Gaoshun – Thorough Watch

Kusuriya No Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 33 (Season 2 Episode 9) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on March 14, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

Continuing from the previous episode, Maomao sees the urgency in the situation since the building the late Emperor stayed in was going to be demolished, which would mean the only way to find out more about him would be through his grave, and that would reduce the likelihood of Lady Anshi ever feeling better, so her request is to visit the room that was out of bounds for visiting. She believes the Emperor would probably grant permission for that if Anshi put in a good word for them.

Maomao stays the night at Suiren’s place, much to her relief since she didn’t want to get an earful from Lady Hongniang considering how lenient she’s been all this time, but it must be difficult for Hongniang as a head lady-in-waiting to have a worker who doesn’t belong to any specific pavilion and visits other pavilions regularly since her job is to have the people most loyal to Lady Gyokuyou working for her, ending with Maomao saying she herself doesn’t know what position she has at times.

Suiren likes reading romance novels targeted to young women, and when Maomao looks towards the backroom to see what might interest her, she reaches for a box, which we find out from Suiren is full of Jinshi’s favourite toys from childhood. Suiren then asks what Maomao thought of Jinshi, and Maomao responds she thinks he’s a good boss with the caveat as long as he kept bringing her rare medicines, that part being something she kept to herself although her beaming with enthusiasm led to Suiren wondering whether there was something more to it than that. Suiren reveals often took away toys Jinshi took too much of an interest in when he was growing up since his mom wanted for him to step up and be an adult since if one focuses too much on one thing it could result in one losing sight of other things that are important, which is something someone born into Jinshi’s position can’t afford to do. Maomao then thought that she has heard that when one is raised in a repressed environment it can effect that person’s mind. She reasons that the childish tendencies Jinshi’s starting to show around her are probably a part of his true personality rather than his role everyone sees as the elegant eunuch. Maomao’s defense mechanism protecting her from realizing the truth still seems so powerful given Suiren indicated Jinshi has a position that is very important, and all she got from that is that Jinshi’s repressing his true self.

Maomao then reached for a piece of parchment that ended up being revealed later in the episode to be a picture of Lady Anshi drawn by the late Emperor. She then noticed something odd, which she asked for permission to touch, and it was the shiny gold object Jinshi touched in his dream from childhood. She reveals that it is orpiment later on in the episode, which is extremely toxic, and she thought back to when she saw the paintbrush in the late Emperor’s room, asking Suiren if Jinshi ever visited the inner court when he was young, and when Suiren confirmed that he did sometimes, Maomao reveals that she can resolve the matter of the curse Anshi talked about tomorrow and ask for her to wait regarding why she asked the question.

The next day, they arrive at the late emperor’s room, and Maomao wishes that Jinshi didn’t also have to be there as she didn’t want to make a big deal about it. When she asks whether the late emperor painted only in this room, the others have no idea, so they have Anshi’s lady-in-waiting find that one servant that attended to him after he started locking himself in this room. Maomao touches the brush and smelled it, probably noting that it smelled of orpiment, and then she noted the translucent shards (of orpiment?) and the markings on the ground as if someone furiously tried to clean something, highlighting that the number of marks increase as they get closer to the wall. After that one servant arrived, it was revealed that he is mute, which Maomao thought wasn’t a surprise since it’s common for someone who couldn’t speak to attend to the noblest person so that the mute person couldn’t protest against that high-ranking person, and he is uncooperative towards Maomao, so Maomao took the liberty of approaching the wall and requesting to tear down the wallpaper.

