Chapter Text
To tell the truth, I should have never accepted that invitation in the first place, and yet, I can’t help but feel that there was nowhere else we were supposed to be.
*
Maomao stands up.
Taking big, deliberate steps around the banquet table, she approaches the center of attention. She can now sense Jinshi’s gaze rapidly fixing upon her. She doesn’t turn: she knows it would only be detrimental. And now, before he takes action, she is going to. After all, this is her dream, and she’s now just stepping into it.
“Isn’t that Grand Commandant Kan’s daughter?”
Well, not that part.
But then again, it is what it is. That wasn’t her choice. This one, instead, is.
“Allow me to offer myself in his stead,” she says.
Before another word can be spoken, she leans in, her arms extended, and reaches for the chalice.
*
A few days earlier.
“… And that is why the rock formation is called the Bound Peaks.”
“Oh, I see,” Maomao says, visibly distracted by what presses close beside her, a vastness of leafy stalks of the liquorice plant, almost ready for the harvest. The monk who’s giving the tour can’t complain that she won’t hear a word of what he says about local history: indeed, in the distance, she can see the hard grey rocky outcrop emerging from patches of mist, but why ask the name of rocks, when she can hardly wait to name all the species they cultivate at the monastery, in their beautiful terraced gardens?
“You are having a great time, aren’t you, Miss Maomao?” Chue, who’s walking next to her, whispers. “Such a pity the Moon Prince cannot see you like that!”
“Sure, sure,” Maomao replies, trying to stop Chue before she can even begin with one of her oh-so-not-subtle comments about feelings.
Truth to be told, she feels a bit sorry for Jinshi, who, as usual given his position, is mostly confined to his chambers or forced into boring meetings with the high-ranked monks, the master of rites or whatever, Basen on the guard at his side, while she’s enjoying the refreshing early-autumn breeze outside, left to wander somewhat freely with Chue. Yet, she knows very well that if she’s been asked to join the party for a diplomatic visit of the Imperial Brother (diplomatic? Technically, she should say “religious;” in practice, surely political), there is nothing to be thrilled about, and the tour of the majestic gardens is, quite simply, a gracious indulgence.
Yet there is no way she’s wasting the opportunity, and since neither of the Ma siblings is here to glare at her for her impudence, while lulled by the sweet earthy scent of the liquorice plant, she takes her time to ask all sorts of questions about the challenges of cultivating so many different officinal herbs at a low-to-middle elevation in the mountains.
“But we have to make it work. There is nothing we use in our preparations that is not cultivated by us or foraged in the mountains. It’s an ancient tradition of our monastery,” another monk, far more attuned to Maomao’s thinking, says.
Indeed, a very interesting tradition, if limited. But often, constraints are what prompt curiosity and invention. The two virtues represented by the Bound Peaks, she’s sure.
They’re a small party, not counting the soldiers following Basen’s orders. Due to reasons unknown to her, Lady Suiren was not tasked with accompanying Jinshi to the secluded monastery, so the general role of lady-in-waiting fell on Maamei.
Maomao, of course, is asked to taste the food for poison.
Or at least, that is what she thought she would do.
“What do you mean, there will be no poison-tasting at the banquet?” Maomao asks Jinshi, rather squarely, as they are having dinner in his chambers (this, after the proper trials).
The problem with not having Suiren around is that Basen is always somewhere around, and at this direct question, he shoots a very hard look at Maomao. There, Jinshi waves his hand at him, his movements lazy, and Maamei rushes to give Basen something to do to send him away.
No matter, he will be back in a few minutes to judge, Maomao thinks, not particularly surprised or offended.
She wants her answer, however.
“There wasn’t much time to discuss details before leaving,” Jinshi says. (What else is new?) “But this monastery has a very distinct position in the nation’s history: from the early years of imperial power, the emperors started coming here to get this monastery’s blessing, a spiritual affirmation of legitimacy—yes, do not give me that look, Maomao. It was, of course, not my choice.”
And here, he begins to sulk. Something about the death of the previous Master of Rites prompting his successor to invite the Emperor to visit once again to renew their friendship during the seasonal Bonding Rites—and the Emperor sending his brother here, because, of course, busy times and all. And the Master of Rites liked the idea, and likes it now: he’s all over Jinshi, complimenting his “great potential.” The monks as a whole welcomed the Imperial Brother with open arms, after all.
Why would anyone be surprised to see them swoon for him, after all?, Maomao thinks, her eyes fixed upon his long, dark eyelashes. A heavenly beauty, he is still.
She sighs.
“Long story short, doubting the safety of food here would be taken as a big offense,” she concludes, just in time for Basen to come back, much to Maamei’s annoyance.
“We trust the monks,” he says dryly, “it would all be fine if it were just them.”
He’s talking about the other reason they’re here: a confidential meeting with a delegation of officials from one of the Southern regions, a region with a long history of commerce with the secluded monastery. When they learned of the Imperial visit, they pushed to be allowed to join, to celebrate the Bonding Rites together. They arrived bringing all sorts of expensive gifts in embossed silk: embroidery, woven fans, perfumed sachets of special citrus peel, and then even more citrus (dried), candied lotus roots, candied starfruit. Maomao doesn’t care much for sweets, but she sure would like to have some of that citrus for medicinal preparation. Yet, caution is always advised.
“The monks tasted all the food, that’s not the problem,” Basens says. (So can I have the special citrus? Maomao asks herself.) “The location of the Rites takes place at a temple higher in the mountain—difficult to access, and where accidents could happen very easily.”
He’s been busy with Jinshi and his soldiers for days to prepare for the worst.
“We’ll hear what they want to say,” Jinshi says, “if the information they want to give us about the compromised officials is good, having the Rites as a cover would be the only way to go.”
He sighs heavily, once, and when that prompts no reaction in Maomao, twice.
“May I ask what’s bothering you, Master Jinshi?” she says, suspecting he’s about to share with her the inconvenient part of that trip.
“Before worrying about the Rites, I’m more worried about the Trial.”
“The trial? As in a trial for a crime?”
