Last night, Maomao had a strange dream.
A dream from the past — no, a dream said to have taken place in the past.
An event she couldn't possibly remember, and whose truth she couldn't verify either.
An adult woman loomed over Maomao from above. With unkempt hair, gaunt cheeks, and wild, hungry eyes glaring down at her. Her makeup had faded, and the rouge had bled past the edges of her lips.
The woman reached out. Maomao's left hand was grabbed. A hand like a small, delicate maple leaf, with tiny dimples visible across its surface.
In the woman's right hand, she held a blade. Wrapped multiple times around the left hand gripping Maomao's was a cloth, soaked red. Strips of it fluttered about, giving off a rusty smell.
A sound like a cat's mewling leaked from her vocal cords, and she understood it was her own crying.
Her left hand was pressed against the futon, and the woman raised her right arm high. Her twisted lips trembled, and her red, swollen eyes were brimming with tears.
(What a stupid woman.)
The woman swung the small knife down.
"Oh my, are you sleepy? You'll have to wait a little longer before bedtime."
Suirei said to Maomao, who was yawning.
Her tone was polite, but this old woman was quite formidable, so Maomao straightened her posture and polished the silver dishware more diligently.
"Not at all."
It was because of that strange dream. She'd been short on sleep, and drowsiness had caught up with her come evening.
She wondered why.
(It's because he told me that story yesterday.)
The person Jinshi had mentioned yesterday — that must have lodged itself in Maomao's memory.
(How unpleasant. I'll forget about it.)
Surely it couldn't be the person herself. Maomao let out a breath.
She clinked the dishes together, returned them to the shelf, and then heard the clip-clop of footsteps. Beeswax candles were already lit in the room. It was time for her master to return.
Recently, Jinshi had been passing through the parlor with a tired face, making his way to the kitchen. Suirei was plating food on the dishes Maomao had wiped clean.
"Here's a souvenir from an oddball.
Water lotus— drink it, would you?"
Jinshi set the sake bottle on the table.
When Maomao pulled the stopper, a sweet-and-sour citrus aroma wafted out. Perhaps a fruit infusion.
"From an oddball?"
Maomao answered in a voice devoid of any emotion.
Jinshi entered the sitting room and onto the settee sprawled out. Maomao added charcoal to the brazier.
Gaoshun spotted the dwindling charcoal supply and left the room. He was probably going to fetch more—ever the diligent one.
Jinshi scratched his head gruffly and looked at Maomao.
"
Rokushōkan —are you familiar with the regulars there?"
Caught off guard by such a sudden question, Maomao tilted her head.
"If you mean the ones who put on a flashy show..."
"What sort of people are there?"
"I'm bound by confidentiality."
Jinshi frowned at the curt reply.
Realizing he had phrased his question wrong, he reworded it.
"Then what would it take to lower a courtesan's value?"
"You ask the most unpleasant questions."
Maomao let out a light sigh.
"There's no shortage of them. Especially with the higher-ranking courtesans."
Once a courtesan reaches the highest tier, work drops to just a few times a month. Top courtesans aren't always entertaining clients. Rather, the ones who must take clients every day are— the night herons, those who grovel for the day's money.
The higher a courtesan's rank, the less she likes to put herself on display. By holding back, the clients raise her value on their own.
They study poetry and dance, music, and use that refinement to draw in clients.
At the Rokushōkan, during the shaved-head period, they receive a thorough education. Among them, those with decent looks and promise are separated from those without.
The latter start taking clients as soon as their public debut is over. They sell their bodies, not their art.
Those with promise begin with tea service, and those whose conversational skills are superior, whose talent is exceptional—their prices keep climbing. By deliberately reducing a popular courtesan's availability, a star is born whose tea bookings alone sell out an entire year's worth of silver.
As a result, there are courtesans who go all the way to being bought out without ever being touched by a client. Well, it's a man's romantic ideal— wanting to be the one to first pluck the flower.
"It is precisely because the flower is untouched that it holds its value."
Maomao burns calming incense. She has been burning it for Jinshi, who has been exhausted lately.
"
Once you pluck it, that alone halves its value. And furthermore..."
Maomao let out a quiet breath and inhaled the calming incense.
