In the sticky, humid air of early summer,
Maomao
was hard at work.
"Splish, splash~"
She tossed the laundry into a large tub of water and trampled on it barefoot.
"Maomao, you're getting water everywhere."
Getting splashed while standing nearby,
Yao
narrowed her eyes resentfully.
"Sorry. This is faster, though."
What Maomao was trampling were the surgical gowns worn by the court physicians. If she were to hand-wash them carefully just because they belonged to her superiors, she'd never be done. Blood-soaked surgical gowns had to be washed right away, or the stains wouldn't come out.
"Maomao, please don't splash dirty water on Lady Yao."
Yanyan
glared at Maomao.
"Right."
Maomao distanced herself from Yao, then resumed trampling the surgical gowns.
"It'd be nice to have some daikon for getting blood stains out. You used to use it, didn't you?"
You grate the daikon and use it to lift the blood stains.
"Well, about that..."
Yao averted her gaze awkwardly.
"Last summer, we tried using daikon to remove blood stains, but they wouldn't come out no matter what, and we ended up using way too much."
Yanyan explained on Yao's behalf.
"So it got banned, I take it."
"Yes."
Daikon was originally a winter vegetable. Depending on the variety it could be grown in summer as well, but since it was precious, using too much of it was sure to draw complaints.
"Shall we tackle the stains by hand, the old-fashioned way?"
"Let's do that."
"Yes."
Maomao and the others continued the laundry, heaving sighs as they went.
The work looked no different from before, but there had been a few small changes.
"Um, the boiling of the linen is done."
Two girls, around fifteen or sixteen, had come over. Their eyes still had an untested look to them. The recruitment of ladies-in-waiting assigned to the medical officers had not wrapped up in Maomao's cohort. And so, two newcomers had arrived.
(What were their names again?)
Unfortunately, Maomao was no good at remembering other people's names and faces. She vaguely registered them as her juniors and matched her conversations accordingly.
"Then, could you handle the boiling for this batch too?"
Yao handed the freshly washed cloth over to the juniors. In terms of both age and rank, they were
beneath her,
so it wasn't entirely wrong to see her putting on a bit of a big-sister act.
"Understood."
The two juniors said nothing and carried off the basket of linen.
"Huh."
"What is it?"
Yanyan leaned in to peer at Maomao's face.
"Nothing. I was just thinking some remarkably obedient ones have shown up."
Court ladies mostly came to the palace as part of their bridal training, or with the understanding that it was a place to find a husband. And because quite a few of them were well-to-do young ladies, they generally did not have the temperament to do menial chores without complaint.
"There were a few others, you know. I chased them off on the first day, though."
Yao snorted, her nostrils flaring.
"Chased them off?"
Maomao recalled that this had happened before.
"I didn't have them fired, you know. I just shoved them off to other departments."
"So those two are the ones who stayed?"
"Hm hm," Maomao nodded. They seemed like simple, unassuming girls. Rather than plain-looking, they had an air of still being unpolished — the kind of look you'd expect from girls who hadn't spent much time in the capital. They were probably from the countryside.
One was small and had her sleeves rolled up, while the other was tall and dressed neatly in work attire.
"Oh, and one of them is a former rear palace court lady."
"A rear palace court lady?"
Maomao blinked in surprise.
"That's right. The tall one is"
Yu.
"The small one is"
Changsha.
"Knowing you, Maomao, you've probably already forgotten their names by now."
"Heh heh heh."
(The tall one has the short name, the short one has the long name.)
"The rear palace used to teach court ladies their letters, right? She was apparently quite gifted, so they tried to recruit her as an official court lady."
"Is that so? I always assumed people like that would be kept in the rear palace."
A rear palace tenure lasted two years. Daughters of poor families were simply sent back out after that. In the time they spent there, Jinshi had tried to raise their literacy rates so they might at least have some connection to future employment — and that effort seemed to be bearing at least some fruit.
"Yu apparently turned down the offer to stay in the rear palace. She's very family-oriented — she used the wages she earned in the rear palace to move her family to the capital."