He shakes his head, but he averts his eyes as if he’s the one accused of said crime. Maomao sees Maamei discreetly drag Basen outside.
Returning her attention to Jinshi, she sees he’s looking her in the eye. “You haven’t listened to anything the monks told you about the religious tradition of the monastery, haven’t you?”
Maomao tries to recall something about the talk of the emperors visiting the monastery, but well, it was boring.
“… Sir?”
“A preparation to the Rites consists in having a member of the Imperial family partake in a sacred esoteric mystery—one that would grant vision beyond the veil of reality, should the candidate prove worthy. It is done the day before the Rites; there, the person will be offered—”
But Jinshi has to stop, because Maomao, her lack of shame obvious, has pinned Jinshi’s arms to the table as she leans in until their faces are inches apart.
She cannot contain herself from smiling excitedly.
“They’re going to give you HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS!?”
The enthusiasm comes down as quickly as it rose when Maomao learns that, yes, Jinshi will be offered a sacred ceremonial drink that will give him visions, but he won’t be able to share, for the “Trial” is for him and him alone. While volunteers taking part in the Trial instead of the Imperial princes were also a possibility, it was reserved for those too sickly to withstand the Trial—that, or other extraordinary circumstances. But Jinshi is no sickly prince anymore. In short, no: Maomao can’t have the drink, no matter how much she pleads.
In another situation, having won the upper hand, he would tease her to no end, but Jinshi is just looking around the room, his gaze slightly lost.
She gets it now.
“You want me to gather information about this drug so that I can ensure your safety as you go through it.”
He closes his eyes briefly. When he reopens them, meeting Maomao’s gaze once again, a certain uneasiness in his look, he nods.
“It will be done, sir.”
That flinching of his at the thought of losing control, she finds it endearing, even enticing.
In the next few days, Maomao pays more attention to what the monks tell her, trying to discern the mystical fluff from the proper facts about the effect of the medicine, the “Sacred Offering to the Bound Peaks”, or whatever it is called. She also sends Chue to investigate the terrace gardens they haven’t been shown: if the monks are growing mind-altering plants, they must keep them well-guarded from casual visitors, Imperial party included. She knows that she cannot ask direct questions, but as the Rites are a point of great pride for the monastery, just as much is their production of herbs and medicine, it’s inevitable that some monks, especially the younger ones, would spill some real information as they praise their ways and try to make her embrace the “spirit” of the coming days.
Maomao is also surprisingly welcome in some parts of their apothecary workroom, a tolerance for women that they explain as being part of their tradition, for “We’re here because of the teachings of the Maiden,” but Maomao assume it’s mostly a courtesy given to her as a result of something Jinshi asked.
Yet, its value is immeasurable, and no, it’s not just because she can watch medicine being made all day and talk about medicine all day. Absolutely not. The truth is that no matter how much you compartmentalize your work, there is no such neat distinction between remedy and poison, and the desiccation room is the same for every ingredient. Maomao learns a lot from this.
“The sickly princes who could not withstand the Trial themselves, do you know if they suffered from heart conditions?” she asks Jinshi one evening.
“This is what it’s said,” Jinshi replies.
“I knew it!”
She proceeds to tell him about the desiccation of the skin of certain animals found in ponds, which is later ground into a fine powder.
“For example, there is this incredibly poisonous toad; in late summer, they show up in volumes for reproductive reasons, they’re easy to catch, they’re rather large…”
“Are you trying to tease me, Maomao?”
“I would not dare, Master Jinshi! I’m just pretty confident that in a few days, that fine toad powder is going in your sacred drink…”
She’s serious, she is! It has a variety of uses in medicine, anti-inflammatory among many, but it will be used to fortify the base of visions, too. Yet, seeing Jinshi’s expression a mix of disgust and contrariness, she can’t help but grin, a hand reaching for his, her fingers playfully pressing his soft skin between the knuckles.
Careful, still rather contraried, he withdraws his hand, but then, his expression still tense, but in a different way, his jaw clenched, he leans toward her across the table.
A by-effect of the ever-unpredictable presence of Basen, these days, the reason Jinshi would reject Maamei’s suggestions of talking with him “about preferences in privacy”, could be that in that very constrained time they can be alone, knowing it would not be enough for them to turn improper, he could allow himself a kiss with her, or maybe two. But he’s far too aware—of himself, of his status, of his lack of restraint, she doesn’t know—the fact is, he just doesn’t do it. Again, he pulls back, his face a mix of frustration and annoyance.
All of this agitation just for talking about toad skin? Geez.
She gets her breakthrough the day before the ceremonial banquet—the day of the Trial. A young monk is describing to her and Chue the procedures they follow after the late autumn harvest, when he’s interrupted by another brother. “What are you doing here? There’s water to fetch, you should be there!”
“I thought the problem with the well pulley—”
“It hasn’t been solved, we’ll get the water from the river for the cooking; there’s no more time to burn the woods, anyway,” the other brother says. Then, realizing he spoke carelessly, he addresses Maomao and Chue. “The water is clean and fresh, we assure it’s going to be perfectly good.”
Maomao nods politely. That is not relevant. The important thing is that now that the monks have run somewhere else, they’ve been left alone.
“It is our chance, Miss Maomao—to get lost!”
Maomao chuckles and follows Chue down a narrow path of uneven stone steps. They turn a corner, and then another, until they reach a solitary sun-drenched terrace of motherwort. Then, turn another corner; a small patch, isolated beds to keep it separated from other cultures. Of course, Maomao thinks, of course they would grow it here. A smell both acrid and sweet accompanies the sight of forked stems, large leaves with wavy edges, withering trumpet flowers, and most of all, the seed pods enveloped in sharp green spines. Thornapple.
*
She reports the news to Jinshi, who is not at all reassured by it.
Well, I don’t blame him, Maomao thinks, it’s not an ingredient list to improvise with. As much as she would have liked to secretly harvest some of those seed pods, she knows she doesn’t have the time to experiment, or rather, not enough time to come to a conclusion. After all, all that she knows is still nothing more than conjecture.
They’re sitting around the table in his room, as usual.
