Suirei—
a blood relative of the clan of the child that had been annihilated three years ago, and also a granddaughter of the previous emperor.
Owing to her unusual birth and past transgressions, she could not appear in public and was currently
under Ada's
protection.
She possessed knowledge of medicine. The revival medicine capable of placing humans in a state of suspended animation had been created by her and her master.
Among the ingredients was also the deadly poison
datura,
which was included as well.
Ada had relinquished her position as a senior consort and left the rear palace. She now lived in a detached palace within the capital, though she had her own thoughts about the matter.
(How different could it really be from the rear palace, just because the place she lived was different?)
Even if she thought it, she couldn't say it out loud.
The carriage clattered as it entered the detached palace.
She could hear the voices of children. They were the surviving children of the clan of the child, living under Ada's protection along with Suirei.
The one who spent his days doing nothing but causing mischief in the pleasure quarter,
Chou'u,
was also supposed to be here. However, the side effects of the revival medicine had erased his memory, allowing him to take a different path from the other children.
The children who remained here were ones who, for as long as the clan of the child's secret was kept, could never appear in public.
(You'd really have to take the long view.)
Considering lifespan, Ada would die first. She had taken in a number of children, but barring illness or injury, none would likely die before her. Would there be anyone left to watch over them all to the end, keeping the secret intact?
Among those children were two men. No—two women dressed as men. Ada and Suirei. Whether for ease of movement or simply personal preference, the two frequently wore men's clothing.
"Ada-sama, it's been so long!"
Their guide was
Suzume.
She bowed in greeting.
Maomao bowed her head in the same manner.
The last time they met, it had been about Ada and
Jinshi's
relationship — a confession that left Maomao feeling conflicted.
"It hasn't been all that long since we last met."
As Ada said this, he instructed the attendants to take the children somewhere else. The children were led away by the attendants, looking disappointed.
"Shall we move somewhere else?"
"Yes."
Given what they needed to discuss, a private setting was in order.
Maomao and the others were shown to a room in the detached palace. There was a small table with four chairs, and once the attendant had prepared tea, she left the room.
Only Ada, Sourei, Maomao, and Suzume remained in the room. At Ada's gesture to sit, the other three took their seats.
"Well then,
I heard you have business with Sou.
What is it?"
Ada crossed his legs and asked Maomao.
"I would like to borrow Sou's... medical expertise."
Thinking it might sound odd to use her full name, Maomao also called her "Sou."
"What do you think, Sou?"
"I have no opinion. I will follow whatever Lady Ada commands."
"What a bore."
Ada picked up his pipe and began twirling it around. He wasn't smoking — he just seemed to want to spin it. It was reminiscent of how Jinshi often twirled his brush.
"What would you specifically have Sou do?"
At Ada's question, Maomao produced the package she had brought. It was a thin wooden box, and when she opened the lid, there was a single sheet of paper inside. Along with it, she had included charcoal to prevent moisture and insect repellent.
"What's this?"
"Do you know of a drug called mafeisan?"
"I... believe I've heard of it once. A drug that numbs pain, isn't that something out of fairy tales?"
Suiren spoke carefully, choosing her words. She was looking at the restored scrap of paper, seemingly reading it silently.
"What would you do if such a drug actually existed?"
"...I wouldn't do anything."
"Even if I told you it contained datura?"
"Isn't that a poison rather than a medicine? What would you use it for?"
As Maomao and Suiren went back and forth, Ada watched from the sidelines while Sparrow fidgeted, itching to throw in a comment.
"For surgical purposes, I presume."
Suiren nodded with a look of understanding.
"So you mean to stop the heart temporarily in order to spare the patient the pain of surgery?"
"Not to that extreme. Wouldn't it suffice to render them unconscious?"
"You would be better off not pursuing this."
Suiren was not enthusiastic.
"Datura is a potent poison. I can fully understand the desire to spare a patient unnecessary pain. However, the fact that you have come all the way to borrow the knowledge of a criminal like myself suggests the situation must be quite desperate. Who exactly are you planning to use this on?"
Suiren was sharp. And through her words, Ada seemed to have caught on.
"Oh my. Could it be that that person's illness has relapsed?"
