Memory 12

[nymphcompoop]

Ugh... So tired...

She’d been up all night the night before making medicines. Creating new drugs was a challenging endeavor. You could mix several ingredients trying to increase the potency of an effect, but sometimes you accidentally ended up with a poison instead. She’d made several new wounds on her left arm to test some of them out, but she just couldn’t quite get the outcome she wanted. She’d even tried rubbing some of her concoction onto the wound on her ear (why let it go to waste, after all?), but it didn’t tell her much. After all these years, she seemed to have developed a pretty high tolerance for pain.

Got to cut deeper if I want to be sure. Maomao looked at her left hand, then tied some string firmly around her pinky. She stood and took a small knife from a cabinet. Here goes!

Just as she was about to bring the knife down, a beautiful voice interrupted her: “What are you doing?”

Without a word, she turned to see a man in an unusual mask standing in the entryway of the shop. Behind him were a familiar, middle-aged man who looked distinctly overworked, and the madam, rubbing her hands and offering them an ingratiating smile.

“Done with all your work?” Maomao asked, undoing the string around her finger and putting the knife back in the cabinet.

“Isn’t a person entitled to a break every once in a while?”

The madam poured tea and said, “Please, relax,” still wearing that smile. The drink was made from her best white tea leaves, and was accompanied by small pieces of finely sculpted sugar—the sort of expensive accommodations usually reserved for the Three Princesses’ guests. “Are you quite sure this is a suitable meeting place, sir?” she inquired, although for some reason she was asking Gaoshun. He nodded, and the old lady, looking slightly disappointed, backed out and closed the door with another “Relax. Take your time.”

What’s going on here? Maomao wondered.

Jinshi finally removed his mask, revealing his face, like a perfect jewel—except for the scar that ran down one cheek. Maomao gave the folded cushion a smack to straighten it out and set it in front of Jinshi, who sat down promptly and without undue grace.

“I’m sure you’ve been working hard, sir,” Maomao said, next placing the tea and snacks before Jinshi.

He took a sip of the drink. “I won’t pretend it’s been easy. Dealing with personnel has been a nightmare, and on top of that there’s the issue of the Shi clan’s territory to contend with.” He let out a long sigh, his brow furrowing. Was it just Maomao’s imagination, or was Gaoshun rubbing off on him?

She had heard that the members of the Shi clan had already been executed—most of them had been at the stronghold, anyway. Their territory would be put under government control, and with the richness of the timber resources in the north, it could be expected to produce a handsome addition to the nation’s coffers. Without the Shi clan serving as middleman, they could lower the tax rate in the area and still make plenty of profit. And there were so many things one could do with timber.

I hope they turn it into paper. Maomao smiled, hoping they had the right kind of trees up north to make decent sheets. She was just thinking how the country’s failure to start up a paper industry to this point had probably been due to the Shi clan’s interference when she realized she was grinding medicine in a mortar.

“Don’t pretend I’m not here,” Jinshi said.

“Sorry, sir. Old habit.”

“Never mind. Don’t worry about it.” Jinshi took a bite of the snacks and drank down the rest of his tea. When Maomao got up to make more, she found Jinshi grabbing her wrist.

“Yes, sir? What is it?”

He tugged, obliging her to sit back down. He was studying the side of her face most intensely, gazing at her ear. She was fairly sure the bruise from where she’d been struck was gone by now.

He smells...sweet. It wasn’t the smell of the snacks, but of his perfume. Suiren always did have good taste, Maomao reflected, an image of the slightly mischievous serving woman flashing through her mind.

“Perhaps it’s time I asked you to make good on your promise,” Jinshi said.

Promise? Maomao looked at the ceiling, trying to recall, and Jinshi scowled.

“You can’t pretend you’ve forgotten. I got you the ingredients for your ice cream, didn’t I?”

Oh! Geez! That! She almost clapped her hands as she remembered. But then her gaze returned to the ceiling as the exact nature of that promise came back to her.

“What is it?”

“Oh, er, nothing. It’s about—ahem—your hair stick.” Maomao’s voice grew so quiet it almost disappeared. “I, uh...gave it to somebody.”

Jinshi didn’t say anything, but his face grew tight—less, it seemed, from anger than from disappointment. Maomao knew this was bad; she struggled to think of some way of placating him. “But they might find it in spring!”

“Why would that be?”

“Well, and then again...they might not.” It was better if they didn’t. For if they didn’t find it... “It might make its way back to one of the shops in the capital eventually.”

“You sold it?!”

