There was a commotion all around her.
Wondering what was going on, she headed toward the palace entrance.
The opulent entrance was already swarming with court ladies. Some maids stood about blankly, rags still in hand, having forgotten to wipe the railings.
"What could he possibly want at this hour?"
One of the court ladies furrowed her brows as she spoke. At the focus of their gazes stood the sole physician in the rear palace.
How unusual.
That physician rarely ever left the medical office. It had probably been close to a year since he had last shown his face in this palace.
The incompetent, in-name-only physician — after the young Crown Prince's death, the awkwardness alone should have kept him from ever showing his face here again. And yet, with no replacement available, he continued to lounge about this garden of women without so much as a reprimand.
What business could he possibly have now?
The physician carried a furoshiki bundle with exaggerated flair, and trailing behind him was a court lady.
She was a slender woman with a willowy figure, following the physician with graceful movements. Her firmly closed lips were painted a deep crimson, and a faint dusting of peach-colored powder graced her cheeks.
Had there ever been such a court lady?
The thought crossed her mind almost absently. She had assumed that when a eunuch physician came calling, the attendant would naturally be a eunuch as well — but apparently not.
No, there were two thousand court ladies in the rear palace. It would hardly be strange to see an unfamiliar face or two.
While everyone whispered among themselves, she decided she had no choice but to step forward.
"May I help you with something?"
The court ladies froze at the sound of her voice. She did not miss the maids who hurriedly scurried back to their posts. She may not have had a grasp on the entire rear palace, but she knew every last person who served in this one.
That was—
Anshi's
job.
When Rifa—
was chosen as a concubine, she had entered the palace alongside her, coming here to win the Emperor's favor.
"I'd like to see the Virtuous Consort, if I may."
At the physician's words, Anshi narrowed her eyes. She had never wanted to hear the words "Virtuous Consort" spoken from this man's mouth.
"My apologies. It would seem that Lady Rifa does not wish to meet with you."
These gentle yet unmistakable words of rejection delivered, the scraggly-bearded physician lowered his brows. It was the sorry sort of beard that befitted a eunuch—a man already stripped of his masculine function. A world apart from the emperor's magnificent, lustrous beard.
The eunuch turned around with a troubled look on his face. A lady-in-waiting with a mask-like expression leaned in and whispered something to him.
Reluctantly, the eunuch produced something from within his robes.
"I have received a letter to this effect."
He unfolded a letter written on sheepskin parchment. In elegant, flowing script, it instructed that this physician be admitted inside. The name inscribed at the very end was "Jinshi."
When one spoke of that beautiful eunuch, he was the first person to come to mind within the rear palace.
He possessed looks that could topple a kingdom were he a woman—but he was not a woman. Nor was he a man.
Anshi, too, could not help but sigh at the mention of him, but unlike the other ladies-in-waiting, she harbored no feelings beyond that.
When Anshi considered why she had come to the rear palace, she had no time to spare worrying about eunuchs.
For the sake of her family, it was vital that she earn the emperor's favor. That was what both Anshi and Rifa had been told since they were small children.
Anshi's mother was Rifa's father's elder sister. Being the same age as Rifa, Anshi had entered the imperial household and now found herself in the position of managing the Crystal Palace, where they currently resided.
The ladies-in-waiting of the Crystal Palace were all daughters of noble families, bearing bloodlines befitting service to the emperor.
"...Very well."
Anshi found the situation baffling but had no choice but to guide the physician inward. She could have left the task to another lady-in-waiting, but if the physician had come here on orders from the one who ruled the rear palace, then that changed everything.
What could this mean?
The only time a physician would visit a consort's palace was when she was feeling unwell.
But Rifa showed no signs of that.
Having been at Rifa's side constantly, Anshi would certainly have noticed. Today, too, Rifa had been in good health and had eaten her morning meal.
As Anshi tilted her head, wondering what was going on, she realized the footsteps following behind her had gone quiet. Turning around, she saw that the physician and his companion had stopped in their tracks.
They were gazing at a small shed at the far end of the courtyard. Rifa's chambers were distant, located on the topmost floor at the very back of the palace. This was one of several storage sheds along the way there.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, I was simply wondering what that shed was for."
"It's nothing—just an ordinary storage shed."
Anshi thought to herself: I'm trying to get you there quickly, so why are you asking about something like this?
The Crystal Palace had been extensively renovated as the place where the Crown Prince would grow up. It wouldn't be strange for a detached wing to have a bathhouse or storage shed. Besides, last year that peculiar freckled little miss had come along and built some strange contraption right next to the bathhouse.
A steam bath.
Not that An was particularly fond of it—Rifa used it on occasion, and that was about all.