“From what I gathered, sir, I think I understand what ingredients will go in the drink, roughly. It’s not a lethal mixture…”
“Continue.”
“… As long as it’s taken in moderation.”
“In moderation!”
“Most medicine can be poison in the same way, Master Jinshi, as does food, and water,” she explains. “The monks have prepared and administered this drink for a long time.”
“I get it,” he says, and he averts his eyes. “I just don’t know if it would be wise to go through with it.”
Always so keen on the risk of losing control lately.
“You said yourself you cannot avoid the Trial, Master Jinshi.”
“You’re telling the Moon Prince he should risk his life!”
Geez, how daft can you be, Basen? I said the exact opposite.
Maomao sighs and continues to address Jinshi:
“When you’re offered the chalice and you bring it to your mouth, just wet your lips with the liquid. That way, you will only get some mild, bizarre dreams. You will feel them very vividly because the toad skin powder will heat your body, but that will be it, and once you embellish what you’ve seen, it will be enough for both you and them.”
Imagine having a potent hallucinogenic decoction in front of you, and only allowing yourself a lick of it. Imagine having to tell somebody to do such a thing, instead of, please dip in! Indulge! Maomao wants to laugh at herself. “Only wet your lips,” sure. Well, at least he’s a master in that art.
“Just mildly bizarre dreams,” Jinshi repeats.
“Indeed, sir.”
“It’s the same thing the Emperor told me.”
He doesn’t seem convinced yet, but it’s a consolation to him, for sure. And why have her investigate, if the Emperor already told him how to behave?
It’s late; she asks to take her leave, which is promptly granted to her.
As she stands up, he too follows, approaching her, and then taking a small step back. Yet, standing in front of him, she can feel the heat coming from his body, from his arm lazily lingering close to her side.
“… Sir?” she asks, anticipating his request.
“After I have the drink, after the banquet… will you stay by my side, Maomao?”
Basen is about to say something about a planned schedule, but Chue, appearing out of nowhere, drags him out of the room (“Dear brother-in-law! I really need your help!”)
It wasn’t even needed. It’s such a silly question. She steps forward.
“Of course, Master Jinshi,” she says. “From the drug intake until the effects wear off.”
Who has he taken her for? Even if she can’t have the drink herself, there’s no way she would miss the opportunity to study its effects. Not that she expects anything too dramatic. It’ll be fine.
Her response, however simple, seems to finally reassure him.
“Then, goodnight, Maomao,” he says, smiling softly.
Really, he is endearing. “Goodnight, Master Jinshi,” she replies.
As she turns to leave the room, she’s almost surprised to find her hand still holding his, squeezing it gently.
*
The banquet is served on a large round communal table, a rare case in which placement cannot reflect the hierarchical position of those present. Still, next to Jinshi is the very excited Master of Rites, and on the other side, the old Abbot, his severe expression already a clear judgment on his brother’s tenure and treatment of the guests while he was in solitary practice. The members of the delegation are placed on the other side of the table, themselves too, like the Master of Rites, a spectrum of states of quivering, restrained anticipation. Jinshi’s face, however, wears his usual pleasant smile.
Hopefully, he managed to quell his agitation.
Maomao is annoyed because she’s also being seated, and from that height she can’t have a full overview of the table nor communicate with Jinshi without being seen, but only confer with Chue, who’s standing right behind her, and send signals to Basen. Yet, it will be difficult. The Abbot caught her eyes wandering around too much already, and he’s staring at her with the same force the old madam of the Verdigris House can muster when she isn’t free to just take her and throw her out with a kick.
Why the heck did anyone think it was a good idea to have her here as a guest?
Still. Focus. The novices are uncovering the banquet food, simple, humble dishes elevated by their local carefully grown ingredients, as well as the exotic gifts brought in by the delegation. Her mouth is already watering at the tangy scent of the special citrus peel used for the tea, but she has to FOCUS.
The ceremony is about to start. A monk is walking in their direction carrying an ornate chalice in both hands. That should be the hallucinogenic drug. Dammit, she didn’t expect the vessel to be such a relic, its border dented in silver loops—and so massive in size! As the monk presents it to the table and to Jinshi, she realizes it’s also filled to the brim. All of this for a sip…? Two other monks follow, bringing a small plate and a ladle. The Master of Rites stands to take them.
Of course, they would serve him a proper dose on a plate. He won’t have the option to choose how much to sip.
She’s already having flashes of how much he will whine later, and through hallucinations, of all things!
She has to think of a way to alleviate the effects, but how? There, as she thinks, her gaze falls on the desserts. The monks had taken in the gifted candied starfruit and prepared a sweet jelly with it, chopping it to bits instead of using its puree. A few whole pieces top the jelly. They’re outrageously yellow, just as she remembers the fruit as it was presented days before.
The Master of Rites is starting with his speech. “Dear Honored Friends and Brothers, we are here to renew our tie with the mountains…”
The jelly is perfectly transparent, and that bothers Maomao. It’s supposed to be a little cloudy with the color of the fruit, she thinks. They must have used something different.
She then remembers those monks talking in front of her and Chue. Right. That must be it.
It still boggles her, however. As the Master of Rites continues with his boring speech, she squints to see better. She also must have propped herself up a bit on the table, because Basen is glaring at her. She doesn’t care. She turns to Chue, but her attendant is of a quick mind, as is already at work, talking to the attendants next to her. Soon, she’s back, bending to whisper in Maomao’s ear, “They say they never had it before, but that it should taste something like apple.”
She guessed right. She turns to the jelly again. This time, the Abbot takes notice too (the speech really is boring), but Maomao again doesn’t care. Is this a trick of her mind? No, she sees it. Under the outrageously yellow pieces, another tint is seeping through the jelly in a feeble filament. Green.
“And as you pass through the doors of perceptions, Moon Prince, may you get a glimpse of the Veiled Maiden of the Bound Peaks.”
The speech is finished. The Trial is about to start. There’s no more time.
Maomao stands up.
Taking big, deliberate steps around the banquet table, she approaches the center of attention. She can now sense Jinshi’s gaze rapidly fixing upon her. She doesn’t turn: she knows it would only be detrimental. And now, before he takes action, she is going to. After all, this is her dream, and she’s now just stepping into it.
