This work contains expressions that may be disturbing to some readers.
Loulan's
mother—
a woman named Kamimi—
was apparently a woman who made good on her word.
Before long, two men came to the room, just as she had said.
Maomao hastily shoved the contents of the paulownia box beneath her cot. In the dim darkness, she groped around and pulled free only the slip of paper tucked into the booklet.
(I've been found out.)
If she hadn't made such a loud noise, they might not have noticed. But the way they had acted, it seemed they were already somewhat suspicious. Still, Maomao had needed to check the contents of the paulownia box right away.
She felt like she was on the verge of solving the mystery of why Loulan had tried to take her to such a dangerous place, but there was no time to think about it.
She had known she might be found sooner or later, but she had been found in the worst possible way.
Grinning faces, illuminated by a light held in one hand, lined up before her. They wore ragged clothes, stained black in places. The moment they entered, a distinctive smell hit her nose, and she couldn't help but cover her mouth.
With leering grins, they approached Maomao, who sat on her cot.
Maomao was no child too naive to understand what these men had come for. Having grown up in the pleasure district, she had seen more than her fill of faces like these.
Honestly, they were utterly repulsive, and she briefly considered trying to escape, but that was out of the question.
For just a moment, she wondered whether Loulan or Cui Ling might do something to help, but she steeled herself not to harbor even faint hopes.
(Only two?)
Fewer than she had expected. She had thought more would come.
"Let's get this over with. We're on a quarter-watch rotation."
So it was a shift system. Well, that was still a problem. Just how much of a problem? A sheltered nobleman's daughter would go pale, swoon, and collapse on the spot, while a girl with too much pride would bite off her tongue before they could lay a hand on her.
Maomao certainly didn't want to end up like that if she could help it. Even looking like this, she was still an unmarried girl, and above all, the men in front of her looked unsanitary.
Dirty or not, hurt or not, what mattered most to Maomao was her own life. She needed to think about how to survive here with the least harm.
(Aren't these guys carrying some kind of disease?)
She had to be prepared not only for infectious diseases but also for physical injuries.
Even if she tried to escape, one pursuer might be manageable—but there were two of them. If more were waiting beyond, she wouldn't make it out in one piece.
One of the men set a light down on the lacquered table. The room was bathed in a dim glow.
"Ugh."
One of the men grimaced openly.
"What the hell—isn't this broad breaking out in a rash?"
The rashes still covered Maomao's entire body. Beyond her usual freckled face, she must have looked—
ugly.
That was probably how she came across.
One of the men, looking thoroughly put off, went to sit on the table, but the moment he touched it, he bounced back as if repelled.
(What's wrong with him?)
The man feigned wiping his hand on his robe's hem and leaned against the wall to sit down.
"I'll pass. Do what you want."
"Much obliged."
The other man seemed to have such poor taste that Maomao was more than enough for him. She almost wished he had higher standards.
When she turned her face away from the man bearing down on her, he grabbed her by the hair.
"Stay put. It'll hurt a lot more if you don't."
With that, he yanked her hair hard and slammed her face-down onto the bed. The moment his hand left her hair, both her wrists were restrained.
Viscous saliva dripped from his filthy fangs. Black grains scattered from his body.
Maomao turned her face away from the man and examined the grains that had fallen onto the bed. They seemed somehow familiar.
Before she knew it, her outer garment had been stripped off, and something warm and slimy—
like a slug—
—was slithering along the nape of her neck. Her thighs were being groped.
It was beyond disgusting. But more than that, her attention remained fixed on the black grains.
Gunpowder?
They looked like sand, but combined with the foul stench the man was giving off, that was the conclusion she reached. Gunpowder gave off a smell like rotten eggs when it burned. It was made from sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal.
The men must have come from below. Which meant they were either manufacturing gunpowder underground, or processing it in some way.
(So they really do want an all-out fight, huh?)
While she was thinking this, teeth sank hard into her shoulder.
"What's wrong? Not even a flicker of a reaction."
The man slapped Maomao's cheek with bored indifference.
(Hurts like hell.)
It did hurt, but not enough to make a sound, and she didn't have time to waste reacting to something like that right now. But apparently her silence displeased him, because he landed another open-palmed slap.
"Hey, knock it off! You get her any more banged up and what's the point?"
Still leaning against the wall, the other man spoke.
"Fine, fine."
