There was a crash. The porridge of boiled potatoes and grains
went flying, along with the tea and the crushed fruits. Maomao,
her clothes soaked in porridge, looked up at the person in front of
her.
"You would dare serve this tripe to Lady Lihua? Make it again,
and do it right this time!" A heavily made-up young woman was
glaring at Maomao. One of Consort Lihua's ladies-in-waiting.
Ugh, what a pain. Maomao sighed and started gathering the
dishes and cleaning up the spilled food.
She was in the Crystal Pavilion, Lady Lihua's residence.
Unfriendly gazes surrounded her. Mocking looks, scornful eyes,
and downright hostile expressions. For a servant of Consort
Gyokuyou like Maomao, this was truly enemy territory, a bed of
nails.
His Majesty had come to Gyokuyou's chambers the night
before. Maomao had tasted the food for poison, as she always
did, and had been about to leave the room when the Emperor
himself had spoken to her: "I have a request for the apothecary
of whom I've heard so much."
Wonder what exactly he's heard.
The Emperor was a robust man and handsome, only in his
mid-thirties. And he was the absolute ruler of this nation—no
wonder he dazzled the women of the rear palace. Maomao was
one of the few exceptions. Approximately the only thing she
thought of the Emperor was: "That's a really long beard. I wonder
what it feels like to touch."
Now she asked, "What might that be, Your Majesty?" with a
deferential bow of the head. She knew that she was insignificant
before the Emperor, that a breath from His Majesty could blow
away her life, and she wanted to get out of the room before she
accidentally breached etiquette somehow."Consort Lihua is feeling unwell. Perhaps you could look after
her for a while."
Well, there it was. And as Maomao wanted her head and her
shoulders to maintain close relations for a long time to come, the
only possible answer was, "Of course, sire."
By look after her, Maomao understood His Majesty to mean
make her better. The Emperor no longer favored Consort Lihua
with his visits, but perhaps some vestige of his affection remained
—or perhaps he simply knew he couldn't neglect the daughter of
a powerful man. It made no diference. If Maomao didn't help her,
she couldn't expect to hold onto her head for very long. In a
manner of speaking, she and Lihua would share the same fate.
The fact that the Emperor had asked this of a young girl like
Maomao meant either that he knew perfectly well that the doctor
of the rear palace could not be relied upon, or that he didn't care
if either or both of them died. In either case, it was a reckless
request to make. The more time Maomao spent with these people
who ruled in the Imperial Palace—who lived "above the clouds,"
as the traditional expression went—the more she found herself
thinking how much trouble their every command and desire
caused.
Still, did he really have to ask me right in front of his other
consort?
She almost marveled at a man who could make a request like
that of her, then eat a luxurious meal and be intimate with
Consort Gyokuyou immediately afterwards. Maybe that was just
an emperor for you.
When Maomao began to "look after" Consort Lihua, the first
thing she turned her eye to was improving the woman's diet. The
poisonous face powder had been banished from use in the rear
palace on Jinshi's command, and thorough punishment appointed
for the merchants who had brought it in in the first place. It
would not be possible to get more of the stuff from here on out.
In which case, the priority had to be expunging the remaining
toxins from Lihua's body. Her current meals were based on bland
congee, but it was frequently topped with things like deep-fried
fish, broiled pork, red-and-white bean buns, and other rich foodslike shark fin or crab. Nutritious, true enough, but too heavy for
the stomach of a convalescent.
Forcing herself not to salivate, Maomao told the cook to
change the menu. The weight of an Imperial assignment gave
even an unimportant lady-in-waiting like Maomao a certain
amount of authority, and Lihua's meals were made to consist of
porridge (rich in fiber), tea (an excellent diuretic), and fruit (easily
digested).
Unfortunately, all of these were now scattered on the ground.
Maomao, raised in the red-light district as she was, was appalled
by the waste of food.
The women of the Crystal Pavilion were less impressed by
whatever Imperial commission Maomao might have had than they
were displeased by the fact that she served their rival, Consort
Gyokuyou. Maomao would have gladly given them all a piece of
her mind, but instead she bit her tongue and cleaned up the
mess.
Lihua's ladies-in-waiting brought the consort sumptuous meals,
but over time they came back more and more untouched.
Presumably, the ladies got to enjoy the leftovers.
Maomao would have liked to perform a proper physical
examination of the patient, but Lihua's canopied bed was
surrounded by a phalanx of ladies-in-waiting, collectively
performing a rather ungracious and ineffective nursing duty. When
they provoked a cough by slapping whitening powder on Lihua's
face while she was asleep, they would exclaim, "The air is bad in
here. It's this noxious worm!" and chase Maomao out of the room.
She couldn't get at Lihua to do an exam.
No question in my mind. At this rate, she'll keep wasting away
until she dies.
Maybe she had taken in too much of the poison and it was too
late to get it out of her system. Or perhaps she simply wasn't
strong enough. If a person didn't eat, they would die. Lihua
appeared to be losing the will to live.
Maomao was leaning against a wall, counting the number of
days her head was likely to remain attached to her body, when
she heard a shrill of coquettish voices.