"Now that's a devoted daughter."
But rear palace court lady wages could only go so far. She didn't know how many family members Yu had, but it still seemed like a precarious way to try to live in the capital.
(Maybe the family has other sources of income.)
That said, it was none of Maomao's business, and she had no intention of poking her nose in.
There was just one thing that caught her attention.
"Wouldn't those outfits be difficult to wash, though?"
The one with the shorter name kept her sleeves pulled down neatly to cover her wrists entirely. In this season, boiling linen in a big pot would be sweltering work.
"I said the same thing. But when you're told that exposing skin is forbidden, there's nothing you can really say about it."
"That's true."
Li
was a vast country. People from all manner of regions gathered in the capital, each bringing their own customs. There was a saying about following the ways of whatever place you entered, but nobody was forcing anyone to change.
(As long as they're doing their jobs properly, it shouldn't be a problem.)
Maomao decided not to worry about it and get back to work.
Since returning to the central palace, Maomao had been put in charge of managing the medicine shelves more and more often. She was happy about it as a job, but the sheer variety and quantity of supplies was enormous, meaning she had to keep herself busy. She had to check inventory and expiration dates on crude drugs, discard anything past its prime, and order replacements for anything running low. She also could not allow staple medicines to run out entirely—when supplies fell short, she had to compound them herself and keep a stock on hand.
It wasn't as though Maomao worked alone, but if work stalled when it was her turn, another court physician might take over her duties. Thinking about that, Maomao felt she had to perform her work more reliably than any of the other physicians.
(I'm running low on pills. I need to make some.)
While Maomao was gathering the necessary materials on her desk, a small shadow appeared in the doorway.
"Um, ah, what should I do about this?"
The short junior colleague with the long name approached Maomao, clutching a basket brimming with dried herbs.
Maomao took the basket of dried herbs. A faint, grassy scent tickled her nostrils. It had to be the medicinal herbs she had ordered.
"I was told to have them stored, but they're bulky like this and will rot. I'll process them into a form that's easier to keep. Watch closely."
Maomao picked up a bundle of the dried herbs and pinched a leaf between her fingers. It had been thoroughly dried.
"Separate the leaves from the stems."
"Yes."
"Put the finished leaves in here."
Maomao pulled a drawer from the medicine shelf and placed it in front of the new lady-in-waiting. The girl was either earnest or simply too nervous to say a word. Maomao herself preferred working in silence, but since this was a colleague at work, she needed to at least teach her the basics.
"Do you know what this leaf is?"
"......Is it
mint
?"
"Correct."
The question was perhaps too easy, for the new recruit answered immediately.
"And its uses?"
"Back home, we used it as a cough suppressant and headache remedy."
"Back home?"
Maomao paused and looked at the new court lady.
"Did your family run an apothecary or something?"
"Not an apothecary exactly, but my grandmother—"
was a
curse practitioner, you see."
(Ah, so that's where it comes from.)
Maomao was slightly disappointed that they weren't in the same line of work.
In small settlements with few inhabitants, there was often no doctor or pharmacist. As a result, village elders or curse practitioners would sometimes serve in place of a physician.
Maomao did not believe
in curses
and the like. Most of them had no basis in fact and were often used for swindling.
Still, she could not deny them entirely. At the very least, the new court lady's grandmother appeared to have been a genuine curse practitioner, judging from the girl's knowledge. She had likely passed the written examination thanks to that.
(There might be some merit in teaching her after all.)
Before, she had drilled knowledge into
Sazen
to prepare him to manage an apothecary in the pleasure quarter, but this girl seemed like she would study more willingly.
"Well then, help me make some household medicines while you're at it."
"Understood."
The new court lady clung to Maomao and mimicked her every move with care. Maomao picked up the medicinal herbs she had laid out on the table.
There, a wobbling
Moon Jellyfish
A person resembling one had drawn near.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing?"
Needless to say,
it was Tenyu
who had arrived.
"
Lady Maomao,
are you teaching the new girl? Chōsa, right?"
