Archive of Our Own

“What a mess…”

A “mess” was a conservative way of putting it. Perhaps Maomao, who’d grown tolerant to gore and injury, hadn’t the mind to perceive what she’d done as anything more than that

She was seated at her desk, atop a round cushion; a humble piece of furnishing for the small shack she occupied. Unraveled across her desk was the bandage from her left arm. It bore an array of old, darkened stains; nothing quite like the brighter, redder ones that now decorated her arm.

Maomao was testing medicine on herself, as per the course of her hobby — well, rather, her primary occupation since her dismissal from the Imperial Palace. She was no longer needed as a lady-in-waiting to Gyokuyou, whom was now the Empress; nor was she needed as Master Jinshi’s assistant since he’d assumed his role as the imperial prince. Thus, Maomao had returned to her apothecary’s shop in the pleasure district.

With less chores than she’d had at the palace, and therefore more time to spare in between her regular duties, Maomao found herself preoccupied with experiments again. Or, rather, they were meant to be experiments. She often fell incessant beyond procedure, until she’d essentially hacked at herself like a stubborn tree that wouldn’t fall to an axe’s many blows.

Her left arm was unsightly. It had served as her testing ground for experiments since she was a child, and it had since taken on a reddened, mutilated appearance. Just the naked sight of it could have sent an onlooker into shock-induced psychosis. That was why she always wore a bandage.

For today’s experiment, Maomao wanted to test the effects of centella — a plant from the south, known for its wound-healing properties — on lacerated tissue. Namely, having been inspired by Suirei’s resurrection drug and the fabled talks of an immorality potion, she was curious if she could minimize the formation of scar tissue and instead regenerate the skin to its original state. Such a feat would open a path towards the full restoration of severance; a work of justice to her deformed pinky. She could fetch a fine price for a medicine such as that.

So, using an old knife she’d once delegated to mincing herbs, Maomao had angled the blade over a mostly-even patch of skin, then, with the certainty of someone who’d done so one too many times before, swiftly drew it. The blood had been quick to follow, readily budding from the exposed dermis and drooling down the curvature of her wrist. She wasn’t the kind to seek ground-breaking discoveries over superficial scrapes; a deeper cut was more inclined to scar irregularly, and therefore offered her more room for experimentation.

Of course, she’d needed to achieve an exact depth, and she couldn’t have expected to do so on her first try. Nor her second, nor her third.

With her high pain tolerance, Maomao could have gone on doing this several more times. She was considered a masochist by those who’d witnessed her in action, grinning ear-to-ear as she ingested poisons and rubbed toxic fungi into her skin. She was somewhat depraved, she knew. However, in her defence, it was an ordinary duty of an apothecary. One couldn’t expect to move forward if they didn’t take risks; Maomao was just one of the few who’d chosen to take those risks. Her passion for medicine far exceeded any quarrels of personal well-being

This meant that… well, sometimes, she’d take it a bit farther than was needed. There was, perhaps, a subconscious motive behind her overindulgence. The sting of poison coating her throat; the prickling in her extremities that faded into numbness; the warmth of her own blood painting her arm — these were all physical sensations that acted as the occasional recess from her own head; a place far more grueling than a paper cut or a mushroom root.

So, sometimes, she’d require deeper cuts and stronger poisons. But it hardly meant much — if anything, it allowed her research to advance. It was necessary. Who else would do it?

Before Maomao knew it, she’d made several lacerations to her arm, each one flowering with crimson and dermis. The loss of blood was dizzying, and she reveled in the feeling — albeit, her expression had likely been inscrutable. She barely felt the rush as she’d so felt it years ago, having built up a tolerance. She always yearned to go deeper, but she was not the skilled surgeon her father was; she could only mend so much. So, she often had to restrain herself.

As for the “mess”, she’d been particular to conduct herself in the later hours of the day, just after Chou-u had left for the Verdigris House for dinner and a bath. That was to say, Maomao had leniency to study and clean up without any prying eyes.

… Right. The centella.

She reached across her desk for the plant, her bloodied hand staining the bowl it sat inside of. In the past, Maomao had applied centella topically onto much smaller, older scars. This time, however, she wanted to study the effects of immediate intervention to a larger wound that had yet to heal itself. As such, she’d reduced the plant to aqueous extracts so that she could apply it via a dropper. No sense in dirtying her hands any further, right?

She hated to move on to this next phase so soon, but she’d made enough cuts to produce ones of the desired depth. A select few, in fact, had exposed some subcutaneous tissue. She had a fruitful testing ground, and perhaps she’d leave some untouched by the centella so that she might use them for other studies. There was a particular concoction of foreign medicines that she’d been meaning to try out, but she’d have to wait on it.

After dabbing away some of the excess blood, Maomao plucked the dropper from the bowl of centella and obtained a small amount of extract. She brought the dropper to her left wrist and steadied her hand as best as she could, hovering just above the deepest, bloodiest laceration, then-

A hand grabbed her upper arm.

Maomao gasped and snapped her head towards the touch. The sudden movement, combined with the loss of blood, made the room sway in a sickly manner, and she had to suppress a groan from the nausea as she tried to identify whomever had snuck into her shop and apprehended her.

A masked androgynous beauty stood beside her, with luscious purple tresses framing his temples and betraying his disguise. As her vision properly stilled, Maomao met the fierce gaze of none other than the imperial prince: Jinshi.

How hadn’t she heard him come in? More importantly, why was he here? He hadn’t the business to come all this way — especially at this hour, when the brothels were beginning to populate. Jinshi was monikered as a man so beautiful, he could topple entire nations; even with a mask on, his looks would scant go unnoticed by the licentious customers that roamed the pleasure district.

Behind Jinshi, looking perhaps just as terrorized, stood his attendant, Gaoshun. Maomao had ceaselessly deepened the grooves of the manservant’s face over the years with her shenanigans, but this time, she thought she noticed something new tensing his features. He looked positively distraught.

