Jinshi left the clinic at a brisk pace and headed for Pomegranate Palace, where Consort Loulan resided.
The other court ladies were stunned that Shinryoku had bitten through her tongue, but they were managing to tend to her all the same. At the very least, they were more dependable than that shabby, bearded physician.
None of them seemed to understand why Shinryoku had bitten her own tongue. There was probably no accomplice inside the clinic. Even if there had been, there were more pressing matters to confirm right now.
The palace, which until last year had possessed a spare, understated elegance, was now unrecognizable—transformed into an extravagant, exotic creation overflowing with foreign flair.
Jinshi knocked on the door with slightly more force than necessary.
Before long, a lady-in-waiting opened it.
Jinshi let out a small breath and put on his usual smile as best he could. The maid curtsied with a bashful expression and ushered him inside.
He passed through a corridor lined with lavish mother-of-pearl inlay work and was led, as always, to the reception room. The lady of the house was already waiting, sprawled languidly on a long settee and filing her nails just as she always did.
Jinshi narrowed his eyes. Six ladies-in-waiting surrounded her, fussing over Consort Loulan with diligent care.
They were all dressed in extravagant outfits, and today they wore ethnic attire from an island nation to the east. Layer upon layer of kimono-like robes made for a vivid sight.
The maids' kimono were not quite as elaborate as the consort's, but they too wore multiple layers, rendering their figures completely indistinguishable. To make matters more comical, they wore upturned, angular makeup that sharpened their faces into wedge-like shapes.
Jinshi wanted to tilt his head in bewilderment—why did they have to dress so flashily? Did they not realize how fed up the Emperor was with such extravagance?
No—he blinked. Hadn't Maomao told him about this before? About the lady-in-waiting named Shisui. And wasn't that maid actually Consort Loulan in disguise?
When Jinshi had first heard that, he had thought it impossible.
The Consort Loulan he knew was the daughter of Shōshō, and she was a high-ranking consort who understood that fact all too well.
Consort Loulan hid the lower half of her face behind a feather fan and whispered something to one of her maids. He had once dismissed this as an absurdly coy way to hold a conversation, but he now knew the truth.
If Maomao had not realized that the lady-in-waiting called Shisui was actually Consort Loulan, Jinshi himself would never have caught on either.
What he meant was— Without so much as sitting in the chair the maid had prepared, Jinshi strode straight toward Consort Loulan.
"What is the meaning of this? Even someone of your standing, Lord Jinshi, is being rather rude."
One of the maids fixed him with an upturned glare. What was her name again? Jinshi made it a point to keep track of how many maids each palace had, along with their names and places of origin. But the ladies of Pomegranate Palace always wore different outfits and different makeup, and to make things even more confusing, they all had remarkably similar builds.
So even if he remembered their names, he could not match them to their faces.
Jinshi reached out, pinched the fan Consort Loulan held between two fingers, and flicked it away.
"Wh-what do you think you're doing!?"
One of the maids cried out.
Consort Loulan turned her back to Jinshi as though frightened, and the maids stepped in front of her to shield her. It might look like the actions of loyal servants, but it wasn't.
Jinshi exchanged a glance with the eunuchs who had accompanied him. The eunuchs seized the maids and pulled them away from Consort Loulan.
Jinshi grabbed Consort Loulan's shoulder with a hand that carried just a bit of force, turning her averted face toward him.
Her face was caked in extravagant makeup, yet her cheeks were flushed red.
"If I recall correctly, Consort Loulan had seven maids who primarily attended to her."
Jinshi spoke as though confirming.
The girl, spoiled as the daughter of Zi Chang, had brought over fifty attendants with her when she entered the palace.
Jinshi held her face in place and wiped the makeup from the corners of her eyes with his finger. Beneath, the plump contours of her double-eyelids were revealed.
"
Shuanglin— no— Renfū.
That's your name, isn't it?"
Jinshi kept a smile on his face, careful not to let his anger show. But the maid disguised as Consort Loulan went from flushed red to deathly pale. Her entire body trembled.
"I..."
One of the other maids tried to interject again, attempting to deflect the situation, but Jinshi shot her a single glance. She flinched, her body jerking back, and froze in place.
