The fallout to Fengming’s execution extends to 80 of the 2,000 occupants of the Inner Palace, and Maomao is among the mass layoffs. Jinshi has the power to bury Maomao’s tenuous connection to Fengming’s fam, but doesn’t want to go against Maomao’s wishes to leave the palace.
Little does he know that with layoffs looming (something she learns about through Xiaolan, natch), Maomao would rather stay in the palace. In addition to being able to taste for poisons, if she returns to Verdigris before her debts are repaid the madam will sell her off.
In what just might be the first time she tries to seek out Jinshi of her own volition, Maomao runs all over the palace and asks everyone where he is, before finding him atop a stair looking aloof. He knows why she wants to talk to him.
Here we have Jinshi, who has become accustomed to having Maomao around and finds her presence uniquely soothing, and Maomao, someone who has become accustomed to life in the palace, each wanting the same thing: for Maomao to stay put.
But thanks to Maomao trying to ask to stay without it coming off as begging, she puts it in a way that makes it sound like she’s resigned to being used as just a tool or pawn, when Jinshi already feels like it’s more complicated than that.
Thinking he’s giving her what she wants, he grants her release, making clear she’ll be compensated. Maomao is shocked, while Jinshi is an absolute mess for over a week after she leaves. Gyokuyou also makes clear he’ll regret firing her food taster.
At least thanks to the extra compensation, Maomao is in no immediate danger of being sold off to some codger. But she’s still under the Madam’s employ, which means accompanying Verdigris’ Three Princesses to an on site soiree for a ridiculously wealthy general.
Both the princesses and Madam note how pretty Maomao is when she ditches the freckles and cleans up, and Maomao knows Madam would love it if she became a full-fledge courtesan. The thing is, Maomao just doesn’t see how that would be fulfilling to someone like her, so obsessed with herbs, fungus, and medicine.
Jinshi just happens to be in attendance at the soiree, and he’s still moping when Maomao comes to his table, where he asks her to buzz off until he realizes it’s her. When Maomao says she’s a courtesan, his first concern is whether she’s had personal clients, to which she responds in the negative … for now. The for now gets him too.
It’s here where Jinshi and Maomao learn that they misinterpreted each other. Maomao believed she was of too low a rank to ask to stay, while Jinshi believed she wanted to leave. They both need to work on expressing how they feel and what they want to each other.
To that end, Jinshi asks if Maomao will bend the standing rules against touching the courtesans and let him touch her face with his fingers. She agrees, and he ends up contacting her lips. He then brings his fingers, stained by her liptick, to his lips—a blatant indirect kiss.
The two are so engrossed with one another they don’t notice the Three Princess’ performance has paused and all eyes are on them. The ladies are impressed that she is so friendly with such a hottie.
The unexpected reunion with Jinshi lingers with Maomao, who can’t sleep and heads outside late at night with a gourd of booze. We get another lovely insert song as she remembers all the good times and bad at the palace.
The palace and the brothels may be no different at the end of the day, serving as both gardens and cages, but the one thing the palace has that the brothels don’t is someone like Jinshi.
One day, Jinshi pays an unannounced visit to the Veridgris House, and he doesn’t come empty-handed. A hefty chest full of gold for the Madam, and a sample of a unique insect-grown herb for Maomao; both offerings are like catnip to the two women. But these are not mere gifts, but payment. In exchange, he asks for “a certain girl”—Maomao, of course.
Perhaps it wasn’t merely a horrible miscalculation to allow Maomao to be fired from the palace. Jinshi already sees her as more than a toy or a pawn, and now that she’s no longer an employee of the palace, maybe he deems it more appropriate to … court her?
Romance aside, watching Maomao and Jinshi’s complicated, nuanced relationship develop over this first cour was a delight to behold, and I’m looking forward to it developing further in the second.
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