Jinshi didn’t speak. He was as stiff as a dried reed, his wide and fervent eyes boring into Maomao. In fact, the apothecary was certain than if he were to widen his eyes any farther, they’d simply fall out.

“Master Jin- hck!” Pulled roughly from her seat, she found herself unduly close to Jinshi’s face. The latter removed his mask, exposing to Maomao the full brunt of his ire.

“W-what did you do?!” His voice, normally a serenade of honey and flowers, cracked and wavered with little vestige of sanity.

The foreign display of wrath incited a cold sweat from Maomao — but not to the degree her lightheadedness reached from a standing position. Her heart palpitated, and a shallow breath passed her lips as she felt her head, leaden with weight, sway forwards and down.

“Hey—!” Jinshi acted fast and caught her by her underarms, shakily lowering the both of them to the floor. Maomao’s vision came and went in unruly bursts, as did her other senses. She all but danced the line of pre-syncope with the grace of a dying locust.

A flurry of panicked words and footsteps followed her tumble. Gaoshun must have been hurrying to her aid, perhaps gathering supplies — she couldn’t tell. He and Jinshi couldn’t do much, given that Maomao was the last one bearing a physician’s knowledge in the pleasure district; Luomen, her adoptive father and the former physician at the apothecary’s shop, was now employed at the Imperial Palace.

Maomao’s heart thrummed against her ribcage in its attempts to reallocate blood to her head. As the colored splotches from her vision began to clear, she discerned that Jinshi was cradling her left arm in his hands, scrutinizing the new inflictions and, with a terror, the older ones. Indeed, Maomao recalled, he’d never seen her full arm before.

It was a ghastly thing to the unprepared. From the base of her palm to her inner elbow, her skin took on varied contrasts of red; a revolting display of blisters, gashes, and granulations. Some looked no older than a few weeks, and others were decently blanched with age. Indeed, her arm was well and truly an exhibit.

Jinshi looked offended at the discovery — like it were done purely to spite him.

Maomao grimaced under his scrutiny and attempted to tug her arm away, but the prince only secured his grip. She thought it a shame for someone so beautiful to sully himself with the blood of a lowly commoner such as herself. Jinshi must not have cared for such formalities just then (when had he ever?) as he reached up and yanked the old bandage from Maomao’s desk, bundled it haphazardly into a ball, and pressed it firmly against her arm.

Oh, yeah. She felt it now.

“What were you thinking?” Jinshi exclaimed. It seemed he was still in the throws of emotion, given the poorly-concealed shakiness of his voice. His hands, now blotched with red, trembled as they worked to cease the bleeding from Maomao’s arm. “Surely, you did not think this through.”

Actually, she had. To have even procured centella at this time of the year was a rarity that demanded premeditation.

“I was experimenting, sir.”

“This was not an experiment.” Jinshi’s words snapped through the apothecary’s shop like a shock of lightening. The silence that fell over them only cemented his statement.

He knew. How aggravating.

From behind them, Gaoshun rummaged across Maomao’s desk, presumably for fresh bandages. The poor man winced as he moved aside the bloody mincing knife — and Jinshi’s expression took on something of a vengeful glower towards the culpable weapon.

After some bandages were located, the two men hurried to wrap Maomao’s arm. The latter analyzed their work: it was novice, at best, and lacked the proper security for the nature of her wounds. Plus, with such high emotions involved, they’d neglected any principle of organization in favor of twisting the strip of gauze in fitful directions. At the very least, if Maomao were to treat the injuries, she’d have started with some stitches.

Jinshi must have been thinking one step ahead of her, as he declared against what she hadn’t said aloud: “We must take you to the court physician. You are in no state to mend this yourself.”

Perhaps he was right. Her hands were too unsteady to manage the calculated precision of a needle and thread just then. However, if they gave her some time to recover from her vertigo, they would find her perfectly capable of tending to herself. Besides, even though Luomen (the court physician in question) was her adoptive father, his responsibilities belonged to the Imperial Palace now. To summon him elsewhere would be to compromise the Emperor’s family; a decision that, were something to happen, would surely have everyone’s heads.

So, with that in mind, Maomao shook her head. “Master Jinshi, I insist you let me handle it. My job deals with injuries much worse than this. It’s fine.”

“How is it fine?! I dare say you’ve butchered yourself!” He gestured wildly to her arm, and the new bandage that had already begun to soil a bright red. “You cannot continue to do this. I will not allow you-”

“It is none of your business what I do.” Maomao affected nonchalance in spite of the curt edge to her voice. She was determined to walk away from this unfortunate situation with her autonomy intact. What she did with herself was her business. This was her job. Why couldn’t he understand that?

Jinshi, however, had fallen silent. It seemed that Maomao had struck a nerve. He affixed himself to her with a beastly, dominating gaze that teased the line of insanity. Telling the nosy nymph to mind his business was comparable to a threat of war, apparently. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve presumed him readying to assassinate her then and there.

Luckily, that hadn’t been his course of action. Seeming to have settled over something in his head, Jinshi’s expression eased into a strange poise, and he directed his attention up towards his attendant. “Gaoshun.”

“Yes, Master Jinshi,” responded Gaoshun, who’d been watching the exchange with a furrow in his brow.

“Please fetch Luomen from the rear palace.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, Maomao was the crazy-eyed one. Had Jinshi not heard her? No, he certainly had. He’d merely disregarded her assertion in favor of his own. She should not have expected anything more from him.

As Gaoshun left the shop, a wave of frustration rushed through Maomao. She virtually shot daggers through Jinshi with the glare she sent him.

“I said I can handle it myself.”

“Surely, you jest! With something as extensive as this-“

“Master Jinshi, I have years of expertise-”

“I don’t care!”

How childish. Shouldn’t he have been attending to something else? A chore of the Emperor’s, perhaps? He could nary miss the chance to interrupt Maomao’s work and patronize her for how she conducted herself. He was far too concerned with her purity; perish the thought that she taint her already-undesirable looks any further than his liking would permit.

