Maomao
was visited by
Suzume,
who had come to escort her.
A carriage waited some distance from the dormitory, and they rode it
toward Jinshi's
palace.
"Maomao, Maomao! Here's the see-through nightgown you wanted――"
"I said I don't want it."
Maomao swatted aside the cloth bundle Suzume held out. It might seem a touch rude, but since it was Suzume, she didn't care one bit.
"Maomao, aren't you being a little too harsh on Suzume?"
"Not at all. I'm giving Suzume exactly the treatment that suits Suzume."
Suzume was not the sort to be crestfallen over something like this. Of course, no one else could get away with it.
"Oh, how cruel! I really wanted you to feel how wonderfully see-through this fabric is. And look, it even comes with underwear!"
"It looks more like prayer beads than underwear."
(Well, it wasn't exactly unheard of in the pleasure quarters.)
It looked like it would dig in uncomfortably. Beyond that, she had no particular thoughts on the matter.
"The nightgown—just feel the texture real quick."
"Here you go."
"The weave has some interesting characteristics."
"It does, doesn't it? Come take a closer look."
Before she knew it, they had arrived at Jinshi's palace.
"Moon Prince―! Faithful and wise Suzume has brought Maomao to see you―"
Suzume seemed even freer to do as she pleased than before. Previously she had been at least somewhat more restrained...
Suiren
She had been afraid of being recognized, but he was probably sitting cross-legged under the pretense of a serious injury.
"Oh my, what a tone you've taken."
Suiren had arrived without making a sound. She stood there smiling as she watched Suzume. A thin line of sweat ran down Suzume's cheek, so perhaps she shouldn't let herself get too carried away.
"Maomao, please come this way."
Maomao was led by Suiren toward the inner rooms. Her escort was not
Maansen
but an officer she was familiar with.
Jinshi sat in his usual chair in the room, looking as imperious as ever. However, the moment he saw Maomao, he averted his gaze with a somewhat awkward expression.
Maomao, on the other hand—
There had been all manner of awkwardness between them, but when it came down to it, it wasn't so bad. It was something like the lethargy of heading back to work after days off. Once you actually went, it didn't feel nearly as dreadful as you'd imagined.
"Y-you said you had something to discuss, so what is it?"
Jinshi's voice betraying his tension was plain to hear. While Maomao was surprisingly composed, Jinshi still seemed quite uncomfortable.
Maomao considered how to broach the subject. She wavered over where to begin, then simply produced the ink rubbing she had made of the tile.
"Do you recognize this?"
Maomao held it up to the light, showing Jinshi the reverse side.
It would have been nice if she could have copied it like a rubbing, but the tile was too small for that.
"Hmm, what is this?"
"This is… a copy of the side of a tile that an acquaintance of mine possessed."
"The side of a tile? Why would you copy something like that?"
"I was wondering if it looked familiar to you. I'm sorry if it doesn't mean anything to you."
Maomao looked away, feeling she had come all this way for something trivial.
"No, wait a moment."
Jinshi narrowed his eyes as he studied the copied design. He had been fidgeting with his right hand, when Suiren slipped a brush between his fingers. Jinshi then began tracing the pattern on the side of the tile with the brush.
"Mm."
Jinshi had been enlarging a portion of the pattern and sketching it out.
"This is..."
Suiren leaned in for a closer look.
"What could it be—?"
Even Suzu was brimming with curiosity.
Maomao had no idea either, but it looked like something between characters and ornamentation.
"It looks like a kaō."
"A kaō?"
A kaō was a kind of symbol used in place of one's name.
Created by deforming one's original characters, it could look like both calligraphy and a decorative pattern.
It seemed Jinshi had recognized a portion of the pattern carved on the tile's surface as a kaō. For commoners like Maomao, kaō were unfamiliar, and they had blended in with the patterns without her noticing.
"You figured that out well."
Maomao was genuinely impressed.
"Many people use a kaō instead of a seal. I have to look through dozens of them a day."
Maomao recalled how documents were always piled high on Jinshi's desk.