"Where has the real one gone?"
Had everything been orchestrated from the very beginning? Bringing a large number of retainers into the inner palace, choosing maids who looked just like herself, and then each time donning an outlandish outfit so no one could tell who had switched places— Could that have been the objective from the start?
If so, then where had the real one gone?
"Where did she go?"
"..."
The maid disguised as Consort Loulan only trembled, refusing to say a word.
The grip of Jinshi's hand tightened.
"Where did she go?"
As he asked for the third time, the maid who had tried to intervene earlier pushed her way forward. She cradled the false consort protectively, lowering her brow as she looked at Jinshi.
"I'm truly sorry. She really doesn't know."
Everyone was dressed so similarly that he hadn't noticed at first, but the maid appeared to be several years older than the false Loulan.
"Please forgive her."
The maid said this awkwardly, glancing down at the false consort's feet.
Her long skirt was wet, and droplets of water dripped from her toes to the floor, one after another.
Jinshi released the chin he had been gripping. The false consort's eyes were wide open, her pupils fully dilated. She was trembling, gasping in ragged breaths.
On her pale neck and jaw, the marks of Jinshi's grip remained clearly visible.
Placing the daughters of high officials into the rear palace was, in truth, an arrangement that also benefited the emperor's side.
When high officials' daughters conceived, their grandchildren could one day ascend to the throne. However, there were also disadvantages.
Not all parents were like this, but some had daughters they cherished above all else. The rear palace, that gilded cage, could also serve as a place to hold such precious daughters as hostages.
Shoukou had only one legitimate daughter, Loulan, in addition to Shisui, a child born to a concubine.
When you considered how he had pushed Loulan into the rear palace, it seemed he must have truly adored her.
And such a daughter held the position of a senior consort.
At the same time Jinshi became aware of this, Loulan also had to observe at minimum certain standards of conduct.
That she no longer needed to append "consort" to her name was already a violation of those standards.
"She said she won't be coming back."
The maid spoke in a subdued voice. The woman who served as Loulan's head maid answered in place of the false consort. The false consort was in no state to hold a conversation, unable to even breathe properly. She had only been made to stand in as the consort's body double because she bore the closest resemblance to Loulan, and she clearly did not understand the situation well.
She had probably assumed, as always, that she'd been told to serve as a stand-in on one of Loulan's whims.
Jinshi clenched his fist tightly.
That had been wrong. He realized it had been the wrong way for a eunuch with a gentle smile like Jinshi to act. But in that moment, Jinshi's emotions had not been calm enough to allow for any other approach.
"Won't be coming back" — that could be taken to mean she had fled the rear palace.
Escape from the rear palace was a grave crime that could, at times, mean capital punishment. For a senior consort, the罪 would be even heavier.
"It's like a courtesan fleeing her contract," the apothecary's daughter had said once before. That the girl would compare the place where the next emperor was conceived to the pleasure district — Jinshi let a wry smile cross his face. That was just like her.
That girl, too, had not yet been found.
It was speculated that she had probably left the rear palace together with Rakan.
In Maomao's case, given her personality, there was a possibility she might have gone along of her own free will.
However, the girl was still weakened by her allergic reaction to soba. It was more likely she had been taken along against her will.
What on earth for?
And how had they gotten outside?
Questions remained.
When he pressed the head lady-in-waiting for answers, she merely shook her head. There was always the option of torture, but Jinshi felt that would be futile as well.
The head lady-in-waiting's eyes told no lies.
The maids, the servants, and the eunuchs of Palace Zakuro — every person connected to Consort Rakan had been gathered and confined in one place. The lecture hall where that rear palace classroom had been held was just the right size.
As a precaution, he had set the eunuchs to the painstaking task of checking every female court official in the rear palace one by one, but so far, no one resembling Rakan had been found.
He was in no condition to be present for Consort Gyokuyou's delivery, and though it pained him, he decided to entrust the matter to Gaoshun.
Jinshi held his head in his hands in his office.
Perhaps because of the emergency, Bashan had been following Jinshi around.