With a strained sigh, Jinshi stood up from the floor and raked a hand through his hair. Maomao watched him as he stepped away and passed the evening’s sunset that beamed through the shop’s window. His purple hair shone a rich magenta, and the room’s shadows contrasted his impeccable jawline. Even in a state of disarray, Jinshi somehow managed to appear as a breathtaking maiden. If an untrained eye were to catch sight, it’d certainly mistake him for one of the courtesans. “These- these proclivities to self-injury are getting out of hand, apothecary.”

Maomao realized that she’d been too comfortable in his presence, eagerly consuming poisons and the like beyond her orders as a food taster. He’d been bound to address it at some point; this had simply been the tipping point. “It is a part of my work, Master Jinshi.”

“Do you hold such low opinion of me that you’d insult my intelligence to my face? These are not just the harmless doings of an apothecary. The palace physicians aren’t inclined to these experiments, are they?”

To be fair, Maomao’s adoptive father was a surgeon and was, in fact, “inclined” to such procedures. As for the quack doctor from the rear palace… well, need it be said?

“What will happen when you make a mistake that you cannot fix? What shall I do when I find you beyond reviving?” Jinshi was pacing now, his hands affixed to the back of his head; the poor thing was trying to soothe himself. He was truly too theatrical for his own good, working himself up like that. “You told me once that you did not want to die — that if you were to be executed, you would want it to be with poison.” His gaze then fell firmly onto Maomao: “Is this just your way of attaining that? Do you want to die, Maomao?”

Well, she had to at least give him credit for remembering her request. Perhaps he’d actually uphold her wishes if she were to fail so terribly as to be granted a beheading — such as if the Emperor were to expire during Luomen’s recess to stitch up her mangled arm.

Now, as for why she experimented on herself…

“… It fulfills me.” It wasn’t the whole truth, admittedly, but she hoped it would suffice.

Jinshi’s ire dissipated somewhat, although not entirely just yet. His brow furrowed into something of sadness. He looked pitying.

Don’t pity me, Maomao wanted to spit at him. She absolutely despised when anyone looked down on her like a wounded cat.

His expression seemed to implore her, urging for more. So, with a sigh, she continued, “I would never wish to test medicine on someone other than myself first. The line of ethics in our world is vague, but that goes indubitably past it. That is why I limit my studies to myself. However...” Speaking so candidly left her stomach churning, but she’d been left with no choice; Jinshi was an unrelenting flame that would not be snuffed. “I suppose being my own test subject allows me to feel in ways I do not ordinarily. I have the means to create new medicines, and it’s of my own merit. Unlike serving a high-official or living as a courtesan, my work as an apothecary is rewarding. It gives me a purpose.”

Jinshi seemed to mull over her words, his jaw working itself in his concentration.

“… And yet, you are still impassive.”

Maomao frowned at him, but Jinshi continued before she could interject. “Doesn’t it make more sense that you are doing this so you won’t feel? These experiments… they’re excessive, are they not? It sounds to me like a distraction, rather than a supplement.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but she faltered over a lack of words. Why couldn’t she refute him? She hadn’t rehearsed for this conversation — although, if Jinshi had had the decency to knock on the door instead of sneak up on her, she could have tidied up and avoided this entirely.

Instead, here he was, tenderly opening a book that was not meant for his perusing.

“I understand it,” Jinshi eventually said, averting his gaze. It seemed he’d taken her silence as agreement. “I’m a coward of my own troubles. I feigned an identity to escape from them… and yet, they eventually caught up to me.” His confession spoke to the many habits humans picked up to avoid the things they most feared. Some released their frustrations onto their families, while others overindulged in food and alcohol — and one in particular pretended to be a eunuch. No matter their efforts, in the end, their problems eventually found them again.

But Maomao was not repressing anything when she tested medicines on herself. She was not so easily perturbed as others were; she was a stoic apothecary with a balanced mind and a duty to fulfill. That was all.

“A lot has happened to you in the recent years, hasn’t it? Is that why you’re doing this?” Jinshi’s expression finally let go of its anger, instead replaced by condolence. He could have been referring to a number of things. Maomao’s initial kidnapping into the rear palace, for one; she knew that the prince faulted himself somewhat for it, although she hardly understood why. The recent events just before the new year had taken their toll, too; she’d been kidnapped a second time, made privy to the deception of the Shi Clan, and returned home to an entirely new (yet also former) dynamic of life.

“So much has changed,” Jinshi went on, wistful. “Perhaps we’d made ourselves comfortable for a time. I know I certainly did. I’m sure you miss the moments of levity. Your friends…”

Maomao’s gaze fell to the floor. Her manner turned rigid and withdrawn.

Xiaolan, Shisui… She tried not to dwell over them. It was a matter of life that people would come and go; it seldom meant anything. To preoccupy oneself with such things would be unproductive. She’d seen first-hand what unrestrained malady brought upon a person, and as far as Maomao was concerned, it only served as a hindrance.

It did surprise her that the high-ranking Jinshi had recognized Maomao’s friends, or that she’d even had any at all. Perhaps, quietly, he’d taken note of her routines in the palace, which included the commoners with whom she’d mingled with.

She just hadn’t taken Jinshi for the considerate type — a sore mistake, it seemed. It would have been easier to refute any compassion or feeling on her part, had the prince not directly witnessed her enjoying herself amongst the customs of palace life. Surely, though, her joy had only been a byproduct of forced adaptation. She’d known that her time at the palace was limited by a contract. Her goal had been to keep her head down and make it through those few years until she could return home to her poor father and her apothecary’s shop.

So why was it that, now that she was home, she didn’t feel the slightest content?

“I haven’t much visited you since the destruction of the Shi.” Jinshi’s eyes took on a regretful glint. “I’ve been tied up with matters of the court, but that’s no excuse. I’m sure my absence hasn’t helped matters.”

Maomao’s hands fisted the fabric of her robe in her lap. How conceited of him to assume she missed him. Couldn’t he see that she didn’t care? She was managing just fine on her own, much as she’d done so before. Besides that, Jinshi was the imperial prince, and he could not expect to visit someone as lowly as herself anymore. She was no longer his servant — and even if she were, they simply could not be acquaintances. The fact that he was even here with her was foolish enough. His priorities were displaced, and the court would certainly suffer from his ineptitude.

