She had wiped down her entire body, but the lingering sense of filth still remained.
Maomao was drenched in blood — or so it appeared. In truth, the amount of actual blood was far less than it looked.
She glanced back at the man who had collapsed, still dabbing at himself. What clung to his skin was not only Maomao's blood.
She had made use of the red urushi lacquer that had been in that room as a stand-in for blood. When lacquer is mixed with oil, it produces a vivid red. In a dimly lit room illuminated by only a single flickering lamp, it would have served its purpose as a convincing blood substitute. The rash she had given the other man had been from the same lacquer.
It was a relief that the plan had worked.
Maomao had been half-jokingly called "Poison Girl" before, but there was no way she could become something out of a fairy tale like that. If she had actually continued to ingest that much poison, she would have died long ago.
The interior of this fortress seemed to have excellent insulation, because it was surprisingly warm despite the snowy landscape outside. If someone were to break a window and be hit by the sudden rush of cold air, their body would fall into disarray without them even realizing it.
It wasn't just goosebumps — it could even bring on hives.
And there was one more thing.
When the man had first entered the room, he had looked at Maomao and said she had a "rash." She did indeed have a rash covering her entire body, but the way he spoke with such certainty told her that he had probably experienced something similar himself.
Moreover, the moment he touched the desk in the room, he had flinched and pulled his hand away.
The desk was coated in urushi lacquer. Since it was dry, it would not ordinarily cause a rash. However, someone who had experienced such a rash before would develop an excessive aversion to it.
Sometimes, even the mere thought of touching it could bring on a physical reaction — a rash appearing on the body.
That was why she had used urushi in the blood substitute. Admittedly, it did take time for the rash to manifest, but having something one was sensitive to would make a person psychologically unstable. Even if the person didn't consciously understand why, the smell alone could trigger memories of when they had developed the rash before.
To be perfectly honest, there was also a half-hearted desire to make him suffer later, just for spite.
Maomao had exploited all of this to play the part of the Poison Girl.
There was a reason the man had been unable to stand when he sat down.
When a person sits in a chair, they are physically unable to stand if they are pressing down on their forehead. To stand, one must first lean the head forward. If that initial movement is blocked, the rest of the body cannot engage.
That said, there might have been other ways to react, but the man, in his confusion, had responded exactly as Maomao instructed.
She was grateful that he had been so obedient in his movements. If this man had not left his seat in the first place, she would have become prey to the other one by now.
She was thankful for that.
And so, when he did as she asked, she had simply crushed his hand underfoot rather than going further.
As she left the room, she passed by a group of men heading in to replace him. They seemed to take her for a servant girl, and she slipped past without raising any suspicion.
She had managed to lock the room behind her, but there was no more time.
You've got to be kidding me.
Maomao clicked her tongue as she ran through the corridor. She wore the jacket she'd snatched from the man earlier, and loosely wrapped a strip of cloth around her ears to disguise them.
When she heard they were manufacturing gunpowder, the first thing
that came to
Maomao's mind was fire lances or fire arrows. Both were weapons that had been used in warfare since ancient times.
But the man had said "cannon."
A cannon—a weapon that loaded a shell into a massive tube and fired it. Cannons had been around for a long time; there were wooden and bronze ones.
He said they were making ones that used iron shot to fire.
As far as Maomao knew, it was standard practice to use stones as projectiles. What would happen if you made them out of iron?
Maomao wasn't particularly well-versed in weapons. She did understand, however, that uniform iron shot would have far greater destructive power than misshapen stones. It might be an artillery piece employing the latest technology.
But even so, it was far too reckless.
No matter how many people this fortress held, their scale was limited.
If there had been collaborators who sympathized with the Son's clan, things might have been different. But that scheme had long since been exposed. How many people would be willing to take the risk of siding with the Son's clan at this point?
And yet, they were still trying to make their move.
Did they even understand what lay beyond that?
