Panda
It would take time to have someone secure a copy of the same book and investigate who had created the transcription.
Zhao Yu
She'd want to keep an eye on him for a while too, but a problem arose here.
"Go to Tsukinokimi's place."
"Today?"
"Today."
Jinshi
The plan had been for her to go for regular check-ups.
She didn't feel as resistant as before, but she was afraid he might see through the problems she was dealing with. That said,
Physician Liu
had given the order, and she couldn't refuse, so she went.
(Every single time.)
As usual, she bowed to the guards whose faces were familiar but whose names she still didn't know, and entered the room.
Jinshi was holding documents in one hand while swirling a cup in the other. The room was so warm it was hard to believe it was winter. A thick-piled carpet covered the floor, and a lap blanket was draped over the long sofa.
"You came?"
Maomao looked up. Jinshi shouldn't have as much work as before, but bringing work home had probably become his daily routine. The cases didn't look like anything important.
"I've come to check on your health."
"I know."
Maomao took out her notebook.
"What's that?"
"If I don't keep records, it'll count as negligence. I was thinking of adding more questions on top of the usual palpation exams and such."
Maomao had been thinking about various things in her own way.
"Excuse me."
Maomao approached Jinshi and had him lift his lower eyelids and stick out his tongue. She took his pulse and listened to his heartbeat.
"..."
Indescribable looks were being directed at her, but she ignored them and carried on with her work.
"Now then, questions."
First, as always, she confirmed whether there had been any physical complaints or abnormalities. Then she added new questions.
"I'd like to know the contents and portions of your daily meals, as well as the types and quantities of beverages—sake, water, and so on."
"I don't remember every little thing."
Jinshi tilted his head back and groaned at the ceiling, but there was no need for him to think. Quietly,
Suiren
appeared and set down a ledger recording his daily meals.
"Thank you very much."
"I'll write down the exact amounts from now on too."
"Rough estimates are fine."
Too much information was the last thing she wanted. Maomao set the ledger aside to copy down later.
"Also, how many times a day do you go to the privy?"
"The privy...?"
"Please tell me specifically how many times you relieve yourself."
"A bowel movement...?"
Jinshi froze.
"Coming right uuuup, Maomao!"
Suddenly,
Sparrow
appeared.
"That part is off limits, no good at all!"
"What's off limits?"
Suzu wagged her finger and shook her head, admonishing Maomao.
"Our
idol
doesn't go picking flowers, you know."
"I just want to check on his health. Besides, if he doesn't do his business, won't he die?"
"Anyway, this topic is off-limits from now on. If something seems off, Lord Moon will report it himself, or Suiren will let us know."
Suzu gently set a chair behind Maomao and gestured for her to sit.
"Instead, why don't we just chat?"
Maomao had been thinking she didn't much want to talk until things with Chou U and the author of that book were more clear.
Jinshi, however, seemed to feel differently.
"If anything unusual comes up, I'll report it myself. More importantly—"
Jinshi glanced at Suiren.
"Something interesting seems to be making the rounds, so I managed to get my hands on one."
As Maomao wondered what it could be, Suiren brought over a teapot. It was ornately decorated and looked like it must have cost a pretty penny.
"Watch closely."
Jinshi poured tea into a teacup. The tea had a pleasant fragrance, but were the leaves extraordinarily expensive?
Jinshi then poured into the teacup beside it. No, it wasn't tea. A red fruit liquid filled the cup instead.
Maomao compared the contents of the two teacups. Entirely different liquids had been poured into each.
"Well? Amazing, isn't it?"
Jinshi smiled, clearly amused.
"The inside of the teapot has a double structure, allowing two different liquids to be poured separately."
"Ohh."
Maomao examined the teapot with great interest.
"It could be used for poisoning, couldn't it?"
"...Indeed, it could."
"I'll be sure to watch out whenever I see a similar teapot from now on."
"See that you do."
Jinshi pushed the teapot to the edge of the table with a somewhat deflated look.
(He was probably trying to come up with a new topic.)
She felt apologetic about it, but Maomao's mind couldn't help but keep veering toward poison testing.
(Is there anything else we could talk about?)
