The gorgeous noble—that is, Jinshi—was busier than Maomao had
realized. As a eunuch, she’d assumed the rear palace represented his entire workload, but it seemed he had much business in the outer court as well.
At the moment, Jinshi was making a face at some paperwork. He’d indicated that he was going to be stuck in his office the entire day, so Maomao had no option but to work around him as she cleaned. She was collecting scrap paper in one corner of the room. The paper was of excellent quality but covered with awful suggestions, ideas that were in the trash because they were hardly worth looking at. No matter how worthless the suggested statutes scrawled on them, however, the paper they were written on couldn’t be reused; it had to be burned.
Think of the tidy bit of pocket change it would bring if I could sell it, Maomao thought. (It wasn’t a very nice thought.) Still, she reiterated to herself that this was her job; she knew she had to burn the stuff. There was a fire pit for trash in one corner of the large palace complex surrounding Jinshi’s office, over by the military training grounds and some storehouses. Ah, the military… Maomao thought. Honestly, she wasn’t eager to get anywhere near them, but she had no choice. She was just getting to her feet, resigned that this was her duty, when she felt something settle across her shoulders.
“It’s chilly out. Please, wear this.” Gaoshun, showing his thoughtful side, had placed a cotton jacket on her back. There was a dusting of snow
on the ground, and the wind could be heard to rattle the desiccated branches of the trees. The warm room, heated by several braziers, made it easy to forget, but they were still hardly a month into the new year. It was the coldest season of all.
“Thank you very much,” Maomao said. She really meant it. (It seemed such a waste to have made Gaoshun a eunuch!) That extra layer of insulation would make a lot of difference. As she ran her arms through the sleeves of unbleached cotton, she realized Jinshi was watching her intently.
Practically glaring at her, in fact.
Did I do something wrong? Maomao tilted her head in curiosity, but then she realized it didn’t seem to be her Jinshi was glaring at so much as it was Gaoshun. Gaoshun, noticing the gaze as well, flinched. “This is from Master Jinshi, I hasten to add. I’m only the messenger.” For some reason, Gaoshun gesticulated broadly as he spoke. Suffice to say he didn’t sound wholly convincing.
Is he being reprimanded for taking too much initiative? Maomao wondered, marveling that he should have to get permission for something so simple as giving a cotton jacket to a maid. It wasn’t easy being Gaoshun either.
“Is that so?” was all Maomao said. She bowed in Jinshi’s direction, then hefted the basket of paper scraps and made for the fire pit.
I wish you’d planted some here, too, Dad, Maomao thought to herself with a sigh. The outer court was many times larger than the rear palace, yet boasted far fewer herbs that might make worthwhile ingredients. She’d succeeded in finding little more than dandelions and mugwort.
Then again, she’d discovered some red spider lilies as well. Maomao enjoyed eating red spider lily bulbs soaked in water. The only caveat was that the bulbs were poisonous, and if the poison wasn’t successfully extracted first, it could produce the mother of all tummy aches. More than once the old madam had snapped at her not to eat things like that—but it was Maomao’s nature, and that wasn’t going to change.
Guess this is about the best I can hope for, she thought. The dearth of plant life in winter made it hard enough to find anything; even with careful searching, she didn’t expect to come up with much more than she had.
Maomao started to consider planting some seeds on the sly.
As she walked back from the garbage pit, Maomao spotted someone she recognized. He was over by a row of plaster storehouses at some distance from Jinshi’s office. He was a young military official with a strong, manly face that nonetheless showed an obvious decency, giving him something of the look of a big, friendly dog. Ah, yes: Lihaku. The color of his sash was different from before. Maomao discerned that he must have moved up in the world.
Lihaku was talking to what appeared to be some subordinates standing
beside him. He’s working hard, Maomao thought. Every time he had a little break, it seemed, Lihaku could be found at the Verdigris House, chatting with the apprentices over tea. Of course, his real objective was Maomao’s beloved sister Pairin, but to call her forth required almost as much silver as a commoner might make in half a year.