"If you bear a child, your value becomes practically nil."
She had said it without a shred of sentiment.
○●○ "I wonder what she meant by that," Jinshi murmured, pressing his seal onto a document as he exhaled slowly.
"Pardon the intrusion."
With the sound of a knock at the door, the grinning, fox-like gentleman appeared just as he had said he would the day before.
He had thoughtfully ordered a subordinate to bring in a long chair with a soft cushion.
Just how long did he plan to plant himself here?
"Shall we pick up where we left off yesterday?"
Rakhan poured fruit water from the flask he had brought along, serving himself.
He had even brought tea confections, and atop the document-cluttered desk, fragrant baked treats with a hint of dairy were set down. Seeing them placed directly on the papers where they'd leave grease stains, Gaoshun held his head in his hands.
"Truly, you've done something rather underhanded, haven't you?"
Jinshi said as he continued stamping documents. He hadn't absorbed a word of their contents, but since Gaoshun, stationed behind him, said nothing, it was probably fine.
From Maomao's answer, he could imagine what this wily madman had done.
And another, far less welcome conjecture had risen to the surface of his mind.
It wasn't that he couldn't understand.
It all added up, and on several points, it made perfect sense.
1. Why had he started by bringing up the matter of ransoming Maomao from the Verdure House?
2. Why had he brought up their old acquaintance?
3. Yet he did not want to admit any of that.
4. "Calling that underhanded is rather rude. That's not a lecture I want to hear from a kite."
5. The monocle 6. behind which his eye narrowed, Rakhan smiled.
7. "I finally managed to persuade that sharp old woman. It took over ten years. You should try being the one she snatched away right under your nose for once."
8. Rakhan clinked his cup and tilted it. Fragments of ice floated in the fruit water.
9. "Give back the fried tofu?"
10. What Jinshi had described as "fried tofu" was the ungracious little girl.
11. "No, I'll produce as many as you like. I'd rather not tread 12. the same rut 13. as before."
14. "What if she says no?"
15. "Well, when you put it that way, I have nothing to say.
16. There are 17. very few who can defy you — not even enough to count on one hand."
18. Rakhan's manner of speaking was one of gradual encirclement. Jinshi found it exceedingly uncomfortable.
19. Because, on the whole, what he said did make a certain kind of sense.
20. Rakhan removed his monocle and wiped it with a handkerchief. Once he confirmed the fog had cleared, he placed it in his left eye — he had been wearing it in his right until just moments ago, making it clear it was purely ornamental. A true eccentric.
21. "However, 22. the girl 23. will have her own thoughts on the matter."
24. Rakhan placed particular emphasis on the word "girl."
25. Ah, how unpleasant — so that was what he meant.
Rakhan is Maomao's biological father.
Jinshi's hand stopped stamping the seal entirely.
"Could you let her know I'll come visit sometime?"
Rakhan licked his cheese-covered fingers and left the office.
He'd left the long chair there as-is, so presumably he meant to come again.
Jinshi and Gaoshun didn't so much as exchange a glance before simultaneously hanging their heads and letting out a deep sigh.
"There's an official who says he'd like to meet you."
Upon returning to the room, Jinshi had no choice but to tell Maomao honestly.
"What sort of person?"
Maomao seemed to be hiding some restless excitement behind her expressionless exterior, but her tone was calm as always.
"Ah, a man named Rakhan—"
Before Jinshi could finish the sentence, Maomao's expression changed.
Until now, she had been regarded with contempt as though she were an earthworm, a dried-up worm, as filth, as mud, as scraps of garbage, as a slug, as a crushed frog, as — all manner of contemptuous looks had been directed at her, but she now realized those had all been lukewarm in comparison.
It was truly beyond words.
Even Jinshi—if that look were directed at him, he surely wouldn't survive it.
Something that would crush the very foundations of the heart, pour it into seething iron, and leave not even ash behind.
That was the expression Maomao was putting on.
"...Just so you know, I'm declining."
"Thank you."
Jinshi, still in a daze, could only manage those words.
It was almost miraculous that his heart hadn't stopped.
Maomao reverted to her usual sullen face, then returned to her work.
(◞≼◉ื≽◟ ;益;◞≼◉ื≽◟)