"Now that you mention it,
Ada,
how are the children doing over at your place?"
She had blurted it out without thinking, probably because Zhao Yu was still lingering in the back of her mind.
"The surviving children? That's quite out of the blue."
"Jukushi
has been getting much healthier lately,
so it just came to mind."
"Hmm. Is the girl we left in their care growing up well?"
"Yes.
She's grown quite attached to
Brother Raban."
"He does seem like the sort of person children would take to."
She could be feral at times, but it was still better than before, when she had been on the verge of death from malnutrition.
"Three years have passed since then. She doesn't remember much of the old days and is growing up healthy. She's grown fond of Lord Ada, too."
Maomao knew it too. It wasn't just Ada,
Suirei
was surely taking proper care of her as well.
But children don't stay children forever.
"What's going to happen to the children in the future? We can't treat them the way we treat Cuiling, can we?"
Cuiling was, after all, a daughter of the late Emperor's bloodline. The watchful eyes on her would never loosen for as long as she lived.
"If they reach adulthood without any problems, I intend to let each of them become independent. It seems their parents had already fallen to depravity before the children were old enough to understand the world, so they were left entirely in the care of their wet nurses."
Among the surviving children, the oldest was Zhao Yu. He would have more memories of his parents than the others. If those memories returned, how would he act?
(Don't remember. Don't remember.)
If it seemed like he held some strange grudge, even Maomao wouldn't be able to protect him.
While she mused over this and sipped her tea, her eyes drifted to the documents on Jinshi's desk.
Among the complicated official papers, there was a clumsy drawing.
"What's this?"
"Oh, that—"
Lingli
"—the princess drew it for me. Apparently it's me."
"I can't exactly say it's accurate, but I suppose it has a certain charm to it."
"Right?"
Jinshi puffed his chest out just a little, looking pleased with himself.
For a time, the children had been more attached to Maomao than to Jinshi, but they had since forgotten about her. She stared hard at the drawing, feeling a twinge of something like frustration.
"She's turned six now, hasn't she?"
"Yes."
As far as Maomao could remember, the girl had still been a baby. People always say children grow up fast, but even Maomao found herself struck by the thought now and then.
"Poke."
Maomao jabbed at Jinshi for no particular reason.
He flinched back involuntarily.
W-what was that for out of nowhere?
"Oh, it's just that the Jinshi of four years ago would never have reacted that way."
"Ahhhh, don't. Don't say it. I don't want to hear it."
Jinshi pressed his fingers to his ears and shook his head. He seemed to be cursing his past self with genuine irritation.
"The ladies of the rear palace back then really had it good, you know. Getting the chance to speak with the incomparably beautiful Lord Jinshi — even if it was just work — when he was normally impossible to even get an audience with."
Maomao spoke as she recalled the image of him showering everyone with his dazzling charm.
"Were you tormenting them?"
"No, no, not at all. I just find the contrast with how you look now rather amusing."
"Hmph."
Jinshi sulked and flopped down on the long sofa.
"If you're going to sleep, do it in the bedroom."
Jinshi silently beckoned with his hand, calling Maomao over. When she approached, he wrapped her up in a nearby blanket.
Maomao ended up bundled like a cocoon.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
Her muffled voice through the blanket probably still reached Jinshi's ears.
"I just wanted to replenish enough so it wouldn't feel strange."
"That's a pretty roundabout way of putting it."
Maomao squirmed and wriggled, but Jinshi had wrapped her up too securely for her to break free.
"You really do look like an actual cat, you know."
"There's no cat this big."
"Maybe I should get a tiger instead."
"Who's going to take care of it, then?"
"
Ma Shan
"
"Oh, right."
Maomao couldn't help but concede the point.
"That'd be irresponsible, so never mind."
"Do that, then."
"In exchange, I want you to play the cat role."
"Meow... woof."
Maomao had been absolutely certain she would never, ever go "meow."
At the same time, she was starting to feel strangely cozy, vaguely sensing the sound of a heartbeat in this position she had settled into.
(Keep from falling asleep.)
Maomao lightly pinched her own cheek, all while feeling her own pulse.