After tearing it down, a painting with a woman in yellow being the primary fixture of the painting was on the wall. Maomao indicated that she didn’t care about the late emperor’s personality but that he passed away without being able to let his true talents shine since he ended up as the leader of the nation given how impactful the painting was to her on first glance. She noted that the paint used to create the colour of the garment worn by the woman in yellow was made by crushing a mineral known as orpiment, which is as toxic as arsenide and can also make things less likely to decompose. At first she had thought that the wallpaper was made of orpiment, but after seeing the shape of the brush the late emperor used, she thought that he was using a pigment made from orpiment, which is why they tip of the brush was cut off so that it could crush orpiment. In doing so, he gradually absorbed orpiment into his body, making her confident that it spread throughout his body by the time he died. Maomao reasoned to herself that the people around the late emperor would find it unacceptable for him to be painting pictures all the time, so that’s why he never revealed it even when he was referred to as the idiot emperor and had a mute slave manage the room. Maomao notes that the wallpaper is still soft, meaning there must be many layers of paintings, and she figures that the late emperor’s mother, the acting empress, must have been the one who acquired all the tools for him to paint so extensively. Maomao believes she knew her child was not fit to be the emperor, so she consolidated power around herself to protect him even if it resulted in others calling her empress although I wonder how true this considering how little Maomao actually knew about her. After Maomao gave her orpiment explanation, Anshi indicated she was satisfied with that and moved towards the picture, and Maomao got all emotional thinking Anshi was communing with someone in the skies, although I don’t know why she’d get that idea if she believed Anshi had been the late Emperor’s prey.

Anshi was actually infuriated ’cause she perceives the person in yellow to actually be the late Emperor’s mother and wondered whether she herself is even in the picture with her ruling that out since she believes she was a passing thought to him. She angrily thinks that the scar on her body is the only thing allowing her to be treated as the mother of this nation. Some people would say she was a young girl who accidentally fell victim to the late emperor and became pregnant, but Anshi knew of the late emperor’s tastes and her father’s plan to have her give birth to the late emperor’s child, so she willingly seduced the late emperor after he rejected her sister, who had no idea that their father arranged for a visit from the late emperor for Anshi to make her move. The late emperor wouldn’t even let her older sister touch him and was crying just from her getting close to him, so Anshi used the opportunity to console the late emperor. After that, her life was put in danger countless times due to her carrying the emperor’s child. She was relieved that the child was a boy, and the empress officially acknowledged him as her grandson.

Anshi also recalls there was once a woman who gave birth to a daughter, and when claimed that the girl was the late emperor’s daughter, he denied it saying her knew nothing of it, and a random doctor was declared the father and exiled with the baby, which shows how fortunate Anshi was in this patriarchal society. Back then, doctors were the only ones allowed in the rear palace without castration, and after that exile, even doctors had to be castrated as well. She felt pity for the one in charge of her C-section, and the girl who gave birth to a daughter was left in the rear palace with her probably never being allowed to leave.

She then recalls that the late emperor stopped visiting after she no longer looked like a child. Her lady-in-waiting at the time, who was most likely Suiren, indicated that the rear palace was expanding again with many young girls arriving, tasked with the same mission as she was, bedding the late emperor. She was so furious that a man who was a puppet of the empress and who could only talk to young girls forgot about her. This led to her raping him after tormenting him about all he had done. In the end, she figures he spent all the time is his room thinking about his mother and the young girls with no ambition with her being the only one he had forgotten. She mentioned that the late emperor painted her just once, and she treasured the painting, but she told Suiren to discard it as she has no need for it much like the late emperor had no need for her. Jinshi, as if reading Anshi’s mind, brought up that the late emperor visited them once, and that’s when he picked up the orpiment Suiren confiscated from him. He also saw the picture of Anshi dressed in yellow at the time, which she wore often at the time, leading him to ask her if the mother really was the person he had drawn in the painting on the wall, musing about what the late emperor had been trying to tell them with the visit. Anshi then cited that she didn’t know and thought to herself that she chose not to know.

Anshi then notes aloud that Jinshi seems partial to quite an interesting girl, which took him aback, and he merely replied after a pause that she’s quite useful with her knowing that there’s more to it than that since she has watched over him for many years. She said that you should hide your favourites, or someone else may hide them from you, which is what she had Suiren do when he was a child, and it’s also a good point given she herself became a target for assassination when she became pregnant, so who knows what someone else might do to Maomao given how he blatantly favours her.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 31 (Season 2 Episode 7) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 28, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

While this episode was less eventful than the previous ones, there are a number of interesting things introduced in it, and it retained the very high quality of this season’s episodes.

