Yu
and
Keyou
were pulled apart, and she decided to have a discussion for now.
"It's a sorry-looking place, but—"
"Sorry about that."
At Sazen's
words, Maomao answered. This had originally been Maomao's residence.
"Isn't there somewhere a bit cleaner? Like borrowing a room from the Rokushōkan or something."
Who had quietly joined them by then—
Suzume
—was also present.
With five people crammed into this narrow house, it was unbearably tight.
Yu's eyelids were swollen, but her breathing was steady. Her hand was slightly bruised from punching Keyou.
Keyou had cut the inside of his mouth, but no teeth were broken. Even for a woman's fist, taking a blow without any resistance should have hurt, but he just kept grinning. He'd stuffed a rag up his nose to stop the nosebleed, which was not a good look.
"Now then — you and Yu seem to know each other, so would you mind explaining what on earth is going on?"
Maomao poured plain hot water into chipped bowls and passed them around. Suzume glanced about for snacks, but there were none to be had.
"Shall I be the one to explain?"
"Please do."
"I told you before about the time a
curse practitioner
was after me and I was chased out of my village, right?"
Maomao recalled. She had met Keyou about two years ago, hadn't she? It was because he had helped her when she couldn't board a ship due to her smallpox scars.
"That village is where Yu and her family lived."
"What do you mean the village was destroyed?"
It was a story worth listening to.
"Was it caused by a locust plague? I seem to recall you said you were blamed for a locust infestation and driven out."
"Mmm, that's not quite accurate, I think. My guess would be—"
"It was an epidemic. Smallpox."
"Smallpox."
It was a disease with both high infectivity and high lethality. After a high fever, rashes would appear, and even if one survived, the scars of those rashes often remained.
"That face of yours, Keyou—is that also from—"
"No, I'd already caught smallpox before I came to the village. It's terrifying, smallpox. I really nearly died, you know."
His voice carried not a shred of the tension such words should have had—typical of Keyou.
"The village where we lived was a frontier settlement. We cleared forest and carved out farmland. It was still a new village, and to make up for what our crops couldn't cover, we sold lumber we'd cut down to obtain food from outside."
"Ah, so a frontier settlement."
Maomao now understood why the village had perished.
"When food shortages hit, a place like that would be hit first."
A locust plague would strike. Neighbors would stop selling them food. They would starve. Their strength would dwindle. They would fall ill.
Once an epidemic broke out, such a place would be the first to be abandoned. Before its name ever appeared on any map, it would simply vanish. Forgotten by everyone almost at once, as though it had never existed.
"A little before I left, I'd heard reports of smallpox patients in the nearby area, you see. I had a feeling something like this might—"
"Before that, though, Keyou—you had already left our village, hadn't you?"
Yu's voice dropped low.
"I was driven out."
Keyou's voice was calm.
"But still! If only you had stayed!"
Yu rose to her feet, tears spilling freely down her cheeks.
Keyou had been driven out. After that, smallpox swept through, and the villagers fell one after another. There was nothing anyone could do—they could only watch. For Yu, what a living hell that must have been.
"If Keyou had been there... if only you had been there..."
Kokuyou had already had smallpox. Those who caught it once were said never to catch it again. Moreover, had Kokuyou—with his medical knowledge—remained, there could have been lives saved.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Kokuyou apologized, but he had done nothing wrong. It had been the sorcerer's decision to drive him out, and when the village representative told him to leave, he had no choice but to go. Yu attacking him had clearly been nothing but an unfounded accusation. But she knew that herself. She knew it, yet she was venting her helpless frustration—the inability to do anything—on Kokuyou, the adult.
(Still, climbing on top of someone and punching them. She must have had a fine upbringing.)
If it had been anyone other than Kokuyou, they would have fought back.
"Why, why didn't you stay?!"
"I'm sorry."
(He may look like a smooth-talker, but he's surprisingly mature.)
Kokuyou forced a smile onto his swollen face and pulled the sobbing Yu's head against him.
"Well now, I hate to interrupt this touching moment, but I do have a question."
Suzume cut in.
"If I recall correctly, Yu, you mentioned coming to the capital with your family. The village was destroyed, but your family was all safe, were they?"
Suzume had a talent for hitting the nail on the head. Maomao had been wondering about that too.
"In my case, I had Kokuyou treat me before the epidemic broke out."
"Treat you?"
Maomao's ears perked up, and she regarded Kokuyou with keen interest. Even Sazen seemed somewhat curious, wearing a serious expression.
"It's an old method. Once you've had smallpox, you're much less likely to catch it again. So the idea is to catch smallpox while you're still healthy."