Even as he said it, his hand tightened around Maomao's throat in a choking grip.
(You son of a bitch.)
The pleasure quarter had its share of customers like this. They'd hurt the girls, and seeing their faces twist in anguish would sexually excite them.
Watching Maomao's face contort as she struggled to breathe, the man grinned broadly. He tightened his grip further.
Seeing the man growing more agitated, the one behind him stood up.
"I'm going to take a piss. Don't take it too far."
The man left the room with a look of annoyance. Watching someone else go at it probably wasn't all that entertaining.
(Hm?)
The man's gaze had flickered toward the desk for just an instant. And his hand was once again rubbing against the hem of his clothes.
From the faint clicking sound, it seemed he'd remembered to lock the door after all. He probably wouldn't come back until it was time, Maomao thought between ragged breaths. The man licked his lips at the sound of her labored breathing.
"Not even crying. Not a single tear."
He seemed genuinely displeased by that.
The man drew a small knife from inside his coat. As he pulled it from its sheath, the blade gleamed under the light.
"How about this?"
Still wearing that same grin, he brought the knife down right beside her face.
"—!"
Her right ear burned suddenly. Not the earlobe,
the cartilage—
the upper part. She could feel something warm flowing from there. The smell of rust wafted into her nostrils.
(You bastard.)
He had ignored the other man's warning and let his desires get the better of him. Perhaps the sound she'd let slip had excited him, because he started rocking his body.
Her hands were bound, and too weak to struggle free. Taking advantage of that, the man clamped his weapon between his teeth and slowly drew a line from Maomao's neck down to her chest. The thinnest layer of skin parted, blood seeping into it.
Seemingly satisfied, he spat the blade onto the floor and began loosening his belt with his free hand.
That was the moment he lifted the hem of Maomao's robe.
(I was planning to stay put, but—)
She had no intention of holding back. He'd just raised his body, making himself an easy target.
First—
solar plexus—
she drove her foot in. It landed clean, and the man coughed up saliva, unable to make a sound.
The grip on her hands loosened.
Maomao grabbed the floor mat and lunged forward, shoving it into his mouth. A tremendous crash rang out, but if it made things look like something
dramatic
was going on, so much the better.
She couldn't hold him down. She had to finish this first.
She drove her foot mercilessly into the man's groin.
"!!!!!!"
The scream that should have burst from his muffled mouth was lost to nothing but frothy drool soaking into the mat.
She didn't want to describe his wretched state in any detail. It must have been too horrible to look at.
But Maomao was not kind enough to feel sorry for him.
A red line ran from her neck to her chest like a crooked earthworm, leaving bruised welts in its wake. Perhaps because of the excitement, the bleeding from her ear wouldn't stop.
What a pain, she muttered, wiping herself on the edge of the mat.
She wanted to apply proper medicine to stop the bleeding, but there was no time for that.
(There might not be time.)
The fact that men were being called in shifts in the middle of the night meant the others were probably still working. And doing tasks involving gunpowder at night was obviously dangerous. If they had a reason to continue despite that—
They were planning to start a war immediately.
It was fortunate the man had stepped away. If there had been two or more people, there was nothing Maomao could have done.
But that man would probably be back soon.
Before that, what Maomao needed to do was…
Maomao looked at the stacked cargo.
She decided to take the gamble.
○●○
About time, probably.
The man slowly rose to his feet and headed for the storage room from earlier. If he was late, he'd get chewed out too, so his plan was to just get it over with quickly.
He just hoped the other guy hadn't made too much of a mess.
Thinking about it, maybe he should have stayed in that room to keep watch. But the man didn't want to be in that room.
He felt like his whole body was itchy, so he scratched absently at his belly.
He stopped in front of the room and jangled the lock open with a clatter.
"Hey, hurry back—"
The man's eyes went wide. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that something had gone wrong.
He rushed inside and shut the door behind him.
What the hell was this guy thinking.
The room was in shambles.
Blood was scattered everywhere, and a woman lay collapsed on the bed. Her upper body was drenched in blood, motionless.
The curtains were billowing. The glass window had been smashed—whether from her struggling or not—and the man shivered as the cold wind blew in.
Where the hell did that bastard go, the man looked around. No, more importantly—he needed to check whether the woman was still alive.