“Isn’t that Grand Commandant Kan’s daughter?”
Well, not that part.
But then again, it is what it is. That wasn’t her choice. This one, instead, is.
“Allow me to offer myself in his stead,” she says.
Before another word can be spoken, she leans in, her arms extended, and reaches for the chalice.
The chalice itself is bizarrely unbalanced, the cup much lighter than the base; Maomao must shift her weight to lift it and bring it to her mouth without spilling it. Tilting the chalice to drink from it is likewise difficult, but accepting she will not be very precise, she gets to it and begins to gulp it down, until only barely a sip of it remains in the cup. She feels the liquid burn as it travels down her throat, but maybe it’s just her idea of it.
She lowers her gaze and looks around. Jinshi is still sitting, but she can tell he’s eager to stand up and reach for her.
She won’t let him. She has something else to do first. The Abbot seems very bothered, while the Master of Rites looks deeply disappointed. Some of the other monks are also looking at her, horrified. The attendant with the ladle, however, seems taken with a more rapturous emotion. It must be a special moment, just not for her: her fingertips are tingling; her arms hurt.
She’s tempted to turn around to face the southern delegation, but desists. Everything is red.
Yet, slowly, she takes a few steps back, the monks sitting next to her place now standing up, as well (maybe, too much of a commotion, already), and finally, she places the chalice back on the table, to her side. Then, she bows in the direction of Jinshi and says, “I pray that the Moon Prince be granted a visit from the Veiled Maiden of the Bound Peaks.”
Is she really saying it? She feels her lips opening and stretching in contortion, and only a dull sound enveloping her ears. Is she slurring her speech? It doesn’t matter. Another small step backward, a little to the side, and that is it. Her hip hits the cup as violently as she can hide, and the chalice falls on the table, spilling the last of the ceremonial drink right on top of the starfruit jelly.
She turns and tries her best to look surprised at the accident. “Oops!” she says. Luckily, she learned how to play drunk very well back when she lived in the pleasure district, but to be perfectly honest, she could have also taken to the art of juggling. Her aim was perfect. Her vision begins to blur, but she can see it—the jelly starting to curdle, more green tint coming out.
Not many notice—her silly behaviour is still at the center of attention for many—but enough people do. Among those, the Abbot, who stands up, calls his attendants and says, “Remove the dishes. Seal them away.”
She sighs in relief—he may have the same instincts as the old madam towards her, but indeed, he’s more reliable than the Master of Rites, who’s crying the loss of the visit from his Veiled Maiden.
“Honored Abbot, we do not understand…” one of the members of the delegation begins to say. She cannot follow the rest. That should be enough.
She turns to Jinshi, his eyes wide open, and to Basen. She nods. She sees that Basen understood. Despite her hearing being defective, it’s good that she can still see. The effects of the drug are quite rapid, far more than she’d imagined. But of course, she hadn’t considered the effects under this dosage.
Now, she only needs to vomit it all up. As much as she doesn’t want to, she has to bring the scene to its conclusion. Let the culprits come out on their own.
If her knees would respond to her, she could crouch down. It feels vertiginous up here. Although having turned around, she still sees the jelly with the starfruit in front of her. Did it change place? Did it move? It doesn’t matter. She’s trembling, or at least she thinks she is. She only has to make her way out, take out her emetics, and then, and then…
… And then she hears a thud, and darkness laces in pink, and she knows that her calculations about the onset of the drug were all wrong, and she loses her senses.
Oh, that’s it, then.
*
It’s not.
She opens her eyes and she’s looking at a wall; no, it’s the floor, at a distance. A floor she doesn’t recognize. Something is keeping them apart, as it is pushing through her lips and her mouth.
“Maomao!”
It sounds like miles away, buried by the rapturous beating of her heart, but it’s Jinshi’s voice. She realizes his arm is supporting her at the stomach, and his fingers are now pushing down her tongue right at the beginning of her throat.
“Get it all out of you, now!”
What a rough way to violate her. Not even good technique.
“Urgh.”
Barely, barely, just because he insists.
“All of it, Maomao.”
For what she can hear, he’s desperate.
What is he doing, anyway? Where are they? He should be taking advantage of the commotion she created and getting away from the monastery right now. Yet, they are unmoving. She feebly reaches for her mouth, his hand, rasping. He understands and frees her mouth. She takes a breath—it’s bad. She can turn her head. Her vision is blurry, or is it just obfuscated? It looks like the walls are so close.
“Maomao—”
She can’t see him. He’s miles away, isn’t he?
“Leave it,” she manages to say. “You go, Jin—”
He mustn’t hear her, for he shoves his fingers down her throat again.
The saliva is accumulating in her mouth, but nothing comes out. Her muscles do not respond. That’s why he should—
“Maomao!”
Ugh. He won’t, will he?
Her hands reach for her heart. It’s there, and it’s still beating uncontrollably. A tap or two shouldn’t make a difference. She can’t do much more.
But he gets it, he takes the sachet out of her shirt. She nods.
She can only feed the crunchy aroma of mustard seed in her throat, then, and then a violent spasm, and another, and her stomach flips and expels the dark, murky liquid down the floor.
Again, and again.
It’s like it’s never-ending. Is it still the drink? Or are those just gastric juices?
She doesn’t feel her lips, her mouth, her face anymore. Her heart is exploding in her chest. She feels all her limbs trembling again.
And then, more light, and she’s blindsided. She thinks it’s another effect of the poison at first, but she feels Jinshi moving, dragging her away from where the light is. Then more darkness, a shadow over them.
“You—”
“Sorry to say, there’s no escaping this feast, you traitor!”
She can’t see and can’t move. She only feels her body being moved from one place to the other, as Jinshi’s arm is still firmly around her waist. Then the movement stops, and Jinshi’s body contracts and bends in pain.
“Ji—”
She can’t talk. She can’t move.
She can’t do anything, and her eyes are burning, and they’re burning her face in streams of fire.
So she can cry, as a last resort. How impressive.
