Dr. Li gave first aid to Tianyu’s father. He had the wound on his neck and some scratches from when he had tripped on the ground, but otherwise he wasn’t seriously harmed.
In fact, Maomao was in worse shape than he was. Her face was a mess of soot and snot and tears. Her clothes were soaked; the moment she got back to the tent, Suiren quickly gave her a new outfit, which went a long way toward making her feel more human again.
Kada’s Book, huh?
She’d hardly believed it really existed. When Kokuyou had mentioned it in the pleasure district, she’d thought how great it would be if it existed, but she hadn’t really believed it.
“What fine medical treatment you’re giving me for such small injuries. I really can’t thank you enough.” It turned out that Tianyu’s father was his exact opposite not only in appearance, but also in personality. Despite being a grizzled hunter, he was polite and oddly classy.
“Please, don’t mention it,” said Dr. Li.
“Awful lot of work when you could just slap some spit on it and it would be fine,” Tianyu said from beside him, as if they weren’t dealing with his own father; he earned himself a knuckle from Dr. Li.
“Oh! Pardon me. I know he’s your son,” the doctor said quickly to Tianyu’s father.
“Not at all. Knock him on the head until it cracks open.” Tianyu’s father sounded distinctly serious.
“When it does, I’ll be curious to see if there’s anything inside.” With Dr. Li’s jokes, it could be hard to tell whether he was actually, you know, joking.
“Ha ha ha! Gee, it almost sounds like you all don’t like me,” Tianyu said.
Maomao and the others were in one of the tents that Hulan had prepared. It served as a place for the guards to rest, and had medical supplies as well.
Basen, who had apparently been waiting for the conversation to reach a break, stuck his head in. “May we?” he asked.
“Please, go ahead,” Maomao answered for the group.
Basen, Jinshi, and Hulan all entered.
“What do you want me to do?” Dr. Li asked. He’d been brought along for his skills as a physician, but he was an outsider to this group. He took the hint and offered to make himself scarce.
“Please wait outside,” Jinshi instructed him.
“Yes, sir.” Dr. Li left the tent, leaving Maomao, Tianyu, Tianyu’s father, Jinshi, Basen, and Hulan. In Maomao’s opinion, they didn’t really need those last two either.
“Moon Prince, we don’t need Hulan here, do we?” she asked, the clear suggestion being: Get him the hell out of here. Jinshi had described Hulan as Lahan with a different hair color—and Maomao intended to treat him like Lahan.
“That’s a terrible thing to say, Lady Maomao,” Hulan said, still grinning broadly.
Basen didn’t look much happier than Maomao felt—he didn’t seem to get along with the young man either.
“You’ll just have to live with them,” Jinshi said. If that was his decision, Maomao wouldn’t press the point.
Then Jinshi turned to Tianyu’s father and said, “First, you must let me apologize.”
“O-Oh, no, sir. Heavens, no.” Tianyu’s father only bowed his head even deeper. He didn’t stop there: He got out of his chair and prostrated himself directly on the carpet. “I can only thank you for having any regard at all for the descendant of a criminal like myself. In my filthy state, I’m not fit even to appear in your presence.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. For the record, let me ask: Are you in fact Tianyu’s father?” Maomao had had the same question.
“Yes, sir.”
“I take after my mom, see,” Tianyu volunteered.
A crude thought crossed Maomao’s mind—Maybe you take after your dad, but it’s not this guy—but she didn’t let it out of her mouth. Not for Tianyu’s sake, but for his father’s.
“I have a lot of questions I’d like to ask you,” Jinshi said. “You are a descendant of Kada, are you not?”
“Yes, sir. My great-grandmother became intimate with a physician who visited our hunting grounds. When she got pregnant, he gave her this jade tablet, or so they say.”
All eyes settled on the tablet.
“After that, though, the physician earned the wrath of the reigning emperor and was put to death. If anyone had known my great-grandmother was pregnant, the child in her belly—and perhaps the entire family—would have been killed with him. With tears in her eyes, my great-grandmother defaced the tablet so that the design could not be discerned. If you ask me, she should have just gotten rid of it, but I guess she couldn’t. Maybe it just goes to show how much she cared about that physician.”
“How did it come to be broken in two?”
“That’s my older brother’s doing. Our great-grandmother kept the jade, careful not to let anyone know about it but unable to get rid of it. My brother, however—he said something about an Imperial treasure being hidden somewhere, and tried to make off with it. Our father wouldn’t allow it; he said that as his younger brother, I too had a claim on the jade. So finally, my brother broke the tablet in half and disappeared with one piece of it.” Tianyu’s father looked at Jinshi’s half of the jade tablet, mystified. “But what is it doing here?”
Maomao raised her hand. “Allow me to answer that. About thirty years ago, a courtesan in the royal capital gave birth to a child, and she received the tablet from the customer who was its father. She gave birth to a girl and passed the tablet down to her, but for reasons I won’t bore you with, I’ve entrusted it to the Moon Prince.”
“I see...” Tianyu’s father gazed at the stone, deeply moved.