She despised his concern. She hated the topics he broached. Her gaze shot to her arm, her mind digressing where it naturally digressed: to the medicines she had yet to rub into her open wounds. How terribly she wished Jinshi would just leave so she could tear off those bandages and gouge a knife down to the bone. She wondered what effect centella would have on the marrow. Would she even feel it?

A gentle waft of air that settled from the prince’s robes made Maomao’s hair billow, and her vacant eyes flitted back into focus. Jinshi, perhaps worrying that the apothecary had been ignoring his every word, had knelt back down to her level. He reached for her chin, lifting it upwards with two delicate fingers.

“I must apologize to you. You’ve fretted to subdue every problem of my own, and yet I’ve not paid yours any mind… I’m sorry.”

His eyes were a gentle pair of obsidian orbs that perused into her own, tenderly coaxing for something. Her throat tightened; a much unwelcome and unfamiliar sensation. Was he trying to cause her upset?

The whispered scent of jasmine tea lingered between them, Jinshi’s face dauntingly close to hers. His proximity was beginning to feel too intimate. A lump suddenly rose in Maomao’s throat, forbidding her to verbally declare such a thing. She tried to swallow it down, but it only grew. Conceiting to its presence, she averted her gaze.

Jinshi responded by cupping her face in his palms. He was persistent.

“You haven’t spoken. Say something.”

She couldn’t. Her eyes pricked with something hot, and she squeezed them shut. The urgent feeling building inside of her made her head spin.

“You’re shaking...”

“…”

She realized what was about to happen much too late. Had she caught it sooner, maybe she could have escaped with her dignity still intact. But she had not — and she was helpless to what came next.

All too suddenly, the apothecary’s stoic pretense rapidly gave way like a flimsy beaver’s dam staving off an ocean.

A hitched gasp escaped from an unpracticed place in Maomao’s chest, and she reflexively jerked away from Jinshi’s touch like a stray cat. A horrible sensation of anguish seized her heart, and she crumpled forwards until her head met the dirt floor.

The first droplet fell. Then, a pattering trickle pursued.

Jinshi stilled in front of her, perhaps not realizing at first what was happening since it had come on so suddenly. Then, it became evident:

Maomao was sobbing.

A broken wail clawed itself out from somewhere deep within her, deflecting harshly off the walls of the shop — making Jinshi startle. For the girl whose demeanor bore the epitome of resignation, it seemed that when she cried, she cried hard. Her shortcomings of emotional intimacy growing up hadn’t made her immune to feeling, no matter how much she asserted so.

“Maomao…”

What the heavenly prince must have been thinking, being borne witness to such a rare display…

After a moment of what was likely incredulity and hesitation, Jinshi finally roused from his stupor. Maomao felt herself be gathered from the floor and pulled into the lap of the prince, the latter seeming careful to protect her injured arm — although certainly neither of them had their minds affixed to it right then.

“H-hey,” Jinshi murmured brokenly, the certainty in his voice long gone. His hands sought for a place to settle, until they finally braced themselves firmly against her back, pressing her to his chest. “I-I’m so sorry. I’m here… I’ve got you…”

Maomao keened out one long cry after the other, each one effectively strangulating her and scraping her voice raw, and she writhed helplessly against the discomfort. Her heart ached with the weight of everything releasing itself upon her, and she could only respond in the manner of a small, injured prey: by cowering away into a pathetic heap.

Jinshi buried his fingers into the apothecary’s scalp, combing tenderly through dark green tresses. He cradled the back of her head, much akin to holding an infant that couldn’t yet support itself. When her hair ribbon fell loose from his touch, he set it aside seemingly without a second thought, then just as swiftly resumed to holding her.

Maomao had never allowed him to get this close before. Whenever he so much as brushed her shoulder, she’d flinch away with a grimace so full of repulsion that even an onlooker might take it personally. Of course, there’d been a handful of proximity-led encounters between the two of them, but rarely had Maomao been an equal participant.

Now, however…

Choking on another sob that robbed her of her breath, Maomao clutched to Jinshi’s robes for purchase. Her chin was tucked downwards, her right ear and cheek pressed firmly against his chest. She had somehow managed to balance herself fully atop Jinshi’s lap; nary a toe touched the dirt floor beneath them, her entire weight carried only by the prince. Yes, this was certainly unlike the reserved Maomao.

When was the last time she’d been leant a moment of dependence on another? Had she ever cried in someone’s arms before? From the sound of her cries, novice and strained, Jinshi could’ve surmised that she hadn’t properly wept since infancy — and he would’ve be right.

“Breathe,” the prince scolded in an anxious tone as he patted her upper back. “Breathe, apothecary…”

She tried. Her body, however, normally yielding to her control, was acting of its own accord. There was very little that she could do. Given this, she managed nothing more than a shallow gasp before another cry came about.

Not that Maomao was of a clear mind to mull over things just then, but from what she could compose in her head, she found conflicting feelings of shame and desperation. She would never have expected, nor wanted, for Jinshi to be the first witness to her tears (or anyone, for that matter) — and yet, starved of comfort, she was paralyzed with exactly that person.

There was something safe about the scent of warm sandalwood incense and the buttery-soft fabric of his robe. Maybe it was because it reminded her of her time at the palace — particularly when she’d served under Jinshi in the outer court. Maomao was used to the many varieties of incense that circulated Li (having been raised in a brothel, surrounded by courtesans and customers with their rich aromas), but the kind that Jinshi used was uniquely his own. It was that distinct sandalwood warmth she’d drifted through when cleaning his chambers. His robes, too, which were much softer than any she’d ever owned, had passed her hands a plentiful of times when laundering. After a while, perhaps Maomao had habituated herself to it all.

Maybe that was why her return home had felt so… bittersweet. She no longer hunted the palace for mysteries to solve in exchange for herbal rarities from Jinshi; nor did she spend her mornings listening to Xiaolan’s gossip about the ghosts of the inner court; and nary did she see an insect traipse the ground outside and not be reminded of Shisui.

