Chapter 12: The Threat

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 difference. 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 foods like 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-inwaiting 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 ladiesin-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 head very 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 the ladies-inwaiting. 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 sniffed; 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-in-waiting 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.

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