The episode starts off with Jinshi dreaming of a memory from his youth when he is playing with a ball, and an old man who approached him appeared to want to bump fists with him, only for his mother to stop him. An old woman who everyone deferred to appeared and told the old man to go back to his room with Jinshi’s mother having the look of someone who wanted to murder someone in cruel fashion. Jinshi wondered why she had that look on her face, and while that man was being dragged back to his room, he dropped a piece of jewelry that Jinshi reached for, and then he abruptly woke up, calling it an awful dream, which I surmise is ’cause he got punished for picking it up and was about to remember the horror of whatever he experienced on that day. He was later told that the old woman was his grandmother and the old man his father and that the man, the current Emperor, who he had always believed to be his father, is his brother.

If you recall from Season 1 Maomao speculated that there was actually a baby swap and that it was actually Concubine Ah-Duo’s child that survived instead of the Empress Dowager’s, and that would be why Luomen, her adopted father, was fired for not catching that that had happened. Although she mused that it was unlikely, maybe she had actually arrived at the truth, and the reason Jinshi was so close to Ah-Duo was ’cause kin sensed kin. Jinshi and Ah-Duo did share many of the same physical features after all. We know just from appearance that there is a large age gap between the current Emperor and Jinshi, and if the current Emperor was the most prominent male figure in his life, it would reason to believe he actually is Jinshi’s father, and Jinshi was just fooled by the people who told him otherwise. We learned in Season 1 Episode 20 that the previous Emperor was a pedophile who exclusively sought young girls, and given how young the one Jinshi believed to be his mom was in the dream, she may have been the previous Emperor’s former child bride and actually his grandmother rather than his mother since Ah-Duo being his mother would actually be a secret. I’ll come back to this topic later in my analysis.

Jinshi thought that Maomao seems surprisingly dull in strangely specific instances, such as when it comes to him, and believes that she’ll come to realize what he knows (that he is the Emperor’s brother) soon or that she may already know. He believes that he would be put at ease if she knew as he stay quiet about it forever as it’s a burden on him. If you recall, also from Episode 20, Jinshi wished that the current Emperor’s first son had survived, not knowing that is likely him, ’cause he didn’t want next in line for the throne, which is why he said all the Emperor needs to do is make himself a new prince. Jinshi probably wants to confide in Maomao how he feels about his situation as it’s not something he really desires. Whether he’s the brother of the Emperor or his first son, he’s the immediate heir to the throne, and he’s not happy about that.

The next day, Maomao is observing the school for servant girls that Jinshi set up and hears from the teacher’s lecture about how in the distant past this land was inhabited by a different group of people, which was mentioned in a previous episode. That teacher then said that those people had no leader, but a noble woman from a distant land eventually arrive and became pregnant with the child from the heavens who would become the first emperor of Li. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I believe this might be the first time the name of the country was mentioned in the anime. The teacher then continued and said that woman, whose eyes could see even in the darkest of nights, later became known as the Mother Royal. Maomao understood it to be fable of this nation’s founding. There’s a bit drawn from Christianity in this story with how the Mother Royal gave birth to the child of the heavens like how Mary is believed to have given birth to Jesus although the Mother Royal in this story seems to have a special status in Li with her being tied to the story of the founding of this country and perhaps the land she originally came from.

Jinshi then creeps up on Maomao, and she tells him to be careful, or they’ll see his face, which will get the students distracted since almost all the girls and women fawn over Jinshi aside from Maomao. When Maomao remarks that there are about twenty students, Jinshi indicates they were hoping for more with Gaoshun interjecting that they started out with ten, so the number is increasing. It seems Jinshi really is hoping they can make a good crop of doctors from this endeavor given they’ll be short-staffed in time with the surgery banning eunuchs stopping more from joining their ranks and with only men being permitted to make medicine at this point in time.

