Maomao was pleased.
Immensely pleased.
Behind her stood Hongniang with arms akimbo, and the half-lidded Yinghua .
"So you're really telling me to use this place."
Maomao glanced at Hongniang's expression.
"Yes. Reflect on what you've done."
At Hongniang's hmph, Maomao's eyes had grown slightly moist. She gently took hold of Hongniang's hand and— "Thank you so much."
She bowed deeply and expressed her gratitude.
"Huh?"
"W-Wait, Maomao!?"
While Hongniang and Yinghua stood there bewildered, Maomao gleefully bounded into the storage shed.
From today onward, this would be Maomao's room.
"Isn't this going too far, Yinghua?"
As she poured the tea, Guien said. This gentle lady-in-waiting offered Yinghua tea and sweets.
"I thought so too, but it's Maomao's own fault."
Yinghua sipped her tea with a pout. Today's tea was a fermented variety from the West, its sweet fragrance drifting through the air.
"Because I told her so many times and she wouldn't stop! She's collecting insects again!"
Yinghua glared at Maomao with narrowed eyes.
Maomao tilted her head, wondering what this was about.
She had stopped collecting gecko tails—she certainly didn't want to get knocked down again.
"What exactly do you mean? I haven't done anything of the sort since then."
Maomao looked back at Yinghua with an expression of genuine bewilderment.
"But I heard that a senior consort's lady-in-waiting was out in the garden, laughing while catching insects."
"..."
Guien's eyes also took on a heavy, simmering look.
What in the world—this was all a misunderstanding.
"I did no such thing."
Maomao declared with a dignified air.
"If I was picking anything, it was herbs, not insects."
"So you admit you were laughing."
The exasperated faces of Yinghua and Guien.
It seemed the two of them had only recently grasped Maomao's true nature, and they stared at her intently.
(Oh dear.)
Those were the faces of people who didn't believe a word she said.
That couldn't be right. Maomao had been laughing because she found medicinal herbs, not because she'd spotted insects. She did have some sense, after all. She understood perfectly well what would happen if she caught and raised insects in that cramped little room. This was summer—the consequences would be catastrophic.
Maomao furrowed her brow tightly and clenched her fists.
This was a grave misunderstanding.
"Um? Shomethin' weid, ma'am?"
Xiaolan said between bites of a peach bun.
Maomao nodded while offering her a bamboo tube of sweet tea. As always, the girls were eating snacks behind the laundry room, chatting away. This was a voluntary break, not slacking off.
"I heard there's been a strange lady-in-waiting around lately."
"A strange lady-in-waiting, you say—what's she like?"
Swallowing the snack in her mouth, Xiaolan asked.
"Like, a lady-in-waiting who's out in the grassy patches, laughing while she looks for something."
Xiaolan's gaze locked onto Maomao. She stared intently while downing her tea.
"Other than me."
When Maomao added that clarification, Xiaolan closed her eyes and let out a groan.
For some reason, Maomao couldn't help but feel she was being treated pretty poorly.
"Is there really such a weird lady-in-waiting? Oh!"
"You thought of someone?"
Xiaolan hopped off the barrel she'd been sitting on and headed toward the ladies-in-waiting who were chatting by the well.
Maomao followed her.
"Hey, hey, didn't someone say there was a strange lady-in-waiting around the other day?"
Xiaolan addressed a group of three ladies-in-waiting. They seemed to be acquaintances, as they greeted Xiaolan, but their expressions grew a bit wary when Maomao approached.
There weren't many ladies-in-waiting who would bother talking to Maomao, so that was understandable.
"I wouldn't say strange, exactly, but..."
"Come on."
Xiaolan's tone was unusually evasive.
"Spill it! Who? Tell me!"
Uninhibited by shyness, Xiaolan prodded them with her finger as she asked. But the three ladies-in-waiting exchanged glances, hesitant to speak.
It was probably because of Maomao. Maomao's outfit was different from the other ladies-in-waiting. While it was still plain and easy to move in, it wasn't the uniform clothing supplied from the Rear Palace. Ladies-in-waiting assigned to consorts of higher rank received their outfits directly from their respective consorts.
This made it easy to guess whether someone was attached to a consort or not, and that created an indefinable wall between them.
*(I should have watched from a distance.)* Maomao regretted coming closer. There were ladies-in-waiting who felt competitive toward those assigned to consorts, and others who kept their mouths shut because they didn't want rumors to spread carelessly.
It was rare to find a lady-in-waiting as innocent and open as Xiaolan.
Now, what to do...
Even if she tried to lure them with sweets, she had already given everything to Xiaolan earlier. Wonders Maomao as she rummages through her robes — is there anything else she could use as a substitute?
(Huh!?)
This could work, Maomao thinks, pulling something out.
"If you're willing to tell me the details, I could offer you this."
She produces a piece of cloth with a smooth, pleasant texture. A faint scent of perfume still clings to it. Its intended purpose is a hand towel, but the fabric is fine enough that it could serve as almost anything, depending on how you use it.
It was the hand towel Jinshi had given her the other day. She had been planning to head to the medical office afterward and try to sell it to some back-alley quack. She didn't want to think of any back-alley doctor having an interest in men, but figured that if it was a keepsake from a certain beautiful eunuch, they might part with a bit of coin for it.
"That's..."
"It looks like silk, doesn't it? Not really suited for its intended purpose, though."
As Maomao spoke, one of the court ladies drifted over and brought her nose close to the towel.
"This fragrance — don't tell me!"
Maomao nearly shot the woman an exasperated look, but she rearranged her expression into nothing more than a slight curl of the lips.