Oh, woe betide the man who had tasted the nectar of heaven; now he sought even the barest, the most occluded glimpse of the countenance of that flower that grew on the high mountaintop.
Maybe Lihaku sensed Maomao’s pitying gaze upon him, for he waved to her and came jogging over, bounding like the big dog he was. Instead of a tail, the kerchief holding his hair flapped behind him. “Hoh! How unusual to see you outside the rear palace. Accompanying your mistress on a day
out?” He clearly didn’t know that Maomao had been dismissed from service in her old workplace. She’d been back in the pleasure district only a very brief time, so she had never bumped into Lihaku there.
“No,” she said. “I no longer serve in the rear palace, but in the personal quarters of one particular personage.” It would be altogether too much trouble, Maomao thought, to tell the whole story of her dismissal and re- hiring, thus she reduced it to this single sentence.
“Personal quarters? Whose? Somebody must have very strange tastes.” “Yes, strange indeed.”
Lihaku didn’t know how insolent he was being, but his reaction as such was an understandable one. Most people wouldn’t specifically seek out a thoroughly freckled, spindly branch of a girl to be their personal attendant. In fact, Maomao hadn’t necessarily intended to continue with her freckles, but Jinshi had ordered her to keep them (though she didn’t understand why), and if her master commanded, she had to obey.
I just don’t know what he’s after, that man. Maomao concluded that the thinking of nobles was simply beyond her.
“Say, I hear some important official just bought out a courtesan from your place.”
“So it seems.”
Guess I can’t blame him for this one, Maomao thought. When the employment contract had been concluded and Maomao was to go with Jinshi, her overexcited sisters had prettied her up in every way they knew how, finding the most special clothes for her, doing her hair, and covering
her in a mountain of makeup, until she looked like anything but an ordinary maid headed to an ordinary posting. She remembered her father, for some reason, watching her go as if watching a calf leave his barn.
To enter the palace looking like a tarted-up courtesan was bad enough, but Jinshi’s presence attracted yet more attention, and Maomao found a very uncomfortable number of eyes on them. She’d changed as soon as she could, but no doubt quite a few people had seen her before then. Still, she was struck that Lihaku could be speaking of her, to her, and have no idea.
But, she supposed, what more could you expect from a dumb mutt? “If I may say so, you seem to be in the middle of something. Do you
really have time to be talking to me?” “Oh, ahem… Heh…”
One of Lihaku’s subordinates was coming over to check on him. He looked happy at first to see a woman there; a man living on a salary as poor as his was apt to be suffering from a drought of the fairer s*x. But when he saw Maomao, his disappointment was palpable. She was used to this reaction, but it also showed some of what made the superior superior and the subordinate…not.
“There was a fire,” Lihaku said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the storehouses. “Not a big one. They’re not that unusual this time of year.” Still, he had to investigate the cause, which was what he was currently doing.
Cause unknown, eh? Maomao thought. Now that she’d gotten a sniff of the story, she would have stuck her nose in even if someone had begged her not to. Maomao slipped between the two and headed toward the small building.
“Hey, better keep your distance!” Lihaku called.
“I understand,” Maomao said, scrutinizing the building and everything around it. There was soot on one of the cracked plaster walls. It looked like they’d been lucky the fire hadn’t spread to any of the other storehouses.
Hmm. If this was simply a small fire, then there were several unusual things about it. For one, why had Lihaku come to deal with it personally if it was so ordinary? Surely he could’ve ordered some lackey to do it. What
was more, the building seemed substantially damaged. More like the effects of an explosion than a short-lived blaze. Maybe someone had even been injured. They must suspect arson, Maomao concluded. It would be one
thing to burn down a random storehouse somewhere, but on the palace grounds themselves? That was something else.
Maomao’s country was largely peaceful, but this wasn’t to say no one
had any grievances against the government. Barbarian tribes occasionally conducted raids, and droughts and famines did sometimes occur. Relations with other states were largely cordial, but there were no guarantees as to how long they would stay that way. And there must have been some inhabitants among the country’s vassal states who were displeased with their status.