Maomao descended the stairs leading underground, one step at a time. Along the cold stone walls, she could hear the sounds of work echoing from deeper within.
Maomao peeked cautiously inside.
Dozens of grime-covered men were working bare-chested. A peculiar smell hit her nostrils. More than the scent of burned sulfur, it smelled like fermented livestock dung.
She could see something—black masses piled up in heaps.
Livestock dung?
No, it was too small for that. It looked like the droppings of small animals, about the size of rats. She had heard that animal dung contained materials used to make saltpeter.
They were probably using this as their raw material.
The underground was warmer than she had imagined. They must have raised the room temperature to dry the finished gunpowder. That was precisely what made it so terrifying.
They had at least moved the brazier away and wrapped things in curtains to prevent stray sparks from reaching the stockpile, but what would happen if the fire spread anyway?
Did they truly understand the danger they were in?
Honestly, if you kept staying in a place with air this foul, eventually you'd start suffering from poisoning from breathing in too much of it.
The conditions were wretched.
The finished gunpowder was being carried out through a different exit. If she followed it, she'd probably reach the armory.
But how would she get there?
While she was thinking, she heard footsteps behind her.
Maomao ducked behind a nearby shelf.
Her heart pounded, each beat thundering in her ears.
Worried that the sound would give her away to anyone nearby, she peered out at the person who had approached.
"..."
Maomao stared blankly at the figure passing through.
Walking with a solemn expression was Loulan. Dressed in the same opulent garments as her mother, Loulan was a figure completely out of place in this dim underground space reeking of excrement.
"Loulan..."
Maomao started to call out to her.
But Loulan didn't hear her voice, and with something fierce burning in her eyes, she walked straight toward the center of the underground chamber.
The men working nearby noticed Loulan and began to stir.
One of them stepped forward hesitantly—the man who appeared to be in charge of the place.
"Miss—"
"Leave this place immediately."
A clear, commanding voice rang through the underground.
The men exchanged confused glances, not understanding what was going on.
"This fortress will fall before long. Before that happens, you all need to escape from here as fast as you can."
So saying, Loulan pulled a large pouch from inside her robe and tossed it aside. Silver coins spilled out. The men's eyes went wide, and they scrambled to snatch them up.
Once she confirmed they had finished gathering most of it, Loulan raised the lamp she had been holding high above her head and hurled it downward with all her strength.
The lamp traced a parabolic arc and plunged into the gunpowder they had been drying.
"Do your best to get away!"
Loulan wore that same innocent smile as before.
Maomao immediately clamped her hands over her ears and crouched down on the spot.
The thunderous roar pierced through her palms and reverberated through her eardrums. Maomao was kicked and trampled several times by the men scrambling to escape.
The explosion spread ever wider, leaping to the charcoal and then to the animal dung.
(I need to get out of here fast.)
Just then, someone had taken a spectacular tumble right beside her.
The beautiful fabric was being trampled over and over, getting dirtier by the second. Maomao grabbed the hand of its fallen owner.
"Huh? Why are you here, Maomao?"
Loulan's hair was in disheveled disarray, and she wore a bewildered expression.
"I was about to ask you the same thing."
When Maomao said that with a look of exasperation, Loulan stroked Maomao's cheek and reached for her right ear.
"Blood… Did I make it too late?"
If one had to ask what she was late for, that was probably it. The reason Loulan had suddenly blown up a place like this seemed to be to rescue Maomao.
"…We need to go. Now."
Maomao pressed her sleeve over Loulan's mouth, and together they somehow crawled out of the underground. They couldn't stay here any longer—she pulled Loulan toward the outside.
But Loulan stepped onto the staircase and started heading upward.
"The fire will spread here."
"It's fine. I have to go up."
Loulan dragged her tattered train behind her as she climbed the stairs.
The smoke billowed upward relentlessly. The stench was enough to make one's nose go numb, and it stung the eyes. Even if the flames didn't reach them, the smoke alone would cause poisoning and death.
"Are you coming with me?"
"I suppose so."
