A few days after returning from the hawk hunt, the new court ladies who had been mentioned previously finally arrived at the Jade Palace—three in total, all familiar faces rather than strangers, at least to everyone but Maomao.
Hmm hmm.
Maomao narrowed her eyes as she studied the three maids. Her immediate thought was:
The names and faces don't match up.
Maomao had never been good at remembering things unless she was genuinely interested in them. It would likely be a while before she could comfortably hold a conversation with the new court ladies.
Well, it wasn't as if Maomao was much of a conversationalist to begin with—she'd just get to know them gradually.
But that wasn't the real problem.
"Maomao, go back to your room this instant."
Hands planted firmly on her hips, the one issuing this demand was
Yinghua
herself.
"But I was told this was my room."
Maomao said this while clinging desperately to the storage shed in the Jade Palace's garden. Inside, compounding equipment and bundles of drying herbs were stacked everywhere. She had only just finished hauling everything over from her room. She had been trying to figure out what to do with the monkey saddle mushroom and—
the ten-thousand-year mushroom
she had collected the other day.
"Obviously I was joking! And yet you went and took me seriously."
Yinghua was furious, saying it set a terrible example for the new girls.
"There's no issue at all. I'd like to continue using this space, if you don't mind."
"Of course there's an issue! Look—the other girls are all staring at you strangely!"
And so the peculiar spectacle of Maomao clinging to the shed's pillar while Yinghua tried to drag her away came into being.
When two court ladies were carrying on like that, the head maid—
Hongniang
—could hardly remain silent, and both of them received a knuckle rap to the head for their troubles.
In the end, Maomao was made to return to her original room.
However, once Hongniang saw the sheer volume of compounding tools and medicinal herbs, she seemed to accept defeat and reported the matter to her mistress, Consort Gyokuyou. The consort, ever fond of interesting things, laughed merrily and told Maomao she could have the shed all to herself.
She was instructed to always sleep in her room, but other than that, she was free to do as she pleased.
*What a good superior*, Maomao thought, while Yinghua, true to form, wore a look of displeasure. She watched Maomao cheerfully set to work in the storage shed. The tea gathering was over, and there was nothing to do until dinner. With three new maids having joined, work at the Jade Pavilion had been cut dramatically.
*This won't do.*
Yinghua's remark may have been meddlesome where Maomao was concerned, but it was made out of consideration for her. She must have said it so that Maomao could get used to the new ladies-in-waiting quickly. During today's
snacks
she had been trying hard to draw Maomao and the three newcomers into conversation.
Yinghua was the sort of girl who could pull off that kind of thoughtfulness.
Maomao set down the monkey-shaped stool she had been carrying and quietly peered out of the storage shed at Yinghua.
"...I'm sorry. I keep doing as I please."
"It's fine, I don't really care."
But even as she said that, Yinghua's lips remained pursed.
Maomao hid half her body behind the wall and watched Yinghua.
"...I said it's fine."
With that, Yinghua pressed herself against the opposite side of the wall, facing Maomao.
And then—
"You're going to accompany me today, okay?"
She grabbed Maomao's wrist firmly and flashed a wicked grin.
*Oh no—*
"Tonight happens to be free for just me and Maomao! What perfect timing~"
In a thoroughly delighted tone, she shook Maomao's captured hand back and forth.
*I've been had.*
Maomao let out a quiet sigh and looked at the fickle maid.
That night, she was taken to an old building on the south side of the rear palace. She had worried whether Hongniang would allow her to go outside in the middle of the night, but to her surprise, permission was granted without any fuss.
"After all, you ought to participate in these things every now and then."
"Something Like That"
Maomao followed along, wondering what on earth this was all about.
She walked by the faint light of a small paper lantern. The lukewarm breeze was unpleasant, and the buzz of insects near her ears was annoying, but she had no room to complain.
"Here, Maomao. Put this on."
Yinghua held out a thin piece of cloth in front of the entrance.
"Won't it be hot?"
"It's fine—it'll keep you cool. Go on."
Tilting her head, Maomao did as she was told.
Yinghua tapped the entrance with a light "ton ton," and a court lady appeared from inside.
"Welcome. That makes two participants."
"Yes, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you."
Maomao bowed along with Yinghua. The court lady who greeted them smiled and handed each of them a small flame. In exchange, they were told to extinguish their lanterns.
The interior of the building, much like the outside, was old. Rather than having aged over a long period of time, it seemed to have fallen into rapid disrepair once people stopped living there. It had received a minimum of cleaning, but doors fit poorly in places and the floorboards creaked.
"This is a place that was used back in the previous Emperor's era, you see."
Ah, Maomao thought, that makes sense.
The current rear palace might look like a large establishment, but there had been far more court ladies in the previous Emperor's era. Women were gathered from across the country to bear the Emperor's children, and they were confined here.
