The Apothecary Diaries S2 Ep 7 – 9

Episode 7

Maomao and Jinshi were invited to join the emperor to go through the Shrine of Choosing that had been around since the founding of the nation. The challenge was straight forward, pick a door of color and try to make it to the end where it’d declare one to be the rightful heir.

Of course the old eunuch knew exactly how to bait Maomao in when he teasingly went on about how Luemon could easily solve it. And since Maomao’s not one to say no to a challenge, she went for it.

The Shrine of Choosing is a test shrewdly designed to help preserve the lineage of the Founding Mother of the nation. A key trait passed down the family was color blindness, which enabled them to set the trial up that gave the illusion of choice. For those individuals, there was always only one answer to choose from. And a crafty trick they added to ensure success of that was planting concubines from the Founding Mother’s bloodline next to the crown prince, as they would be the ones to guide them through the passage if they couldn’t do it themselves.

Silver-lining or not, Maomao’s wits are what enabled her to gain such favour-ability from the four concubines, but the Emperor as well. Maomao wouldn’t have been invited otherwise to the Shrine Trial if he hadn’t thought it’d be fun to see if she could figure it out (which she did).

Other than that, we did see Jinshi dealing with some inner conflicts of not being able to come clean about his true status as royalty. Of course he already suspects Maomao already figured it out, but the real problem is that Maomao doesn’t want to know. Ignorance is a bliss, and she prefers to keep it that way. Knowing too much about one’s status just over-complicates things for her, and most importantly, she really doesn’t want to get too tied up with the higher-ups. It also in some ways threatens the delicate balance of their existing relationship, where Maomao can still be aloof and sometimes borderline casual with Jinshi, but as soon as it’s recognized he’s royalty, it’s harder for her to ignore that. The class division between them is too great, and consequences could follow if she doesn’t adhere the rules of it.

Episode 8 & 9

The late emperor’s building is scheduled to be torn down soon, so Empress Anshi has sought out Maomao in hopes to resolve a concern that’s been pressing her: the late emperor’s body has yet to decay. So it’s time for Maomao to solve the case!

Before that, we finally got backstory of the empress and a bit more about the late emperor. It’s a very complicated but also a seriously gross situation. The late emperor was perceived as a puppet of the empress (his mother), and a pathetic man. He has some sort of immense phobia to women, so the ones he could comfortably interact with were little girls, and thus a pedophile. As disturbing and disgusting as that already is, it only gets even more messed up when we see the empress’ side of the story.

Anshi first entered the rear palace to serve as the lady-in-waiting for her half-sister (the concubine). Her sister was probably a teenager around then, which unknowingly to her, immediately disqualified before even meeting the emperor. But here’s the catch, her sister was never intended to be the one to be presented to the Emperor. Unlike her, Anshi already knew in advance what the emperor’s tastes were. She knew her father (a bureaucrat) sought to take advantage of her young looking face and that her menarche came early. So when the meeting finally happened, instead of doing what a lady-in-waiting is supposed to do, she immediately capitalized the opportunity to gain the emperor’s favour. And she succeeded. Shortly after, she gave birth to a boy that required cutting her stomach open to deliver, which was carried out by Luomen.

However as soon as she matured and lost her youthful appearance, the emperor stopped interacting with her altogether. It was though she didn’t exist, and that made her furious. So Anshi (who was almost thirty at that point), decided to torment him by forcing him to bed with her. And everyday would wish he’d disappear.

Yeah… Talk about a seriously messed up relationship all around. The whole thing is fucked up.
Time for a serious palette cleanser.

Anyways, Maomao was able to clear up that no, Anshi didn’t curse the guy. He very likely died because he had been using orpiment for his paintings (which is nobody was aware at the time, to be poisonous to the body). Maomao had also discovered uncovered layers of wall paintings, but the one that she had found was none other than a portrait of mature Anshi and the young concubines of the rear palace. While Anshi wasn’t certain of it herself, Jinshi at the very least believed that the yellow proved that was Anshi. It has always been her favourite color for garments, which further proved the late emperor didn’t forget Anshi.

Apart from that, we were able to learn a little bit. more about Jinshi’s up-bring. Anshi had set rules where Jinshi’s favourite toys would be taken away from him because he wasn’t allowed to be attached to one thing. They were trying to drill habits of an adult into a child, and as result Jinshi was forced to grow up quickly. Really sad honestly. It was nice though that Suiren had kept all his toys though instead of throwing them away as Anshi had ordered her to. Though hilariously Suiren has certainly dodged more than one of the orders, as another one she chose not to follow was tossing out the portrait the late emperor had painted of the young Anshi at the time. It was something that Jinshi enjoyed looking at when he was young.

Before I wrap up, quick note I strongly suspect episode 10 entry will likely be released as a double-post with Ep 11. I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be enough for me to write up. Ep 12 entry may be pushed off as well to be a triple post if it’s another either short or two-parter mystery that’d be better written together!