Day 20.
Bandits are showing up everywhere. The military officers stationed in the rural areas seem to be kept busy.
Day 25.
Relief supplies arrive from the capital. Much earlier than expected.
Day 27.
Shops are starting to open here and there. But stock remains thin, and most of what's available is poor quality.
Day 30.
The kitchen attempted to cook migratory locusts. It doesn't seem to have gone well.
Day 32.
"We've run out of stock."
"Have we?"
"Yeah, we've run out, but..."
Was he trying to say something?
Ten'yū
stares
at Maomao.
The easygoing, flirtatious man had been tanned by the western capital's sun.
Yang
seems to still be working him just as hard as ever.
"What did we run out of?"
Maomao looks at the medicine shelf.
"Styptics, antiseptics, wound salves, cold medicine, fever reducers, anti-diarrheals, and headache medicine."
"We're out of all of them?"
Maomao is puzzled. Almost all of it had been restocked just yesterday.
"Nope. There are some no-good eateries around, and plenty of people with upset stomachs. And as for that headache medicine, I was thinking of offering it to that superior who looks like his head's about to split open."
"Stomach medicine might be more fitting, actually. Not that we have any."
She was half-joking, but honestly, the situation was starting to become no laughing matter.
"This is the last of the medicine."
"Make some more for me, would you?"
"We don't have the ingredients."
Maomao and the others were making whatever they could.
Li Bai
They'd even had to borrow his help.
"What about substitutes?"
"Those substitutes are what we've used up. We're done."
"Huh? Then doesn't that mean what's left is lower quality?"
"...I'd appreciate it if you'd let that go."
Even Maomao wanted to provide better medicine, but there was nothing to be done when they simply didn't have the materials. She was making do with different but similarly medicinal substances.
"In the Western Capital, you can't gather quality medicinal herbs the way you can in the Central Capital."
The difference in climate was the biggest factor. The Western Capital had its own vegetation, and there were medicinal herbs that grew accordingly, but they were unfamiliar to Maomao, who had been raised in the Central Capital. Even so, it was said that the Western Capital, with its extensive trade with other nations, had access to just about anything—but.
(It would be nice if they prioritized medicines a little more.)
Were they being put on the back burner because of the food supply problem? Or was it simply that supplies hadn't made their way to Maomao yet?
"Hmph. At this rate, who knows when we'll be able to go home."
"Indeed."
"
Luomen
-san, is he doing all right?"
Before anyone had noticed, the quack doctor had joined the conversation.
(Oh, it's the old man.)
She decided to believe that the quack doctor had entered the inner palace in his stead, so there was no particular problem. More importantly, Maomao thought, the quack doctor should be worrying about himself.
She had heard that their stay in the western capital would be lengthy, but judging by the looks of things, they still didn't seem anywhere close to going home.
Jinshi could have returned on his own, at least, but he didn't seem to be doing so.
(He might be refusing to leave of his own accord.)
The current situation in the western capital was, frankly, bad. Some of it had been predictable, so the response was somewhat better than it could have been, but it was a natural disaster all the same.
(When they say a country could be destroyed, they mean things like this.)
There may have been smaller locust plagues in the past, but how many decades had it been since one this severe?
Jinshi was requesting aid from the central government. With Jinshi present at the very least, things were somewhat easier to arrange. If he remained in the western capital, they might even send additional supplies.
From what Maomao could tell, the Emperor and Jinshi did not appear to be on bad terms.
(She still had some doubts about the decision to send him to the western capital, though.)
She figured there had probably been no one else who could take his place.
"His Royal Highness the Imperial Brother is working in his room again today, I take it?"
Tenyu said this with considerable spite.
"Well, it can't be helped. It'd be dangerous if the Lady of the Moon went outside."
The quack doctor came to his defense.
"I get that, but it doesn't exactly look good."
"What do you mean?"
"The military officers are being sent here, there, and off to the provinces. Meanwhile he gives orders from a safe place and eats his fill, so they say."
"So they say?"
"A lower-ranking officer was grumbling about it while shoveling sweet potatoes into his mouth."
Tenyu jumped in to deny it.
"Another officer shot back, 'And who do you think brought those sweet potatoes?'"
"Huh."
In other words, some people distrusted Jinshi's current actions, while others understood his position.
But if even military officers harbored such doubts, what about the common people?