"Could it be the method of transplanting weakened pus into the body?"
The old man—
Luomen—
She had heard about it from him just once, in passing.
"That's right. You save the scabs from smallpox."
"C-Could I do it too?"
"Hmm, I'd love to help, but I don't have the right scabs on hand. And more importantly, there's always the risk of failure, so it's not exactly easy."
Kokuyou crossed his arms and groaned. Yu, having calmed down at last, was drinking plain hot water.
"It could get worse, you mean?"
"Maybe one in a few dozen won't make it. Occasionally they die."
"That's something to think about."
Sazen furrowed his brow.
"I wish there were a safer method with lower toxicity."
Kokuyou stared off into the distance.
"And you tried such a dangerous method on such a young girl? Wouldn't your father be furious?"
"My father once had smallpox. That's part of why he came to the frontier village — he'd lost family to smallpox and was forced into a life of poverty. At first, I resented it. The fever was agonizing, and it left these lifelong scars on my skin."
Yu rolled up her sleeve to show the pockmarks.
"Your uncle was a kind man, though. He took me in when I was half-starved and saved my life. The other villagers found me unsettling and wanted nothing to do with me, though."
Once again, Kokuyou laughed off a dark past.
"In the end, my family survived. Almost everyone else in the village died. We took in the surviving children and came to the capital nearly three years ago."
"So you entered court service to support your family."
"Yes. Thanks to Kokuyou teaching me simple characters, studying at the palace was easier."
Now it made sense why Yu was considered exceptional.
"And you hit the man who saved your life?"
Sazen spoke with utmost composure.
"…Yes. I know, I know, I understand, but I just couldn't help…"
"That's how it is. At a sensitive age, one tends to be rather clumsy with emotions."
Suzume nodded sagely.
"Also, I think there was a lack of communication. From the start, you should have just told him the man had pockmarks on his face."
"A lack of communication is rich coming from you, Maomao."
Suzume said this and began rummaging around the house. There was a single steamed bun in the kitchen's steamer basket.
"That's all there is? What a dump."
"Don't just go taking people's breakfast."
Zazen panicked.
"Well, despite the various complications, I've managed to arrange a meeting with the pharmacist with a troubled past you were looking for. So, what would you like to do now?"
Maomao checked with Yu.
"I thought it would be enough once we confirmed Keyou's safety."
"I'll be at ease as long as Yu and my aunts are all doing well too."
Keyou grinned.
"But it looks like Yu wants to know something beyond just my safety."
"Yes. Also, when smallpox breaks out, is there any way to prevent it? That's what I came to ask about."
"Hmm. I don't know about that."
"And what about you?"
Maomao pressed further. This wasn't just something Yu wanted to hear—Maomao's own ears had perked up at the topic.
"My old master used to research smallpox and other epidemics, but—"
"But?"
"He died."
"That's..."
Maomao's shoulders slumped in disappointment.
"I think he'd made pretty good progress, though. Me and another person were implanted with smallpox seeds under the same conditions, and while I turned out like this, the other person was perfectly fine."
"Hold on a moment."
Maomao held up her palm to stop him.
"I feel like I just heard something I really can't let slide."
"Something you can't let slide? Oh, right. The other person was my twin brother. Our master took him in because he made for a perfect comparison in his experiments."
Once again, he spoke of a heavy piece of his past as though it were nothing.
"At the time, it seems a much less virulent strain of smallpox was implanted in my brother, but there's no record of it. Since the master died, I guess we'll never know."
"What happened to that brother?"
Zazen asked casually.
"He died~"
He said, beaming with a grin.
"That's why nobody can make sense of Master's research~. Sorry about that~"
Kokuyō pressed his palms together, trying to look endearing.
"...Is there really no way to get rid of the plague?"
Yu lowered her gaze.
"It'd be hard, though. If only we had a book by..."
"...Hua Tuo..."
"...or something like that, it might be a different story~"
"Hua Tuo's a legendary figure, isn't he? No way something like that actually exists."
"Well, here's the thing~. Apparently Master heard that there was a doctor called Hua Tuo or something nearly a hundred years ago, and his descendants have been secretly hiding his techniques~"
"Sounds like an old wives' tale to me."
Zazen had apparently given up on retrieving his buns from Suzume and was drinking plain hot water instead.
(Hua Tuo, huh...)
Maomao crossed her arms and thought. Perhaps from the effort, her stomach let out a deep growl.
"Oh right, I haven't eaten yet."
"Let's eat, let's eat!"
Having finished off the buns, Suzume started rummaging through the house for anything else edible.
Maomao remembered a street stall nearby and decided to go buy some skewers.