Most of all, the former emperor’s practice of annual “hunts” for women had left the farming villages with a serious shortage of potential brides. It had been only five years since His Former Majesty had departed this world, and there must have been many who still remembered his rule all too well. As for more recent events, slavery had been abolished upon the accession of the current emperor, no doubt depriving more than a few merchants of their source of income.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I said stay back.” Lihaku caught Maomao’s shoulder, glowering.
“Oh, I was just curious about something…” Maomao peered into a broken window. Then she slipped neatly out of Lihaku’s grip and scampered into the building. Scorched stores were everywhere. From the potatoes rolling around on the floor, she gathered that this warehouse had been used to store food. What a shame, she thought, that the potatoes had gone past the point of being well-cooked and were now hopelessly blackened.
Looking for anything else that might have fallen on the ground, Maomao discovered some kind of stick. The moment she touched it, though, it turned to ash, leaving only the carefully worked tip. Is this ivory? she wondered. It looks like a smoking pipe. She brushed off the decorative stummel and studied it.
“Listen, you can’t just wander around in here,” Lihaku said, finally (and understandably) starting to sound angry. But once Maomao was invested in a problem, she couldn’t let it go. She crossed her arms, trying to put the pieces together in her head. An explosion, a warehouse full of food, and a pipe on the ground.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
Yes, she heard Lihaku; she just wasn’t listening to him. Maomao was aware this was a bad habit of hers. She left the warehouse, heading toward the one directly opposite, where the goods that had been saved from the fire had been moved.
“Does this storehouse have the same sort of things in it as the one that burned?” Maomao asked the lower-ranking soldier.
“Yeah, I think so. Oldest stuff is farthest inside, apparently.”
Maomao smacked a closely woven cloth sack, producing a cloud of white powder. Wheat flour, she presumed.
“Can I have this?” she asked, pointing to an unused wooden crate. It was well-built, with close fittings, probably intended for storing fruit or the like.
“Yeah, I guess. But what are you going to do with it?” Lihaku gave her a blank look.
“I’ll explain later. Oh, and I’ll take this too.” Maomao grabbed a wooden board that looked suited to serve as a lid for the crate. Now she had everything she needed. “Have you got a hammer and saw anywhere? And nails, I’ll need nails.”
“What exactly are you planning to do?” “Just a little experiment.”
“Experiment?” Lihaku looked befuddled, but his curiosity got the better of him. He was apparently going to cooperate with her, though still somewhat grudgingly. His subordinate was looking at Maomao as if to say, Who does this girl think she is? But when he saw his superior was going along with her, he had no choice but to get what she asked for.
Supplies thus provided, Maomao began to diligently arrange her materials. With the saw she made a hole in the wooden board, then hammered it down on the empty crate.
“That’s weird. It’s like you’ve done this before.” Lihaku, watching her, showed all the interest of a dog spotting a new toy.
“I grew up without much money, so I learned to make what I didn’t have.”
Her old man had likewise built a range of curious things. Her adoptive father, who had studied in the west in his youth, drew on those long-ago memories to create tools and gadgets no one had ever seen in this country.
“There, finished,” Maomao said after a few moments. “All it needs is a
bit of this.” She took some of the flour from the stores and put it in the box. “You wouldn’t happen to have a fire starter on hand, would you?”
One of Lihaku’s subordinates volunteered to get one. While he was away, Maomao got a bucket of water from the well. Lihaku, still totally baffled as to what was going on, was sitting on the box, his chin in his hands.
“Thank you very much.” Maomao nodded to the subordinate, who had returned with a length of smoldering rope.
The underling could grimace all he liked, but he was ultimately curious about what Maomao was going to do; he squatted at a distance and watched them. Maomao went and stood in front of the crate with her wick, but for some reason, Lihaku was standing right there beside her.
She leveled her gaze at him. “Master Lihaku. This is dangerous. Might I ask you to keep a safe distance?”
“Danger, hah! If a young lady like you can do it, surely a warrior like myself is at no real risk.”