But she hasn’t been let go of yet. For a moment, it looks like it, but she’s only being moved to a different arrangement. Another arm? And there the movement recommences, and then there’s a scream, and then she hears Jinshi’s command, “Basen.”
She loses clarity again as she can feel the air thrashing against her skin, her long dress, and the nausea is supreme, and is the only thing she can feel other than the viscous texture of blood running down her face.
*
Her vision is blurry, but it seems that her hearing still works alright. When Jinshi starts slowing down, she can hear the sound of running water. She remembers the systems of channels the monks use to irrigate their field—they must have gotten to the nearest water source.
“We’ll stop here for the moment,” Jinshi says. “We have a place secured, but it’s close to the shrine for the Rites, on the other side of the mountain, and it will take an hour or so to get there.” He pauses. “Maomao? Are you with me?”
Maomao squints her eyes, but she can only see fragmented lights in yellow and green around her, and the moving dark mass surrounding her—Jinshi’s blue garments. She shakes her head; looking around again, the green and yellow fragments only seem closer, and the sound of water is much feebler than what she heard—or imagined hearing—previously. They must be in a rather enclosed glade, on the banks of a small creek.
Jinshi lays her down in a sitting position and keeps supporting her shoulders so that she can find somewhere to hold to keep upright.
She can see the water shining next to her, but can’t move—the escape was tumultuous enough to mess up her balance, but this is not it. It’s like her body isn’t hers, and yet she can feel it stinging. It must be the inflammation from the dried toad skin ingredient. She’s getting a fever.
She sees Jinshi kneeling on the bank. He’s washing his hands and face. Then, he submerges his hands in the shining flow once more. As he moves his arms, she can hear him hissing in pain. He was wounded. Yet, he turns to her with his hands cupped to hold the water and bring it to her mouth. “You should… drink?”
She does her best, sucking up a bit of water before closing her mouth again.
Come on, you can still perform basic movements.
Slowly, she swishes the water around her mouth. Then, she raises her arm, turns away from Jinshi, and spits.
“No drink,” she manages to say.
The contact of her mouth with water is enough to make her want to vomit again. Whatever anti-emetic agent they used in the drink, she must have expelled it all when she first did.
“More?”
His offer lingers, as if it hasn’t been troubling enough to drink from his hands. She doesn’t know how to respond. Beyond the thick layer of blurriness, she is starting to see his face—so close—with his pursed lips and the light of his eyes. Then, his hands get closer again, and this time, he uses one to hold the water, and the other to pass it on her face. He hisses again, but his touch is gentle. She feels her hair sticking to her forehead and her cheeks, some even glued and dried to them. That must be the blood.
The blood.
She blinks twice and takes the deepest breath she can. When she opens her eyes again, she can see him—him, with his expression a mix of pain and sadness? Anxiety?— and the large bloodstain on his right shoulder.
“Treat wound,” she says, her voice way more colored in panic than it should have.
“Wait, Maomao, calm down! Your poisoning—”
“No time.”
“You’re not in the position to care for anybody else!”
He doesn’t understand. Well, it doesn’t matter. Fortunately, she came prepared. Putting a hand in her jacket, she fishes out the wrapped cloth in which she brought her medicine and basic tools. The bandages she brought are barely enough to cover the wound, let alone secure it, but that won’t be a problem.
After laying down her instruments, she looks straight at him and says:
“Infection dangerous. Takes priority. Poison needs to wait it out.”
Only then does he seem convinced—if pained at that.
“Okay.”
“Can you strip?”
“Um.”
There might be some movements to disrobe that he cannot make. That’s normal; she doesn’t even know how he managed to carry her here in his arms.
“Can’t see very well. Do not mean disrespect,” she says, leaning towards him.
She wishes she could speak better, but that’s not the main focus here. Her hands trembling and barely coordinated, she helps him get out of his jacket and shirt.
“Wash?”
“Yes, I get it,” he says. This he can do, although not without suffering. Leaning on the bank, he washes his wound, trying to suppress the gasps of pain piercing him.
“Blade, was it?”
“Yes, it was a dagger.”
Good, she wouldn’t be able to operate the extraction of an arrow point at the moment.
“Not flying.”
“No, hand combat.”
He could not avoid it, but at least he managed to get hit in a non-lethal point, and all of this while he was holding her to make her expunge the ceremonial drink.
Unlikely to be poisoned, but given the arrogance of the southern delegation, she cannot outright exclude the possibility.
“Does it feel numb? Tingle?”
Jinshi shakes his head.
“Pain anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Blurred vision at any point?”
She feels her disjointed speech is getting a little better as she asks him the routine questions about poisoning. Fortunately, it seems it really is just a stab wound.
This can be dealt with. She takes out a small bottle of alcohol and proceeds to disinfect it. There, Jinshi cries in pain again, but there’s not much she can do at this point—she knows she’s not being precise or delicate.
After, she takes out the bandages and starts to cover the wound with them. However, she has to restart the wrapping three times because she can’t get it right, which is ridiculous. Her fingers are now trembling.
Jinshi’s other hand covers hers.
“Let me—I’ll keep the bandage in place for you.”
She looks up. His expression is serious, but also rather serene, all things considered. She takes a breath.
After fixing the bandages over the wound, she tells him they would need another layer to keep it tighter and more secure. She doesn’t have more bandages, but if she can rip her underskirt...
“Not great, but it’s just for the outside.”
He volunteers his clothes instead, and she has to stop him there. The underskirt works better for the purpose, and so she moves to take it off.
In the end, he has to help her with that. She can see he has a problem with it, but again, she cannot relieve him of his unease. You had your chance at training for it, she thinks. You decided to skip it. She sighs.
The rest is rather uneventful. If it wasn’t for the colored shapes she starts to see in the surroundings—first freezing thinking it’s the enemy, then realizing she’s just seeing them in her head, and no, no matter the agility, a soldier cannot look like a twining wine—she finishes her job rather quickly, all things considered, and she can almost say she’s proud of herself.
She takes a breath. She remembers she packed some activated charcoal in her medicine wrap. By now, it must be late already, but it is still worth a try. She takes the fine powder out, mixes it in one of her hands with some water.