With fewer court ladies now, the space had gone unused—though it was still occasionally repurposed for certain occasions.
And as for what it was repurposed for—
At the end of the corridor, they entered a large room where more than a dozen guests were already seated. They sat in a circle, each draped in cloth. The flickering of one small flame per person cast an eerie glow over the scene.
What would they be doing on a midsummer night like this?
By now, she had a pretty good idea.
"Well then, shall we begin?"
The court lady who had greeted them at the entrance took her seat.
"Everyone, have you prepared your stories properly?"
Then the court lady produced slips of made from broken chopsticks.
"Tonight, let us enjoy tales that chill the heart."
The grin on her face was quite eerie, flickering in the wavering flame.
It seemed a ghost story session was about to begin.
The arrangement had four people set at the cardinal directions—north, south, east, and west—with two more placed between each of them.
Maomao stifled a yawn with her cloth pulled halfway over her face. The first storyteller, likely nervous being the opener, stumbled through their tale with little presence. It was nothing more than an rumor from within the rear palace—not exactly the stuff to chill one's blood.
As the second person was about to begin, Maomao felt a poke from her right side. Yinghua was on her left.
"Good evening~"
"Good evening."
The whisper came in a childlike, innocent tone. The figure with the cloth draped over their head was someone Maomao recognized.
It was Shisui—the court lady who had been so excited about insects the other day. In the dark, Maomao hadn't noticed at first.
Shisui offered something to the drowsy-looking Maomao. Smelling of the sea, it turned out to be dried squid.
"Want some?"
"I'll take it."
Maomao nibbled at the dried shred, chewing slowly so as not to make noise.
The second tale was also an utterly commonplace ghost story. The content itself wasn't anything unusual, but unlike the first, it had good rhythm and pacing, so a few people were genuinely frightened. Yinghua beside Maomao, too, had the cloth pulled over her head and occasionally hid her face behind her hands as she listened.
That alone would have been fine, but she kept pressing close to Maomao as though clinging to her. Despite her small frame, her grip was surprisingly strong, and Maomao found herself strangled from time to time.
(A frightened type, but she likes me, huh?)
It wasn't particularly unusual. Given that Shisui had invited Maomao along, she probably hadn't wanted to go alone.
Maomao didn't think much of this kind of socializing, but within the rear palace, where entertainment was scarce, it seemed to be tolerated to a degree. Hongniang had given her permission, after all, and Shisui—being a court lady from Consort Loulan's household—was also present. Still, in Shisui's case, Maomao suspected she would have shown up even without permission.
And so, half the stories were done. The light sources that had been distributed were extinguished one by one as each tale ended, leaving only half. The seventh storyteller began, and Maomao listened absently while chewing on her dried squid.
The narrator, their pale face illuminated by the flickering flames, began to speak.
○●○
"This is a story from my hometown. In my hometown, there has long been a forest that you must not enter."
"It is said that if you go in, you will be cursed and your soul will be devoured by ghosts."
But there came a time when someone broke that taboo.
That year, the harvest had apparently been poor. It wasn't quite a famine, but there happened to be a household where the breadwinner had died, leaving behind only a child and his mother.
The neighbors had no surplus to share, and the child was perpetually hungry, or so the story goes.
And so one day, the child apparently went into the forbidden forest to look for something to eat.
The child returned home with a smile, having gathered nuts from the trees.
He told his mother, "There's lots of food in that forest."
The mother made him keep quiet about it, but it was already too late.
The village chief.
He summoned her and ordered her never to set foot in the forbidden land.
To make matters worse, something strange began to happen.
That night, someone saw a flickering light drifting toward the mother and child's home.
And the next day, the mother and child collapsed.
The villagers, fearful of the curse, kept their distance. As a result, both the mother and child died.
The mother, after her child perished and just before she herself drew her last breath, reportedly said this:
"Hey, let me tell you something wonderful."
Smiling, she tried to share her secret—and then she died.
In the end, no one ever learned what she had wanted to say, and the forest once again became a forbidden place.
Even now, the forest is still spoken of as a taboo.
Yet whenever someone breaks that taboo, that very night, spectral lights drift into the home and drain the souls of everyone inside.
○●○
(Ah, I see.)
Maomao listened with an oddly convinced expression to a story that was hardly unusual. She didn't seem particularly frightened, but everyone else was listening with trembling. Perhaps the atmosphere had something to do with it.
She swallowed the softened sweet in her mouth with a gulp, and as if on cue, a fresh sweet was offered to her.
"You've got a weirdly refreshed look on your face."
Shisui whispered.
She, like Maomao, showed no sign of being frightened by ghost stories.
"Well, yes."
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you later."
Maomao told Shisui that revealing the source of the gossip here and now would only spoil the fun.
In this world, even rumors tend to have some grain of truth to them.