After the break, Maomao was partnered with the tall senior. It was his turn, taking over from the short senior.
"Pleased to work with you."
"Yeah, same to you."
Compared to the short senior, his tone was more casual, but his height gave him an intimidating presence. Standing next to Maomao, they made an uneven pair, but compared to Li Bai, he was thinner and more slender.
Today was half a day of making medicine at the palace. As for the other half of the day— "So you also have work in the rear palace in the afternoon?"
"Yes. I used to serve as a lady-in-waiting there."
That was the official explanation.
Maomao and the others chatted as they ground glutinous rice into powder with stone mortars.
( Suirei couldn't very well be summoned to the palace.)
She was afraid of what might happen if her cleft face were exposed.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"What is it?"
"Is the rear palace really full of beautiful women?"
A blunt question came at her.
"Well, yes. All the consorts are beautiful, and the ladies-in-waiting too."
When entering the rear palace, there was a certain amount of screening. Of course, oddities like Maomao could slip in, but most were above average.
"I see, I see."
"But this isn't the kind of world you're imagining."
Maomao makes this clear upfront.
"It's not exactly an atmosphere where girls giggle and play together."
There are times when poison is slipped and slipped back, when vicious gossip flies through the air, and when physical fights break out with people grabbing each other by the hair. There are also intimate encounters with members of the same sex or with eunuchs, but it's probably best to leave those details vague.
"You don't have to be so blunt about it."
"It's a place where everyone competes for the emperor's limited favor, so we can't exactly all hold hands and get along."
Still, Gyokuyou the Empress, and Rifa the consort, and others in positions of authority had good sense, so things were probably on the better end.
(The previous emperor's rear palace must have been dreadful.)
Just imagining it makes one's skin crawl.
"Well, but still..."
As a senior, Long still couldn't quite give up on her dreams. Even those serious-looking seniors would reveal their more worldly sides once you got to talking with them.
Working while chatting like this might look like goofing off, but their superiors surprisingly never said anything. The work of a court physician required the skill of gathering intelligence while listening to what others had to say. As long as your hands didn't falter, there was no problem with talking.
"Come to think of it, I saw the empress for the first time the other day. She was beautiful."
"She is beautiful, isn't she?"
Maomao's nose rises ever so slightly.
"That relative of hers was beautiful too. When you have foreign blood, your hair can turn out that gorgeous, huh?"
"It's not necessarily because they're foreign, though. Red hair is rare, isn't it?"
Aside from Empress Gyokuyou, Maomao had never seen anyone with distinctly red hair. In the western provinces, she had occasionally crossed paths with people of a similar hair color, but they were seldom seen. It was rarer than blond or silver hair, so it must be quite the rare color.
"Oh, did you know that sometimes hair can turn red later in life?"
"Like how hair turns white from psychological shock? Something like that?"
There are tales of hair turning completely white overnight after a harrowing experience. In reality, that doesn't happen, but it's not uncommon for white hairs to increase due to psychological impact.
"No, what I heard was malnutrition, actually."
"Malnutrition."
So the nutrients needed to produce hair were lacking, then.
"Is the missing nutrient meat?"
She'd heard that meat and fish were the nutritional source for hair and nails.
"That's right. The hair loses its color and apparently turns blonde or red."
She'd never actually seen it happen since it was just "apparently," but Maomao thought she'd heard an interesting story. Her foster father Luomen told her all sorts of things and she read books, but there were still stories she didn't know.
"That was an interesting story."
Maomao scooped up the powder falling from the millstone.
"Is there anything else?"
"Don't push your senior like that. Even if you ask me for something—"
The senior apprentice groaned while turning the millstone. He was a good senior who listened to his junior's requests.
"Speaking of meat—"
"Did you find something?"
Maomao's eyes lit up.
"Yeah. Since we're at it, why don't we do it in a question-and-answer format?"
"Question-and-answer format?"
Maomao didn't care about winning or losing, so she nodded either way.
"All right, here we go. Long ago, our country fought a war against another nation and suffered a crushing defeat. The warrior who commanded the army was said to be very sharp-minded, able to assess situations calmly and make sound judgments. He had apparently confirmed the situation and initiated the battle because he saw a chance of winning—so why do you think he lost?"
"That's... really outside my expertise, you know."
Maomao furrowed her brow as a completely unexpected story came up.
"
A hint "Please."
