Chapter Text
From the high terrace overlooking the grand courtyard, Lakan adjusted his single monocle against the weak winter sun. To his eyes, the world was a dull, shifting mosaic of nameless chess pieces—unremarkable shapes moving across the grid of the Rear Palace.
Then, his gaze drifted to the Jade Pavilion’s tables.
A girl stood there, adjusting a lacquered tray. The moment Lakan’s eyes landed on her, the blurry abstraction snapped into agonizingly sharp, vivid clarity. It was a face he knew down to the bone.
My daughter.
A sudden, fierce joy flared in his chest, instantly swallowed by a cold, possessive calculation. What is she doing inside this wretched hornets' nest?
Lakan reached into his wide sleeve, his fingers brushing against a long, heavy wooden hairpin he had brought with him. He gestured to a low-ranking official standing nearby. "Take this," Lakan murmured, his tone dropping to a dangerous purr. "Find the maid serving the Jade Pavilion—the one near the front tables—and deliver it to her."
As the official bowed and hurried off, Lakan’s eyes narrowed, locking onto the crown of Maomao's head. Resting prominently in her hair was a heavy, gleaming silver pin. He recognized the manager's personal seal instantly. A slow, grim smile crept onto Lakan's face. So, Jinshi is playing keeper. He turned on his heel, his heavy silk robes swirling. It was time to go have a very long, very specific conversation with the palace manager.
○●○
Down in the courtyard, Maomao was already thoroughly vexed by the weight in her hair. Jinshi had practically forced his silver hairpin back into her locks this morning, and the sharp, venomous side-eyes from the passing court ladies were exhausting. To them, a maid wearing the personal token of the palace manager was an open declaration of war.
But it wasn't the only token she bore. Around her neck sat a fine, precious ornament from Consort Gyokuyou, and tucked firmly into her hair was the elegant hairpin from Consort Lihua—a silent reward for saving the lady's life after the lead-powder tragedy.
As Maomao navigated the paths between the pavilions, she crossed paths with Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting. The moment those haughty women caught sight of Maomao's clean, unfreckled face and realized who she was, they squeaked in sheer terror, instantly scattering like mice before a hawk. They remembered all too well how this blunt little apothecary had locked them in a room, scolded them, and forced them to work to save their mistress. Seeing her now, decked out in high-status tokens, they didn't dare breathe in her direction.
"Young lady? What in the world are you doing here?"
Maomao paused, turning to see Lihaku, the broad-shouldered military officer. He was a regular at the Verdigris House and hopelessly head-over-heels for her older sister-figure, Pairin.
"It is a long, tiresome story, Officer Lihaku," Maomao said dryly.
Lihaku laughed, scratching the back of his neck. He had been handing out generic wooden pins to various maids all morning, but he quickly pulled a much finer, carved piece from his belt. "Well, take this one then. And..." He leaned in, his jovial face turning discreet as he slipped a second, specific wooden token into her palm. "Give this to the princess of the Verdigris House next time you visit the city. Tell Pairin it’s from me."
Maomao tucked the token safely into her sleeve and slid Lihaku's official hairpin into her hair alongside the others, her scalp feeling heavier by the minute.
The silver bells chimed across the courtyard, signaling the start of the food tasting.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the grand gathering as the kitchen servants carried out the first course. At the tables of the high consorts, the food tasters stepped forward. Maomao knelt before Consort Gyokuyou's steaming bowl of soup.
The moment the rich aroma hit her nose, Maomao’s flat, pragmatic expression completely vanished. Her eyes lit up with a dark, intense hunger. Her pale face practically beamed with pure, unadulterated ecstasy at the mere prospect of encountering a lethal toxin. She brought the porcelain spoon to her lips, inhaling the soup with a manic, blissful smile that bordered on the deranged.
The surrounding imperial guards and random soldiers stared at her, completely spellbound.
"Is the banquet food really that delicious?" a soldier whispered in awe.
"Look at her... she looks absolutely beautiful," another murmured, completely misinterpreting her morbid obsession for pure, fearless grace under pressure.
Maomao swallowed the broth, smacked her lips, and her smile instantly vanished into a look of deep, profound disappointment. "Gyokuyou's dish is safe," she muttered, thoroughly unhappy that it was just regular, healthy broth.
But as she stood up, her sharp ears caught a low, nasty whispering coming from the neighboring pavilion belonging to the young, delicate Virtuous Consort, Lishu. Maomao had heard rumors through the palace gossip lines that the young consort had a severe, agonizing allergy to certain types of seafood. Looking over, she saw Lishu's senior maids giggling cruelly behind their silk sleeves, deliberately pushing a plate of braised fish directly toward their trembling mistress.
To the untrained eye, it looked like a cruel, petty prank by malicious maids trying to make the young girl violently ill.
Maomao’s eyes narrowed as she caught the scent drifting from Lishu's table on the winter wind. Wait.
It wasn't just the smell of fish. Beneath the heavy seasoning, her sharp nose picked up a very specific, faint, metallic tang—the distinct, sour-ash chemical residue of sulfur and rice vinegar sediment. The exact same scent she had sniffed on the guards' firewood last night.
Someone else—someone far more dangerous—had intercepted the kitchen supply line. They were using the maids' known history of bullying Lishu as a perfect cover story. If Lishu died today, the court would blame the maids' thoughtless prank, while the real assassin walked away entirely undetected, leaving behind the signature scent of the city's contraband lead ring. There are too many things which happened to be revolve around same thing. Too many coincidence can't happen together.This is not her assumptions anymore.
The plates hadn't been swapped by accident. The guards' illness, the firewood, and this fish plate were all interconnected threads of the same dark web.
Maomao didn't hesitate. Breaking all court protocol, she stepped out of the Jade Pavilion's bounds and walked straight toward the trembling Consort Lishu.
"Step aside," Maomao said bluntly to the stunned, giggling maids, her voice cutting through the noise like a dull blade as she reached directly for Lishu's plate. "I am checking this one next.