Clicking his heels against the floor, Jinshi perused the documents. He would read a line, then glance up at the window.
"Jinshi."
Gaoshun, his ever-present watchdog, stared at him intently.
"Please focus on your work."
It was a perfectly reasonable request, but Jinshi simply could not bring himself to nod along.
A few days ago, the girl who had carried out her desperate act of tasting for poison was now recuperating in the rear palace. He wanted to shake her by the shoulders — she was the very person who had lectured him about how food could kill, yet she had gone and ingested it herself and collapsed.
Worse yet, she had done it to put a stop to a commotion that had nothing to do with her in the first place.
And so, Jinshi could not forgive Gaoshun — his appointed guardian. The man had known perfectly well what the girl was going to do, yet rather than turning a blind eye, he had actually cooperated. Without informing his master.
"..."
Still wearing a defiant glare, Jinshi reached for the documents.
"Jinshi."
Furrowing his brow, Gaoshun placed a hand on the mountain of paperwork.
"These are materials we obtained thanks to Maomao. If you intend to squander them, that is your prerogative."
"I know."
The documents in his hands listed the individuals Rakan had pointed out at the banquet. Among the names were people Jinshi himself had never imagined, and he could not hide his surprise. Once he started digging, suspicious dust kept surfacing.
He never would have expected connections to lead here.
There had been a previous incident in which a high official was nearly poisoned by his own younger brother. The brother, arrested as the prime suspect, died of poisoning in prison. The case had closed without anyone knowing whether it was food poisoning or deliberate murder — but now a suspicious shadow was emerging from it, and there was nothing to be done about it.
People who stood to gain from the high official's death appeared on the list. And beyond that, several others were connected to strange incidents that had occurred recently. All of them had been treated as accidents rather than crimes, closing without anyone ever identifying the culprit. Yet many of them ultimately benefited the very individuals Rakan had pointed out.
They say when the wind blows, the bucket maker profits — it was that sort of indirect causality that had put money in these people's pockets. Because of that, no one would ever suspect them of being behind it.
"Suspicious, sure, but..."
"There is no physical evidence whatsoever."
Gaoshun added more than was necessary.
All Maomao had really done was anger Rakan — the single most dangerous man in the court to have as an enemy.
Once he learned that the ones who had poisoned her were not the people he had pointed out at the banquet, his interest in harassing them apparently evaporated. He had tried to storm into the rear palace to check on Maomao's condition, and had already failed three times. They would very much appreciate it if he stopped setting off explosives within the palace grounds.
In the midst of all this, there was a light tinkle of a bell.
Gaoshun glanced at the mirror installed to keep the room hidden from view. With his head slightly tilted, he waited for the visitor before the door of the office.
The person who entered was a small-statured civil official. He had unruly hair and wore round glasses. Aside from his fox-narrow eyes and his cowlick, he was a young man of no particular distinguishing features.
The young man, who carried an air of familiarity about him, placed his hands in his sleeves and bowed. Jinshi noticed something hooked onto his belt. Looking more closely, it appeared to be an abacus.
"It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance for the first time.
Raban
is my name."
Having finished his introduction with extreme brevity, the young man grinned.
Hearing the name, it became clear who he resembled.
A member of the "Ran" household — there were only two who bore that name within the outer court. Rahan and his adopted son. If one were to count further, there was the man named Luomen who had recently entered the rear palace as a medical officer.
Jinshi tilted his head, wondering what Rahan's adopted son could want.
"So, what business do you have with me?"
In terms of official rank, Jinshi was the superior. A man named Raban who appeared out of nowhere could well be considered discourteous, all things considered. However, putting on a stern face over every little thing wouldn't get him anywhere. There were plenty of officials who spoke to him with far more insolence, using the fact that he was a eunuch as justification.
"I thought I might show you this."
Raban produced a rolled document from his sleeve. He handed it to Gaoshun, who was standing by. Gaoshun looked it over with narrowed eyes, then passed it to Jinshi.
Given that he was Rahan's adopted son, Jinshi had assumed he'd come bearing something of some significance. He decided to simply check the contents.
He undid the strings with a soft rustling, and laid eyes on the contents.
!?
"What do you think?"
Raban peered at him with a smug, unpleasant look in his eyes.
He wore exactly the sort of expression that said "Well? Impressive, isn't it?" — and the contents were indeed worthy of that look.
A string of numbers and words — but depending on how one looked at it, it became something else entirely.
"This is related to the trouble my adoptive father caused the other day."
He said "caused trouble."
Why was he telling this to Jinshi?
Jinshi
He was officially not present at that scene. If he were to pass on this information, there were others more qualified to hear it.
However, the man called Raohan had business with Jinshi.
Raohan spoke with an apologetic air, but what he held out hardly conveyed any such sentiment.
It was an excerpt from the treasury's financial ledger. As someone attached to the department overseeing the national coffers, he had access to such documents. Even outsiders could view them through the proper procedures.
"I thought it would be best to let you see the originals, but the sheer volume is rather enormous, so I took the liberty of selecting the most relevant portions within my own line of sight."
Though he called them selections, they had been arranged so that even Jinshi, who had no expertise in the matter, could understand them. What became clear was that certain departments had seen marked increases in their monetary figures over the past several years.
"It's quite interesting, you see. There shouldn't have been any droughts or locust plagues in recent years, so why have grain prices been rising? I found it odd, so I checked the market prices as well, and they were actually the most stable they'd been in years."
Raohan spoke with deliberate coyness.
It appeared that someone had been riding the wave of other price increases, gradually raising prices month by month in small increments.
"Then there's one more thing. Iron prices have also risen for some reason. Now, the overall value of metals across the country has gone up, but is someone out there casting enormous statues somewhere?"
Jinshi understood what Raohan was trying to say.
He set down the scroll and looked at this young man—so shrewd, so much like his adoptive father.
Grain prices alone might not seem like much, but the volumes involved were enormous. If prices rose, the resulting discrepancy would be equally massive.
Raohan was suggesting that someone was pocketing that difference as embezzlement.
As for metals, a general price increase implied rising demand. If someone were conducting a flashy project—say, casting enormous bronze statues as an obvious show of power—materials would be collected from every corner. Even pots and farm tools would be gathered, melted down, and repurposed.
If there was some other reason for the price increase—
"If it were up to me, I could investigate the flow of goods over the past several years."
Raohan had put into words exactly what Jinshi wanted.
It was as though he had come precisely to say this.
Jinshi felt that Raohan's eyes were conveying something beyond words. That, no doubt, was why the man had brought these documents to him.
Someone of this caliber would not lift a finger unless interests aligned.
"So, what's your asking price?"
Jinshi spoke bluntly.
As though he had been waiting for precisely those words, Raohan's expression softened.
A little awkwardly, he pulled out a piece of paper from his robe.
"Could you possibly look over this amount?"
It was an estimate for the repair costs of the palace walls.
It was something broken by Luomen, Raohan's adoptive father.