He had no time to be standing around doing nothing. He was consumed with the urge to rush out at any moment and search for Rakan.
But there was far too little information. Rushing out now would be like trying to find a single needle in a desert of sand.
And so Jinshi could only pace back and forth in his office.
In the midst of this, Bashan glanced at Jinshi. There appeared to be a visitor outside the office, and he was probably trying to tell Jinshi not to look so disheveled.
Reluctantly, Jinshi sat down in his chair and composed himself.
The one who entered was a small, fox-eyed man — Rahan.
"Have you learned anything?"
Chapter 5: Rahan Rahan had taken on work from Jinshi in exchange for the repair costs of the rear palace outer wall that Rakan had destroyed.
He was quite the miser—he had Jinshi cover half the repair costs while also skillfully negotiating a thirty percent discount with the repair contractor.
Rahan narrowed eyes that reminded one of someone unpleasant and spread a map across the table.
"Over the past fifteen years or so, gradually but surely, there have been regions where the circulation of stone, timber, iron, and similar materials has been increasing."
Rahan pointed to the north side of the capital—beyond the plains, where mountain ranges formed a backdrop.
That region had no notable large towns. If anything, there was a fortress that had once served as a military garrison during the late Emperor's era. Even that, he recalled, had been decommissioned in recent decades to reduce maintenance costs, since the land was now at peace. It was not a place enemy forces would attack, and being at high elevation, it was said to be troublesome dealing with snowfall in winter.
"Did you know? This area once thrived as a hot spring resort. Now it's become a depopulated area, remote from trade routes, known only as a hidden hot spring."
"What about it?"
Basen, who was somewhat short-tempered, spoke up in response to Rahan's roundabout manner.
"There are sulfur springs. Compared to the volcanic zones in the south, the quality and quantity are inferior, but I believe a reasonable amount can be extracted year-round."
At the mention of sulfur, Jinshi's ears pricked up. It was a common material used in making gunpowder.
An abandoned fortress, stone, timber, iron, and now sulfur.
Furthermore, to the north meant proximity to Shishou's domain. Considering the locations of the officials Rakan had named, the position was not bad at all.
It was nothing short of suspicious.
"How does it sound? Should I prepare more concrete figures?"
At this answer that exceeded his expectations, Jinshi could only sigh. Right then, Basen took the map and dispatched subordinates on errands.
They said this little man could see numbers in some form, and it seemed to be true. The people of the Rahan family were truly terrifying.
"While we're at it, I wonder if we could also investigate whether the rear palace has any hidden passages."
The words had slipped out before he realized it.
"The rear palace? The most significant construction was the expansion project about forty years ago, if I recall. The current outer wall should have been built then as well. If there's any possibility of hidden passages, that would be the likely spot."
"...Is that true?"
He knew that Shishou had instigated the Empress to enlarge the rear palace to its current state. There was a high likelihood he had been involved in the construction as well.
But forty years was quite a long time ago. He never would have imagined that forty years later, someone would use it for his own daughter's escape.
"If we look at the records from that time, we can identify the contractors who were employed. Given the high probability that multiple ones were used, shall I single out those with suspicious figures?"
"...Please."
"Then."
And what they brought out was the other half of the repair bill for what Rakan had broken. Half was supposed to be covered by Jinshi, and the other half was supposed to come out of Rakan's pocket.
"...Fine."
Jinshi hung his head as he agreed to pay the full amount. He could vividly picture how Suiren would later scold him with that indescribable smile of hers, saying "Oh my, oh dear," and how the furrow between Gaoshun's brows would deepen even further.
Making an enemy of Rakan was terrifying enough, but Jinshi felt he didn't want to make an enemy of this adoptee, either.
It was a mystery why someone with such abilities was toiling away as a lowly clerk. The question slipped out before he could stop himself.
"With talent like yours, you could climb much higher, couldn't you?"
At those words, Rahan shook his head with a laugh.
"But then, how could I correct the distorted flow of money?"
Numbers, he said, are beautiful precisely because they are not ambiguous.
Once again, he was struck by the realization that this man was Maomao's cousin.
It seemed he had his own sense of aesthetics.