The Apothecary Diaries – 21 – Getting a Good Look

With Suirei in the wind, Maomao refocuses her efforts on keeping the apothecary clean with the Quack’s health (I love their cat-and-mouse dynamic), and learns that his family is the purveyor of paper for the emperor, but that may soon come to an end. The quality of the paper has fallen, but she doesn’t know why until the good doctor says they’ve started using oxen for the manual labor.

Whipping up some quick arrowroot gruel for herself and the doc, she tells him to wet his spoon in order to thin the mixture. The same is happening with the paper: oxen secrete a lot of saliva, and if that’s somehow getting into their glue, it’s resulting in less sticky glue and weaker paper. Seven minutes in, Maomao has solved a mini-mystery that might just have saved the doc’s family’s financial future.

From there we shift to Lihaku, who summons Maomao with what she hopes will be some new news on Suirei. Alas, he’s come to her to ask what it would cost to buy out a courtesan at the Verdigris House; specifically Pairin. His is no longer mere puppy love, nor does he consider her a pet or toy; she is the only woman in his world, and he has fallen for her body and soul.

To that end, he, a military officer who makes around 1,000 silver a year, wants to know what it will cost to buy her out, because he’s heard rumors that might happen soon. Maomao identifies two major regulars of hers, none of whom are a good match, then does a quick calculation of the revenue Pairin brings in to Verdigris and doubles it.

Maomao notes that Pairin is not just a graceful dancer, but an “invincible warlord in bed”; even servant girls have to watch out when her “hunger” grows. The ballpark figure Maomao comes up with is 10,000 silver minimum, which makes Lihaku wince, but he still asks whether he has a chance provided he can get that kind of cash together.

Maomao knows Pairin better than anyone; when she was first brought in, Pairin actually nursed her with that prestigious bosom. She was part big sister, part surrogate mom, and she and the other two princesses and the old Madame all took care of her. Maomao knows there’s some maternity in Pairin despite her insatiable appetites.

With all this in mind, she takes anyone wanting to be Pairin’s partner with extremely critical eyes. In order to properly assess if Lihaku is worthy of her, Maomao has him strip. First his shirt, then his pants. The musculature is there, and Maomao has heard from her sources that he also has stamina.

When the time comes to remove “the final garment” for an assessment of his manhood, the sight of Maomao kneeling on one knee right in front of Lihaku’s crotch is what Jinshi encounters when he enters the room. Needless to say, he demands to know just what the heck is going on.

Maomao is extremely matter-of-fact, even clinical in her explanations. Nothing untoward is going on, she’s simply taking a good look at him to see “if his body is good enough.” Even Maomao can tell from Jinshi’s reaction that he’s jealous, but when she further describes Lihaku, he can’t help but be impressed with her ability to assess someone’s personality based on their body, a crucial skill for an apothecary who might have secretive patients.

When Jinshi steers the discussion to his own body, Maomao says there’d “be no point” in learning about that, because he wouldn’t get along … with her sister. Now that he knows Maomao was inspecting Lihaku not for herself but for her sister, he meets with the man in person, and even offers double what he needs to buy her out. Jinshi would be buying Lihaku’s lifetime loyalty.

Lihaku asks how he can make such an offer to someone he barely knows, Jinshi tells him “his cautious cat” considers him a solid candidate. However, Lihaku respectfully declines his generous offer, asking what kind of man he’d be to welcome his wife with someone else’s money. If he’s going to buy her out and make her his, he’s going to do it himself, the way he thinks is right, and with Pairin’s own input on the matter.

Lihaku and Maomao write to Pairin, and she writes back to Maomao that she’s still got some work left in her at Verdigris, and is still “waiting for her prince” to come. That could very well be Lihaku, and for less than 10,000 silver. As for the rumor about someone buying a princess out, Pairin says that was one of the servant girls “getting the wrong idea.”

Maomao deduces that the one talking about buying people out must have been that man, i.e. Lakan. The preview suggests the biological father and daughter will be facing off next week. Perhaps we’ll learn a bit more about what exactly he’s after, and how far he’s willing to go to get it.

The Apothecary Diaries – 20 – The Hidden Spare

Maomao’s fine, everyone! If anything, she looks even more like a chuunibyou from the future with her new face and leg bandages. But there’s no rest for the recently beaten and wounded: she must make a full report to Jinshi, Gaoshun, and Basen about just how she knew that pillar would fall.