After Jinshi and Gaoshun have taken their leave, Maomao got Xiaolan’s attention during the class’s break, and Xiaolan revealed she has only learned a few characters and still has to learn more from the teacher. She revealed she sometimes goes directly to the teacher for help since he’s close by in the building next door, and Maomao noticed a shrine on their way there. Inside, Maomao notes due to the features she sees that the shrine must be divided into quite a few rooms due to the distance between pillars being quite short and the shape of the building. The teacher revealed the shrine was built by the people who originally lived here, and that when she moved here, the Mother Royal didn’t denounce the old religion. She told her that son that the one who rules this land must pass through that shrine with only those who can choose the correct path being fit to rule. He said that the capital city was moved to this city ’cause of this shrine, which calls back to when the old lady of the Verdigris House indicated that when their town was chosen to be the capital city it was still underdeveloped and had no lodging for the special envoy, which is why they chose the area close to the ruins in the rear palace to be the site of the special performance. He wondered whether it would ever be used again though since it’s been many decades since it was last used given the previous Emperor’s older brothers all passed away from an epidemic, meaning the rite of passage to determine the heir wasn’t needed. He’s glad that someone is taking an interest in the shrine since it’s been a while since that happened. When prompted by Maomao, he said that a quirky doctor would wander around the rear palace whenever he had the time, and Maomao asked whether it was Luomen, resulting in the teacher asking her if she knew him, which Maomao didn’t actually want to answer ’cause she doesn’t want to get too involved with the Imperial family if you recall from Season 1’s premiere her belief that the less she appears to know the better her chances of getting out of there before she draws unnecessary attention. But since she had already let the cat out of the bag, she shared that Luomen is her adopted father who began working as an apothecary in the pleasure district after he left the rear palace. The teacher smiled upon learning that, which prompted Maomao to wonder whether they got along with each other.

Back to the Jade Pavilion after Maomao finished doing her duty of tasting for poisons, the Emperor declared she is to accompany her to the Shrine of Choosing. Jinshi was also asked to tag along and asked the Emperor why he’s doing this all of a sudden, but he didn’t get a reply. To Maomao’s surprise, they were greeted by the school’s teacher, who told the Emperor that he might get the same result again, but if that’s acceptable, it’s fine when the Emperor asked for another shot at going through the Shrine of Choosing, which Maomao thought was a very casual way to address the Emperor. When inside there were three doors (green, red, and blue) with a message to not open the red door. After the Emperor chose the blue door, the teacher remarked that he again spoke very casually to the Emperor, remarking that he wished the Emperor paid more heed to the ones tasked to maintain this place as it goes unused for so long before someone suddenly wants to use it, and the Emperor merely apologized for his troubles, showing he’s a very even-tempered chill guy given how the teacher is addressing him. The next room again had 3 doors, green, brown, and light blue with a warning to not choose the brown one. The Emperor chose the green one, and after much maneuvering through the many doors, Maomao had lost her sense of direction and thought about why the Emperor brought her along, hoping that this would end soon since she clearly didn’t enjoy the experience. The final selection had blue, purple, and yellow doors with a warning to not enter the blue door. Maomao also noted there was another door leading to this room, suggesting a separate path converged to that room. The Emperor chose the yellow one, and it led to a room with the message, “child of royalty, yet not child of the Mother Royal, which Maomao took to be a rejection of sorts. The Emperor noted that he got the same result as before, and Maomao wondered why Jinshi had such a serious look on his face. The Emperor remarked that he must be incapable of deciphering the will of the heavens, and the teacher disagreed immediately, speaking in favour of the Emperor for once by saying when he wisely chose to include this shrine to be part of the Rear Palace he became the sole person to manage this place, asking what value could there be in the will of the heavens since he had really wanted the job.

