Time flew at a busy department like the one Maomao was assigned to, and before she knew it, it was summer, the season when the cicadas sang fulsomely.
In addition to her assigned duties, Maomao was receiving the same education as the physicians. She thought she had finished with that when she had been selected to go to the western capital, but no.
“A doctor must study their whole life. They have to make sure their skills don’t get dull. The folks who went to the western capital will now undergo the same intensive training as the rookie physicians.”
Since this injunction came from the chief physician, Dr. Liu himself, Maomao’s only possible reply was “Yes, sir.”
And as for the form that intensive training took...
“I guess we’re going to some farm somewhere today, huh?”
Maomao sat in a bouncing carriage, Dr. Li and Tianyu seated across from her.
They had previously performed dissections on livestock and game animals as a prelude to doing autopsies, and now they had been instructed to go for a refresher.
This was hardly the first time she had been out with Tianyu to do dissections, but having Dr. Li along was unusual.
“It’s not a farm today. It’s a hunting ground, I gather,” he said.
“I thought this time of year was closed season around here,” Tianyu said.
Dr. Li was silent at that. Closed season: In other words, hunting was forbidden. Maomao was no hunter, so she didn’t know very much about it, but she had heard that hunters avoided animals’ mating seasons.
“Some areas of Kaou Province declare closed season from spring through summer. I’m almost sure this area is off-limits this year,” Tianyu pressed.
“How do you know so much about it?” Dr. Li asked, casting a look at the uncharacteristically insightful Tianyu.
“I mean, this is where I’m from.”
Before she could stop herself, Maomao jumped to her feet.
“Be careful!” Dr. Li cried, and he was right to warn her: The carriage jumped, and Maomao nearly fell down. She quickly resumed her seat.
“What are you doing, Niangniang?” Tianyu asked.
Maomao simply sputtered, “Where you’re from?”
“Uh-huh. My home. Urgh, what should I do? If my dad finds out I’m here, he’ll turn me into jerky!”
Why would Dr. Liu send us to Tianyu’s home?
If it really was Dr. Liu who had ushered Tianyu into the world of medicine, he would at least know where he had come from.
“Well, I can probably guess why there’s still hunting going on even though it’s closed season,” Tianyu said. Dr. Li looked away. “Only hunters are forbidden from hunting. If you’re rich or important, you get a free pass, right?”
Dr. Li didn’t say anything at all. He seemed to be a pretty poor liar—his silence was as good as confirmation.
“But I’ll bet it’s not just some moneybags this time,” Tianyu went on. “It’s a bigwig. Some pampered princeling, maybe?”
“How could you know that?”
“Ha ha ha! The hunting grounds around here are my dad’s turf. He never liked jobs that had to do with the court, and I think maybe once I left home, he stopped taking them at all.”
Dr. Li was silent again. Tianyu might have an unseemly taste for dissections, but he was intelligent.
“These important guys want to eat whatever game they get, but carving up an animal is hard. So they’ll hire a hunter or whoever happens to be around.”
“And we’re the ones who were chosen this time?” Maomao asked.
“Yep!”
To be sure, Tianyu was second to none when it came to butchering animals.
“I’m guessing Dr. Liu had to bite his tongue when he sent us out here,” Maomao said. “Physicians aren’t usually assigned to chop things up.”
The human autopsies were of course a secret, but animal dissections were unlikely to be smiled upon either.
“Yeah, I kind of assumed Dr. Liu would say no to something like this,” said Tianyu.
Maomao agreed that it seemed out of character for him.
“It wasn’t Dr. Liu who chose this place. He would never agree to send trained physicians on such a trivial errand,” Dr. Li said.
“So we’ve been summoned here secretly, without Dr. Liu’s knowledge?”
“Yikes! I bet he’s gonna be mad!”
“Don’t even say it. Look, no matter how high you rank, there’s always someone over your head. Someone with their own problems to deal with.”
It sounded like life wasn’t easy for Dr. Li.
“Was there no one else to send? Frankly, I’m awfully worried having Tianyu along,” Maomao said.
“And I’m awfully worried having Niangniang along,” Tianyu said.
“Yes, well. The request was specifically for people who wouldn’t flinch no matter what happened.”
“That doesn’t sound foreboding at all,” Maomao said. She was trying to decide whether she should consider it an honor that she had been chosen for this trip.
“We’ll do the work in a small shed dedicated to the purpose so nobody sees us. We’ll also change our clothes and wear masks.”
“Ugh, that sounds hot!” Tianyu complained.
“We’ll have to be careful not to get dizzy,” Maomao agreed.
She was thinking about what happened in the retreat area some years before. Jinshi had gotten heat stroke—then, to make matters even more complicated, had been targeted by an assassin.
And that was how I learned about the frog...
In spite of her thousand-yard stare, Maomao managed a question. “There are other hunting grounds. Why did they pick this one?”
“Funny you should ask. There are supposed to be zhen birds there.”
“Zhen birds!” Maomao cried, her eyes sparkling. The zhen was a bird that was supposed to be extremely poisonous. There were records of several people having been assassinated by means of these birds throughout history, but whether the stories were entirely true remained unclear. If the animals really existed, and weren’t just legends, then Maomao wanted to see one.
“You should know better than to talk about poisons in front of Niangniang,” Tianyu chided the other physician.
“Oops! It just slipped out,” said Dr. Li regretfully.
“Is that what they’re hunting? I’d love to catch one alive if possible. Argh! If you’d just told me, I could have prepared some things to help us withstand zhen poison.”
“You’re assuming these mythical birds actually exist, Niangniang.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but you won’t be part of the dissections, Maomao,” Dr. Li said.
“Huh?” Maomao’s jaw hung open. “Wh-Why not? I can cope with the heat—I’ll even wash the internal organs if that’s what you want!” The intestines had excrement in them, so it was no one’s favorite job—but Maomao would volunteer for it today.
Dr. Li said, “You have other work to do. Something you’re very good at, I hear. Tasting food for poison.”
Oh...
Only then did she finally realize that something must be afoot.
Once they arrived at the hunting grounds, Tianyu and Dr. Li went one way while Maomao went another.
“We’ve been waiting for you, ma’am.”
Normally it might have been Chue who greeted her here—but today she was met by someone different.
“Hulan.”
“Indeed, and may I say what an honor it is to hear you greet me with such friendly familiarity, with no title.”
He was a young man, not even twenty years old, with a smile on his face, but she knew not to be fooled by his unctuous grin and his humble attitude. It was thanks to him that Maomao had found herself chased all over I-sei Province, and ultimately nearly killed by bandits.