Volume 6, Chapter 15: Dim Sum (1/2)

It was the height of summer, the moment when there was still some time until the first whiff of spring came around. The capital was brimming with a festive atmosphere. The economy cycles when there are people coming in from other countries. As a result, social gatherings would naturally increase, turning into festivals.

Maomao didn’t hate festivals. One way or other, it made her surroundings lively. This was also apparent in the imperial court.

And speaking of how it was expressed…

“You’re over-worked.”

That was the phrase a sour-faced court physical uttered when a ghastly pale civil official was carried in. There were bags under the official’s eyes and he was staring into space.

“Take proper sleep. You’ll die, literally.”

Sleep is important. You can make a fuss saying that it’s fine to not sleep for one or two days, but it’s not unusual to suddenly drop dead when you’re older. There was a period of time where Jinshi didn’t sleep to quite a dangerous degree.

You need the government’s permission to open a shop in the capital. There are not few that take it upon themselves to open a street stall, but if you want a proper large shop set up, permission is required on the basis of tax. If you get caught, to say nothing of a fine, you can also get jailed.

People come together before a festival. As there are foreign people coming over, there will be more trade goods than before, and there won’t be a few people who settle down in the capital with that in mind as well.

Thanks to that, the civil official had spent all his time going through documents.

It didn’t mean that the military officials weren’t busy either. Thanks to that, she was grateful that the weirdo tactician had been showing up less often recently.

With the influx of people, public order will also worsen. It was the military officials’ job to control that. Unfortunately, compared to civil officials, military officials can swap their training times for work and are, to say it succinctly, muscle-brains, so none have fainted.

However, there are more injured people.

“OWW! Can’t you be a tad more gentle!”

Yao was smearing ointment onto a military official’s arm. The cut was a red line around three sun(~3cm) long.

(Even though it’s only skin deep.)

It appears that someone had wilfully started a street stall, and was even selling questionable medicines. When this official had tried to crack down on it, they went crazy and apparently took out a bladed weapon.

“Excuse me,” Yao replied without a change in tone, but her lips were slightly puckered. Rather than anger, it looked like she was holding in her tears.

En’en went to help such a master. She presented the official some cooled tea, saying that it was a painkiller, but that had to be normal brewed coarse tea.

There still weren’t many court physicians who would entrust the patients to the court ladies, but apparently, they were appreciative of En’en’s attentiveness. The complaints towards court physicians seemed to have decreased.

And speaking of what Maomao was doing…

She was making medicine.

You can make simple salves at least, they said and left it to her. It wasn’t bad if she held back on her desire to make medicines that were more peculiar. It was probably just perfect for Maomao who fell behind the other two in terms of her appearance, where it wasn’t fit for dealing with customers.

“Maomao, the salve,” En’en said.

Since the aforementioned baked treats incident, En’en was speaking a lot more affably. Although, Yao puffed her cheeks a little when she saw En’en’s attitude. There were times Maomao thought that En’en was doing this to make her master act like a child.

“The salve, right?” Maomao, as she was going to pass the salve over, glanced at the injured person. It was the military official who had been yelling out before. He was noisy even though his injury wasn’t major.

“…” Maomao snuck out the salve she was carrying in her bosom and switched it with what she was supposed to hand over.

(Perfect timing.)

If he is that energetic, he should be fine to experiment on with the new salve, she thought, but…

“Oi, what are you doing?”

The voice that called out from behind her scared Maomao. She turned back. A court physician was narrowing his eyes at her.

“Did you switch the medicine just now?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” Maomao played dumb, but the court physician snatched away the medicine she was going to hand over. The court physician, his eyes squinted, checked the salve with his fingertips.

“Oi, you added something different to this, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” She kept playing dumb. A fist dropped onto Maomao’s head.

“Ruomen told me to tell you off harshly.”

With him being an acquaintance to her dad, it got hard to act.

“What did you put inside?” he asked.

“A little bit of frog.” She had tried it out, hearing that frog oil was good. In truth, she couldn’t extract much oil from the frogs, so all she got, in the end, was what she had carried over now. “I heard that frog oil is used as medicine in other countries.”

“You say that, but I’ve never heard of that before.”

It’s true, Maomao had never heard about it either. She just tried it out in case there was some effect. She had chosen frogs that had no poison and studied it on her own body for any disasters. Of course, she wasn’t that inhumane to test out things she had no idea if it had poison or not.

“I’m confiscating this for now,” he said.

“Ahhhh!”

It got taken away. She had even taken the time to go out into the paddy fields to find some during her holiday.

“You… frogs…” Yao looked at her, pale-faced. She looked like she was in disbelief. “What were you thinking to put something like that in medicine!”

Maomao ignored her, picking an ear. Apparently, her manners were bad, as En’en poked her elbow.

“I don’t think that this has any relation to Yao-san, but it’s an extremely common food for commoners,” Maomao said.

Yao made another look of disbelief. She looked searchingly at En’en for her opinion.

“Yes. It is eaten very commonly. Occasionally, snake fillets are also sold to imitate fish,” En’en replied.

Hearing the word snake, Yao’s face paled.

“Rest assured. There is nothing uncertain in Yao-sama’s food,” En’en said.

“Snake is also not half bad,” Maomao added. It’s a bit annoying that it has a lot of small bones, but it’s not a problem when fried. If you are bothered by the stink, you can get rid of it with herbs and spices.

Maomao had brought dried snake as a replacement for dim sum for times when she gets peckish. When she offered Yao some to eat, the court lady leaned against the wall and feebly turned it down.

She returned it to her bosom helplessly.