She had told them it was just a storage shed, yet the other court lady was staring intently at something. What could possibly be interesting? There was nothing unusual here—just a potted plant with yellow flowers by the window.
It was only a storage shed. They should just get moving.
The court lady tugged at the eunuch's sleeve and whispered something to him again.
The eunuch furrowed his brows once more and turned to An.
"Have you had any work done on this garden recently?"
"No, I simply leave it to the gardener who comes regularly."
"I see."
An thought to herself, *Come to think of it... was that garden tree always there?*
The gardener must have planted it at some point without her noticing.
"..."
When the eunuch fell silent, the court lady poked him again.
The eunuch puffed his cheeks out in obvious exasperation, but the court lady's expression remained unchanged as she turned toward An.
Dark eyes locked onto An. An felt an inexplicable unease and tried to look away, but—
"You're wearing perfume today, aren't you?"
A voice she vaguely recognized cut through the air.
It came from the mouth of that refined, prim court lady.
The court lady's lips curled into a smirk—a smile far too sinister to be called pleasant, fierce and feral, like a beast that had just spotted its prey.
"..."
"It's been a while, Lady An. I must apologize for my rudeness the other day."
Thickly applied powder, cleanly divided eye—
—lines.
And then a face adorned with absurdly long eyelashes drew closer.
The flashy decorations caught the eye, but the face's outline was round and youthful.
Those staring, whites-showing-on-three-sides eyes were familiar.
Anzu's entire body went cold. Her experience had taught her that getting involved with this person almost never ended well.
Last year, this girl had come to the Crystal Palace. She had been glued to Rifa's side nursing her back to health, but in the process she had done outrageous things over and over again.
As a result, half the women serving in this palace were now unable to stand up to this girl.
Anzu belonged to the other half who weren't—until the other day, when this girl who had just arrived tried to strip her clothes off without warning.
In short, she was someone Anzu much preferred to avoid.
The girl was staring intently at Anzu. Anzu found herself inching backward involuntarily.
That was when it happened.
A eunuch suddenly burst out into the garden. He was frantically moving his chubby body, running toward that storage shed.
Anzu tried to chase after him, but the annoying little girl was right in front of her. She pushed past her to pursue the eunuch, but it was already too late.
The door's...
...latch—
...he stood there, holding it, his face frozen in shock.
Beyond the open door, a distinctive smell hung in the air. It was the unmistakable stench Rifa had once emanated—the smell of a patient on the verge of crossing over to the other world.
The girl had apparently fallen on her backside when Anzu pushed past her—she was rubbing her rear, though her expression wasn't particularly panicked. She simply furrowed her brow and grabbed the furoshiki the eunuch had been carrying.
"Mister! Hot water! Please boil some hot water!"
This time she said it aloud instead of whispering, then stepped inside the shack where the stale air hung even more thickly.
Inside was a crude bed made of nothing more than stacked straw mats, and upon it lay a patient—a servant girl who worked as a laundress.
"Got it, miss."
The eunuch waddled off again, his jowls bouncing as he ran.
The girl was giving the servant girl something that looked like water to drink, all while looking back at Anzu.
"Why are you treating her like this?"
"What do you mean, 'like this'? Isolating patients so the illness doesn't spread is just common sense."
The girl didn't say anything back. She had things she wanted to say, but there was nothing she could say.
"I suppose so. But—"
The girl pressed a handkerchief over the mouth of a maid who was coughing oddly. When she pulled it away, there was a red pattern on the cloth.
"This is a contagious disease. The infection rate is low, but if this kind of treatment continues, it will lead to death. Of course, one maid dying is probably a trivial matter."
The girl left the sick maid behind and moved to go deeper into the hut.
Apricot instinctively grabbed the girl's shoulder to stop her, but the girl slipped free and headed inside.
Stop — don't go back there—
Luggage.
She tried to stop the girl while tripping over her luggage, but it was already too late.
The girl was holding something in her hand. It was a small box.
"When I entered this room, it reminded me of that time. When Lady Rifa was bedridden with illness."
"What about it?"
"There was incense burning to mask the distinctive smell of sickness."
What did that matter? Apricot reached out, wanting her to hand it back quickly.
"When I came in here, I had the same feeling. Though this time it's the opposite."
The girl opened the small box. Inside were small bottles of various colors.
"It was as if patients had been placed here, to mask the scent of the incense."
She popped open the lid of one small bottle with a click, and the girl sniffed at it.
"The maids of the Crystal Palace really do have a lot of hidden things. Another poor eunuch will be whipped for this."
What the girl had opened was a bottle of fragrant oil — a trade good obtained from a merchant caravan the other day. Most of it had been confiscated by the eunuchs.
"Each one is a small poison. Who knows what would happen if they were mixed together."
The girl smiled, narrowing her eyes, singing like a nursery rhyme.