao's bowl to clear it.
"That girl's an outsider, but is it okay to let her in—?"
Unlike the quack doctor, it was Tianyou who cut straight to the heart of the matter.
Under normal circumstances, Maomao would have agreed that Tianyou was right.
But then she thought about the fact that Li Bai had gone out of his way to consult her.
(He'd already anticipated this and brought it up with me, hadn't he?)
Groaning, Maomao led the girl to Li Bai's room.
"Yo."
Li Bai was awake. As expected after a night shift, he looked sleepy and was rubbing his eyes. The room held nothing but a bed and a chest of drawers. The quack doctor wasn't going to bother renovating this room too, apparently.
"Bu-kan—sama—"
The girl approached Li Bai, who was on the bed.
"It came out again!"
"It did?"
"It did, it did—a woman's head!"
Sure enough, it was about that same apparition as before.
"Where did it appear?"
"Well, outside the estate. My grandpa was trimming the bushes out in the garden."
"I see. Got it. Where's the gardener old man?"
"Yeah. He looked all pale, out there cleaning the garden."
"Got it. Alright, here's some candy."
"Yay!"
The girl left the room.
Maomao stared at Li Bai.
"Li Bai, I have one thing to confirm."
"What?"
"Is this for the investigation, or just curiosity?"
"Oh, you figured it out."
Li Bai admitted it without any attempt to hide it.
(No wonder he doesn't like talking about it much with the herb doctor or Ten'yu.)
Granted, getting through to the herb doctor was one thing, but Ten'yu was a different problem.
Still, for someone of Li Bai's caliber, it felt clumsy. She'd expected him to deflect more gracefully.
"Can't you do it a little more smoothly? It's pretty suspicious the way it is."
"Well, that was the original plan."
Li Bai smiled wryly.
"It's just that, with that Ten'yu — we just don't click. Not that we fight or anything, but conversations with him are hard going. You know what I mean?"
"..."
Just as Maomao had felt.
"So in other words, he's the type you'd normally keep at arm's length with, but the close quarters make that hard to manage. At least if you could pick a fight, that'd be one thing, but he's definitely not the type for that — am I right?"
"Oh, you get it. It's not like there's nothing to him. I just can't see the core. The branches are visible, but not the trunk."
Li Bai was reading Ten'yu's essence on pure instinct.
"The way you carry yourself, it seems unrestrained but there's always a method to it. Like poison or medicine — one of the two."
"...At least say medicine before poison, if you don't mind."
Maomao asked for the correction. Either way, she now understood why Li Bai had been so poor at handling the situation.
"I suppose Tenyou's personality is a bit difficult, but I don't think it's anything to worry about too much."
After all, he had managed to become a court physician, and they wouldn't take him all the way to the Western Capital just for labor shortages if his background wasn't clear.
"I get that much. Sorry about that. I'm a military officer, so I tend to think in terms of battle instincts."
"Battle instincts?"
"You can just tell when someone's the type you can never turn your back on."
"..."
She wouldn't say anything about Li Bai's wild instincts.
For now, she decided to set the matter of Tenyou aside.
"So anyway, did the investigation into the flying heads come from Tsukimiya or thereabouts?"
"Oh yeah, that Lord Jinshi person."
Li Bai brought up a name he'd recently stopped hearing from other people's mouths.
"Wouldn't it have been better to just tell me everything from the start last night?"
"Sorry, sorry. After that, I was out investigating the severed heads yesterday. They told me not to push you too hard—knowing you, once you got interested, you'd skip sleep and meals to go rushing off."
Jinshi was considerate in the strangest ways. His unreasonable demands never changed, though.
(So this time it's about flying heads, is it?)
He still had a habit of bringing up ghostly topics.
"Here's what's strange about it, though."
"What's strange? The flying heads themselves are strange enough."
"The thing is, when I first heard the story, they said a face was floating there. But in recent days, people have been calling them flying heads much more often."
"...I see."
"Does that make for an interesting story?"
A voice came from behind, and Maomao hurriedly turned around.
There was Tenyou, grinning away.
Li Bai's expression hadn't particularly changed, which she'd more or less expected.
"Eavesdropping isn't very polite, you know?"
"No, no. I was just wondering how long you two were going to keep talking alone together. She is an unmarried young lady, after all."
"Ah, no, no."
Maomao and Li Bai denied it in unison.
"Right? I don't think so either."
Tenyu walked into Li Bai's room without the slightest hesitation.
"What about the imperial physician?"
"He's making post-meal tea. Said to come get him if anyone shows up."
Typical of that quack doctor. He'd sit around chatting over tea while waiting for patients to show up.
"So, about the flying heads? Sounds interesting. Why don't you let me have a go at it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Tenyu furrowed his brows.
"You seem like you can't keep a secret."
"I can keep a secret!"
"You'd probably lose interest halfway through and leave us hanging."
"That might be fair."
Li Bai left handling Tenyu up to Maomao. He really couldn't deal with
this kind
of person, apparently.
"I'm useful, you know. If you think I'm no good or I'm dangerous, you're just using me wrong. Can't you handle
scissors
skillfully too?"
"..."
Maomao looked at Li Bai. Li Bai wore an expression that said it was all up to her.
"Please don't get in our way."
"Oh."
Tianyou's eyes glinted ever so slightly.