Maomao lays out Suiren’s conspiracy, much of which I had already inferred last week. Jinshi & Co. having to catch up, combined with Maomao’s subdued reaction to learning how important Jinshi is, kind of takes the air out of the room and feels recappy, even if we needed verbal confirmation. Basen constantly angrily interrupting was also annoying.

Things pick up a bit when Lihaku, who is apparently Maomao’s police informant now, tells her that Suirei was found dead of poison in her room and is scheduled to be cremated. Before that happens, Maomao asks Jinshi to allow her to inspect the corpse, remembering the “resurrection” medicine Suirei mentioned at her hilltop garden.

Maomao opens up the coffin to reveal the corpse of an entirely different woman. The doctor who examined Suirei, and knew her personally, is shocked, but Maomao indulging her curiosity has blown this case wide open: Suirei, the one with the intellect, courage, and cojones to pull off such an intricate conspiracy, is still at large. Maomao wants to catch her so she can teach her that resurrection medicine.

However, the “Suirei incident” is swept under the rug for now, which is probably for the best considering how many people ended up dead. The episode re-focuses on Jinshi, and the revelations continue to trickle out: He’s not a eunuch, nor is he twenty-four. Rather, he’s the nineteen-year-old brother of the current emperor, and he takes drugs to suppress his manhood.

The Empress Dowager gave birth to him the same time Ah-Duo gave birth to the current emperor’s firstborn son, who died soon thereafter and resulted in Ah-Duo being unable to have any more children. The younger brother’s identity was concealed as “Jinshi the eunuch” to run the Inner Palace and ensure the emperor produced a son to replace him as heir apparent to the throne.

Thus far, the emperor has had a son with Lihua, who passed away, and a daughter with Gyokuyou, who can’t be emperor. That said, things may soon be changing: Jinshi informs Maomao that Gyokuyou’s cycle has halted, a sign she’s pregnant again. Perhaps this time the emperor will get his son and heir and Jinshi can get his own life back…maybe a life with the brilliant and cute apothecary??

Jinshi dispatches Maomao, whom he trusts over any other physician, back to the Inner Palace to tend to Gyokuyou. She’s happy to be back in a place where she doesn’t have to worry about bumping into Lakan, and seeing the emperor play with his daughter, her opinion of him as a lewd lecher is starting to soften.

What with Loulan being the daughter of a high-ranking official who is no doubt trying to ascend the ladders of power, and the loss of his longtime friend and most trusted advisor Ah-Duo, even the emperor’s got his problems, and isn’t just an old dude who loves big bazongas.

The Apothecary Diaries – 19 – A Ceremony of Importance

One morning while sweeping the yard, Maomao is approached by Lihaku. He has an update about the warehouse fire: it was apparently a distraction to burgle another warehouse of ceremonial tools. The manager of one warehouse was the older man who died of salt poisoning. The current manager got food poisoning. And the expensive pipe? The owner didn’t want it; it was given to him by a tall court lady who smelled of medicine.

Like Maomao, my first thoughts were that all these seemingly disparate mysteries she’s been investigating seem to be connected, and that Suirei may be involved. She reports all of this to Jinshi, who concurs with her theory that it could be a series of traps, and there may be more to come. When Jinshi observes that Maomao doesn’t seem that enthusiastic, he turbocharges her enthusiasm with the promise of a rare ox bezoar.

Thus motivated, Maomao digs deep into the archives, whose administrator is happy to assist her with his knowledge of ceremonial division, of which he was a part until he talked back to his superiors and was demoted. His grievance was the fact that a large, heavy pillar used to carry festive messages in the ceremonial hall didn’t seem the most structurally sound.

The metalwork inherent in the design of the pillar brings the metalworking brothers into this whole web of mysteries. When Maomao hears that there’s a ceremony scheduled for today, she suddenly realizes that this cold be a plot to assassinate the person of high noble birth performing the ceremony.

She runs as fast as her little legs can carry her. Even if she’s totally wrong, it’s worth it if she’s able to save a life and thwart the plot. But when she reaches the entrance to the hall, she’s stopped by a hulking guard. Maomao, who is a servant with no authority, can only hope she can sway the man with her words, but fails.