"Most importantly, my jade token has something similar carved into it."
Suiren stood up and retrieved a paulownia box from somewhere.
Inside was a jade token.
"See?"
A similar pattern was carved along the edge of Jinshi's jade token as well.
It was slightly larger and more finely, intricately crafted than the broken jade token.
After showing it to Maomao, Suiren put the jade token away once more.
"Do you know whose kaō it is?"
"I can't remember that far. However—"
Jinshi pointed to the upper portion of the kaō he had drawn.
"There are several ways to write a kaō. One is a cursive style that's been loosened, another is a single character from the name that's been altered, and yet another combines two characters from the name."
"Is this... two characters?"
"Yes, probably."
Jinshi drew something next to the kaō he had sketched.
"When you combine two characters, it's called a dual fusion. You might merge the left side of one with the right side of the other. In this case, it looks like they've been combined vertically."
"Vertically."
The part Jinshi had added looked like a 'grass radical.'
Maomao was drenched in a sluggish sweat.
"It's a kaō commonly used by members of the imperial family."
"I... is that so?"
Jinshi's jade plaque did indeed bear a similar kaō.
(Oh boy.)
Maomao thought of Joka. The woman had been hinting during her business dealings that she was a descendant of the imperial family—but what would happen if that turned out to be true?
If the plaque truly belonged to the imperial family, then Joka was a genuine illegitimate child of royalty. If the plaque was a forgery, she would be charged with deceiving the imperial family.
"I have a question. Where is the original plaque that this copy was made from?"
The awkward expression from moments ago had vanished from his face. Jinshi was a workaholic too, so he probably prioritized the problem over any embarrassment.
"If I were to hand over the original, what would happen to the current owner?"
Maomao asked, feeling her stomach churn with anxiety.
She thought Jinshi was different from the average official, but even so, she didn't want to betray someone close. If anything happened to Lady Joka, it would be a serious problem.
"Did the current owner steal the plaque?"
"No."
She had heard that her mother received it from a guest.
Though she was torn over whether to say the owner had engaged in the pretense of being imperial royalty, the key point was that Joka herself hadn't gone around boasting about it. The guest had simply jumped to their own conclusion.
"Then there shouldn't be a problem. Who is the current owner of the plaque?"
"You won't punish the owner of the plaque in any way?"
Maomao pressed the point.
Even without her asking, Jinshi's information network could easily uncover the owner of the jade plaque.
"You're awfully suspicious. Don't you trust me at all?"
Jinshi faintly furrowed his brow. She ought not to offend him, Maomao thought, but perhaps this was exactly where she needed to draw a line.
"Lord Jinshi, you have your own position to consider."
There would inevitably be times when Jinshi's standing demanded that he carry out even harsh punishments. If Maomao didn't make things explicit, it would only give him room to wriggle out later.
"I won't do anything to your disadvantage."
Jinshi's words, at least, carried no lies. Even if the contents proved troublesome for him, he would honour his promise and follow through.
"..."
Maomao and Jinshi stared each other down.
"Now, now."
It was Suzume who stepped in between them.
"I understand that you want Miss Maomao to confide in you about everything, Lord Moonlight, but she seems to think you don't trust her, so—"
"Isn't trust simply like that?"
"That's not trust — that's conquest, isn't it?"
At Suzume's words, Jinshi's body gave a visible shudder.
"Miss Maomao wants to lighten your burden in her own way, Lord Moonlight, I understand that too, but you're a little too prickly about it."
"Prickly..."
Maomao narrowed her eyes.
"Well, when dealing with Lord Moonlight, anyone would share what needs sharing, I suppose. Ah, I shan't say anything more on the matter!"
With that, Suzume took a step back and glanced at Suiren's face. Suiren, her expression unchanged, left Jinshi's room. Suzume let out a visible sigh of relief, her hand pressed to her chest.
"Then I'll be taking my leave."
I won't intrude any further, Suzume added as she followed Suiren out.
The two of them were now alone, but Maomao's mind was still consumed with the jade plaque.
