"What terrible news," Consort Gyokuyou said, her face darkening. Standing before her, Jinshi's heavenly countenance was likewise troubled.
I guess some bigwig is dead. Maomao was there, too, but she was simply present, feeling none of the emotion of the moment. It might have seemed cold, but she wasn't sentimental enough to muster any sympathy for someone whose name she had never heard and whose face she had never seen. The deceased had been more than fifty years of age, anyway, and the cause of death was drinking too much. You reap what you sow; that was all there was to it.
Or it should have been.
Even after completing her food tasting duties, Maomao couldn't leave the room. Jinshi had apparently sent Hongniang on some kind of errand, and as a consequence Maomao had to stay instead. Even a eunuch couldn't be alone with a royal consort; a lady-in-waiting had to be present. The salient point was that Jinshi had charged Hongniang, and not her minion Maomao, with the task.
And that means he's plotting something, Maomao thought. And she was right.
"Do you think the cause of death was truly too much wine?" Jinshi inquired, and his lovely gaze was focused not on the consort, but just over her shoulder—in other words, on Maomao.
There were a number of ways to die of drink.
Even Maomao, who enjoyed her alcohol, understood it became a poison if one drank too much. Any medicine did if the dosage was too large. Chronic drinking could induce dysfunction of the liver. Too much at one time could cause death on the spot. In this case, it was the latter: an overabundance of drink at a party among compatriots. Allegedly, the victim had partaken liberally from a generous jug.
"That certainly would kill you," Maomao remarked flippantly as theycame to the guardhouse by the main gate. It was the same place she had met Lihaku. Still a simple room with only the barest furnishings, but today tea and snacks were provided and a brazier was lit to ward off the cold.
"But it was half as much as usual," Jinshi said. (Half as much wine as usual, presumably.) Gaoshun took something from a serving girl who appeared from outside the rear palace. The girl said nothing, only bowed her head and withdrew.
"Frankly, I can't bring myself to believe he died of drink," Jinshi said. "Not Kounen."
Kounen was the name of the dead man. He had been a splendid warrior who drank wine by the jugful, and from what Jinshi and Gyokuyou said, he wasn't a half-bad person, either.
Gaoshun placed the object he'd received from the serving girl on the table. It was a gourd flask. Gaoshun poured from it into a small drinking cup.
"What's this?" Maomao asked.
"The same wine that was served at the party," Jinshi informed her. "We took it from one of the other jugs that was present. The one Kounen was drinking from had been overturned and all the contents spilled out."
"So we' ll never know if that jug had poison in it." After all, poison would be the next obvious culprit, if it wasn't the wine proper that had killed him.
"Quite right." Jinshi obviously knew how unrealistic his hopes were, bringing Maomao this alcohol to examine. The fact that he did so anyway— that he clearly wanted closure on this matter—made her curious. Did he owe the dead man a favor? He just needs to turn that stupid charm back on, Maomao thought. Lately Jinshi had looked so much more childish to her; she couldn't help it. Honestly, it was easier on her when he huffed and puffed and ordered her around.
Now she brought the wine to her lips and lapped at it gently with her tongue.
Hello, what's this? The wine tasted both sweet and sour at once. It was as if it had started out sweet, and then someone had added a pinch of salt. /t's like cooking wine.
"A most unusual flavor," she commented, looking intently at Jinshi.
"Yes. It was Kounen's personal preference. He had quite the sweet tooth. He enjoyed a sweet wine and would only take sweet snacks with it." Jinshi almost seemed in a rapture as he described the deceased. Kounen could bepresented with the finest smoked meats, or luxurious rock salt, but he wouldn't touch them, according to Jinshi. "Way back when, he used to enjoy more savory foods, but then... One day, out of the blue, he completely reversed himself. So much so that almost all his meals became exclusively sweet." The hint of a smile, genuinely spontaneous, it seemed, drifted across Jinshi's face.
"Sounds like he was flirting with diabetes," Maomao said, unsparingly presenting her opinion.