"Think a little harder."
"That's outside my area of expertise."
The two of them chatted as they ground away at the stone mortar with a rough crunch and swept the fine, silky powder together.
"The hint is meat."
"Meat?"
Maomao tilted her head with a groan.
(Meat, meat, meat...)
(Could it be that they'd been caught in some kind of special trap?)
Meat couldn't possibly be relevant.
(Nutritional status? No...)
Maomao brushed the flour from her hands. The glutinous rice flour was so finely milled it could have served as face powder. They used specially polished rice, ground in a stone mortar, to keep the bran from mixing in.
"...Bran."
Maomao clapped her hands together with a snap.
"Did you figure it out?"
"Yes. That sharp warrior or whatever—he misjudged the size of the opposing force, didn't he?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Because the other side were people who ate a lot of meat. I've heard there's a way to gauge the size of an enemy unit by examining their excrement—whether their main staple is meat or grain. Herbivore droppings are more plentiful than carnivore droppings, after all."
When a diet is rich in fiber, the volume of waste increases—sometimes by two or even three times. Brown rice has more fiber than white rice.
They had estimated the enemy's numbers based on the volume of waste, using their own standards as a benchmark, and it turned out to be a complete miscalculation.
Senior Chang formed a circle with both hands.
"Is there anything else?"
"I'll look into it."
Senior Chang pleaded for mercy and went back to turning the stone mortar.
Starting in the afternoon, Ada heading to the villa where she was.
"Here are all the materials I could recall."
Suirei handed Maomao the notes.
Monkshood and other poisonous plants were listed as representative examples.
"These all look like they'd just kill someone normally."
"Yes. After all, these are medicines that grant death."
"They don't cause pain, at least."
"It would hurt once they woke up, though."
Suirei kept delivering lines with absolutely zero enthusiasm, but the writing itself was thorough and well-organized.
"Just in case, Saou I also included my knowledge of Saou in here. It hasn't been verified yet."
Saou is Li a neighboring country of Li. They're sheltering Saou's former priestess at Ada's villa.
"If we want to prevent them from feeling pain, aren't there other medicines we could use?"
Suirei began writing out examples.
"This one won't work, I think."
"Why not?"
"It works well at first, but it's addictive, and once the body builds tolerance, the effects weaken."
Maomao shook her head.
"If that's the argument, then using poisons would be just as problematic, wouldn't it?"
"That's true, isn't it."
There is no such thing as perfect anesthesia. All you can do is find something suited to the situation with minimal side effects.
"How about acupuncture?"
"That might not be enough to cut open the abdomen, though. What about simply rendering them unconscious?"
"If you knocked someone unconscious, you'd be beheaded for lèse-majesté."
"Make them bear through it."
"If they thrash about from the pain, that would be terrifying."
"Deal with that somehow."
"Even if you could, those around them wouldn't allow it."
"Royalty is such a hassle."
"Agreed."
By the latter half, both Maomao and Suirei had run out of steam.
"What we're discussing is probably something the other court physicians are already trying."
Suirei spoke while pinching a slip of paper.
"But every physician would try the same things."
"That's true."
Suirei brought over a cage with mice from the corner of the room. Grumbling the whole while, she apparently had already begun drug experiments using the mice.
"Medicine is tricky. It's not as simple as halving the dose and getting half the duration of sleep."
"Yes. A half-measured dose won't work at all."
Maomao knew this from her own experience with drug experiments.
"May I offer my personal opinion?"
Suirei was catching a mouse and checking its condition.
"I don't know what kind of person the Emperor is. But would he be someone cowed by pain who rejects the very idea of surgery? Once a method of treatment is established, I feel anesthesia won't be seen as all that important. If anything, the pre-surgery and post-surgery care would matter more."
"Pre-surgery?"
She understood post-surgery. There were many cases of death from infection following an abdominal procedure.
"Whether His Majesty has any intention of undergoing surgery. Whether those around him would allow such a surgery."
"...That's beyond the scope of our work."
It was something for the emperor or Jinshi to act on.
"Quite right. So, I'll look into the anesthesia. It would be more efficient for you to research the post-surgical medications."
"Understood."
Maomao tucked the notes into her bosom.
(Do what you can. Leave the rest to others.)
She didn't attempt to do everything herself. If only she had enough skill to be arrogant enough to think she could do it all.
With a sigh, Maomao left the detached palace.