A folk doctor well-versed in smallpox.
Maomao
knew of only
Keyou.
He was the only one.
He was a young man with smallpox scars covering half his face—an unfortunate past, but he had a lighthearted personality that refused to let it bother him.
Maomao sent him a letter.
"Oh, I'm coming, I'm coming! Yay!"
An incredibly eager reply came back. Just as she'd expected.
He was a man with a proven record of cross-dressing just to take the palace maid exam. There was no way he'd refuse an invitation.
However, along with it,
Sazen
also sent a letter.
"Sazen is the one running the apothecary now, isn't he?"
Yu
tilted her head at the letter. It was visibly thicker than the one from Keyou.
When the two of them checked the contents, the letter was brimming with tearful sympathy—boiled down, it read: "Don't take Keyou away." The paper bore traces of tear stains, and if someone told you it was a petition a wife had submitted to the authorities to keep her husband from marching off to war, you'd believe it.
"Since when did she become the doctor's wife?"
"Who knows."
Yu said something that could have been either a joke or entirely serious.
In any case, Keyou himself was more than willing, so they decided to have him come right away.
The interviewer was none other than the old man himself—
Luomen,
,
Liu
The medical official, the old medical official, and one more senior medical official.
The old medical official decided to observe Keyou before heading back, since he'd come all this way.
As the recommenders, Maomao and Yuu served as scribes in the corner of the room.
Keyou wore his usual goofy grin. He was dressed in slightly better clothes than usual, and when he sat down before the interviewers, he removed the cloth that covered half his face.
Because the scars remained on what was otherwise a well-proportioned face, they stood out all the more.
"I'm Keyou. Pleased to meet you."
"I've heard you're knowledgeable about treating smallpox. Is that so?"
It was, needless to say, Official Liu who drove the conversation forward.
"As you can see. My master inoculated me with pus from a smallpox patient, I contracted the disease, it turned severe, and I ended up like this. I count myself truly fortunate to have survived."
As always, he was a man who bluntly told his unfortunate story.
"So this was a preventive measure against infection that ended up turning severe?"
Luomen asked, as if seeking confirmation.
"No, I have a twin brother. It seems my master wanted to test different pus samples on identical twins raised in the same environment. So he deliberately ensured that I would be infected."
It was a human experiment.
Maomao had conducted drug experiments of her own, but nothing to the extent that Keyou's master had.
"...And the results?"
"I developed severe symptoms, while my brother only came down with a mild fever."
"Where did he obtain the pus used on your brother?"
"Where is that master now?"
The officials' interest had shifted from the interview to the experiment that had been conducted on Keyou.
"My master is dead. There were no records left behind either, so I had no way of figuring it out — quite the pickle."
"Then doesn't your brother know?"
"My brother is dead too. He was so shocked by the sight of my scarred face that he stabbed our master right then and there. That's why no records were left, and after that, my brother couldn't bear the guilt and hanged himself."
(That's brutal...)
I had heard that the master died, but it was far more brutal than I had ever imagined.
Yu had gone pale, and the other medical officials were also shaken. Only Luomen watched Keyou with a look of quiet sorrow.
"That was more than ten years ago, and I've been looking into the master's research ever since, but it's quite difficult to piece together. For now, I brought along some documents I compiled on epidemic-related topics."
Liu took the documents in silence and reviewed their contents. He showed them to Luomen as well, and shared them with the other medical officials. Despite his casual way of speaking, the materials appeared to be legitimate — the elderly medical official in particular nodded repeatedly.
(How intriguing.)
Maomao decided she would ask Keyou to let her look at them later.
When she happened to glance at Yu, the scribe was still hunched over with her face ashen, so Maomao nudged her shoulder.
"Your work as a scribe isn't done yet."
"Y-Yes."
Yu hastily set her brush to paper.
"What is this 'lifelong immunity'?"
"It was a term the master occasionally used. It means that once you've had the disease, you'll never catch it again. I translated it from the master's country's language, and this was the closest expression I could come up with."
"Can you say that with certainty?"
"I can't say for certain, but in my own case, even though I've been inoculated with pus every three years, I've never developed the disease. Also, I've visited pox-stricken villages several times, and I never heard of anyone who had recovered catching it a second time. I'm sure exceptions would increase with a larger sample size, but as a general rule, we operate on the understanding that once you've had it, you won't get it again."
The four medical officials appeared to be in agreement.