“No, sir, I didn’t!” Hmm. This was proving tricky. What should she say? “I gave it to Shisui...I mean, to Loulan. I did tell her to give it back someday.”

“So that’s what you’re talking about,” Jinshi said, and then he looked squarely at her. “In that case, perhaps I’ll ask you to fulfill your other promise.”

Other promise. Other promise. Ah!

“You mean to listen when someone is talking to me?”

“That’s the one,” Jinshi said, pleased.

Maomao faced Jinshi and adopted a formal sitting position. “All right then, sir. Go ahead.” But Jinshi didn’t say anything.

“Go ahead,” Maomao repeated. Still he didn’t speak, but only gazed at her. “Didn’t you have anything to say?”

“I did, yes. But on reflection, I’m sure you already know the thing I was about to tell you.” He was probably alluding to the matter of his real position, but Maomao was already aware of it. There would be no point in his telling her about it now.

“Something else, then?” she suggested.

“Something else...” Jinshi began, but then he said nothing further. Neither of them spoke, the silence stretching on.

What, he didn’t have anything to say after all? Maomao thought. She was about to get up, eager to get back to work on her medicines, when suddenly Jinshi was coming closer, then wrapping himself around her neck.

“May I ask, sir, what exactly you’re doing?”

She felt something damp and warm brush her neck—no, surround it. She felt teeth; she realized she was being sweetly, gently bitten.

“Do you know what it means now?” Jinshi asked.

“Well, human saliva can be toxic.” Just as a bite from a wild animal had to be carefully disinfected lest it fester, the same precautions had to be taken with a bite from a person.

Jinshi said absolutely nothing.

“I’d like to get back to my work, sir.”

“I know it takes more than a little toxin to bother you.”

He bit harder. It started to hurt a little, and she smacked him on the back. He only bit down harder still, and before she could stop herself Maomao pounded him soundly on the shoulders. Finally she felt his lips move away from her neck. A string of saliva stretched between them for a good shaku before it finally snapped.

“What, are you going to bite me to death?”

“I’ve wanted to at times.”

Maomao was just wondering what was with this man when she found him embracing her.

Jinshi smirked. “Now, where were we?”

Up close, she saw the stitches hadn’t come out of his cheek yet, although they were neater than they had been before, suggesting they’d been redone. Wonder if that’s my old man’s handiwork, she thought. She found herself reaching toward Jinshi’s face. His eyes softened in a smile, looking somehow innocent.

“And are you poisonous as well?” Jinshi was just reaching out for Maomao’s chin when:

“Freckles!” There was a crash as the window across from the entrance, where customers could pick up medicines, was thrown open. “Check this out! I know you wanted one of these!” There was Chou-u, looking terribly pleased with himself. He was holding a lizard above his head.

“Ooh! You got one!” Maomao slipped past Jinshi, whose head drooped dejectedly, and grabbed the lizard, depositing it directly into a jar.

“Huh? What’s that guy doing on the floor?”

“He’s very tired from work. Here, your reward.” Maomao gave him a chunk of brown sugar. Chou-u went running off again.

From the floor, Jinshi could be heard to growl, “Knew I should’ve sent him to the gallows...” He sounded like a feral dog indeed. Maybe it was the scar on his cheek that made Jinshi seem less androgynous than before; it was as if he were drawn in bolder lines now.

Maomao realized she could see a tiny crack in the door, and an eyeball peering through it. She opened the door noisily, discovering a very startled old madam and Gaoshun.

“Grams, get a bedroom ready. Pick an incense that promotes sleep.”

“Yeah, sure,” the old lady said with a disappointed click of her tongue.

As the old woman left, Maomao looked back at Jinshi, still lying on the ground. “You seem most fatigued, Master Jinshi,” she said. He only stared at her vacantly. “I think you had better rest.”

“Yes, fine. I’ll do that.”

That’ll be for the best, Maomao thought—but Jinshi didn’t move.

“Master Jinshi?” She crouched down and shook his shoulders. Huh, she thought, actually, maybe I can just call him Jinshi now.

While she was thinking it over, though, Jinshi said, “This will be my pillow”—and put his head smack on Maomao’s knees. The crown of his head was pressed up into her stomach, and his arms were wrapped around her back.

“Master Jinshi...”

He didn’t say anything. Was he asleep, or just pretending?

The madam quietly placed a fine cushion and some incense in a corner of the room, then showed herself out. Maomao sighed, then reached for her pestle. The smell of the medicine she was crushing mingled with the incense, and the sound of the pestle working was accompanied by Jinshi’s even breathing.

My legs are going to fall asleep, Maomao thought, as she began working on a new medicine.