"Don't sully my memories with bleak reality, if you please," Jinshi said ruefully.
So aman who likes savory foods suddenly prefers sweet ones instead, Maomao thought as she drained her cup and poured more alcohol from the gourd. She drank it down and repeated the process. Jinshi and Gaoshun were watching her closely, but she ignored them. When the gourd was about half empty, she finally spoke: "The snacks served with the alcohol at this party. Was there salt involved?"
"Yes. Rock salt, mooncakes, and cured meat were served. Shall we prepare some of the same for you?"
"No, thank you. Ill be done drinking this stuff by the time it's ready."
If they were going to offer me snacks, I wish they'd done it sooner. A good, salty meat would have complemented the wine perfectly.
"That's not exactly what I was thinking," Jinshi said, annoyed. Maomao poured herself more wine. She paid no heed to Jinshi's transparent disbelief that she was going to resume drinking. The chance for a tipple was such a rare one, outside the occasional mouthful she tasted for poison, and she was going to take advantage of it.
Maomao drank the gourd dry, to the last drop. She was tempted to let out a big, boozy whoop of satisfaction, but considering the presence of nobility, decided to refrain.
"Do you have the actual jug Master Kounen was drinking from?"
"Yes, although it's in pieces."
"That's fine. Let me see it. Oh, also... there's something Pd like you to check into for me," Maomao informed them.
The next day, Jinshi summoned Maomao once again. They came to the same room as before. Jinshi's customary place of business seemed to be the
office of the Matron of the Serving Women, but her quarters had been quite busy recently with women coming and going. The offices of the other two service divisions were much the same. Maybe it had something to do with the approaching end of the year.
I knew it, Maomao thought as she reviewed the paper summarizing the results of the investigation she'd requested. She looked at the shard of pottery that had likewise been brought to her, where it sat on the wrapping cloth that had been used to transport it. There were whitish grains stuck to it. She picked up the shard and licked it.
"Are you sure it's safe to be doing that?" Jinshi reached out as if he might stop her, but Maomao shook her head. "It's not poisonous. There's not enough of it for that."
Her words sounded portentous, but clearly puzzled Jinshi and Gaoshun. Maomao went over to the brazier with the paper wrapper that had held the report and started it burning. Then she held the shard of the jug near the flame. The color of the fire changed.
"Salt?" Jinshi asked, peering at the flames. He had evidently learned his lesson from the last time she'd shown him this trick.
"That's right. Apparently there was so much of it in this jug that even after the liquid evaporated, grains of it remained." There had been salt in the wine Maomao had tasted, as well. Not something added during the production process, but more like the sort of stuff that might be served as a snack—it had simply been thrown into the wine. If the attendees at the party generally preferred more savory flavors, then wine that was too sweet wouldn't be to their liking. Everyone knew how you could dust salt around the rim of a cup, but to have put the stuff directly into the wine—someone must have been either very drunk, or a complete culinary ignoramus. A pinch of salt was one thing and would have been fine, but the jug Kounen had drunk from had contained copious amounts.
"Salt is essential to human survival, but too much of it is toxic," Maomao said. In that respect, it was like wine: too much at once could be fatal. When she considered the amount of wine Kounen had drunk and the quantity of salt dissolved in it, it seemed a possible cause of death.
"But that doesn't make any sense," Jinshi said. "No one could fail to notice they were drinking something that salty."
"I believe at least one person could." Maomao turned the report toward
them. It contained details of Kounen's personal habits. "You told me, Master Jinshi, that one day Master Kounen spontaneously went from preferring salty foods to preferring sweet ones, yes?"
"Yes, that's right," Jinshi said. "Wait, you can't mean—"
"Yes. I think perhaps he stopped tasting saltiness."
This man Kounen had been a capable bureaucrat, diligent and dedicated to his work. His self-control, bordering on stoicism, was evident even from the somewhat superficial report. After the deaths of his wife and child in a plague some years ago, it said, he had lived for his work. Wine and sweet treats were his only pleasures.