“What is that?” Jinshi asks.
“Charcoal—it absorbs poisons. I should try to get some to see if it helps.”
He seems alarmed.
“Why didn’t you say you had it before?”
Maomao sighs. Didn’t he hear the first time she said it? She doesn’t have the energy to repeat. The risk of infection takes priority. The risk of him getting an infection, especially.
Half-satisfied with the makeshift mixture, she brings her hand to her mouth and forces herself to swallow it down, keeping her head high and hand over her mouth to avoid spitting it out.
Long moments pass after this. The courtesans of the Verdigris House dance along the bank, their shawls following the current. They jump on the rocks that split the water flow in two, in four, they laugh at their own mistakes, and they reach the other side.
They turn to her. “And you, Maomao?”
But Maomao can’t dance this gracefully, especially now. She feels her fingers numb from all the work, and her head is aching so much, so much.
It somewhat makes her snap out of it.
“As for me, Master Jinshi,” she says, turning to him, “I’m getting a fever. It is expected. I may not respond to situations normally now. This is also expected. Since I don’t know the real dosages of thornapple and toad powder, however, nor what I actually ingested in the end, I’d—”
Is she being too direct?
“What? What should I do? Ask right away.”
“I should not fall asleep or become unconscious until the fever breaks. Please.”
Then, feeling a lot better (in feeling, overall, very bad), she gets some clear water in her hands and slowly gulps it down.
Almost immediately, she’s hit by a strong wave of nausea, and right after, she vomits it all.
*
“Dad?” Maomao calls. She’s sure he’d be home preparing medicine by now. The old lady expects them by tomorrow, and Maomao—where has Maomao been? Why hasn’t she helped with it?
Their shed is empty and cold. “Dad? DAD?”
Her voice becomes panicky, and she doesn’t like it. He must be in the fields, for sure. Where are the herbs? She’ll start on the work, and he’ll be home in no time.
Except she cannot wait. She rummages around one corner—where is her basket? She’ll go help him. He’s too frail to tend to the fields all alone, anyway. She should help him.
And here is the basket. She swings it onto her shoulders and heads towards the door. “Dad?! Wait for me, I’m coming!” she yells.
However, something stops her at the door. She tries to free herself to no avail: her shoulders have been blocked. The obstacle is invisible and unpassable.
Is she allowed some panic now?
“... Dad?! DAD?”
Where are you, Dad?
“Maomao?!”
It is not her father’s voice.
She raises her head and with it, her eyes.
“… Master Jinshi?”
It all comes back to her, but even knowing what it is doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
Jinshi made her sit on the sleeping mat and covered her with a fur pelt. She realizes she’s trembling. Her mouth is still horribly dry.
“Master Jinshi—”
He kneels next to her and eases a cup with water into her hand.
“Drink,” he tells her. Elbow resting on his thigh, he runs a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have left you here alone.”
She looks around. They’re in a shed, alright, but very different from the one she spent her childhood in. Not much smaller, but built against unconventional angles—probably due to being built against the wall of the mountain. Unlike her and her father’s shed, also, this contains somewhat rougher tools for daily life, and then, a few additional, very fine objects—three scrolls filled with scriptures in elegant calligraphy hanging on the wall, an ornate bronze incense burner, a likewise bronze hand bell, and a big lacquered chest with an elaborate handle at its center, right next to where they’re sitting.
A place for solitary monastic contemplation, with some valuable antiques, all things considered.
“Maomao? Are you… lost again?”
His voice right now sounds rough but clear.
Right. While they were on the way here, she told him she would be experiencing full hallucinations while waiting for the poison to wear off. She also had some in that hour—she thinks of it as a day and a half—holding onto him as he carried her on his back (despite his wound!), in between protesting. She remembers him panicking and trying to follow her reasoning until it did not make sense to her anymore, talking to her continuously because she told him that she shouldn’t fall asleep.
He finally let her go once in the shed, and told her this is the refuge they had secured in case something went wrong with the Rites. Then, he went out to get some water from the small well in the hermit’s garden.
And here he is again, looking at her, terrified—very justifiably so, for it was like she had lost her mind.
She tries to take a small sip of the water. It’s barely enough to wet her lips, but the shiver that runs through her body tells her it would not sit well with her if she dared to swallow it.
“I’ll try again later,” she says, placing the cup on the ground.
He seems annoyed. He picks up the cup and tries placing it back in her hand again. “You said you’d also need to stay hydrated.”
She pushes the cup, and his hand, away. Given how at points she cannot feel the tips of her fingers, she spills some of it on him.
As if it wasn’t disrespectful enough to have him serve her.
“Sir—”
“It’s fine,” he tells her quickly. It must not be much water on his vest, right? The cup is still filled. Then, why does she see a deep puddle of shining water, right there next to her feet, on the mat? But Jinshi’s head shaking attracts her eyes more, though she cannot see that well in focus. “No, it’s not true, it’s not fine, or rather, I don’t know,” he says, disconsolate. “Are you fine, Maomao? Earlier, you were calling for your father—and your voice was full of sorrow, as if—”
She stops him from continuing by just raising her hand.
Talk about the disrespect to him.
But she doesn’t want to hear it. It’s not like it would do her any good, or him, and it was just a silly hallucination, anyway.
Her skin hurts.
“I can’t say I’m fine, Master Jinshi, but it is what it is,” she tells him. “You don’t have to worry about it, anyway.”
Not having to worry doesn’t sit well with him, of course.
“I mean,” she continues, somewhat at a loss with finding words, “Terrifying visions and auditory hallucinations are expected. They mean nothing.”
And now, complete disrespect toward the mystical credo of the monks.
As if they weren’t aware of thornapple’s properties themselves!
“They mean nothing,” Jinshi repeats.
“Right.”
“Yet they’re scary and sorrowful?” he presses her.
Why use those words to describe them, anyway?
“Yes, and I apologize for the disturbance they may cause you.”
“Maomao, please!”
“I’m only saying it as it is, sir.”
“You were also pretty positive about having me go through it myself.”
His tone is only falsely accusatory. He looks at her like he wants her to admit he was right all along.
