Housekeeper of the Hundred Blossom Palace

The Jiaofang was located in a place near the Hundred Blossom Palace.

The Four Consorts’ palaces were located on each side of the Jiaofang. The mansions of the low-ranking concubines were all lined up towards the castle walls.

The closer the mansion was to the wall, the lower the status of the concubine.

It was only natural that the Jiaofang’s location was here, considering that  the most important clients would be the Four Consorts, and the courtesans had to be dispatched to the venue where the banquets were held.

‘Yeah, I don’t really come here because of a lot of things, I guess.’

Only the high-ranking court ladies were allowed to venture in the area around the palaces of the Four Consorts.

In that case, given the proximity of Jiaofang to the palaces of the Four Consorts, it’s highly likely that only the high-ranking courtesans were permitted to enter and leave that building.

It was not a surprise that Yui Mei didn’t know anything about it.

“Okay, let’s just leave that thought behind. Time to clean up, clean up.”

No matter what she wanted to do, she could do that after she was done with the job she was sent to do.

And so, Yui Mei immediately immersed herself in cleaning the place. The Jiaofang was far more dirty than she imagined.

Only the bare minimum cleaning was done to the place, and they maintained it so that it wasn’t really difficult to live in it, but it wasn’t comfortable to stay here, either.

‘It’s a bit better than Lady Wang’s place, but I don’t want to live here.’

That was what Yui Mei thought. This time, she didn’t have to clean the place alone unlike back then.

Unfortunately, there should be other housekeepers in the Jiaofang, but she couldn’t sense their presence.

They were probably staying in a separate place.

Yang didn’t specifically mention that she had to cooperate with them to do the work based on the ranking. The monk didn’t tell her anything, either, so Yui Mei decided to just clean the place with her usual method.

She decided to start outside the building, and began dusting as usual when she suddenly realized something.

“Not really sure, but there are lots of places that are neatly cleaned, and there are some that looked like they hadn’t been touched. They’re all over the place, huh.”

Yui Mei took the whole place in, staring back and forth from where she was standing before shaking her head.

Indeed, there were areas that didn’t have a lot of accumulated dust, seemingly been cleaned quite reasonably well. There were also some patches that looked made her wonder just how long they hadn’t been cleaned.

She didn’t know what to make of this troublesome method. If they’re gonna laze off, then they could’ve just divided the place so that they could skip their jobs easily.

Yui Mei was perplexed at her predecessor’s system of cleaning, when —

‘Hm? Isn’t it quite stinky?’

Yui Mei didn’t notice it right away because she was wearing her cleaning mask, but now the smell was sharp as it wafted in the air, towards her.

“Sniff, sniff, Where is this smell coming from?”

Yui Mei removed her mask and sniffed the scent that came with the wind.

It was nowhere a pleasant smell, more like irritating. They weren’t anywhere near the kitchen, so it certainly wasn’t rotting trash.

Besides, it had a different odor from biodegradable waste.

Yui Mei followed the smell that strangely stuck to her nose; she couldn’t pinpoint the scent and yet it was strangely familiar, tugging at her consciousness for some reason.

She finally spotted a hole that looked like it was dug then buried again in a vacant lot at the edge of the building.

“That’s quite an intense smell coming from this hole.”

Apparently, this place was upwind, so when the wind blew it also diffused the smell.

The structure of the building created a path for the wind, making some places stinky compared to other spots.

‘What on earth did they bury here? Trash must be properly disposed, not buried!’

Yui Mei was filled with indignation as she tried to dig the hole with her broom stick.

“Oh, what do we have here?”

The ashes of something that had been burned were exposed.

‘Tobacco ash?’

But then, if it’s tobacco ash then they could’ve just disposed it along with the other trash, so why did it have to be buried here like this?