For the first time, Maomao had obtained a semblance of something lovely in her life — and all too quickly, all at once, she’d been made to leave it behind.

The thought only provoked another fragmented cry from her, which was promptly muffled by Jinshi’s robes as the latter pulled her closer, helplessly whispering sweet nothings to her. Her heart ached. New reminders of her sorrow attacked her relentlessly, never once gracing her a moment to catch her breath. It was all too much for the effacing Maomao.

She must have cried for a terrible length of time, burdening Jinshi. She couldn’t understand why he’d chosen to remain there with her. Surely, this was more trouble than it was worth for the prince whose bandwidth was often reached by mere paperwork. Even so, he offered more dedication to calming Maomao’s tears than with any political decree.

After a time, Jinshi began to rock them both gently, side-to-side; a pleasant sway that likened to a mother soothing her child. Such an act seemed fitting of the heavenly prince with his nymph-like bearing. Although he wasn’t the eunuch he’d pretended to be, his maternal demeanor still rivaled that of actual mothers. Perhaps it was for this, as well as the unison swaying of their bodies, that the intensity of Maomao’s cries slowly softened. Motherless as she might have been, she could not escape the subconscious longing for such comfort. The rhythmic motions of the womb were imprinted upon everyone; a dormant memory of a time when one only knew the gentle jostle of their bearer’s belly.

It was a miracle the occupants of the Verdigris House hadn’t come charging down. Unlike the small shack Maomao’s apothecary shop operated from, the Verdigris House was well-insulated to stave off both the unpleasant cold and, evidently, Maomao’s cries. From the standpoint of an emergency, that might not have been a good thing.

Thankfully, however, the apothecary was coming to the conclusion of her paroxysm. Her cries had lessened to an infant’s weak mewls, which were each met with drawn, silky-soft hushes from Jinshi. Then, after a while more, they’d ceased completely, with their only remaining traces being a few erring hiccups and sniffles.

As though signifying the end, Maomao let out a shaky sigh.

“There we are,” Jinshi whispered warmly, his voice laced with a hint of pride. Perhaps being entrusted by the wary Maomao, as well as having successfully soothed her, had praised him.

It was only then that Maomao realized Jinshi’s warm breath close to the crown of her head. His lips softly grazed her hair, as though hesitating to plant themselves there. Instead, he inhaled gently, breathing in her scent. It seemed an act most deliberate for the sensual Jinshi.

After a long moment, Maomao’s eyes slowly flickered open, her vision a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors through her tears. The setting sun had just about fallen by then, leaving the apothecary’s shop a murky scene. It seemed timely that the world would want to rest after such an outburst from its least-suspecting tenant.

Speaking of rest, Maomao was just about spent. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this debilitated. Repeatedly, her breath hitched, then shuddered; her body, already so frail to begin with, could hardly recuperate from such a taxing surge of emotion. She felt nauseated.

Indeed, Jinshi had likely found that, upon rubbing her back and perhaps meeting the sharper grooves of her elbows, Maomao had lost weight. No longer under the grandmotherly scrutiny of Lady Suiren, nor obligated to taste a concubine’s lavish foods for poison, the apothecary held little incentive to attend regular meals. Not that she had much to lose as it was; it simply wasn’t feasible for her to sustain any lower.

This, combined with her crying spell, had left her feeling terribly weak.

Maomao hiccuped again, and Jinshi reflexively stroked her back in response. With the slow feebleness of an elder, she shifted upright in the prince’s lap and wiped her face with her sleeve, surmising that that was better than Jinshi’s poor chest. The sight of his ethereal robes, darkened and soiled by her tears and mucus, only highlighted the implications of what she’d done; Maomao, a girl of lowly birth from the pleasure district, had just wept in the lap of the imperial prince.

“… F-forgive me, Master Jinshi…”

“Now, how did I know you were going to say that?” His voice had its characteristic heavenliness; a honeyed, sing-song intonation. He ran his hand over the top of Maomao’s head, smoothing down some of the unruly hairs — a gesture more sedating to the shaken girl than she cared to let on. “You have nothing to apologize for, Maomao.”

It was rare that her name fell from Jinshi’s lips. She hadn’t much realized it until Empress (then-Concubine) Gyokuyou had pointed it out. Now, whenever he spoke Maomao’s name, it captured her attention.

Weakly, she tilted her head upwards. She met his gentle gaze, a protective maternal warmth in his obsidian eyes; a stark contrast to their wild fervency from earlier. She noted, however, that they were coated with a thin luster.

“A-are you…?”

Jinshi quirked a brow at her. Then, his lips thinned into a sad smile. He wiped at his eyes with the pad of his thumb. “I suppose I couldn’t hold myself together, either. You’re very persuasive.”

By that, had he meant her crying had influenced him to do the same? She hadn’t imagined herself effecting others in that way before.

Her attention drifted downwards — to her dampened right sleeve, then, to her bandaged left arm. Jinshi, already beating her to it, took the injured appendage into his tender hold. “Is it…”

Well, yes, it was still bleeding — although Jinshi’s quick-thinking to apply pressure to the wound earlier had slowed it significantly. Maomao would have liked for it to resume its course for her experiment to follow through, but, of course, that was out of the question. Besides, now that Jinshi was here, for reasons she couldn’t work out… the wounds actually hurt. Her tolerance to pain felt weakened in his presence, and not in the way she would have reveled in.

She licked her lips — dry, she realized — and looked up towards the shop. It was a mess without her father’s guidance, and more-so in the immediate aftermath of one of her experiments. She was nary as organized as the elder physician, but that did not excuse her to dishevel his shop.

A quiet guilt peeved at her, both for her disorganization and for… well, the events of the last fifteen minutes. Jinshi had enough on his plate enduring the brunt of the Shi Clan’s demise, among other imperial responsibilities that now fell upon him. The last thing he needed was to shoulder the emotional upsets of a lowly apothecary.