Then she tries to stir up enough of a commotion that it stops the ceremony in progress. She does so by accusing the guard of being in on the plot. He responds by striking her in the face with a metal club almost as big as she is. She falls down the steps in a heap, and her face immediately swells up as her nose bleeds.

Even so, she gets back to her feet, desperate to save the target of the plot. When the guard still won’t trust her word, he is brought to heel by Lakan, who accuses him of excessive force against a girl, and then vouches for Maomao. He’ll take responsibility for letting her through.

Maomao doesn’t want to turn around to see her apparent benefactor. All she knows is the timing of his arrival is far too neat to be coincidence. It also means she’s in this man’s debt, whoever he is. But for now, she takes the opportunity he gave her and rushes into the hall.

Maomao arrives and dives into the man under the pillar just in time, as one of the cables gives out and it slams to the ground, cracking the floor with its weight. It is only here and now when it is confirmed that the man performing the ceremony, and has likely performed many before, is none other than Jinshi.

He’s not just a eunuch administrator. He probably isn’t even a eunuch. But not only is Maomao punch drunk, but one of the cables badly slashed her leg. Her first thought is that she needs to stich it up, and her second thought is to ask Jinshi, now that she has him here, if he’ll give her the ox bezoar.

She passes out in his arms, and everyone around bows in deference to Jinshi as he gathers her up, carries her out of the hall, down the stairs, through various gates and down various paths to get her medical treatment. He’s not treating her like a mere servant girl under his employ, but as someone precious to him.

Whatever ceremony he was performing can wait, and his carrying of her through the palace grounds has the feeling of a different ceremony entirely. Like Maomao herself, Jinshi may owe Lakan a debt, for it was his authority that granted her access to the hall . But first thing’s first: seeing to Maomao’s safety. She saved his life at great cost to her person; now it’s his turn to save her.

The Apothecary Diaries – 14 – A Whimper and a Bang

The big news in the Inner Palace this week is the arrival of the New Pure Consort, Loulan. She arrives under cover of darkness on a snowy night with only her retinue of ladies-in-waiting. Upon entering her parlor, she removes a jeweled hairpiece, unceremoniously drops it into a box, sits down, and … well, that’s pretty much it.

The arrival of a new consort spurs both Gyokuyou and Lihua to recommend that all four high-ranking concubines undergo some concubining lessons, and they both recommend to Jinshi that Maomao be their teacher. Maomao is all for this as it means she gets paid a bonus.

Like a curious Jinshi, the exact content of the lesson is kept secret from us, but we can assume that it involves the bedroom knowledge Maomao has learned from her big sisters at Verdegris House, some of which she already imparted upon Lihua to great success.

In all honesty, I hoped we would learn a little more about Loulan, but she proves far too cool for school, yawning frequently, avoiding eye contact, and saying nary a word. She’s either uninterested or unimpressed with Maomao’s lesson.

Maomao don’t care; she’s getting paid either way, plus Gyokuyou and Lihua got something out of it (Lishu, on the other hand, was simply scandalized). That night she’s exhausted, but hears a distant blast. But not wanting to get on Suiren’s bad side, she resists the urge to investigate. The old man with an eyepatch, however? He’s immediately on the scene.

That changes the next day, when Maomao is gathering herbs when she spots her old pal Lihaku with another military officer next to a bombed out warehouse. Lihaku says it was a small fire, but it doesn’t take long for Maomao to determine that an explosion occurred. Inside she finds the warehouse quite dusty, and a burnt smoking pipe on the ground.

Maomao has a theory, and to test it, she borrows some wood, nails, flour, flint, and a rope fuse for a little experiment out in the courtyard. When she lights the fuse she runs for cover and urges Lihaku to do the same, but just as he’s asking why the flour blows up in his face.

Maomao and his adjutant put him out with water, but Maomao’s theory seems to be confirmed: someone, possibly an undereducated warehouseman, lit his pipe in the warehouse and ignited the loose flour in the air. The only issue is that the pipe seems far too fancy for a mere warehouseman. Was this just an accident, someone else’s experiment, or something else? Like Loulan, it remains a mystery to be solved.

