Volume 6, Chapter 19: First Contact (2/2)

“Yés.”

Maomao touched the outstretched hand. It was soft to touch. Due to the priestess’ white skin, the location of her blue veins was conspicuous, easy to trace.

Maomao placed three fingers on the priestess’ wrist. She felt the heart beats. How many beats within a single timeframe, she counted. Maomao told Yao the heart rate with her fingers, wherein the latter noted it down on portable stationery.

“Are you a little nervous? Your pulse seems a little fast,” Maomao said.

Apparently, there were words she couldn’t understand, the priestess tilted her head. When the woman next to her translated in a foreign language, she replied with a smile. “Yéh, á líttle.”

Her heart rate wasn’t out of the ordinary, so it shouldn’t be an issue.

“May I touch your face? I want to check your eyes and tongue.”

“Gó áhead.”

Maomao touched the priestess’ cheeks with both hands. She had laugh lines, but aside from that, her skin was very supple and beautiful.

She pulled down her lower eyelid, examined her eyes. Opened her mouth and had her stick out her tongue.

(In a way, it’s good fortune.)

Maomao thought about their meeting with the girl called Jazuguru from the other day.

(Pomegranate, and hasma.)

That time, a lot of what the attendant had bought had been ingredients for medicine. However, there was nothing written about it on the document that had been passed over to them.

Maomao glanced at the attendant who was standing by the bed. The attendant who had been surprised just then now looked like she was unsatisfied with something.

(Could that be prescribed medicine? Or was it all a coincidence?)

There are cases where you can harm your body by taking too much medicine.

“Excuse me, but about what you normally prefer to eat and stuff, can you record it down in detail?” Maomao asked.

“Únderstood.”

The one who replied was the attendant.

She smoothly wrote it down, but the problem was that it was in a foreign language. In various places, there was vocabulary that Maomao didn’t understand, so she had to consider that whilst translating it afterwards. Either way, Dad will be the one to hand down the diagnosis in the end, so she will wait for that.

“Then, can you open up your outer garment?” Maomao asked.

It seems her worries about whether she’ll get a reply was unfounded.

“…yés.”

Maomao got the priestess to slowly open her outer garment. The sleepwear was because the other party had known that they would be coming to give her a medical examination, so it was fastened at the front. A pair of breasts came into view, the navel as well.

“…may I touch?” Maomao asked.

“Go ahead,” the priestess said.

Maomao touched directly, and while weighing the differences in sound, looked at her abdomen.

(There are no pregnancy stretch marks.)

With her plump belly, it might have been hard for her to get stretch marks in the first place, or she might not have given birth. There was the possibility of being mistaken starting from her presumption.

(No, but…)

She had been quite slender in the drawing. If she slimmed up, it would be easy for her to get stretchmarks for how much her skin stretched.

Above all, it might have been that there was nothing strange from the start.

And speaking of why Maomao thought that…

(Her breasts are tiny in proportion to her body fat.)

For those whose menarche never came, there was the possibility of their gender being intersex. Male, female, and not either. That possibility was there due to her small breasts, but it could also be that she originally had small breasts.

Whether she had given birth or not, there was no way of knowing for certain. Even her illness, depending on whether she had her menstrual period or not, can change.

Maomao examined as her brows twitched up and down.

She examined but she didn’t know, she didn’t know, but she felt gloomy for some reason.

(I wonder if I overlooked something.)

She felt out of sorts, but without noticing what, the medical examination ended.

(If she would show me what’s below as well…)

No, let’s stop. This was the first examination. Just having her show the top half of her body was enough. Even among the consorts in the inner palace, there were those who are against showing their skin to strangers.

“You can put your clothes back on,” Maomao said.

The world wasn’t that optimistic to have everything finish in one go. It can’t be helped even if she kept tugging beyond that, so reporting the contents of the examination to Dad took precedence.

“We will speak with the court physician about what we’ve asked and examined today,” she said.

“Únderstood.” The attendant draped the outer garment over the priestess.

Maomao and Yao excused themselves and retired from the room.