Jinshi pulled a sour face, as though he had bitten into something tart, but within a few seconds his expression had returned to normal.
「Was it something that deserved punishment?」
「No, nothing of the sort.」
Jinshi didn't seem to have any intention of pressing further.
Maomao produced a cloth bundle from her robe.
「Here it is.」
Maomao showed him the broken plaque.
Jinshi took it in his hand and examined it.
「The surface has been scraped away.」
「Yes. Only the sides were left unscraped.」
「And it's split clean in two.」
「Apparently it was already broken from the start.」
「Hmm. Even so, the floral cartouche on the side is hard to make out.」
Although it hadn't been deliberately scraped, it was worn and crushed in places.
「The material is jadeite. Hard jadeite, at that, with a deep color.」
Jinshi murmured each observation as if confirming it.
「Being you, Maomao, I imagine you'd already considered the possibility that it was a royal's plaque.」
「I had considered that it likely belonged to someone of quite high rank.」
The thought that it could truly belong to royalty sent a chill through him.
「And if it was not only broken but scraped as well, you can see the conflict — they wanted to hide it but couldn't bring themselves to throw it away.」
Jinshi and Maomao seemed to be thinking much the same thing.
「Perhaps they were an illegitimate royal child who deliberately scraped and broke the plaque to avoid getting caught up in a succession dispute.」
「That seems entirely plausible.」
「If so, it would depend on the era. In recent times it would be hard to imagine — unless the sovereign has been roaming the common world in disguise.」
「It couldn't be the sovereign. According to what I've heard, the plaque was acquired nearly thirty years ago.」
「Thirty years, huh.」
Jinshi twirled the brush between his fingertips. The brush tip was quite dry, so no ink would fly off, but even a single stray drop would be terrifying. A single robe of Jinshi's could cost a commoner a year's wages. Feeling a chill run through her, she took the brush from his fingers.
"I'd say the chance of it being the previous emperor is extremely slim."
"I'm well aware."
He was famous for his fondness of young girls, so it was hard to imagine he would have made a move on Lady Yoka's mother. Besides, it didn't match the description she had once heard of the man who was supposedly Yoka's biological father.
(He was good-looking, but a rather grimy fellow, if I recall.)
He hardly looked like royalty.
"Also, apparently it had already been broken and chipped by the time he received it. Since it's a jade token, could it have been passed down through generations?"
"The closest period would be the previous emperor's era."
It was the age of the empress's reign.
The previous emperor had ascended the throne because his half-brothers had been struck down by illness. But she had heard that the surviving male members of the imperial family were subsequently eliminated so as not to pose a threat.
(I don't know how much of that is true, though.)
If the original owner of this token had been one of the previous emperor's half-brothers, he would have been caught up in a succession struggle. To avoid that, he may have chipped the token and renounced his claim as an illegitimate child—a shrewd decision, perhaps. Though it would have been safer to simply throw it away.
"When the material is jade, it becomes difficult to pinpoint the era."
If it were cloth, it would be easier. The weaving technique and patterns of cloth changed from era to era.
"No, it might actually be possible."
Jinshi had been studying the side of the token intently.
"If it's a jade token belonging to the imperial family, the craftsmen would have been few and far between. With this kind of pattern, they should have kept the designs separate from those of other royals to avoid duplication."
"So then—"
"Yes, I'll look into it."
Maomao let out a sigh.
"Maomao."
"Yes?"
"Why did you decide to investigate this token? If you don't want anyone questioning who the owner was, there's no need to dig into its original owner now, is there?"
"Well, the thing is, the official who was recently found hanged—he had apparently approached me about selling this token. After that, someone tried to steal the token from me."
"The murdered official?"
"Yes. Officially, it's been ruled a crime of passion, but something about it keeps bothering me."
"If someone was targeting the imperial clan's tablet, then the story doesn't quite add up."
"Exactly."
Jinshi and Maomao stared intently at the jade tablet.
"This isn't making any progress at all, is it?"
"Well, the two of them are workaholics."
Neither Maomao nor the others noticed that Chokan and Suiren were peering into the room.