The Apothecary Diaries – 08 – A Night of Blissful Dreams

When Maomao wakes up on her first morning home, it takes her a beat to remember she actually is home; the chickens certainly leave no doubt. Before she’s fully awake, she’s being led briskly to a brothel by a serving girl to a medical emergency.

A courtesan and her client appear to have been poisoned. I love how Maomao slaps her cheeks, puts up her hair to get into Apothecary Mode, which in this case is a role more akin to a paramedic. I also love how she is in complete control of the situation, and no one there doubts her authority.

With chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth, she’s able to stabilize both patients. But then there’s the matter of the crime scene, which is like catnip to a detective like Maomao, and the serving girl, whose glare we noticed last week and again here courts suspicion.

We learn that Maomao’s decuctive skills come from her far more experienced father. She also happens to see the door to the recovering client ajar, and finds the serving girl there trying to finish the job with a dagger.

When a courtesan interrupts their scuffle, she tells the story of how the client is a troublesome jerk who dangles buyouts over girls before dumping them at the last minute. It’s implied that the serving girl’s big sister took her life when she was dumped the day she was to be bought out.

This gives Maomao context, but something in the case is still missing, for the client was on guard after previous attempts to off him. Her father tells her “it’s over”, meaning the case, but not for Detective Maomao.

Maomao eventually determines that the courtesan attempted to murder her client by making use of the different viscosity of poison and non-poisoned drink, and the tendency for courtesans to use wheat stalk straws to avoid staining cups with their lipstick.

The courtesan drank first to gain the clients trust, then drank a little after he collapsed in order to make it look like a double suicide. The madame paid her and her father well, including hush money, because a wealthy merchant’s son’s death would have hurt their business.

As she walks through the red-light district, she regards it as really not much different from the inner palace: a garden and a cage, seething with poison taken and administered for varying purposes.

She also acknowledges she’s probably overthinking things, and has a relaxing bath and later joined by her nee-san Meimei. What the “annex” is and why Meimei tells Maomao to stop by, I have no idea.

Speaking of sweet poison, Pairin has a thoroughly satisfied Lihaku’s arm firmly lodged in her bosom when Maomao arrives to meet with him so they can return home. No doubt despite the exorbitant costs, he’ll be a returning customer and source of profits for the Verdigris House.

Jinshi’s demeanor is as you’d expect of someone who not only heard nothing of Maomao’s trip home until she was already gone, but how she facilitated that trip. He has her meet with him privately, and asks about Lihaku. It’s at this point I remind everyone who isn’t sure what the hairpins are really about to take comfort in knowing that Maomao doesn’t either!

While Maomao was pragmatic in spending the hairpin of the lower-ranked Lihaku, Jinshi is clearly miffed that she didn’t rely on him, even though Maomao notes it would have meant more trouble for him. Jinshi also gets the impression that Lihaku stole a march on him in the romantic/physical sense.

Maomao does nothing to disabuse him of this by saying, in these exact words, she “granted him a night of blissful dreams,” and is “proud of herself” for “working hard.” Mind you, she’s not trying to mess with him or make him jealous; from her perspective she’s describing her slick brokering job with Verdigris.

Of course, Jinshi gets the impression she slept with Lihaku, resulting in him freezing in shock and shattering his tea cup. After helping him clean up Maomao exits his office to find Gaoshun, a pissed Honnyan, and most importantly Gyokuyou, who is belly laughing her ass off at Jinshi’s misunderstanding. And whenever Gyokuyou is laughing, I’m happy.

The Apothecary Diaries – 07 – A Hairpin Away from Home

Unlike most teenagers, Maomao is not accustomed to sleeping in until noon, but when she does, she dreams of home; specifically, while on a walk with her elderly father. Gyokuyou and the other ladies-in-waiting insisted she take some time off after being poisoned, not understanding that it was an honor, not an ordeal, due to her poison kink.

When she insists on working, Gyokuyou has her meet with Gaoshun, who’d been loitering around waiting to speak to her. He’s brought the silver bowl of poison soup, which he makes clear Maomao is not to eat. Rather, he wants her to provide more insight about what happened. Enter Detective Maomao.

She dusts the bowl for fingerprints and discerns four separate sets, one of which was an outsider and thus the person who poisoned the soup. She also reveals, albeit through conjecture, to Gaoshun a system of sustained bullying of Lady Lishu by her own ladies-in-waiting.