In this situation, it would have been easy for Maomao to slip away. The men who had fled earlier were all scrambling toward the fortress exit. They would probably ransack the stables or whatever was handy and get out of here.
"If Mother finds out, it'll be terrifying. Knowing her, even if I stayed behind, she'd interrogate me about how this all happened. Getting off with a whipping would be the lucky outcome."
At these words about her own mother, Loulan's gaze dropped downward.
Loulan Stops Before the Room on the Third Floor
Maomao clutches the paper against her chest.
She hadn't been able to take a single book from the room.
All she had was the paper she'd hidden under the bed.
If she parted ways with Loulan here and now, she would never learn the woman's true intentions.
She wanted to confirm them.
"Hey..."
Maomao paused for a moment, unsure of what to say. Loulan was no longer a consort, and just calling her "Loulan" felt somehow wrong.
So she decided to use this name instead.
"Zhicui."
"What?"
With her hand on the door handle, Loulan—no, Zhicui—smiled.
"The abortion drug ingredients that circulated through the inner palace—you were the one who set that in motion, weren't you, Zhicui?"
Perhaps she had used Cuiling, who was outside the inner palace, or perhaps someone else entirely.
Zhicui's smile didn't fade.
"For my own use."
Zhicui's expression remained unchanged, still smiling, as she opened the door.
"You really are sharp, Maomao. It was worth calling you here."
Zhicui said.
The insects that sing with the sound of bells devour the males in order to bear young.
The insects Zhicui had given her had been cannibalizing each other without so much as touching the vegetables placed in the cage. Maomao had released the survivors into the garden. The survivors were likely female—they would lay eggs in the earth, and then their lives would come to an end.
It was a passage from the paulownia box's writings.
Now she understood. What Zhicui had meant by "insects" was herself.
Once they conceive young, they devour the father.
The insect cage represented the inner palace, and the male and female insects symbolized the emperor and his consort.
Now she understood why Shisui kept appearing near where the insects were kept. Perhaps she had been gathering other materials while catching them.
Hozuki
and
white cosmos—
the ingredients for making abortifacients could all be found in the rear palace as well.
Inside was a large bed, with about five children lying side by side asleep.
The children's voices she had heard a few days ago must have belonged to these ones.
Shisui opened the door leading to the railing. A snow-laced wind swept into the room,
sending the
curtains billowing.
"We have to get those children outside."
"Even if you did, it wouldn't make a difference."
Shisui—no, this time it was Rouran's voice that spoke.
Rouran gazed outward with a faint smile.
What should have spread out before her was a pitch-black, empty landscape. During the day, a white plain stretched beyond the outer wall, and all Maomao could do was stare through the lattice from afar.
Torchfires had been lit. She could see a group approaching in formation, like ants.
And then—
A tremendous boom shook the air.
"What was that?"
Was the underground explosion still ongoing?
Maomao rushed to the bed and looked at the children.
Despite the enormous sound reverberating all around, every child remained fast asleep without so much as a twitch.
Maomao reached out and touched one of the children.
"!?"
The skin was cold. Maomao took the child's hand and pressed her fingers to the wrist, searching for a pulse.
"!"
Not a single child was warm. Not one had a pulse.
Beside the beds stood a water pitcher, with cups set out — one for each child.
Loulan gently stroked the forehead of one of the children, her touch full of affection.
"You did this?"
Loulan nodded slowly.
With eyes brimming with tender love,
as though they were her very own,
she caressed each child in turn. Maomao could no longer tell whether this woman was Loulan or Shisui.
"When you do something this flashy, the whole clan gets wiped out. It's plain to see, isn't it?"
Even the youngest of children were part of that. They couldn't understand what their parents had done, and yet they would be sent straight to the gallows.
"I mixed it into sweet fruit water and had them drink it. In a warm room, after we'd all enjoyed looking at picture scrolls together. Some of them may have fussed — they wanted to sleep with their mothers, I suppose. What a shame. Your mothers had such a wonderful time with my mother, after all."