She had a very bad feeling about this. She raised her headvery slowly and found herself confronted with a gorgeous face,
smiling like the sun. It was the beautiful eunuch.
"You look troubled," he said.
"Do I?" Maomao replied tonelessly, her eyes half-closed.
"I wouldn't have said it if you didn't." He stared straight at her,
so she tried looking away instead. He leaned in, his eyelashes
noticeably long, to counter her, and when their eyes met again,
Maomao very much broke her promise to Gaoshun by adopting
the expression of someone looking at a piece of garbage.
"What is with that girl?" The words were soft but venomous.
Maomao was referring to the woman who had spilled the food.
She was insufferable, and she veritably exuded menace.
A woman's wrath was a terrible thing, but Jinshi nonetheless
said softly into her ear with his honeyed voice, "Shall we go
inside?" Maomao found herself pushed into the room before she
could object.
The chamber's self-appointed guardians looked even more
dangerous than before. But when they saw the nymph beside
Maomao, they immediately put on nonchalant smiles, even
though they were all obviously forced. Truly, women could be
terrifying creatures.
"Surely you agree it's unbecoming for lovely, talented young
ladies to make a hash of the Emperor's good offices."
The women paused, they bit their lips, and then one by one
they backed away from the bed.
"There now, go," Jinshi said, giving Maomao a little shove on
the back that almost toppled her over. She bowed and
approached the bed, then took Lihua's hand. It was pale; the
veins stood out prominently.
Maomao had some experience of medicine—the practice of
healing—if not as much as she had of medicine—the concoctions
that did the healing. Lihua's eyes were closed, and she didn't fight
Maomao. It was hard to tell if she was even awake or asleep. She
already seemed to have one foot in the grave.
Maomao placed a finger on Lihua's face, hoping to get a better
look at her eye. She was greeted by a slick, slippery texture.
Lihua's skin was as pale as it had ever been.
It hasn't changed? Maomao frowned, then went over to theladies-in-waiting. She stood in front of one of them, the one who
had been making the consort up earlier. In a deliberately soft,
restrained voice, Maomao asked, "You. Are you the one who does
the lady's makeup?"
"I certainly am. It's a lady-in-waiting's duty, you know." The
woman seemed mildly intimidated by Maomao's searing look. It
obviously took everything she had to remain defiant. "We want
Consort Lihua to be as beautiful as she can, always." The girl
snifed; she sounded so sure of herself.
"Is that right?"
A crack echoed through the room. The girl stumbled aside, in
the direction of the force, hardly knowing what had happened.
She felt an unfamiliar heat in her cheek and ear. Maomao's right
hand smarted; it burned almost as much as the girl's left cheek.
Maomao had smacked her about as hard as she was able.
"What's wrong with you?!" one of the other ladies-in-waiting
demanded. Several of them were openly astounded.
"Me? I'm just giving an idiot her due." Maomao grabbed the
girl by the hair, pulling her to her feet.
"Ow! That hurts, stop!" the lady-in-waiting wailed, but Maomao
paid her no heed. She dragged the girl over to the makeup stand
and picked up a carved jar with her free hand. She opened the lid
and smeared the contents on the face of the lady-in-waiting.
White powder went everywhere, causing coughing fits. Tears
brimmed in the young woman's eyes.
"There! Now you can be as beautiful as your lady. Lucky you!"
Maomao gave a tug of the girl's hair, forcing her to meet her eyes,
and leered like a beast with its prey in its claws. "You can have
poison in your pores, in your mouth, in your nose, in every part of
your body. You can wither away just like your beloved Lady Lihua,
until your eyes are sunken and your skin is bloodless."
"No... I don't believe you..." the newly powdered lady-inwaiting simpered.
"You don't understand why this stuff was forbidden, do you?!
It's poison!" Maomao was well and truly angry now. Not because
of the sneers and glares, not because of the spilled porridge, but
because of this fool of a lady-in-waiting who thought of nothing,
but simply assumed she was right about everything."But it's the prettiest! The most beautiful... I thought Lady
Lihua would be happy..."
Maomao dipped her hand in the powder scattered on the floor,
then grabbed the girl's cheek, pulling, distorting her lips. "Who
would be happy to be continually covered in poison that sucks
their life away?" It was like listening to a child trying to explain
why they'd done something wrong. Maomao gave a click of her
tongue and let the woman go. A few long strands of dark hair
remained wrapped around her fingers. "All right, go rinse your
mouth out. And wash your face."
She watched the girl all but flee the room, weeping, and then
she turned to the other ladies-in-waiting, who were now
thoroughly frightened. "Go on. You want that stuff to get on the
patient? Clean it up!" She pointed to the powdery floor, deciding
to ignore the fact that she was the one who had spilled it. The
other ladies-in-waiting winced, but then went to get the cleaning
supplies. Maomao crossed her arms and snorted. Some of the
powder was on her clothes, but she didn't care.
One person had remained calm and collected throughout all
this. "Women are indeed terrifying," Jinshi said now, tucking his
hands into his wide sleeves.
Maomao had completely forgotten he was there. "Argh!" she
said as the rush of blood to her head subsided. She squatted
down right where she was.
Now she'd done it.