True, he had been told to do whatever he wanted, but dying was a different matter entirely. How many others were packed in after him, did they think? He could barely get any rest as it was, and on top of that he'd get beaten senseless by the rest of the lot.
The man approached the woman and examined her wounds.
Her skin was faintly sliced from her neck down to her chest. He had been about to check whether she was still alive when—
Something sticky touched his cheek. It slid toward his mouth. A metallic taste spread across his tongue, and he instinctively recoiled.
"Huh?"
The woman's hand had moved. With her blood-soaked fingers, she grabbed both of the man's wrists this time.
The woman still looked young enough to be called a girl. A scrawny, wretched-looking thing, but her eyes alone gleamed brightly in the lamplight.
"Wh—don't吓 me like that."
The man shook off the girl's grip and let out a breath. She was alive, at least. She looked like a mess, but as long as she was still breathing, things were probably fine. He relaxed.
No—could he really relax?
The girl was here, but the other one was gone.
Where had he gone?
The girl seemed to read his thoughts. She pointed with her blood-covered finger at a pile of goods.
Leaning against it, a man was sitting there.
He had red rashes on his face and hands. And from his mouth, blood was streaming out—
"My skin apparently didn't agree with you," the girl said.
There was something alluring in her voice. It reminded him of the women at the brothel he had passed through just once—different from the nightbirds, not merely fawning, but the voice of a woman who understood her own worth.
"Hey—what did you do?!"
To the man's question, the girl answered flatly.
"Nothing. You really shouldn't have hurt me."
She touched her ear. Something had cut it, presumably a blade—a small triangular piece was missing, and blood was still seeping from the wound.
"I'm a poison girl, you see."
"A poison... girl?"
The man turned the unfamiliar phrase over in his mind.
"Yes. I've been raised on a steady diet of poison since I was young. The blood flowing through my body is concentrated with every toxin I've ever consumed."
"What kind of ridiculous talk is that?"
"Ridiculous talk? Is that so?"
The girl tilts her head and lets out a soft laugh. She presses her blood-stained fingers against her own cheek.
"In a little while, you'll see for yourself. As the poison circulates, a rash will appear."
"!?"
A faint red rash is mottled across his goosebump-covered skin.
The man staggers backward in shock. The girl advances as if to pursue him.
She closes in inch by inch, and before he knows it, he has backed into a pile of stacked cargo. Startled, he inadvertently sits down on a crate that was right there.
He considered running out of the room, but the girl had already, at some point, positioned herself between him and the exit.
"D-don't come any closer."
"How cruel. Is it because I'm such an"
"ugly woman"
"that you say that?"
The girl tilts her head and smears her blood-tipped fingers across her face.
The flickering lamplight illuminates the girl's face.
She's just a small girl — he shouldn't lose in a struggle. He could just push her down and make it out of the room.
He wanted to wash this poison off as soon as possible. The red rash was eating its way across his arm, his face, and the urge to claw at his skin was becoming unbearable.
"If you'd like to run, be my guest."
The girl draws a small knife from inside her clothing and presses the handle against the man's forehead.
It was a sheathed knife — no blade was being pressed against him.
And yet, the man's body wouldn't move forward.
She wasn't applying any real force; she was simply holding his forehead in place with the knife.
"!?"
"I have a favor to ask."
The girl spoke while staring intently at the man.
"What is it that you do in this fortress?"
If pressed on what they did here, the best he could offer was something unsavory. But he couldn't bring himself to say that. Compared to the young girl before him, he found the mistress of this place far more terrifying.
He had said poison, but the rash on her hands was all it was. As long as you didn't put it in your mouth like he had, he doubted it would kill anyone.
"What is it that you do here?"
The girl, her face still blank, asked once more.
He would wait a little longer. Before long, those numbed fools would come to his aid. The room's key, unfortunately, was still unlocked.
That was what he had been thinking.
"I see."
The girl raised one leg and placed it against the man's abdomen. Then she slid it downward with a gentle pushing motion.
"!?"
"I am, despite appearances, female. Everyone says this is excruciatingly painful — but just how painful, I wonder?"
Her toes came to rest on his lower abdomen, and she applied her weight.
The girl slowly closed her eyes, then slowly opened them.
There,浮かんでいた — a smile brimming with maternal tenderness.
"Which side would you like to keep — the right or the left?"
The girl spoke to the man in a gentle voice, as though coaxing a small child.