A twisted smile played at the corners of Loulan's lips.
Heavy thuds echoed from outside, but Maomao could not tear her eyes away from Loulan's expression.
"They say Grandmother wasn't always like that, but was she really? She was that kind of woman from the moment I was born. Every time she found my sister, she tormented her. She bullied the young maids, too, and taught the women of our family to drink and consort with male courtesans. Father never said a word — he couldn't defy her. All he did was wait for Mother to forgive him."
Her mother,
Jinbi,
was mad. One look at her and you could tell.
"Once a child is born, she devours her husband. Like a parasite. Insects are far better — they live only to pass life on to the next generation."
Loulan hated the thought of becoming a mother. She went so far as to brew her own abortifacient and take it religiously.
Maomao felt as though she had just heard the truest reason why.
Not all mothers in this world were like Jinbi. But for Loulan, Jinbi was the only mother she had ever known.
"I had Maomao looked into a bit. Your upbringing has quite a resemblance to my sister's, you know."
Raised by a former court physician, with a father who held high office.
"I have neither a father nor a mother. All I have is my adoptive father."
"Heheh, Big Sister always said something similar. Yeah, that's right. Big Sister was always saying she wasn't really my Big Sister. Could be, I suppose — maybe some woman was just pushed onto Father to torment him."
Her tone shifts again.
I can no longer tell whether this woman is Loulan or Koshi.
But Maomao was beginning to grasp what she was trying to convey.
"That woman is not my sister."
She was saying it aloud — that the woman was not her sister, meaning she had no ties to the Zi clan.
(Liar.)
Loulan and Suiren looked very much alike. Especially now, with those expressionless faces, they were truly identical.
Loulan admired her older sister.
And yet, she called her "that woman."
"If these children were insects, they could have survived the winter."
With that, she stroked the children once more.
(If they were insects.)
Maomao noticed one more thing.
She quietly pulled out the papers she had tucked into her collar.
One was what Loulan had left behind—
mandarava—
paper. The rest were sheets Maomao had pulled from between the pages of a book.
She took out one of them.
A fish fin was affixed to it.
It was Maomao's favorite delicacy. Soaking fish fins in sake and drinking them was delicious.
Maomao said nothing and looked at Loulan.
Loulan's eyes were faintly brimming with tears.
When Maomao reached out her hand, Loulan shook her head.
(Just run away.)
Maomao thought.
But she didn't know what she was supposed to do after that.
She didn't understand politics. She had no interest in such things. All she wanted was to study medicine, conduct research, and create all kinds of medicines.
That was enough.
That should have been enough.
Other people's affairs meant nothing to her. She was the most important thing here—didn't they understand what she'd been through after being brought here?
And yet, Maomao reached out her hand.
Loulan rejected that gesture.
"I have my own role to play. Please don't try to stop me."
"...Does it mean something to you?"
She didn't know what awaited Loulan where she was headed, but the ending was easy enough to imagine.
"If you're asking whether it means something... I suppose all I can say is that it's sheer stubbornness."
"Then wouldn't it be fine to just run away?"
At that answer, Loulan flashed a mischievous smile.
"Tell me, Maomao. If someone told you there was an unknown poison, and you'd only ever get one chance to drink it—what would you do?"
"I'd drink it down, of course."
She answered without hesitation. What other option was there?
"That's what I thought."
With those words, Loulan stood up with a smile.
She left the room with light, easy steps—as though she were simply heading out to do some shopping.
"I'm counting on you for the rest."
She shut the door with a soft click.
The sound of her footsteps grew fainter and fainter.
Before she knew it, Maomao's gaze had drifted upward.
The corners of her eyes burned hot, and she fought desperately to hold back what threatened to spill over.
For the briefest of moments, the building shook as a rumbling grew steadily louder.
Two drops of water fell, dampening the pressed red spider lily.
There was an incomprehensible error in the description, so I have corrected it.