Kusuriya no Hitorigoto

Apparently, external court physicians, which was primarily her dad, would enter the inner palace once every ten days. He would visit high ranking consorts once a month, and middle and low ranking ones once every three months.

It appeared that he also went to Empress Gyokuyous place, but court ladies still werent allowed yet. It seems that their coming was to be determined based on their reactions at the inner palace.

After that, whether it be low ranking consorts or low ranking palace ladies, if the emperor were to visit them, it was customary for them to get a health check within half a month. But then, the current emperor wouldnt carelessly lay his hand on maidservants. If he were to put his hand carelessly, some seed would come in from someplace. They would have to be trying to avoid that possibility.

(They said that Im an accomplice.)

The gist of it was that if the puzzle was a ploy for Airin to drag Maomao and others over individually, it would mean that they would be transgressing by not reporting to the authorities. That sort of meaning.

And so, Enen was currently right next to Maomao. They were washing bandages with their tubs set side by side. They had prepared soapberry peel, so the filth comes out from the bandages cleanly.

After they washed the bandages, they would boil them once. There are cases where human blood has toxins, and when you bathe in the blood or lick it, you can get an infection.

Isnt washing a maidservants job? Maomao asked.

I never said such a thing, Enen replied.

The one who had said that were the court ladies who had been forced to quit. It unintentionally became a disagreeable topic.

Wheres Yao-san? Maomao asked.

It was strange to not use honorifics, and also strange to use sama, so for the time being, she called her this way, but it didnt seem fitting.

Yao-sama was asked by Court Physician Shuu(, Zhou) to goout with him to buy medicine.

(Court Physician Shuu)

Whos that, Maomao tilted her head. It was a bad habit, but she had yet to match names with faces. Even so, the way Enen had said it was also bad. As there were only dozens of surnames in this country, the name Shuu was as common as a pebble on the ground. There should be three or four even among the court physicians and court physician apprentices.

Maomao wrung the washed bandages. And then, she also placed Enens bandages into her own tub. Leave the rest to me, so please work on something else.

However, Enen curled her lips. Maomao was also expressionless, so she wouldnt say that the other person was arrogant, but it was a forced smile no matter how one looked at it. She snatched away half of Maomaos tub of bandages.

We should share each others lot.

In other words, dont you dare go report it when I take my eyes off you.

From the baked pastry incident, it seemed the two of them, Yao and Enen were clinging more closely to Maomao.

Maybe it was a blessing, since Yao aside, Maomao was talking more to Enen. In the beginning, the other court lady didnt overtly charge at Maomao. She was expressionless and silent. It was probably the same reason she didnt talk to Maomao, as Yao was around.

(Its a bother to chat.)

Her personality was probably really similar to Maomao. Her unfriendliness and outstanding points were really similar to Suirei, but she was also somewhat hard to grasp.

Please dont mind Yao-samas attitude. She was supposed to be the top scorer, but you took that spot, Enen said.

Top scorer?

Didnt you hear the explanation? The one who earns the highest score in the exam will be given a different accessory cord to the other successful applicants.

Ahhh. Maomao recalled that only hers was deeper in colour. She had left all her clothes and so on to Gaoshun, and yet when the clothes were brought over, she had been worked hard by the madam, so there wasnt much.

(I didnt hear about it.)

She was sorry about that.

However, she had thought that she barely passed the exam. Turns out it wasnt the case.

The general education was another matter, the specialised knowledge was the part I would do well in even if half got taken out, Maomao said.

The general education. Was that the history and poetry that Maomao had reluctantly studied? She tried hard for that, she tried really hard.

The specialised knowledge. That was Maomaos field of expertise, so there was no examinee who could beat her results. She understood.

Yao-sama said that she got all the questions in general education correct, so she probably lost to you in the specialised knowledge section.

Was that how it is? Maomao felt slightly regretful that she could haveslacked a bit more while studying. Either way, with the point in the time where the madam had been bribed, there was no way she could have escaped from studying for the exam.

I worked as a pharmacist.

Yes, I somehow got that. But, its Yao-sama who still finds it vexing.

It was not that Maomao didnt understand. She didnt hate that kind of personality. It was way better than having the court lady act abjectly towards her. But, the issues was how Maomao didnt know how everyone around them would react to seeing the womans behaviour. Among the court ladies who passed, the one with the best parentage was Yao, so the other court ladies would have no choice but to follow.

Shes not a bad person, so please forgive her for the time being.

On the other hand, Enen gave quite a mature response. Maomao didnt hear her age, but was she around the same age as her? Yao looked mature, but she had heard that when she was chatting that she was three years younger.

(Shes sixteen, so it cant be helped.)

She might get angry if Maomao said that shes still a child.

However, there was one question that remained.

The court lady called Enen. Maomao knew her to be Yaos attendant, but she seemed quite smart. Moreover, she also understood bits of the western language that even Yao didnt know.

May I ask a question? Maomao asked.

What is it?

If Im not there, what if you became the top scorer?

At Maomaos question, Enen gave another doll-like smile. She moved to stand in front of the stove and put the bandages in the pot. That would never happen.

(Never, huh.)

It was an issue to cheat to raise your marks, but it wouldnt be dishonest to dare to give incorrect answers to what you know.

So it was something like that.

(Shes a capable woman that is different to Suirei in a different meaning.)

Rather than Suirei, she was similar to the maid who is Jinshis nursemaid, Suiren. She had a polite bearing, but you cant be negligent.

Speaking of what

Shes a cunning person.

Outside of being observed by the two court ladies, it was a normal ten days for Maomao.

But she was a little troubled that every time a letter arrived, they would inspect it. It was a relief that there were no direct letters from Jinshi. For the most part, it came under Gaoshuns name. What happened next was of no matter, it seemedBasen had already returned to work. Considering how his injuries had been grievous, he had a resilience that could also be seen as abnormal.

(Is his body somehow structured differently?)

During that, she ended up thinking about wanting to try to compare wound healing with other people. He seemed sturdy, so it shouldnt be an issue even if he were to get treated somewhat roughly. The person himself would seem to reject it, so shall she sound out Gaoshun?

The pharmacy was doing wellthat came from Sazen. However, he wrote that Kokuyou would occasionally be noisy. He had to bear with that.

Occasionally slipped into the letters were the drawings of a cat, maomao, but that was Chouu. There was a paw print carefully pressed onto the paper instead of a seal. It looked like there were scratch marks, so he must have forced it.

Yao studied the cat drawing intently, saying that she was inspecting. After just looking at it, she reluctantly passed it back to Maomao. Afterwards, Enen asked if she could give her the cat drawing, so she was probably giving it to Yao.

Yao and Enen seem to see the white maiden as a mere secret code. Enen looked a little caught up on it, but if Yao didnt worry about it, she had no plans of interfering with it deeply.

(A white maiden, huh.)

Eight-nine chances out of ten, it was about Lady Pai, she thought, but perhaps there was also another possibility.

The one thing Maomao was curious about was the food poisoned artist that she had saved last time. There was a painting of a white beauty with red eyes in his house. She was told that it was a woman the artist had seen a long time ago, that he had met in the lands of the west.

If that was the woman Airin, a native of Shaou, was talking about

No, Airin had purposely given out the solution to the riddle. Maomao shook her headit indeed was about Lady Pai.

However, she was still caught up on the fact about the white woman the artist had met.

(Could they be connected somehow?)

When she knew the answer to that question, was the day after when she met Airin again.