"I'll leave that to your imagination."
She deliberately chose not to mention Jinshi's name — Maomao figured that doing so would only make things more suspicious. If she merely hinted at it like this, they would let their imaginations run wild on their own.
The sharp-nosed court lady was murmuring to herself: "Could this be... no way, that person's..." Maomao couldn't tell who she was picturing, but the hook had clearly been taken. Seeing this, the other two ladies also leaned in, sniffing the towel.
Maomao folds the towel and looks at the court ladies.
"I'm sorry, but would you mind telling me what you know?"
Maomao addressed the ladies with elaborate courtesy.
According to what they said, the person had been spotted near the grove on the south side.
Maomao heads to the location they described.
(She's probably not going to just happen to be there, is she?)
Maomao sits down in the shade of a tree. Being summer, there was an unpleasant chorus of winged insects everywhere. She could tolerate the shrill drone of cicadas, but she swatted to death quite a few mosquitoes buzzing annoyingly close to her ears.
(Should have brought mosquito repellent.)
Burning mugwort and fresh pine leaves to ward off insects — since the young Princess Lingli was still in residence, the Jade Palace never skimped on mosquito-repelling measures.
The area near the grove didn't seem to be well maintained, with all sorts of vegetation growing wild in every direction.
Pampas grass And besides that, she could see clusters of red flowers.
Maomao approached the red flowers.
(So they were growing in a place like this?)
They were— Balsam flowers.
That was what they were.
Trumpet-shaped flowers were beginning to open their buds as evening drew near.
Maomao pinched a single blossom and crushed the petals. Red juice stained her fingertips. She used to play with these all the time when she was little.
And she remembered the courtesans coming here to collect the seeds.
Crushing the seeds revealed a powder inside that resembled cosmetic powder. But the courtesans didn't use it as face powder.
Maomao still felt a lingering sense of unease. The incident at the Crystal Palace the other day. The head attendant of Consort Rifa— Anzu— had been trying to make an abortifacient.
She was thinking about that again.
Anzu hadn't been wearing any perfume at first. If there was something in perfumes that carried a risk of miscarriage, and she considered herself a worthy candidate to become a consort, it wouldn't be strange for her to avoid wearing it.
In fact, Anzu had probably been planning to replace Consort Rifa. If she couldn't produce a child, Rifa's family would surely consider installing someone else as consort.
And yet, the reason Anzu had gone to the trouble of wearing perfume while trying to create an abortifacient was— Consort Rifa was wearing loose-fitting robes. Like Consort Gyokuyou, garments that didn't constrict her waist.
And were her cheeks a little fuller than before, or was that her imagination?
It wasn't as though only Consort Gyokuyou received the Emperor's favor. The possibility was certainly there, but Maomao said nothing.
Even if she had spoken up, Maomao was in no position to help Consort Rifa anyway.
What had been nagging at her was the ingredients of what Anzu had been making in that storage shed. The perfume oils and such were all items anyone could buy from merchant caravans, as long as they had the money.
She understood that much.
But it left Maomao utterly baffled.
The reason the courtesans collect white powder flower seeds is to prepare abortifacient drugs. Other ingredients— like hozuki, peonies, balsam, Chinese peony, and mercury can also be boiled down to induce miscarriage.
Setting mercury aside, the other flowers seemed like materials that could be obtained even within the rear palace.
None of them had been included in what Apricot boiled.
Those alternatives seemed far more readily available.
And so, a concern lingered within Maomao.
That someone had deliberately taught Apricot about poison.
And that said person might still be inside the rear palace.
She had obliquely hinted at this to Jinshi, and knowing him, he would surely investigate. But whether that stubborn former head lady's maid would easily spill was the real question.
As she turned these thoughts over in her mind, the sunlight had grown considerably weaker. The sun had slipped behind the trees' shadows, stretching them long.
Suddenly, for just an instant, the cicadas that had been clamoring fell silent.
Ring.
She caught the faint chime of a bell.
And along with that sound came rustling movements.
Maomao turned her gaze toward the noise. Something large appeared to be crawling through the pampas grass.
The figure sprang up like a frog, threw both hands in the air, and burst into loud laughter.
"Caught it!"
A high-pitched voice rang out. It still carried the childish innocence of someone like Xiaolan, but its owner stood tall. Yet the face beaming with a wide, satisfied grin looked surprisingly young for its height.
A face she had seen before.
The person wore clothing specially provided by a consort.
With an expression of sheer delight, she slipped her clenched fist into a bamboo insect cage.
Ring.
Again, a bell-like sound rang out.
It seemed to be coming from that girl.
Maomao remembered.
The court lady who had come to the medical office the other day. It was the girl who had come to pick up medicine.
Back then, they hadn't really spoken, but looking at her now, Maomao thought she made quite a different impression.
(Still, though) A girl leaping through the tall grass like a frog, laughing as she caught insects.
(To think I was being lumped together with someone like that) Maomao thought it was unfair.
Maomao figured she must be at least a little more proper than that.
It seemed that if the Rouran Consort herself had changed, then the court ladies serving her had changed as well.
Maomao decided that was confirmation enough and hurried to take her leave.
She was about to leave, but— A tinkling sound, like a small bell, rang out near her ear. Puzzled, she tilted her head and touched it, only to find a black insect she had never seen before perched on her.
So the source of that bell-like sound from earlier had been this.
If it were only that, it would have been fine.
Suddenly, a figure loomed over Maomao from the front.
"Bugsss!"
With that high-pitched cry, Maomao was crushed beneath the figure.