Volume 1, Chapter 18: Make-up (2/2)

“You erased it with make-up, didn’t you?” he pressed.

“I erased it when I removed the make-up.”

(Ahh, I should’ve just said ‘yeah sure’ at the right time…)

Maomao belatedly noticed that she made a mistake in her reply.

“What you said is strange. There’s a contradiction,” he said.

“No. There is no such thing,” she said.

Make-up isn’t just used to beautify. There were also cases where middle-aged women specifically used make-up to make themselves look unattractive.

The product made of dried clay and mixed with dye, Maomao applied around her nose every day. She skilfully obscured the tattooed freckles by turning them into spots. What she did was by no means intentional; it was that no one noticed it.

A woman with freckles and spots, with a face that didn’t particularly stand out. That was why she was called an ugly woman.

To put it another way, if she didn’t have the freckles and spots, her face would just be said as uncharacteristic – in other words, an average, plain face. With even a little bit of rouge, she can change the atmosphere. The ordinary-looking Maomao can look completely different.

Jinshi clutched his head at Maomao’s explanation, as if he somehow couldn’t understand her. “Why would you do that kind of make-up? Is there any meaning to it?”

“Yes. It is so I won’t be taken into the back alleys.”

The pleasure district – being what it is – had those who hungered for women. Most of those guys don’t have money, are violent, and mental illnesses were common among them. Of course, she would want to excuse herself from that.

The flabbergasted Jinshi, for some reason, timidly asked her. “Have you ever been taken?”

“They tried.” So he could understand what she said, she glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Instead I have been kidnapped by human traffickers.”

It was better for women sold to the inner palace to be attractive. That time, she forgot her make-up when she went out to harvest the medicinal herbs. It had been for the dyes of her fading tattoo.

“I’m sorry. The management wasn’t thorough,” he said.

“It’s fine. There isn’t much distinction between selling someone as kidnappers and selling someone to reduce the number of mouths to feed. It’s all the same,” she told him.

The former was criminal, the latter was legal. Even a kidnapper couldn’t be punished if the person they bought didn’t know that distinction.

Right now, the reason to her using this sort of make-up in the inner palace was the same as her hiding her ability to write. Although it now no longer mattered, her sudden make-up-less face was only just a matter of not knowing the timing.

“Ahh. I’m sorry.”

(He’s unusually meek.)

As he was looking up, he stuck quickly something on her head.

“That hurts,” she said.

“Does it? Have this.” He wasn’t smiling his usual saccharine smile. His face was also mixed with embarrassment and gloominess.

When she felt her head, she felt something cold and metallic in her hair even though she wasn’t wearing anything.

“Well then, I’ll see you at the assembly place.” Jinshi turned his back and left the gazebo just like that.

Stuck in her hair was a man’s silver ;kanzashi.

“Ahh, how nice,” Infa said.

Maomao thought to give it to Infa who looked like she really wanted it, but the other two had the same expressions so she had no choice but to draw in her hands. Honnyan made a wry smile.

“Aw, you broke the promise so quickly.” Consort Gyokuyou looked peevish. She took the ;kanzashifrom Maomao’s hand and neatly fastened it in her tied-up hair. “It looks like you’re not just my maid now.”

For good or evil, Maomao was especially estranged from the talk of the upper echelons of the Imperial Court. She didn’t know the significance it represented.