Even if her taster hadn’t swapped bowls, the fact they all wore white and let Lishu wear a color that clashed with Gyokuyou made their feelings for her loud and clear. Yet Maomao still protected the taster, because she knows that taster didn’t understand what she was doing weighed against the value of her life.

Gaoshun thanks Maomao for her investigations and takes his report to a sleepless Jinshi who hasn’t even changed or removed a particularly important hairpin since the garden party. We see his “natural self” here, someone who’d rather laze about and whine than get shit done. Gaoshun knows this version of Jinshi well, since he’s been his attendant their whole lives.

Meanwhile, during her usual lunch with Xiaolan, Maomao learns that the four hairpins she received are no mere trinkets of favor: they are a form of currency that can be used to leave the Rear Palace, albeit temporarily, and with an escort. Surveying her hairpins, Maomao decides to reach out to the military officer Lihaku first.

When he gets a message from the Jade Pavilion lady-in-waiting, he immediately recalls she was the one making all the amorous faces while tasting poisoned soup. The hairpin was only meant to be obligation (like chocolate on Valentine’s Day); but he still decides to hear her out, even if he fully intends to turn her down.

The girl who meets with Lihaku doesn’t resemble the lady-in-waiting at the party at all; he makes two observations she’s heart many times before: that makeup completely changes her (though not in the way he thinks, as she uses it to hide her natural beauty) and she’s extremely bold for a young serving girl.

Maomao gets down to brass tacks: she wants to visit home, and Lihaku’s hairpin is her ticket out. That said, she offers something extremely valuable in exchange: not one or two but three letters of introduction from the Three Princesses of the Verdigris House—a brothel could claim a man of Lihaku’s rank’s yearly pay in a single night.

Lihaku thinks she’s having him on, so Maomao puts the screws to him, revealing she has other hairpins she can use to make the same offer to other men. Faced with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Lihaku concedes defeat and agrees to escort her out of the palace.

The gift of hairpins is typically for courtship purposes, so Maomao’s fellow ladies and Gyokuyou think she’s being too naïve and blasé. Gyokuyou also uses the homecoming trip as a means of messing with Jinshi and amusing herself, as Maomao is already gone by the time Jinshi cleans himself up to visit her. Ladies gotta take small wins where they can in this world.

Lihaku dons his very best and hires a carriage for what is only a short trip to the red light district that could have been made on foot from the palace. While I knew Maomao lived in the imperial capital, I don’t think I realized just how damn close her home and father were, and yet how far away due to her status as an indentured servant.

That said, in ten months she was able to win passage out, and that’s pretty damn impressive for someone entirely devoid of ambition beyond finding new and exotic ways to poison herself. Upon arriving at the Verdigris House, she gets a punch to the gut from the old madame, as punishment for disappearing without a trace for so long.

That said, she did receive Maomao’s letter, and after a quick look at the young, muscular Lihaku, the madame has a servant whisk him away to meet with Pairain. We learn that Maomao is paying for a mere introduction, but with Lihaku’s physique and Pairan being Pairan, it might end up being more than that, so Madam will put the extra money on Maomao’s tab.

But having money doesn’t mean anything to Maomao. She’ll gladly give every penny to whoever if it means being able to walk through the door of her home and see her father again. He doesn’t seem the worse for wear, working the apothecary’s mortar and pestle as always.

There’s no melodrama to this reunion, just a ‘welcome home’ and a ‘glad you’re well’. That said, you can still feel the warmth and love and quintessential home-ness of this place. Maomao tells her father everything that’s happened in the last ten months, then hits they hay, planning to borrow a bath at the Verdigris tomorrow.

As she sleeps, her father considers her ending up at the palace to be a “twist of fate.” Between that, the fact he’s very old to be her biological father, there’s never been any mention of a mother, her hidden beauty, and that very evocative OP with a flower representing Maomao standing prominent among the others, it’s clear there are things Maomao doesn’t know about her lineage or destiny.

My theory? She was actually born in the inner palace, which made her kidnapping a return to her birthplace. She may even be of noble blood, but as she was a daughter born in a world where sons are preferred, she must’ve been cast out as a babe and then adopted. I find this all highly intriguing, even if she’s the last person to care about such things.