For a short period of time, the days went by peacefully for Maomao. Peacefully, but every now and then, the weirdo tactician would show up, the quack doctor would bring in strange gossip, and Jinshi would come to her for a chat.
“It seems he’s doing well at the moment.”
Jinshi had a crumpled letter in his hand. She opened it to take a look and saw it contained a detailed written report of the farmlands.
“Rahan’s older brother?” she asked.
“That’s right. This is convenient.” Jinshi looked at the birdcage, smiling. The pigeon cooed. “Although it only goes in one direction, it’s good that communication is fast.”
It seems Rahan’s older brother was given trained pigeons.
Unfortunately, being a letter attached to a pigeon, there was barely enough space to write about the current situation, let alone space for Rahan’s older brother to write down his name. At the end, he finished the message with the name of the village he was last at.
(He must have written it while in tears.)
The day when his name will be known, no one knows.
“How many pigeons did you give him?” Maomao asked.
“Three. They’re easy to look after. More pigeons will be sent over on a fast horse that will go to the final village.”
Jinshi spread open a map of Isei Province. Suiren came over and marked the village that was written in the letter. It had been one month since Rahan’s older brother left on his journey.
(He’s trying really hard.)
Although Jinshi had unreasonably ordered him to finish everything within two months, he was heading back now.
(Rahan’s older brother is capable.)
And precisely because he was capable everyone pushed work onto him, but the person himself probably hadn’t realised it.
“Maomao.”
“What is it?”
Maomao was done with work so she was going to head back, but Jinshi called her to a stop.
“No, I mean. Right now, I can take a break from work,” he said.
“Is that so.”
“So I can look towards other things for a little while too.”
“Ah.” Maomao clapped her hands as if she remembered. “Which reminds me, it’s nearly time for the wheat harvest. May I go help out too?”
“…the wheat harvest, is there a meaning to it?”
“Yes. I’m curious since when I was asking about last year’s wheat in the first village I went to, I heard that there had been an outbreak of ergot.”
“Ergot?”
It appears Jinshi wasn’t familiar with the word.
“It’s a disease that blackens wheat. In simple terms, it’s a poison,” Maomao explained.
“Hm. That’s easy to understand.”
“I don’t know if the diseased wheat can be milled so I was thinking about seeing it beforehand.”
Ergot is also used for abortion. It was commonly mixed in coarse wheat flour so she wanted to check. And while she was at it, she also wanted to see the size of the harvest.
“Is that so. Then I understand. I’ll prepare a carriage,” Jinshi said.
“No, I happened to hear that Rikuson-sama will be going to scout at around this time, so I was thinking of going together with him,” Maomao said.
The quack doctor had told her that out of nowhere. She checked with Chue, and apparently it was true.
“Rikuson…”
“Yes. I have a number of things to ask him so this will be the perfect opportunity.”
In the end, following the first day she arrived at the western capital, she hadn’t met Rikuson since. She had things she wanted to personally ask him.
For a moment, Jinshi had a complicated expression.
“Got it. I’ll mention it to Rikuson,” he said.
“Thank you very much.”
While she was at it, she wanted to pick the medicinal herbs growing on the grasslands along the way there. In that case, she’d ought to quickly prepare a collection basket.
“Well then, Jinshi-sama. Excuse me!”
“Ah–”
Giving a backward glance to Jinshi who wanted to say something to her, Maomao decided to cheerfully look forward to preparing for a long trip.
.
.
.
“Wow, what great weather.”
Chue stretched widely.
“We don’t have to worry about rain, right?” Maomao looked out the carriage. There was not a cloud in the sky.
Maomao savoured the smell of grass in the wind as she surrendered herself to the rocking of the carriage.
“There won’t be rain for a while. Outside of the rainy season, there’s no heavy rain in Isei Province,” Rikuson explained, sitting across from them. Today, he was dressed in comfortable clothes.
“That’ll be good for the wheat harvest then.”
When it rains during the wheat harvest season, the quality of the sproutings could drop. Also, they must be kept dry lest they’ll rot.
“Yes. The weather is fickle, though. Near harvest time, it may also hail.”
“It’s difficult to forecast hail.” Maomao’s area of expertise wasn’t agriculture so she could only give generic replies. If Rahan’s older brother were here, he would clench his fist and talk about the busyness and the pains associated with harvest season.
Maomao glanced at the driver platform. Basen was holding the reins. Rihaku would’ve also been fine as the escort, but Basen was there last time so he came.
Chue was grinning next to Maomao.
(It shouldn’t be a problem, right?)
Maomao sighed softly.
“Why is Rikuson inspecting the farming villages?” she asked, thinking that she needed to ask him directly. If it were Jinshi, he would most likely have asked indirectly. But Maomao thought she wanted to ask and hear it with her own ears.
Rikuson looked around. In particular, he looked at the subordinate person who was following at the back of the carriage.
“I have a number of reasons,” he said.
“All of them please,” Maomao said clearly.