"Would there be any issue with allowing me to copy these documents?"
Keyou kept smiling and gave no answer.
"I'll pay fifty silver coins."
"Very well."
He had a surprisingly firm grasp on financial matters.
"Also, your work assignment would be in the provinces rather than the court. Would an extended stay be acceptable?"
Keyou was still smiling.
"I'll pay two silver coins per day."
Keyou didn't budge.
"...Two and a half — no, how about three?"
Still no movement.
"Fine, five silver pieces!"
Now that was generous.
Keyou finally nodded.
"A-Are you sure about this? Five silver pieces — that's the rate for a senior physician, isn't it?"
Yu shook Maomao worriedly.
"For irreplaceable talent, we'll gladly pay that much. If it were merchandise, we could jack up the price ten times, even a hundred."
But Maomao thought, she sure was being bold with Doctor Liu.
"Then five pieces it is."
"No."
Maomao assumed she was about to push the price even higher. But Keyou held up three fingers.
"I don't actually need five. I'd be happy with just three, you know? Plus the carriage for transport, a bed, and meals at the posting — those will all be provided separately, right?"
"Of course. We'll set all that up, no problem."
The physicians let out a sigh of relief.
After the interview was over, Maomao and the others were placed in Keyou's care. It was to outfit them with physician robes and basic tools before heading to their posting.
"Hehehe, what good fortune to receive a government appointment. And I get to be with Yu too!"
"I'm happy to work alongside a doctor as well, but this isn't exactly a pleasant workplace."
Yu's face turned pale.
"What's the posting like right now?"
Maomao had been wanting to hear the details.
"As for patients, it's only one or two per day at the moment. But the village itself is quarantined, so the atmosphere is rather grim. Tensions seem to be building by the day."
"You haven't examined any patients directly yet, have you, Yu?"
"No."
"I was told to serve as the old"
"physician's aide."
Oh right, the old physician is
an old
physician.
Maomao could at least remember the name of her superior at her new post. He was easy to remember — second only to Wannan-senpai — but she just couldn't stop calling him the "old physician," in the sense of being elderly.
"Once they've secured more personnel, I may go into the village myself."
"…If you don't want to, you don't have to, you know."
Maomao said, being honest.
"No. I think there are things only I can do. There's only so much that I can do that you can't, Maomao."
"Then that's fine."
But it wasn't just epidemics she had to fear. The frustration of an oppressed populace could sometimes fall upon the physicians on the ground.
"My father says he'll go with me as well. The pay is good, so he's quite motivated."
The Yuu family had taken in the surviving children from the village and relocated to the capital. In terms of putting food on the table, it was perhaps an unparalleled opportunity.
"Come to think of it, Kouyou. Three silver coins for pay — that was enough?"
"Mm-hm. It's way more than what the apothecary in the pleasure quarter drops by in a day~"
*(I undercharged, didn't I.)*
Maomao forced a strained smile.
*(Sazen will manage somehow.)*
Sazen was really just too hard on himself — as a pharmacist, he wasn't bad at all. The trouble was that he seemed to think failure wasn't an option. With medicine, individual variation meant it either worked or didn't, so there was no need to brood over it endlessly. As long as he could read the situation and know when to pull back when a prescription didn't suit a patient, things would work out.
"Still, five silver coins, huh. Doctor Liu, was it? Nice doctor, huh~"
"He's an excellent physician. Strict, but excellent."
Doctor Liu was one of Li's renowned physicians, on par with Luomen.
"It's nice when someone evaluates you fairly even though they're strict~ There are people who'll run you ragged all day for a few copper coins, you know~ And this one gave me fifty silver coins for copying documents — so you've got to work hard for the people who appreciate you, right~"
"And what about the people who don't appreciate you?"
"They get what they deserve~"
There was something oddly cryptic about that, so Maomao decided not to press any further.
"I suppose I'll be worked to the bone, though."
"In that case, I'll demand a raise — five silver coins."
"I hope the raise works out for you."
"That would be a problem for me, though~"
In other words, things were about to get busy.
"Can you show me those documents from earlier later?"
They were documents even the senior court physician had acknowledged. That alone spoke to their worth.
"Sure, but can you pay fifty silver coins?"
"Ugh."
For Maomao, that was the equivalent of two or three months' salary.
"Can't you give me a friends' discount?"
"Hmm, what should I do~"
The truth was,
Rahan
—Maomao suspected he was also quite skilled when it came to haggling over money.