Maomao sat in her room at the dormitory, arms crossed.
Before her lay the jade plaque. Its surface had been scraped away, though the marks looked less like they'd been cut with a knife and more like the jade had been crushed. Maomao took out a small blade and pressed its tip against the surface.
"Hard."
There were two types of jade: hard and soft. This was the hard variety, which should have made it all the more difficult to work with. The fact that someone had not only split the intricately carved piece cleanly in two but then scraped the surface as well could not have been accidental. It was reasonable to assume this had been done to destroy some kind of evidence.
"Hmm."
All she could barely make out was a pattern remaining on the side.
"Pardon me."
Maomao took out some ink and applied it to the side of the plaque. Then she pressed a piece of paper against it and traced over the pattern with her fingertip. When she slowly peeled the paper away, the design had transferred like a seal impression.
She flipped it over and held it up to the light.
It resembled an ancient script.
(I wonder if there's someone who's good at this sort of thing?)
What suddenly came to mind was the official she had met previously in the library.
Jinshi
— she had met him just before he was targeted for assassination during the festival. He seemed well-versed in matters of ritual, so he would likely know about ancient script as well, but—
(I shouldn't ask someone I don't know very well.)
Lady Joka
Since she had been entrusted with her, she couldn't very well act in a way that would cause her trouble.
(Who can I trust...?)
Jinshi's face surfaced in Maomao's mind. He would be knowledgeable about the imperial family and prestigious households, and above all, he was—for better or worse—a good-natured person.
He had turned a blind eye to the children of the Zi clan, hidden
Suiren,
who was distantly related to the imperial family, and moreover,
the former priestess of Saō
was being sheltered as well.
"It's not ideal to put too much of a burden on him, but"
I couldn't think of anyone else.
Since returning from the western capital, Jinshi had only summoned me once.
He no longer called for me with anything like the same frequency as before.
Part of me wanted to be summoned, and part of me didn't.
For Maomao, it was complicated precisely because of what had happened last time.
Strike before you're smothered — that was my resolve.
So with that determination, I headed to Jinshi's, only to be thrown out.
I was both deflated and relieved.
That said, when I tried to imagine what expression to wear the next time we met, I was stumped.
Well, if I told myself it was just work—
It probably wasn't worth worrying too much about.
But now that I actually had business with Jinshi, the fact that he wasn't summoning me was its own problem.
I'd told Jokka I'd return it within a month, so I wanted to get it back on time.
If you asked who was useful at a time like this, it was that ever-elusive person of his.
"Suzume-san, hello there."
"Maomao-san, hii~. Are you coming in for a full day starting at noon today?"
Suzume was lounging about the medical office as though she owned the place.
"Not at all, not at all. Pardon my rudeness — I just came back from a shopping errand."
Maomao had a cloth-wrapped bundle in hand. Behind her was the new recruit, Yu, who had gone into town alongside another young physician.
Yu was eyeing Suzume with a suspicious expression. Suzume's existence was hard to explain in a single sentence.
From the way she carried herself, she didn't seem particularly competent.
And yet, for someone's concubine, she couldn't exactly be called beautiful.
So her tastes ran a bit on the unconventional side.
What's more, if you tried to pass her off as a young lady from a fine family, all she ever did was act out of line.
She was known as a maid with some mysterious backing that kept her from being thrown out.
Maomao set down her luggage.
"Yuu, please put your things away and get back to your usual work."
Today, she was going to teach another young medical officer who had come along how to sort medicines, so she had Yuu assigned to a different task.
"Understood."
Yuu left, still casting suspicious glances at the mysterious maid until the very end.
"Maomao, Maomao, you're really putting on the senior act, aren't you?"
"Suzume, Suzume, I actually am your senior, you know."
After saying that, Maomao looked at Suzume.
"There's something I'd like to discuss with you."
"What is it?"
Suzume was eating steamed buns. Behind her, Li was glaring at Maomao as if to say, "Do something about her."
Doctor Li
was a familiar face in the western capital, and while Maomao had been away, he had apparently taken it upon himself to look after Suzume. He had even brewed tea to go with the steamed buns.
Maomao went over to Doctor Li.
"I'll be taking charge of Suzume from here."
"Fine."
Maomao accepted the tea.
"Um—"
When she thought someone was addressing her, it turned out to be the young medical officer.
"How should I sort the medicines?"
"I'll handle that."
Doctor Li weighed sorting medicines against looking after Suzume. It seemed he decided sorting medicines was the easier job.
That worked out perfectly. It was a conversation she didn't really want overheard, so it saved her the trouble of relocating to another room.
"Come, come, let's have tea, Maomao. Maomao, you prefer the ones with meat filling, don't you?"
"Yes."
Maomao placed the tea in front of Sparrow.
"Hmm, discussing matters in a place like this is difficult, I think. How about we meet later in a quieter location?"
Sparrow's finger pointed north. Toward Jinshi's palace.
"What time should I head there?"
"Sparrow will come to fetch you, so please wait in your quarters, Maomao."
Maomao thought. She wanted to ask about the jade pendant, but was it worth making such a big deal of it? She couldn't definitively say it was connected to that murder case, after all; it was still just speculation.
As Maomao pondered, a steamed bun was pushed toward her mouth.
"Mmph!?"
"There, there. Sparrow can see through it completely when Maomao hesitates over something."
"..."
Maomao chewed on the steamed bun stuffed into her mouth.
(This person is too perceptive.)
Maomao swallowed the bun and took a sip of tea.
"Then, Maomao."
Sparrow leaned in close to Maomao's ear.
"I'll lend you the see-through nightgown that made Sparrow seduce the master, so please succeed next time."
(No, that's not it—)
The tea in Maomao's mouth rained down upon Sparrow's face.