Maomao ought to take accountability for herself. She’d had her reprieve; now, she needed to tidy the shop and prepare for the next day’s operations. Plus, she was sorely dehydrated and needed to replenish.

With a grunt, Maomao prepared herself to stand up-

“Hey-“ Jinshi took a (very gentle) hold of her, urging her back into his lap. “Easy, now. There’s no need to be getting up. We’ll wait here for Gaoshun to return with the physician.”

“T-That could take another hour.” Curse her chattering jaw for breaking up her speech.

“That’s fine.” Jinshi’s left hand settled onto her lower back in a manner of support. His other hand cupped her face, caressing away an errant tear. “We’ll wait.”

Maomao’s expression turned downwards into something that felt dangerously close to a child’s pout. Jinshi breathed a soft chuckle; he must have interpreted it that way. “You’re not very patient, are you?”

“I am.”

“Then, why so eager to leave me?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Oh…” Jinshi looked around the shop intently. Maomao, sensing where his attention had gone, looked towards a shelf of stored goods. The apothecary’s shop was a cramped tumbledown shack with scant supplies, but there were at least the necessities — water, namely. She had to wonder what Jinshi thought of it, coming from such a regal home in the outer palace. Did it taint his view of her? Not that she cared all that much.

Suddenly, Maomao found herself being hoisted not only from Jinshi’s lap, but away from the dirt floor entirely. The shift in gravity dizzied her, and her head swayed against what could have only been the prince’s shoulder. An arm wrapped around her back, as did another underneath her legs, and it was only once she met the worried gaze above her that she realized: Jinshi was carrying her.

Partial to self-sufficiency, Maomao disliked being coddled in such a manner, but she supposed it was at least easy for Jinshi, given that he was twice her size. Plus, she wasn’t so sure she could ambulate on her own, even though she’d just attempted to a moment ago.

Jinshi carried her over to the quaint sleeping arrangement on the other side of the shack: a small reed mat with a woven quilt. Another one of equal size lay parallel to it — belonging to Chou-u, formerly to Luomen. She could practically feel the distaste radiating from Jinshi, who’d never known less than an elevated cotton mattress beneath a canopy.

Gingerly, he set her down onto her mat. He fetched both woven blankets, draping one over Maomao’s lap and the other around her back. His hand seemed to linger by her injured arm, then, he retracted and stood up. “I’ll get you some water. Stay here.”

“I-I can get it myself.” Needed she remind him that he was the prince and she the lowly commoner, not the other way around?

“No. I will get it.”

She supposed he’d be too stubborn to heed her warning, anyway.

When Jinshi returned, he carried a porcelain cup of water, as well as a small plate of rice crackers. How he managed such domestic tasks on his own (menial, granted, but certainly foreign to the prince with hired help), Maomao didn’t know. He took a seat before her, and she offered a prompt “thank you” as she took the cup of water.

There was just one problem: her hands were shaking and couldn’t steady themselves, and she’d just as soon lost her grip. Jinshi caught the cup just in time, with only a meagre of its contents splashing onto Maomao’s lap. His eyes flitted with the same pitying look from earlier. How she hated that look; to feel so helpless.

“My apologies. I should have considered…” Jinshi repositioned himself closer to her, then, after resting his unoccupied hand on the back of her head, he brought the cup’s rim to her lips.

Maomao frowned in disbelief and recoiled, ready to spurn the very idea, but… well, what else could she do? Due to her emotional outburst and the loss of blood from earlier, she hadn’t the strength to hold the cup herself. At best, she could have procured a straw, but a humble pharmacy wouldn’t exactly have an abundance of those. She could have rejected his help, but then, she’d have to go longer without water — likely another half-hour, she presumed, until her tremors could subside enough. With the dryness of her mouth, she didn’t much feel like waiting that long. So, reluctantly, and with a loathing look, she accepted his help.

With her face now properly exposed, the aftermath of Maomao’s paroxysm was made apparent. Her eyes, already accented by dark baggage from the recent weeks, had taken on a glossy, pink hue. Her cheeks, too, were reddened and damp, with a new tear still tracing them on occasion. There were still the faded bruises on her cheek and neck from her time in the stronghold, which no doubt only left her looking more pitiful; the tearful, waifish girl with the mutilated arm and bruised-up face.

All of this, and Jinshi still affixed himself to her. Perhaps it was like passing one of the pleasure district’s syphilitic streetwalkers; one does not want to stare, but they can’t pry their eyes away.

As she nursed the water, Maomao felt Jinshi watch over her, just about radiating an aura of protection — rather displaced for someone of her ranking, she felt. It truly bewildered her why he was so reverent of her when there were an abundance of healthier, lovelier, more well-endowed women at his disposal, whom were more deserving of such personal attention.

After a short while, Maomao indicated with her hand that she was done, and Jinshi lowered the cup of water to the floor. Then, rather conspicuously, he nudged the small plate of rice crackers towards her. She let out a groan at his persistence, but she did take one and begin to nibble at it. Was this Jinshi’s discreet manner of putting some weight on her? Maybe.

As she chewed, she felt his hand begin to rub her back. She didn’t throw him a loathing look this time.

“Do you feel a little better?” he asked, his voice softer than snowfall, perhaps afraid he’d shatter her if he spoke too loudly.

“Yes, a li-little,” she managed after swallowing. Truthfully? She felt horrible. Her head throbbed, and every muscle in her body ached from tension. It did little to help that her speech was still broken.

Jinshi must have begun to notice her stutter; a frown shifted his features as he scanned her up and down. Sure enough, to go along with her shaking voice, her body was trembling. “Are you cold?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Well, it certainly looks like it…” Jinshi pouted like a petulant child. Before Maomao could negate him, the prince was removing his outer robe and slinging it around her, rubbing her shoulders in an attempt to warm her up. Truly, she wasn’t all that cold; she was just in shock. She wasn’t about to make him second-guess his intuition, though. She allowed him this one respite, if only as penance for all he’d done for her that afternoon.