He won’t have it.
“A small dose would have made things rather sweet,” she insists, looking away.
The Emperor himself told him it was fine, didn’t he? But she certainly cannot use the Emperor’s words against him.
She hears Jinshi taking a long breath and then exhaling just as slowly.
A moment of silence.
“Then why did you drink the full chalice?”
Perfect. Explanation time. Better now than later, or never, just in case.
She turns to look him in the eye. For a brief moment, she swears she sees his eyes quiver, as if anticipating something terrible. It must be another hallucination.
Although, well, something terrible it is.
He waits for her to continue, his eyes narrow.
“For a good reason, I promise,” she says. She also takes a long breath. “Since one of the dishes was poisoned—”
“The starfruit jelly,” Jinshi says. So, he noticed.
“Yes, the starfruit jelly. Since it was poisoned, I wanted to make sure to get rid of all the sacred drink, just in case.”
“I don’t follow,” Jinshi says. “First of all, does that mean somebody tampered with the food? The monks prepared it, and even if the delegation brought in some food as gifts, they were thoroughly examined and tasted before being used for the food preparation. All was clear. Basen was allowed in to see to that.”
If only Maomao had been allowed in!
“That’s true, and it’s because none of the food that was brought in was lethal or even very harmful,” Maomao says, “barely the cause for a minor stomach inconvenience, at best. The starfruit, for instance, was just unripe.”
Jinshi seems to understand, considering he briefly grimaces at the thought. She assumes he must have indulged in unripe starfruit as a kid, just because it looked good, and paid the consequences.
She can’t blame him. She’s done far worse.
She continues, “The monks are not used to working with exotic food, however. An attendant told Chue they weren’t familiar with the starfruit, per se, saying it would ‘presumably’ taste like an apple. So I think they weren’t aware of how to check for ripeness and safety, considering the fruit was candied and dyed yellow. They just looked at the color, and they would have tasted only a bit, probably not experiencing any detectable consequence from it.”
She sighs.
“This would have only delayed discovery; the real color would have come out during the jelly preparation: as you know, a fruit jelly would have a slightly cloudy appearance with the color of the added ingredients.”
“But the jelly was perfectly clear.”
“Exactly,” Maomao says, nodding, “and that’s because they didn’t use ash water to prepare the jelly, but plain river water. From something Chue and I have overheard, they had a malfunctioning well pulley and didn’t have time to burn more wood to make ash with, which makes me suppose something happened to the batch they previously prepared. Just ordinary problems of a monastery, in their eyes. The change of the Master of Rites did not help, as the one who passed was, as far as I can tell, a very wise, attentive man, while this one…”
“He was just very eager to have me in the Trial, hoping I would get some incredible celestial vision, I suppose.”
More like: wanting you to be the vision, the legendary Veiled Maiden.
Maomao grumbles. Pursuit of divine rapture or lust—is there really any difference?
Ah—nothing to do with her, anyway.
“I’m just sorry I only connected the two things at the very last moment,” Maomao comments. She assumes Chue is already investigating the kitchens thoroughly by now. Maybe, even a little too thoroughly.
“Still, I don’t get everything,” Jinshi says after a while. “Somebody must have worked hard to make the unripe starfruit undetectable—but to what end, if it isn’t that harmful? And what about your getting rid of the sacred drink, spilling it on the jelly—ah.”
Maomao nods. “The poison was not the unripe starfruit, but the result of the reaction with the drink—or rather, with thornapple.”
A reaction only the person partaking in the sacred drink, and then the banquet, would have.
“I have to commend them on their ingenuity—only somebody with a deep knowledge of both the monastery’s mystical tradition and exotic plants could have thought of that. And of course, not being fully knowledgeable about the latter, the monks would have thought that your falling ill after the banquet was just a personal adverse reaction to their drink, or worse yet, a plain rejection of your person by the Heavens.”
Jinshi looks a bit pale now.
“And then, what would have happened?”
“Even if we found out about the jelly then, there would be no antidotes,” Maomao says. “You would have been dead in less than an hour.”
During the conversation, she has taken more sips of water, but her mouth still feels dry, and her head is exploding. She takes a break. Jinshi goes out to get more water. They have found tea, rice crackers, and a few sachets of brown rice in the chest, and there is a brazier for cooking. She feels horrible, but she can certainly bring herself to brew some tea and cook the plainest meal possible—she knows it would help, and besides, Jinshi must be hungry too. She should get to work, if only her limbs would decide to move adequately.
When Jinshi comes back, however, looking darkly at the fetched water, he still has something on his mind, and stops her from standing up. Crouching down next to her and offering more water, he says:
“I get it now, the reason that young man was coming after you.”
“After me?” she managed to rasp before even thinking. A young man? The attack that was made while she was made to vomit? They weren’t after the Moon Prince? Oh, right. She remembers the voice saying “you traitor”, not addressing the Moon Prince directly.
“The man thought that if he could shut your mouth, they would have been cleared of most accusations.”
“It seems unlikely,” Maomao says, “I wasn’t the only one knowing about the unripe starfruit by then.”
The Abbot clearly noticed.
“Yes, but they would have tried accusing you of tampering with it.”
When? It would make no sense to tamper with the jelly when she spilled the drink on it, since she already had a full bowl of the drug instead of leaving it to the Moon Prince, but they could try arguing something about a botched plan and the madness that comes with it.
Considering her inclinations, and the inclinations of her paternal family—now public knowledge...
Unlikely, but still—a shiver runs down her spine. Jinshi notices and tries to cover her back with the fur pelt. She realizes that she’s panicking—indeed, an effect of the drug. Stop. She breathes in and out slowly. She thinks again about it. Well, it didn’t happen. If the monks were ignorant about the fruit, she was also sure they would keep some aside from the preparation, just in case.
Another thought hits her suddenly, and this, she can’t contain.
“Master Jinshi—does that mean you interposed yourself between me and the aggressor voluntarily?”
To make their improvised plan work, the young man shouldn’t have tried to wound the Moon Prince; instead, they would try to claim that he saved him.