“First, it was about the locust plague. Occasionally, I get in touch with Rahan-dono and borrow his expertise. If a locust plague were to occur in Rii, I was told that the grain-producing regions in the north and west would be suspect.”
In reality, a small scale locust plague had broken out in the northwestern region. The scary thing about locust plagues was that the outbreaks get bigger if you leave it be.
“I was nominated for some reason and treated as a civil official at the western capital. It sounds good when summarised, but to say it poorly, I got odd jobs. Amidst that, I got documents related to agriculture mixed in. And so, as a hypothesis, I went to investigate the current food stockpile.”
“But was it necessary to go all the way to the actual site?” she asked.
“That would be the second reason.”
What kind of reason? Maomao widened her eyes.
Rikuson gave a troubled smile. “You probably already know, right? It might exist every now and then; the numbers on the document and the actual amount not matching.”
Was he talking about bulking out the production output?
“Then, the third reason?”
“The third reason? I heard a long time ago. That there exists a farming method that lowers the occurrences of locust plagues.”
“Autumn ploughing, right? And that’s why you went to visit Nenjen-san, right?”
“Yes. Do you understand me?” Rikuson smiled gently. He seemed to have lost some weight since the last time she saw him.
“Um, who did you hear about autumn ploughing from?”
“My mum. My mum sold a wide variety of things. She also taught me a lot of things when I was younger.”
“Is that so.”
Rikuson had a distant look as he stared out the carriage.
(The other thing to ask about is…)
“Maomao-san, Maomao-san.” Chue presented her a sketch. It was the likeness of Rin-shoujin who had outwitted them.
“As expected of Chue-san,” Maomao said.
“Not at all. It’s harakiri if I make a mistake.” Chue was a little disheartened. How unusual.
(If only Rikuson was there with us then as well.)
Maomao felt that if they had his special skill of never forgetting a person’s face, they would soon find Rin-shoujin.
“Have you seen this person before?” she asked.
“Hm.” Rikuson stared at the sketch. “His skin colour?”
“A little tanned. His hair is black and a little wavy. His eyes are hazel.”
“Hazel? What kind of colour is that?” Rikuson pointed to the cloth bag in his hand.
“No, it’s a little reddish and darker.”
“Then, like this?” Rikuson made a shadow with his palm.
“A little closer.”
Although, they saw him indoors so it would be considerably different from the amount of light.
“As for his skin tone, who outside is the closest?” Rikuson looked out the carriage.
Everyone was sunburnt and had tanned skin. They got the impression that Rin-shoujin wasn’t too dark, just tanned, so she pointed to the lightest one.
“Then, did he have freckles?”
“Freckles, you say? I don’t think so.”
“Was his skin oily?”
“I didn’t get that impression.”
Aside from that, he asked in detail about the amount of hair, size of his ear, the movement of his jaws, and his muscles.
(Rather than not forgetting a person’s face…)
Rikuson probably recorded every feature of the body in his mind. His special skill of not forgetting people’s faces wasn’t a talent but a skill cultivated through hard work, she thought.
“In my memories, there are several people who match these features in the western capital. But I am not definite that it’s the person,” Rikuson said.
“Is that so. Just in case, can you tell me what you know?” Maomao replied.
“Understood. Can we wait until after we arrive at the village?”
In the meantime, they arrived in the village.
Could the golden wheat be a bumper crop?
It seems they also grew potatoes; she could see green leaves.
(Well, shall we work hard at farming for the time being?)
She decided things like picking medicinal herbs will be done on the way back. Rikuson will be going off on his own way on his return trip.
It was the moment she jumped off the carriage.
Maomao saw a fast horse rushing in from behind. That on its own wouldn’t be an issue, but it looked odd.
(Were they running away from bandits?)
No.
The horse stopped before Maomao’s group. The horse’s tongue dangled out and it collapsed onto its side. The person riding it was wearing a military official outfit.
(I’ve seen him before.)
It was the military official that Jinshi often used for menial tasks. She thought he was a man of standing, but why was he this out of breath?
“What’s wrong?” Maomao offered him water, but the military official shook his head. Mouth opening and closing, he passed her a slip of paper.
(What is it?)
The folded slip of paper seemed to be a letter from Rahan’s older brother’s.
“The Prince, of the Moon, said, you’ll understand once you see it…”
(Understand once I see?)
She opened to take a look, wondering what it could be about, when….
It was a single line. It was messy like it hadn’t been written with a brush but drawn with a piece of charcoal.
If that was all it was, it would’ve still been fine.
On top of that line, it was smeared all over.
There was no writing anywhere. But there was only one person who could’ve sent this. Rahan’s older brother had probably sent off a pigeon amidst the chaos to report something.
(This is…)
Maomao recognised it.
Last year, when the Sha’ou Priestess visited. In the end, the girl called Jazuguru had given her an ominous drawing.
She had no idea what it meant back then.
(Now I know.)
The single line was the horizon before her eyes.
And the black mass that haphazardly covered the page…
“The locusts are coming.”
Maomao looked at the still clear blue sky.