It was Tianyou who provided the answer.
"But you know, this lord sure knows how to win the people over."
Gyokuyou.
That's who they were discussing.
"Winning people over? Do you mean she's been helping with the food distribution?"
"Not exactly that, but she was popular with the soldiers. And since it was soldiers handing out the rations, it automatically became the lord's credit. Plus, when it came time to subdue the rioters, she didn't cower — she stepped right out to the front lines herself."
"Oh, that's pretty impressive."
The quack doctor had somehow already started preparing tea. The tea was running low too, so the leaves were a bit thin.
"Impressive, indeed. She's like a stage actor."
(An actor, again.)
Everyone seemed to share the same impression, didn't they? It reminded her of what the eccentric strategist had said.
"Excuse me — what do you two think of Lady Gyokuyou?"
There was no real need to ask anyone other than Tianyou, but the quack doctor was watching with a look that said he wanted to be included, so she brought him into the conversation.
"Lady Gyokuyou is really cool, you know. She's got a bold, masculine air about her, and she's sharp and decisive. At least, that's my impression from a passing glance."
She had more or less expected what the quack doctor would say. Maomao had mostly heard about Gyokuyou through others and hadn't actually laid eyes on her, so she couldn't say anything definitive — but purely based on appearance, she might have come away with a similar impression.
"As for me,"
Tianyou took a sip of the thin tea and kept packing the medicines that had been laid out into boxes.
"I thought she was someone who was born in the wrong era."
"Born in the wrong era?"
"Yeah, born in the wrong era. Just like that eccentric strategist."
Tianyou said something rather unsettling.
"What do you mean by that?"
"It means she'd have a hard time living an ordinary life. Well, not ordinary exactly — peaceful days. I caught a glimpse of her in town, and she seemed to thrive right in the middle of all this chaos."
"You seem to come alive in front of problems too, Tianyou."
"Then doesn't that make us the same kind?"
Tianyou finished the rest of his tea and left with the medicine.
"Same kind, huh."
That didn't sound like much of a compliment.
Not quite sure what he meant, Maomao turned her thoughts to the medicine shortage and what to do about it.
"Growing medicinal herbs, huh."
Rahan
His elder brother was dressed in fieldworker's clothes. He insisted he wasn't a farmer, but between his outfit and the hoe he was carrying, he looked every bit the accomplished one.
"Sure, if you're planning for the long haul, growing a herb garden makes sense, but wouldn't the soil here be no good? The land around the Western Capital is too dry for farming, and the grasslands are too far to trek to."
"Then what exactly is Rahan's brother out here tilling? Is there actually land to work?"
That was what she really wanted to ask about.
"I've got a proper job, you know! I've been told to plant sweet potatoes in all sorts of places."
"By whom?"
She wondered if Jinshi had asked him to do it again.
"By the old man... You wouldn't get it. I get a letter in the middle of all this chaos, and it says 'I'm waiting for your report!'... Meanwhile, I nearly died."
If Rahan's elder brother was a halfway decent farmer, then Rahan's father was a mad one.
"Indeed. It's remarkable you're still alive. How did you make it back?"
He had apparently been separated from his escorts, and given that he'd ended up in a remote corner of Western Xu Province, the hardships must have been extraordinary.
"Ugh. I had escorts for a while, but the carriage horses panicked at the sight of a massive locust swarm and bolted. Bandits attacked, and I got separated from the group. Everywhere I went, I tried to barter with dried sweet potato pieces, but then there were people who tried to rob me of those too. At one of the villages I'd stopped at during my sweet potato cultivation work, I'd warned them that locust damage might come, so the damage turned out to be minimal and they took care of me in various ways. But at the next village —"
This was a problem. If she listened to the whole story, it could fill an entire book.
"Ah, yes, I understand. I understand. So please let me know when you find a good spot for growing medicinal herbs."
"Can't be helped, I suppose."
He grumbled, but he always got the job done — Rahan's elder brother really was a good man. So she prayed he wouldn't be worked to the bone.
"Oh, by the way, I think you got a letter too."
"Oh? From whom, I wonder?"
"Sparrow came by earlier, so you probably just missed each other."
"Yes."
Whether it was her father Luomen, or the Green-Roofed Hall, she wasn't sure.
Maomao decided to return to the medical office.