Volume 1, Chapter 2: The Two Consorts (1/2)

“Ahh, so it’s as I thought.”

“Yeah, I heard that’s what the Doctor-sama saw when he went in.”

Maomao was slurping her soup as she listened in. There were several hundred maidservants eating breakfast in the vast dining hall. It consisted of a soup and millet porridge.

The maidservant, who was sitting diagonally across from her, continued to gossip. She had an expression of pity, but more than that, curiosity shone from the depths of her eyes.

“It was the same for both Gyokuyou-sama(玉葉, Yu Ye), and Rifa-sama(梨花, Li Hua).”

“Uwahh, so it was the both of them. They’re only half a year and three months, right?”

“Yeah. Could it really be the curse?”

The names they mentioned were the favoured consorts of the emperor. Half a year and three months were the respective ages of the imperial children they had given birth to.

Gossip throws its weight around in the palace. They are about the palace ladies who consorted with the emperor, and his successors – if there are those about their infamy due to bullying and prejudice, there are also those that are like ghost stories appropriate for the sweltering heat.

“I guess so. Otherwise, there’s no reason for those three to pass away as well.”

The ones who had passed away are the children born from consorts. That is, the imperial children who could have been chosen as successors. There had been one when the emperor was the crown prince, and now as the emperor, two. All of them passed away when they were infants. It’s a given that infants have a high mortality rate, but it is strange for it to have been three children from a court noble.

As of now, the only survivors are the two children of Consort Gyokuyou and Consort Rifa.

(Could it be poisoning?)

While her mouth was full of hot water, Maomao’s thoughts reached a different conclusion.

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Among the three children, two had been imperial princesses. As only boys had the right to succession, there are few reasons to kill princesses.

The two who sat in front of her spoke of curses and calamities without moving their chopsticks.

(There is no such curse.)

Absurd. It all boiled down to that single word. There is a law on familial extermination by simply setting a curse – Maomao’s thoughts could be taken as heresy instead. However, she had the knowledge she could assert her basis on.

(What kind of illness? Could it be genetic? How did they pass away?)

It was then the quiet and unsociable maidservant spoke to the talkative maidservant.

The regret she got from losing to her curiosity was something for a little while later.

“I don’t know the details but, it was said they all gradually weakened.” The talkative maid, Shaoran(小蘭, Xiao Lan),seemed to be interested to have Maomao talking to her. She also told her about the all the rumours ;afterwards.

“I believe Rifa-sama has it worse, seeing how the doctor has been seeing her more often.” She had said as she wiped down the window frame with a wrung dust-cloth.

“Rifa-sama herself?”

“Yeah, mother and child both.”

The fact that the doctor was seeing Consort Rifa would have to be more the fact that her child is the crown prince rather than who was sicker. Consort Gyokuyou’s child is an imperial princess.

The emperor’s favour ran deeper for Consort Gyokuyou, but it’s clear from the gender of the children who is the more important one.

“While I don’t know the specifics of the symptoms, of course, I heard there were things like headache, stomach ache, and nausea.”

Shaoran went to her next job, seemingly satisfied about talking about everything she knew.

Maomao gave her liquorice tea as an expression of gratitude. She had made it from the ones that grew on the edges of the courtyard. Though it had a medicinal stench, it was very sweet. The maidservant who rarely tasted sweetness had been overjoyed from that.

(Headache, stomach ache, and nausea…)

Maomao she recalled the symptoms, she could not reach a decision.

You must not think of things through speculation alone,her dad had told her severely.