“What kind of question is this?” He seems both incredulous and offended.
“What kind of question, you say? You got stabbed,” she replies.
He got stabbed in the shoulder, and if he was unlucky, he could have received a much more serious—lethal—wound.
“Yes, and?” And now he looks scornful, even.
Doesn’t he understand? How is that possible? He’s the one with a clear mind at the moment.
“Are you mad, putting your life in danger like this?”
When she realizes she’s yelling, she instinctively brings a hand to her mouth to stop herself, but that small movement almost makes her lose her balance. Her throat hurts, and she’s out of breath. The corners of her eyes are burning as if salt had been put in them, and her vision has become blurry again—it’s been for a while now. She looks down, her fists on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Again, she feels like falling, face forward, and nauseous, and—
Then a hand stops her body, and puts the fur pelt back on her shoulders. The hand checks her forehead, softly brushing her hair aside.
“Mad?” A long sigh. “What should I say about you, then? Hey, hey, Maomao. Stay with me. Stay with me!” She can barely see him; she can only hear his voice, now gentler. “I’m sorry I provoked you. I asked you a lot of questions, too; it must have exhausted you. I’m sorry. Please, rest.”
*
“Ah, Moon Prince, you found your way here easily—Miss Chue is very happy that it all went as planned.”
Maomao sees Jinshi’s mouth slightly twitching at this: of course, nothing went as planned, in his eyes; but Chue is always all about contingency plans, and must have caught up to Maomao’s reasoning behind her actions without Maomao having to tell her anything.
That, if the thing that entered the hut really is Chue.
“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao, aren’t you happy to see me? You see me, don’t you?”
Chue is kneeling in front of her.
“Miss Chue, Miss Chue, I’m talking to a sunflower right now.” A splash of color among the overgrowth of twining vines of akebia, the dark green and deep purples, that frame her vision.
Jinshi’s small cry of dismay is soon drowned out by Chue’s enthusiasm. “Isn’t that marvelous? The monks will want to know everything about this!”
Do they really want to continue with the Rites, now? Foolish.
“Chue,” Jinshi says, “did they tell you how we should treat Maomao?”
“Better than this, Moon Prince,” Chue answers, producing a wrapped bundle from a sleeve, her dumb arm. “They gave me plenty of medicine to add to the tea—you found the tea and rice, didn’t you?”
She looks around. Locating the open chest, the ceramic jars taken out, she has her answer.
“An antidote?” Jinshi asks, hopeful.
“No,” Maomao replies. Instead of Chue’s barely responsive arm, she sees a spindle covered in swarming larvae. She blinks twice. Focus, she tells herself. Focus on the medicine.
“The monks said to add these to the tea to lower your temperature and help with the other nervous symptoms,” Chue explains.
It is more or less what she’s expected. Ginger, liquorice root, and poria mushrooms, to treat her fever. Then, she notices a group of thin, pale yellow slices next to the ginger, which are not ginger at all. They’re slightly bigger and more elongated, an oblong shape. It takes some time—is she imagining it?—but there, she’s also hit by the soft, sweet, earthy smell.
“How—where did you find these?” is the only thing that Maomao can ask, while her hands reach for the slices.
Chue passes a slice to Maomao. “The monks gave them to me.”
“They didn’t show them to me when—well, of course, they can’t have a cultivation of it. But this looks fresh,” Maomao says, sniffing the pale slice profoundly. Would it be so inappropriate if she had a taste of it, like that?
She notices Jinshi’s gaze.
“What is it?” he asks.
“It’s a parasitic orchid!” Maomao explains, “It grows in shaded forest areas in symbiosis with a fungus. It is used to calm the nervous system. It’s very rare!”
“Of course it is,” Jinshi says, rather resigned at Maomao’s expressions of love for herbs by now. Then, why does she catch his mouth turning upwards into a soft smile, before turning away from her?
“Chue, I assume this means we’re asked to stay here for now?”
“It is exactly so, Moon Prince. Soldiers are posted below and above the slope. This side of the mountain has been thoroughly secured. But you’ll have to spend the night. Here, I also brought you both a fresh change.”
To Maomao, what must be clothes looks like a cloud of bees, but she’s too contented to sniff the orchid’s tuber right now to care.
“I’m also sorry to say that Miss Chue is needed elsewhere, to make sure you can go back to the monastery as soon as possible, and receive the best treatment, after every issue has been put to rest. That means you’ll have to deal with the preparation of the tea and the food yourself, and everything else. I trust that this will be alright for you, Miss Maomao?”
Maomao is quick to place the orchid slice back on the cloth and rest her hand on her lap. “Sure,” she says.
“Maomao…” Jinshi says. “I mean, she’s not very…” he tries to explain, but stops himself.
“I can try to find a soldier to send here, Moon Prince, but—”
“No, no soldiers.”
Evidently, he would only trust Chue to deal with Maomao at the moment. Justifiably so: if somebody else were here, he could not show such familiarity to Maomao, and everything she did would be considered disrespectful. If only Suiren came with them, then…
Chue grabs Maomao’s hand, and Maomao realizes how icy and numb her fingers feel just by contrast as Chue squeezes them.
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to make do with what you have, then,” Chue says, but she’s not addressing Maomao, but Jinshi. “But before that, Miss Chue has a little more time, so, being a married woman and all, she will help Miss Maomao wash and change, mh? Would the Moon Prince grant permission?”
“Ah—of course.” He goes around it awkwardly, but he’s quick to get out and leave Chue in control. Chue gets the water, strips Maomao down, and starts wiping her.
“Such a pity you’re such a bold drinker, Miss Maomao,” she says to her, somewhat in a sing-song, “If you had partaken even a little less in it, this would have been a very good opportunity—”
“The drink was perfectly delicious,” Maomao replies flatly. She doesn’t need love advice right now, for sure.
“I’m not sure about that; you don’t look too well, Miss Maomao! But trust Miss Chue, I’ll get you in a fresh set of clothes and you’ll feel a lot better. And don’t worry at all, the Moon Prince is well aware that you’re debilitated and will respect that, but I’m certain he finds you lovely just the same.”
Ugh.