If anyone were to catch sight of them, they’d surely swoon from their awe.

A soft sigh escaped Maomao before she could catch it. She was perhaps more forthcoming than she’d like, following her crying spell. She covered her mouth as a yawn, too, slipped past her lips. The motion of Jinshi’s hands along her shoulders might have been lulling her.

Amidst her haze, she peered at the remaining robe Jinshi wore: a periwinkle kimono. It was still dampened by her tears. She wondered if the marks would ever completely come out.

“I didn’t know you were capable of it,” Jinshi said. It, being Maomao’s paroxysm. His statement didn’t seem like one of insult, rather of surprise. “You must be tired.”

She could only nod in response. Indeed, the reticent Maomao was not one for emotional expression. She had learnt to quell her tears before she’d even been old enough to perceive her own sentience. If a tear did happen to grace her cheek, it was only in silence. That was why now, she was in a veritable state of shock; she’d essentially broken a nineteen-year-long intermission in the most volatile manner she could’ve done so with.

She had to wonder what Jinshi thought of it all. Surely, the prince who wore his heart on his sleeve couldn’t have been unused to such expressions, but he likely found it uncanny coming from someone normally so stoic.

Maomao hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until she felt Jinshi’s hands move to her bandaged arm — prompting her eyes to flit open. His touch was feather-soft, his thumbs almost tickling her as they felt along the reddened spots of the gauze. She chanced a look upwards, catching only a sliver of his eyes from behind a curtain of purple tresses. He looked pensive, and doleful.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. They were surprisingly congenial, then.

༺❁༻

Maomao couldn’t remember how long they’d sat there in the half-moon’s dim glow, lulled by the muffled sounds of the pleasure district just outside; the brothels filtering with customers, and the low winter wind making the shack’s fickle walls creak.

Gaoshun had eventually returned to the apothecary’s shop with Luomen in tow. Luckily, the Emperor had granted Maomao’s adoptive father a brief trip to the pleasure district to tend to the injured girl. Luomen’s reaction was far less than that of Jinshi’s and Gaoshun’s, having witnessed a plentiful of Maomao’s “experiments” over the years — although, being her paternal figure, he still affected a quiet sorrow regardless.

In total, he’d produced twelve sutures to the deeper lacerations of Maomao’s arm, then treated the rest with an occlusive and some fresh gauze. He replenished the bandage supply at the shop and tidied things up, much to Maomao’s dismay — but everyone ensured she would not try to help, lest she keel over just from the act of standing up.

Much dutifully, Gaoshun had relayed a rather censored statement of events to the madam at the Verdigris House, and an arrangement was made for Chou-u to spend the night there, granting Maomao at least a few hours’ respite from the brat. However, there was a catch: it was decided (by none other than the celestial nymph himself) that Jinshi would remain at the apothecary’s shop for the night, to ensure Maomao wouldn’t exacerbate her injuries any further — or, heavens forbid, conduct another experiment.

So, as Gaoshun and Luomen took their leave, and the Verdigris House shuttered their doors for the night, only Maomao and Jinshi remained. The fire in the shop crackled with new wood, offering them both at least some warmth in the winter’s evening.

“So, this… is where you sleep?” Jinshi had asked her once they’d settled down, clothed in their base robes.

“It’s simple enough.” By this point, Maomao’s shock had mostly subsided. Her inflection was no longer broken, although it carried something of diffidence with it. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the exhaustion had well and truly taken the lead.

“It’s hardly befitting a hound,” the prince drawled in a sullen manner.

“This was your decision, Master Jinshi.” She was referring to his choice to sleep at the apothecary’s shop. Whether or not it was out of altruistic motives, she knew he wanted nothing more than his own lavish bed at the palace — made evident by his constant readjustments on the small mat he occupied right beside her. She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t just pulled his mat some distance away — although, Maomao hadn’t weaned from sharing a sleeping space with her adoptive father until the age of ten, so she was used to it. If anything, it was somewhat nostalgic.

Somewhat, because her father was not an incense-sopped man of a stature nearing six shaku.

“It’s only for one night,” Jinshi argued, breathing an elegant sigh as he laid down onto his side, facing Maomao. The dim moonlight that came from the shop’s window licked his skin a porcelain white. “Besides, I could use the respite.”

Maomao, curled up on her own simple mat, averted her eyes. She thought it most indecent to be lying so close to the imperial prince — a single breath’s distance, it felt. It mimicked the time they’d laid together at the stronghold, just after the Shi’s defeat, and just before Jinshi… well, she preferred to forget. Regardless of that, she just couldn’t understand his propensity to such physical intimacy.

As if taunting such a thought, Jinshi reached a hand towards her face. Maomao pulled away, but she could only limit herself to the wall behind her.

“Please remember your station, Master Jinshi,” she warned, notably lacking any real venom in her words.

Jinshi, in his typical fashion, responded with a sulking pout. “You truly are the only one who says such things.” He resumed his reach and stroked the pad of his thumb along her cheek, tracing the redness that still lingered from her tears. She faltered to stop him again.

She affixed to the scar on Jinshi’s own cheek. It was somewhat obscured, given his position, but one couldn’t miss it — not on the face of the formerly-flawless beauty, anyway. It stood out sorely amidst a sea of youthful skin, likely so due to a lack of sun exposure; a high-official’s privilege, surely. And yet, the raised sliver of pink did not tarnish his appearance. As far as Maomao was concerned, it actually offered him a touch of humanness.

Indeed, Jinshi bore a modest scar — a descriptor that couldn’t be said for the many that littered Maomao’s body. Her bandaged arm lay supine between them, vulnerably prominent in spite of its coverage. One would have needed to possess a great deal of self-discipline to ignore it.

“… You must know that I will be forbidding these experiments of yours.” Jinshi looked intently into Maomao’s eyes. Perhaps their minds had both wandered in much the same direction. “I will not have you harming yourself for medicine.”

“It’s a part of my job,” Maomao asserted. Why did she feel as though she’d said that before? “I can’t expect to make better medicines if I don’t study them.”