(She doesn't even remember my name.)
But she remembered the new girl's name. That's right—her name was Chōsa.
That said, if Maomao reacted, Tenyu would find it amusing and push further, so she ignored her.
"Y-yes. Maomao-senpai is teaching me."
"Hahahaha, Lady Maomao here has a habit of dancing around when she sees rare herbs, so watch out!"
"Hahahaha, Tenyu here has a habit of dancing around when she sees fresh corpses, so watch out!"
Maomao shot back.
"Huh? Herbs? Corpses?"
Chōsa looked back and forth between Maomao and Tenyu.
"You're confusing the new girl, so quit getting in the way. Why don't you go off and do your job already?"
Maomao pinched the dried leaves,
dropped them into the mortar,
and crushed them with the grinding wheel.
"Don't mix them right away—grind everything together first. That way you can make the powder as fine as possible."
"Yes."
"Hey, hey,"
She ignored Tenyu as always.
"Once they're properly ground, mix them according to the ratio. For kneading them together, you use..."
"Renmitsu"
"—renmitsu. You'll use renmitsu."
Maomao showed the thick, gooey liquid in the pot.
"What's renmitsu? Is it a type of honey?"
"It's honey that's been boiled down. Honey as-is has too much moisture, so you need to cook the water out beforehand."
"Oh, I see."
"Hey, hey."
Maomao mixed the renmitsu into a blend of several powdered herbs. Like kneading dough, she started by crumbling it loosely, then gradually worked it together until it formed a clump. It ended up looking like clay with a distinctive smell, forming a lump.
"Use the firmness of an earlobe as your guide. The wooden molds are on the shelf up there—oh, you, the physician over there. Could you get the wooden molds?"
"You only ever use me for things like this."
Tenyu grumbled, but looking pleased at finally being acknowledged, he fetched the wooden molds.
"Thank you. You can go somewhere else now."
"Isn't the way you treat me awfully mean?"
To Maomao, this was simply her usual way of dealing with Tenyu, but apparently it was hard for Choucha to watch.
"M-Medical Officer Tenyu. Thank you very much. You've been a tremendous help."
"Heh heh heh, don't mention it."
"I hear that even though you're still a junior medical officer, you're already doing the same work as a mid-level one. Especially when it comes to surgical procedures, they say you're outstanding."
"Heh heh, well, y'know..."
"How can I learn to perform procedures with such precision?"
"Ah, well, you'd have to practice on cadavers, and—"
Maomao immediately kicked Tenyu in the shin.
"Ow!"
Tenyu hopped around on one foot, clutching his leg.
"Wh-what are you doing! Lady?!"
Maomao bared her gums at Tenyu in a threatening display.
(What are you blabbering about dissection for!)
The fact that the medical officials were performing autopsies was being kept secret. There was no way it was appropriate to tell a newcomer like Chousa about it.
"Hm? Oh."
As if he had finally realized his mistake, Tenyu blinked one eye at her.
"You see, my family are hunters. So I'm used to dissecting animals."
"Does being good at dissection make you better at surgical procedures?"
"Well, there's a big difference between being used to blood and not being used to it."
Maomao, somewhat relieved, stuffed a lump of clay-like medicinal herbs into a wooden mold. She pressed it firmly, producing pills one after another.
"Yes, yes. Please leave now. I'm sure the ever-busy doctor has other work to attend to."
"Come on, I'll help~"
"No, no, no. Look, even after returning to the Central Bureau, Doctor Li has been further training his muscles."
"Li—"
"I'll be sure to tell Doctor Li. Apparently, recently he's been hanging a large sandbag from a tree in his yard and relentlessly throwing punches and kicks at it. Also, during break times, he goes to the training grounds to spar with the military officials."
Doctor Li was living fulfilling days, regardless of where all of this was heading.
Even Tenyu couldn't match Doctor Li, it seemed, and he quickly scurried off.
"Doctor Tenyu is an unusual person, isn't he."
"Yeah. Best not to get involved with him."
Maomao said while continuing to make pills.