How irreverent.
For Ada, "that person" almost certainly referred to the Emperor.
"What were his symptoms at the time?"
Maomao asked without naming anyone.
"I remember there was prolonged poor health. The records of the imperial physicians would be more accurate than my own account. If there's anything I can recall, it would be the content of the arguments with the old Empress."
Ada apparently remembered quite well.
"With the Empress Dowager?"
"Empress Dowager is fine, I suppose—easier to understand. Want to hear about it? An old grandmother past eighty who refuses to step down from the stage of governance, and a crown prince in the height of his rebellious phase. Their bickering was so intense it reached even my ears. I used to wish they'd make me the one who had to listen to their complaints, but by the middle of it all, the prince truly seemed to be suffering."
Ada set down his pipe and brought the tea bowl to his lips.
"What sort of disagreement was it?"
"Hmm... should I really say? Well, fine. It seems the Empress Dowager exhibited symptoms of dementia in her later years."
Maomao and Suirei both reacted with a jolt. Only Suzume had started helping herself to the sweets.
"Then governing the country—"
Wouldn't that be impossible? Maomao thought.
"No, it wasn't as though she forgot everything entirely. It was more the occasional, dangerous absentminded slip—but—"
"It sounds as though there were dangerous incidents as well."
"Yes. Would you understand if I said 'the Xuxi Province affair' from eighteen years ago?"
"..."
(This is the godforsaken mess I ended up dealing with!)
It was the incident that Maomao and the others had scrambled frantically over the previous year.
"At the time, a document regarding a rebellion by the Xu clan was said to have arrived, and through some error, the emperor's approval seal had been stamped on it. Regarding that matter,"
"You—"
"...no, it was the current emperor who noticed the Empress Dowager's abnormality."
(Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying.)
Even if they were family, they were not people who saw each other regularly. More importantly, no one would dare speak harshly to the person who could be considered the nation's supreme authority. Even if there had been signs, no one could have offered any recommendations.
If he had been the Crown Prince, trying to hold things together while his grandmother gripped the real power and his own father was a puppet, the psychological toll must have been extraordinary.
"But the symptoms did go away at some point, didn't they?"
"Yes. Whether that was a good thing or not, the Empress Dowager and then the Late Emperor passed away one after another."
In other words, the source of his psychological burden had been removed.
"The coronation and everything else kept him busy, but the handover of duties was apparently surprisingly smooth. Also, it seems he was able to recuperate during the mourning period."
"I'll ask anyway—"
"Relax. It wasn't anything like assassination."
"Right."
The Empress Dowager had been of advanced age, and the previous Emperor had also been past sixty. One would want to believe it was a natural death.
"If it recurred, that would mean a new source of worry has cropped up, wouldn't it?"
"A source of worry..."
Maomao thought of the Emperor's relatives beyond the Empress Dowager. There was one person — someone who held the title of Imperial Brother yet had spent a full year battling the locust plague.
(If it were his own child, he'd be beside himself with worry.)
Suirei let out a long, heavy breath.
"All the more reason to believe my knowledge would be of no help."
She reiterated her refusal.
"Wasn't it your life that was supposed to be at my command?"
"I cannot use Lady Ada's life as justification to poison someone of such importance."
"It isn't poison. It's medicine, so long as the proper dosage is observed."
"There may be someone looking to entrap Lady Ada. What then?"
Suirei's argument was not merely one valid point — it was riddled with them. The circumstances surrounding Ada's detached palace were a tangled mess of dangerous elements begging to be uncovered. To begin with, she was in the bizarre situation of being a deposed consort kept under guard outside the inner palace.
(Depending on the faction, she could easily be seen as a political enemy.)
Maomao decided to change her approach.
"There are surely other patients who need mafeisan. What if we used it for those patients instead?"
Along with the drug experiments currently underway, they could also test whether it might prove useful during surgical procedures. There was risk involved, but it might still be preferable to the alternative — being unable to perform any treatment at all because of the pain.
(The lives of the Emperor and the common folk.)
For Maomao, there was certainly much to consider, but all she could do was turn a blind eye.
"Will you do it?"
"...Very well."
Pressed by Ada's request, Suirei had no choice but to comply.