Volume 1, Chapter 14: Nursing (1/2)

Consort Rifa’s condition was worse than she had thought. Although the cereal porridge was remade into a thin rice gruel, she made no indication of slurping from a spoon. Maomao had to prise her mouth open and slowly pour it in to make her swallow.

She couldn’t take in food. That was the biggest issue. She had to be patiently and insistently fed.

When Maomao went to ventilate the room, the clogging fragrance subsided and was replaced by the smell of a sick person. They probably burned incense to hide the scent of body odour. It didn’t seem like that the consort had bathed for a couple of days. Maomao’s resentment for the useless maids grew.

The discipline seemed to have got through to the maids she chastised. The stock of the face powder had been snuck in. Pitifully, the one who got whipped was the eunuch who had failed to collect the face powder. Punishment was also influenced by their birth.

Although Maomao glared at the supervising eunuch with contempt as if to call him “incompetent thing”, she felt that it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

She prepared a pail and a cloth, and together with the maids she summoned, wiped the consort down. The maids had looked at her in disapproval but became docile when Maomao glared at them.

Her skin was dry, lips were painfully cracked from the lack of hydration. She coated her lips with honey instead of rouge and tied her hair up simply.

Afterwards, Maomao made the consort drink tea at every opportunity. Sometimes, she gave her watered down broth instead of tea. The number of times the consort urinated increased.

Though Maomao thought she would be ;aimed ;with hostility, being the questionable newcomer, the doll-like Consort Rifa generally obediently listened to her. It might be that her blank eyes didn’t recognise ;who was who.

She increased the amount of the thin rice gruel from half a bowl to one bowl all at once, and little by little, increased the amount of rice used to make it. So that she could start to swallow on her own without being needed to be held up by the chin, Maomao increased the servings of soup steeped with the flavour of meat, and grated fruit.

Consort Rifa’s lips suddenly moved when she could go to relieve herself without help. “Why ca…, let m….”

To pick up the words that Consort Rifa leaked out, Maomao stood next to her.

“Why can’t you, let me die like this?” she said in a soft, vanishing voice.

Maomao raised her eyebrows. “Then, I’ll take away your meals. That you’re eating the porridge, means that you don’t want to die, right?” she said and held the warmed tea against Consort Rifa’s mouth.

There was an audible swallow,

“Is that so….”

A broken smile escaped.

The responses the maids gave towards Maomao could be split into two groups. The ones afraid of her, and the ones who opposed her while being afraid of her.

(Did I overdo it?)

It can’t be helped, she thought. She had a bad habit of over-reacting whenever her emotions pass her boiling point.

Although unsociable, Maomao was generally easy-going. She was plainly hurt by the being looked at from a distance like she was a demon or an ogre.

In this case, it couldn’t be helped as she needed to nurse Consort Rifa.

She didn’t know whether it was the emperor or Consort Gyokuyou’s command, the sparkling Jinshi-dono frequently appeared for her. With his authority to use anything that could be used, he had a bathroom constructed at top speed for her at the Crystal Palace. In addition to the bathroom that was there originally, they made a sauna.

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“I don’t have a need for you anymore, so go away already”, Maomao told him in her roundabout way, but Jinshi, whom Maomao treated like a monster, came smiling at every opportunity.

He’s a eunuch with too much free time.