“All right, here we go. Long ago, our land fought against another nation but lost terribly. The soldier in charge of the army was a man of very sharp wits who always grasped the strategic situation and made wise judgments. He sent scouts to reconnoiter the enemy encampment, and determined there was a good chance of victory, on which basis he gave battle. If he was so sure he would win, why did he lose?”
“Military matters aren’t really my area of expertise,” Maomao said, frowning at what turned out to be quite a different topic from what she had expected. “Help me out.”
“Oh, at least try to think it through.”
“I told you, it’s not my field.”
The two of them chatted away, their mortars grinding and the powder collecting.
“Okay, okay. Your hint is: meat.”
“Meat?” Maomao cocked her head and hmmed thoughtfully.
Meat, meat, meat... Maybe he means they were caught in some unique trap or something?
It seemed unlikely that actual meat was the issue at hand.
The state of the army’s nutrition? No...
Maomao dusted the powder off her hands. As she’d said, the ground rice could have served as whitening powder, and it left her hands very white. They were using polished rice so as to be sure no bran got into the mixture.
“Bran...”
Bran was very fibrous; it helped regulate digestion. (It was Maomao’s bad habit to immediately consider the medicinal applications of whatever she happened to be thinking about.)
Digestion...
She gave a great clap of her hands.
“Figure it out?” Tall Senior asked.
“Yes. Could it be that this quick-witted commander had mistaken the size of the enemy forces? I think perhaps his scouts misunderstood how to judge their scale.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I think his foes were people who eat a lot of meat. I’ve heard that one way of determining the size of an enemy unit is to examine their waste. But people who eat a lot of grains produce more excrement than people who eat mostly meat.”
When someone took in a lot of fibrous food, the amount of their stool increased—sometimes by two or three times. And brown rice had more fiber than white rice. If the scouts had judged the quantity of waste based on their experiences from their own camp and had used that to estimate the number of enemy troops, they could have come up with completely the wrong number.
Tall Senior formed a big circle with his hands, meaning right answer. Maomao allowed herself a flush of self-satisfaction.
“Any other stories?” she asked.
“Couldn’t you ask about something else?” Tall Senior said, sounding like he was tired of the subject.
Let’s see... What else is there to ask?
Suddenly, Maomao thought of the physician she’d encountered at the selection exam—the one who’d been interested in Suirei.
“Have you been managing the medicine for very long, sir?”
“Hmm... About five years now, I’d say.”
“Then, do you know the person who used to be in charge of the management? Until about three years ago, I think?” Maomao had a sense it had been roughly that long since Suirei had faked her own suicide and disappeared.
“Oh, do you mean Tairan? I thought I saw him talking to you after the test.”
“So you did. Why didn’t you rescue me?” Maomao pursed her lips at him.
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“We don’t, exactly. He’s more an acquaintance of an acquaintance. He was familiar with a palace lady who killed herself some time ago.”
“Ahhh. Yes, I remember. Suirei, right?” Surprisingly, Tall Senior seemed to be okay with the whole thing. “He said he was going to propose to her or something.”
“You mean, as in marriage?”
Maomao was suddenly filled with a sense of pity for Tairan. Suirei had probably planned to use him for her own ends all along. There was some room for sympathy with Suirei too—she couldn’t go against the Shi clan—but it didn’t change the fact that Tairan was essentially collateral damage.
“I guess she only got close to him so she could take advantage of him,” Tall Senior said. “She was a bit on the tall side, but she certainly had a pretty face. That was a rough time, I tell you. The whole department had to rework the way we were managing the medicines, they made us get rid of the herb garden we’d been quietly keeping on the side, and of course Tairan was demoted...”
“Herb garden?” Maomao said, biting her lip. She’d actually cherished a slim hope that she might be entrusted with that garden when she became an assistant to the physicians, but now that hope was dashed entirely.
“It was his fault for bringing his personal feelings into his work. Although he was a skilled physician, especially when it came to anesthetics,” Tall Senior said.
“Anesthetics?” Maomao asked, her ears pricking up again.
“Yeah. Doctors around here don’t use them much; they just tell all those injured soldiers to grin and bear it. But there are some you don’t want to use because they’re actually quite toxic, or can create dependency.”
“I know,” Maomao said. That was exactly why she had struggled so much when it came to doing surgery on Xiaohong in the western capital. She’d even been prepared to do the procedure with the girl held down by force if she thrashed from the pain.
“Tairan understood those factors, and had a gift for mixing formulations that would put the least strain on the patient.”
“If Dr. Tairan was that good and that knowledgeable about poisons, I wish you would have mentioned it sooner.” Maomao was practically snorting with excitement and gradually cornering Tall Senior. Now she wanted to learn everything she could from Tairan. Perhaps Suirei had approached him in part because of the knowledge he possessed.
“Why get mad at me about it?” Tall Senior shot back, but he wasn’t actually upset. He was quite even-keeled even for a doctor, Maomao thought.
Even if he does have a soft spot for beautiful women.
That was well within expectations for a young man of his age. It wasn’t like he was going to find himself blackmailed by someone he’d hopped into bed with.
“These drug trials have me thinking, someone very important must be very ill,” Tall Senior said.
So he has noticed.
He didn’t yet think that person was the Emperor, or he never would have brought the subject up so casually.
“If they’re going to do surgery, they should really have gotten Tairan to handle the anesthesia,” he said. “He would be sure to find the best balance of all the factors.”
“I suppose they didn’t consider him because he was demoted,” said Maomao.
“I guess. It was like the light went out of him... He just let himself slip. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him pass that test.”
“Oh hoh.”
“Oh, uh, not that I mean you’re not perfectly qualified, Maomao.”
“Why, thank you.”
“I think we’ve been talking a bit too much. Maybe we should pick up the pace.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and the two of them started mortaring faster.