"There are some illnesses that can rob a person of the sense of taste. They're said to be caused by imbalances in diet, or sometimes stress."
The more straightlaced a person was, the more repressed their spirit could become. And the burden created by that condition could lead to illness.
"All right. Who put the salt in the wine, then?"
Maomao cocked her head. "It's not my job to figure that out."
Armed with the facts that the other jugs had been salted as well, and that Kounen was a very serious person, she suspected Jinshi could work out the rest. Not everyone liked a diligent worker. They might decide to play a little prank on him while he was drunk. And when they saw he hadn't even noticed their joke, they might decide to lean into it until he did. Sometimes the alcohol takes over, so to speak—but would the perpetrators ever have expected this result?
Cowards, running away like they did.
Maomao had pulled up short of spelling it all out, though she could have. She was no more eager than anyone else to be the proximate cause of somebody's brutal punishment. Even though with all the clues she'd given Jinshi, it was as good as if she'd told him herself.
Jinshi said something to Gaoshun, who subsequently left the room. Jinshi gazed after him for a moment. Careful observation revealed a small, tasseled ornament mounted with an obsidian on his belt.
Is that a mourning emblem? And was it deliberate that he had made it so inconspicuous?
"My apologies. I appreciate your help," Jinshi said, turning that transcendent smile on her.
"Not at all." Maomao was keenly curious what the connection had beenbetween Jinshi and Kounen, but she held herself back from prying. If it turned out to be something indecent, I might be sorry I asked. After all, one could never be certain who was related to whom and in what way. Instead, she tried a less loaded question. "Was he really such an outstanding person?"
"Indeed. He was quite good to me once, when I was small."
Jinshi didn't elaborate, but closed his eyes. He seemed to be thinking back into the distant past, and it made him look just like an ordinary young man. It was an effect Maomao rarely saw from his preternaturally beautiful face.
Huh. I guess he's human after all. It was too easy, with Jinshi's unearthly beauty, to forget that he was born of woman just like anyone else; it might have been easier to believe sometimes that he was the thousand-year-old spirit of a peach. Of late, Maomao had increasingly found herself oddly unsure how to feel about this man, Jinshi.
After he had stood silently for some moments, Jinshi seemed to recall something; he reached under the table and produced an object.
"A gourd?" Maomao asked.
He had come up with a gourd of substantial size. She could hear a splishing sound from whatever was inside it.
"Mm. Not the stuff from yesterday, though," he said. Then he handed the gourd to Maomao. "It's yours, with my thanks."
She pulled out the stopper and caught the rich aroma of spirits. Ahh!
"Just try to drink it discreetly."
"Thank you very much," Maomao said with uncommon earnestness.
So he does know how to be thoughtful, when he wants to be.
Shortly thereafter, she was confronted with the saccharine face. She glanced at it reflexively. Yes, it was still the same eunuch.
"I can't say you look very grateful at the moment," Jinshi said.
"Is that so, sir? Well, perhaps you should worry less about my expression and more about the work you have to do now." For some reason, she thought she saw a tremor run through Jinshi. So she was right: he had shirked his business to come talk to her.
It's one thing to have too much time on your hands. But to actively ignore your job?
"Perhaps you should go take care of it before the tasks pile up too much." Maomao conveniently ignored the fact that she hardly did any work herself.
Jinshi blinked, and for a second he looked pained, but then a thoughtseemed to occur to him. A nasty, mischievous grin came across his face. "Oh, I'm working quite diligently," he said.
"In what way, sir?"
Jinshi stroked his chin thoughtfully. "One of the legal proposals that came across my desk suggested that in order to keep young people from drowning themselves in drink, there should be an age limit on the drinking of wine."
Maomao looked at him, openmouthed.
"Tt recommended drinking be forbidden before twenty-one years of age." His grin got even nastier.
"Master Jinshi, I beseech you not to pass such a law."
"I'm afraid it's not up to me alone," he said, his smile like a blossoming flower as he observed the misery on Maomao's face.
Her lip curled down. She did the only thing she could do, and looked at him like an overturned beetle