This is a revised version of the extra chapters of The Apothecary Diaries.
The Court Arc Part 1 compiles the story up to the Rakhan chapter from the extra chapters, with about half revised and expanded. It has already been posted.
The Court Arc Part 2 will rewrite the story of Consort Loulan from the extra chapters, changing roughly ninety percent of it.
I would appreciate it if you could read it with that understanding.
The old extra chapters can be found here.
"Is that true?"
It was three days after the spring banquet that Jinshi arrived at the Jade Chamber with a troubling report.
Maomao regarded him with suspicion, but still turned her gaze toward Jinshi. The location was the reception room of the Jade Chamber; Consort Gyokuyou was still in the middle of changing, so it would be a while before she could come.
"Yes. I've been debating whether I ought to say anything."
Jinshi spoke while scratching the back of his neck.
On the night the spring banquet had been held, a criminal died. No, more precisely, it was a man who had been on the verge of being designated a criminal.
Recently, a younger brother who had tried to murder his elder brother by disguising it as a pufferfish toxin death had, with bitter irony, died of poisoning in prison.
"When Gaoshun came by yesterday, there didn't seem to be anything amiss."
Maomao glanced briefly at the taciturn eunuch standing by the wall. As if in confirmation, Gaoshun nodded slowly.
"It only reached my ears last night as well."
Jinshi hung his head with a complicated expression on his face.
Seeing this, Maomao
considered the reason for
the time lag.
Jinshi's position was presumably the management of the rear palace. Thinking of it that way, it stood to reason that he was originally out of his depth when it came to incidents of this sort. If that was the case, it wasn't strange for the news to reach him late.
On the other hand, he seemed to be wearing a dissatisfied expression over something that should have been perfectly obvious.
If it were only Gaoshun, she could understand. He had apparently done similar work before, and officially this was supposed to be an incident an acquaintance had resolved.
Why would Jinshi be frowning over it, Maomao wondered.
"I see. So it was poisoning—does that mean the other prisoners too...?"
It was Gaoshun who denied Maomao's suspicion. He shook his head.
"No. The prisoners receive meals twice a day, and nothing unusual was found in them."
"Then how—?"
It was Jinshi who answered next.
"After the banquet, the criminals are also treated to a modest meal."
Those dishes, it seemed, were served as leftovers rather than prepared specially, so not everyone received the same thing. On top of that, gifts of food often came in as congratulations. Technically, such things were forbidden, but after banquets everyone had been drinking, so the guards turning a blind eye had become customary.
(Makes sense, I suppose.)
If that was the case, it would hardly have escaped Jinshi's ears. In a way, it was an internal failure, so there would have been incentive to cover it up.
"So the poison remains unidentified?"
"That's about the size of it."
Jinshi slipped a hand into his sleeve and groaned.
Maomao wanted to press for more details, but she heard clacking footsteps approaching, so she quietly stood before the door.
She positioned herself to the side of the door and bowed her head.
A soft knock sounded, and Gyokuyou, having finished changing, entered the room.
"Were you having a pleasant conversation?"
The beautiful redhead consort shifted her gaze between Maomao and Jinshi alternately. Curiosity was practically bursting from her eyes.
"Oh no, just idle chatter."
Jinshi directed a smile at Gyokuyou that was far too polished, almost eerie. As expected, it had no effect on the consort, though Hongniang, caught in the crossfire, nearly collapsed on the spot before managing to pull herself together through sheer force of will as head lady-in-waiting.
Maomao watched him with cold eyes. At times, she could not help but wonder whether Jinshi was not some manner of specter. The head lady-in-waiting had withstood it, but the three maids standing behind her had been utterly decimated.
(He's a phantom, plain and simple.)
While lost in such thoughts, she realized she had unknowingly directed a hostile glare at Jinshi. Gaoshun glanced sharply at Maomao, and somehow Jinshi was looking this way with a pleased expression.
(Always the same routine.)
Maomao reflected, then quietly withdrew from the room.
After Jinshi and the others departed, the first thing Hongniang told the maids was to bring out the summer clothing. It still felt a bit early for the season, but given the sheer volume involved, it was probably better to start sooner.
"Outdated…"
Designs
"There are still quite a lot, though."
Yinghua
stood like a guardian statue in front of the clothing room, her breath coming heavy.
Guien
was busy looking after the princess, so Maomao, Yinghua, and
Airan
would be the ones pulling things out.
Airan seemed a bit bothered by it, but her height made it easy to reach high items, which was convenient.
The shorter Maomao and Yinghua took the trunks from Airan and checked their contents.
"Hmm, this one might still work."
Going through them one by one, Yinghua sorted them into usable and unusable piles. To Maomao, they all looked like fine garments, but Yinghua, with her discerning eye, could apparently tell the difference.
"This one was really popular for a while, you see. But when something's too trendy, it becomes useless the moment it goes out of style."
Maomao stuffed the rejected items back into a trunk and carried it off to the hallway.
Even though they were old clothes, they had been worn by a consort. The materials were splendid, and they would be remade and bestowed as gifts. These weren't the kind given to the maids of the Emerald Palace—they would be sent to her family estate.
While hairpins and other accessories might sometimes be given to the maids, clothing was different. You couldn't openly wear your former mistress's garments within the rear palace, so the clothes were sent to craftsmen, reshaped into different forms, and distributed in Gyokuyou's father's domain.
"Come to think of it, we might be getting some new maids before long."
Airan said this as if it had just occurred to her, setting down a trunk.
"Once they find out Lady Gyokuyou is pregnant, more people will be assigned, of course. But they said that alone would seem suspicious, so the other day they were talking about giving all the consorts an opportunity to increase their staff."
Hearing this, Yinghua's jaw dropped.
"That's welcome news, but it's so sudden."
"There does seem to be a reason behind it. After all, if one consort entered with more than fifty attendants in tow, the other consorts would..."
"Ah, right. That."
Yinghua's face clouded over at once.
Even Maomao understood who they were talking about.
"Did she really have fifty of them?"
Maomao had thought they looked like a large entourage, but she hadn't realized the actual number.
Conversely, if the emperor's favored consort had brought only five attendants, that would reflect poorly on her appearance.
"Don't you think she ought to try thinning them out a bit?"
"Yinghua, if you say things like that, you'll get hammered by Hongniang again."
When Airan said this, Yinghua clapped a hand over her mouth with a start.
Maomao simply kept packing useless items into luggage trunks and carrying them out.
While they worked and chatted away, about half of the summer garments remained.
"We've cut it down this much, but what should we do now?"
Even Maomao tilted her head as she asked, and Airan smiled, saying, "It'll be fine."
"As for garments, we've already placed orders for several outfits with the tailors."
"The"
"merchant caravan"
"will be here soon. We can pick up more then."
Yinghua finished the sentence for her, and Airan pulled a slightly sour face at having her words stolen.
"A merchant caravan?"
Another"
"event"
"that the ladies of the rear palace would be delighted by, Maomao thought as she took the summer garments off to air-dry in the shade.