He was obviously set on acting as proud and manly as he could, so Maomao gave up the argument. Some people just had to learn through experience.
“Very well,” she said. “But there is risk involved, so please take due caution. Be ready to run away immediately.”
“Run away? From what?”
Maomao ignored Lihaku’s incredulous look, tugging on the sleeve of the crouching underling and advising him to watch from behind the storehouse. When all was in readiness, Maomao pitched the burning rope into the crate. Then she covered her head and ran.
Lihaku only watched her in perplexity.
I told him! I told him…
A second later, fire burst from the crate, burning hungrily. “Ahh!”
Lihaku dodged the pillar of flame by inches. Or most of him did, anyway; his hair managed to catch the edge of the conflagration. “Put it ouuut!” he cried, panicking. Maomao picked up the bucket of water she had prepared and doused him with it. The fire went out, leaving only some smoke and the smell of singed hair.
“I told you to run.” Maomao looked at Lihaku as if to ask whether he understood the danger now. As Lihaku stood with snot dripping from his nose, his subordinate quickly tossed an animal pelt on him. The man seemed to want to make some sort of comment, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Perhaps you would be so kind as to request the watchman of the storehouse to refrain from smoking tobacco on duty.” Maomao’s assessment of the cause of the fire was really speculation, but she felt safe treating it as fact.
“Right…” Lihaku replied, looking relieved. He was ghostly pale.
However strong he might be, he would catch cold if he didn’t warm up soon. He should have been hurrying back to his quarters to light a fire, but instead he was staring fixedly at Maomao. “But what in the world was that all about?” She could practically see the question mark above his head. His subordinates looked likewise flummoxed.
“Here’s your culprit.” Maomao took a handful of the wheat flour. A gust of wind came up and spirited the white powder away. “Wheat flour and buckwheat flour are both highly flammable. They can combust if there’s enough in the air.”
The flour had exploded: it was as simple as that. Anyone could understand it, once they knew what had happened. Lihaku simply hadn’t been aware of the possibility.
There were few if any things in the world that were truly inexplicable; what a person deemed beyond explanation was only a reflection of the boundaries of their own knowledge.
“Pretty impressed you know about that,” Lihaku said. “Oh, I used to do it quite often.”
“Used to do what?” Lihaku and his subordinate were looking at each other, confused once again. Fair enough: they’d never in their lives had to work in a cramped space full of flour. Maomao, meanwhile, had learned to be careful after she’d been blown backwards out of the room she had been borrowing in the Verdigris House.
I thought the old lady would have my head that day. Just thinking about it was enough to give her the shivers. She’d thought she was going to wind up hung upside down from the highest floor of the brothel.
“Please take care you don’t catch a cold, sir. But if you do, let me
recommend the medicine of a man named Luomen in the pleasure district. It’s quite effective.”
Mustn’t forget promotion. Lihaku might buy her father’s medicine on one of his visits to Pairin. Maomao’s old man was as terrible a salesman as he was brilliant a pharmacist, so if she didn’t do at least this much, he might not make enough to feed himself.
That took longer than I meant it to. Maomao picked up the basket of scrap paper and turned once more for the trash pit. It was just nearby; she would hustle the attendant and then get out of there. Oops, she thought, looks like I unintentionally took a souvenir.
She realized the item she’d picked up earlier was still at the collar of her robe. The pipe. This was the reason she’d said to warn the watchman about smoking. The stummel in her hand was a bit singed, but clearly of fine
make, a rather finer piece than one would expect to be in the possession of a simple storehouse guard.
Might be important to him, she thought. A little polishing and a new
shank, and it would be good as new. Word was that there had been injuries but no deaths in the explosion, meaning the pipe’s owner was probably recuperating somewhere. He might not want it anymore—too many bad memories—but if nothing else, the stummel would sell for a decent price.
For the time being, Maomao tucked the soot-stained ivory piece into the top of her robe.
Going to have to work late tonight, she thought as she handed the waste to the trash-pit attendant.