Jinshi hummed lowly, sounding dissatisfied. “Then, surely there is a less-destructive way of going about it. Would a rat not suffice? I’d gather they run amok in these streets.”

The younger brother of the Emperor knew no manners.

“I don’t exactly have the means to raise a rat.” Maomao remembered the Shi Clan’s supply of test rats; how they’d been delegated to individual cages and plumped up by a generous diet. They required upkeep, more-so than a regular pet. It wasn’t something a humble apothecary could afford. “Besides, I would need multiple of them — and surely, if word were to spread that I was housing a family of rats next door to the esteemed Verdigris House, Granny would surely kick me out.”

Jinshi frowned. “All right, then. How about rabbits?”

“They breed once a month, with litters of up to twelve. There would be an infestation before the start of the warm season.”

“Must you make an excuse for all of my suggestions?”

“Yes, sir.”

She had to admit, she’d missed their banter. Making the ethereal Jinshi fluster was simply too easy. Maomao felt her mouth twitch, and she hoped he hadn’t caught what had likely came across as a small smile.

“That leafy substance,” Jinshi mused aloud in a change of subject, his touch retracting from Maomao’s face and instead resting over her hand. “What was that, anyway?”

“Centella asiatica. It’s a plant used in southern cuisine. It also has healing properties.”

“Well, it certainly didn’t seem healing...”

“That’s because I didn’t get to try it yet.” It was a shame, too; she’d only had a morsel of the plant left — and in her father’s tidying of the shop, he’d discarded its remains. In fairness, it had already been contaminated by Maomao’s blood, so storing it away for a later time would have been out of the question. She would have to procure more in the future.

Now, it was Maomao’s turn to ask a question: “What brings you to the pleasure district?”

Jinshi pursed his lips and groaned. It almost sounded like a whine. “Must I have a reason?”

“I would hope it’s not to avoid your work.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that I finished all of my work today.”

“Is that so?” Having attended to Jinshi in the past as his personal servant, Maomao knew just how rarely he completed his work. He must have been eager to have the rest of the day off — enough to clean his plate before the sun had bronzed.

Jinshi averted his gaze in rumination. “Yes, and it’s a good thing I did…” Maomao needn’t ask why — although, in her opinion, she would certainly have been fine without his untimely visit. She likely would have stitched herself up and wiped her desk clean, just in time for Chou-u to return home and recount the splendid supper he’d all but swallowed whole at the Verdigris House. Sure, she might have felt some malady, but it wouldn’t have been anything an iron-rich snack couldn’t fix.

This was not Maomao’s first experiment, after all. In fact, some of her worser studies (ingesting buckwheat, for one) had been conducted when she was alone. She was well used to enduring the consequences in solitude.

Just then, a sigh fell from Jinshi’s lips. Maomao was about to grumble over his breath in her face — until she caught the serious glint in his eyes.

“Please don’t hurt yourself anymore.”

Maomao blinked. She was still so unused to such straightforward talk from Jinshi.

“Come to me,” he implored with gentle urgency, squeezing her hand. “Send me a letter. Call upon someone to fetch you — I will set aside everything to grant you entry to the palace. Just, please-” His hand moved to hold her bandaged arm; a regarding gesture. “No more of this.”

She blinked again, slow and thoughtful. Then, her gaze fell. This habit of hers was never meant to fall upon someone else’s shoulders — and yet, she somehow managed to allow exactly that to happen, to perhaps the person least-deserving of such a burden.

Maomao wasn’t one for discussing her upsets whenever they roused. She preferred to handle them on her own. When she could not control the outcomes of her life — losses, changes, and the like — she channeled her upsets into experimenting with new medicines. But now, with the prince made privy to such acts of self-destruction, so long as he outranked her, she would have to manage in ways only to his permitting — namely, of his suggestion, talking to him.

The thought of airing out her vulnerabilities to him again frustrated her.

Something pricked from behind Maomao’s eyes, and she promptly blinked it away. She hadn’t the strength for another spell of tears, nor was she very fond of them being prompted to return by nothing more than a frustrated thought. Was she becoming more emotionally inclined after this afternoon?

She thought that she’d been furtive in her efforts to stave her tears, but Jinshi’s softened expression quickly squashed the notion. Damn it.

Tenderly, with a quiet click of his tongue, Jinshi moved to envelope her — one hand under and around her waist, and the other supporting the back of her head. She found herself being pulled towards the prince, her face nestled beneath the crook of his chin. She breathed an intoxicating scent of sandalwood and jasmine, noted with the natural oils from his skin.

No, this was surely inappropriate. “Master Jinshi-”

“Let me comfort you.”

His fingers entangled themselves into her loose hair with ease — and she had to wonder where her hair ribbon had gone to. Jinshi’s hand assumed a rhythm as it slowly massaged her scalp. His other hand was occupied at her lower back; his thumb offered gentle strokes, the fabric of her robe wrinkling with the motion.

Maomao’s own hands were curled beneath her chin, situated between the both of them. Unconsciously, she palmed at Jinshi’s robes, savoring the warmth that radiated from him. She didn’t fully realize the extent of what they were doing. She didn’t want to. Surely, once the sun rose, they would return to their usual, civilized selves.

Against her volition, a lengthy yawn escaped her, springing tears to the corners of her eyes. Her eyelids grew quite heavy, and she fought valiantly to keep them open.

“Rest, Maomao.” Jinshi spoke so closely, so warmly, akin to sweet honey blanketing her. She tried not to melt under its sheerness. “Get some sleep…”

Normally stubborn, she knew it was uncharacteristic that she heeded him. With his permission, Maomao closed her eyes, leaving her only with her other senses. Her breathing slowed, settling into a guided tandem with Jinshi’s, their chests rising and falling together. She tucked herself into his neck, and she lost herself in the lulling rhythm of his pulse. Lub-dub… lub-dub…

Perhaps she’d imagined it in her transition from wakefulness to slumber: Jinshi’s lips, curved with a smile, planting a long, loving kiss to her head.

In his arms, she drifted to sleep.