Outside, Maomao observed that the Emperor appeared to have followed every direction without making any mistakes, yet he was still unable to reach the correct answer, so she wondered whether there was some other intent behind the Shrine of Choosing with her thinking the number of rooms or the colour of the doors chosen as possibly being the key to the test. The teacher then jabbed at Maomao a bit by saying Luomen probably would’ve figured it out. Maomao said that it’s true that her adopted father had an astonishing amount of knowledge of but being told that she can’t do it is annoying. She thought Luomen’s knowledge was exceptionally advanced in the field of medicine and wondered whether that had something to do with it. When the Emperor asked the teacher if he has any idea what “not child of the Mother Royal” could mean, Maomao thought back to the founding fable of Li with only the Mother Royal appearing without any mention of a father. She thought that given the story, one would expect this country to use a system based on a maternal bloodline, but their nation uses a paternal hereditary succession system. She then thought about what would we be the best way to carry on the Mother Royal’s bloodline, and sprung onto Jinshi the question on whether the previous Emperor’s brothers were all born to the same mother, and the Emperor indicated that the mothers who gave birth to the princes were sisters, to which Maomao responded by saying they were of close bloodlines. She then asked for permission to speak freely, which the Emperor allowed. Maomao asked whether several of the previous Emperors had poor eyesight, to the teacher’s surprise, and the Emperor confirmed that that was the case, but he also noted that the previous Emperor could see perfectly well. Maomao then declared her interest in going through the shrine again, and the teacher remarked that only princesses and concubines had been allowed to go through the shrine in the past to opine on the doors. That led to the Emperor musing that he could make Maomao one of his concubines although Lakan would give him grief for that, which Maomao thought had to be a joke, and Jinshi said with outrage while also sounding pleading about what the other concubines would think, and then he told Jinshi to take Maomao as a concubine, but Maomao literally had no thoughts about that and showed no reaction whatsoever to hearing that, as if she literally doesn’t want to think about things like that, merely ending that interaction with he’s being playful.

I’m not going to go through all that with the doors again as it’d be tedious, so I’ll mention only the final room, which had purple, white, and green doors with a message to choose the red door. The secret was that Maomao knew that many in the western region have red-green colour blindness, and the Mother Royal and her servants from the west created the Shrine of Choosing specifically to choose people who would continue to have the red-green colour blindness trait that runs in the Mother Royal’s family with sons going through this rite of passage with concubines closely related to them if they couldn’t pass the test themselves, allowing for the Mother Royal and the west to infiltrate and take over the entire country, which she didn’t spare speak out aloud, only revealing to those in-person that it was meant to select for that trait to continue her bloodline even though the test doesn’t guarantee that the test-taker is not a descendant of hers. The teacher indicated that in the past, only women with the right blood would partake in the test, but this time someone else did. Maomao reasoned that the Mother Royal married into the leadership of the country since it’s never easy settling into a new land, and the paternal succession system was followed to honour the leader at the time. She thought to herself that’s how the Mother Royal became the origin for the founding fable since after some time, the people who knew the truth would’ve passed away. Maomao then put it out there that that might be how the brothers passed in an epidemic ’cause of too much inbreeding. It was said that the Mother Royal possessed a rare intellect, and the teacher suggested Maomao be added to the bloodline to thin the bloodline while also warning that many do not favour the introduction of new blood, and the Emperor joked that Maomao needs to have at least 15cm more in the chest for him to consider it. But we see from the teacher, he was actually directing that remark at Jinshi, and Maomao still doesn’t get it, saying some things are better left unknown, which shows she has a defense mechanism preventing her from realizing the truth by pushing uncomfortable thoughts away, and it’s unclear how long this defense mechanism can keep doing its job.

After watching this episode, I believe it makes sense why the Emperor looked deep in thought at the end of Episode 30. It makes sense if the Emperor was using the Shrine of Choosing to test Maomao to see if she would be a good partner for Jinshi, and if that’s the case, Jinshi is most likely his direct heir rather than his brother. That would be why the teacher directed his remark to Jinshi, and it’s ’cause he understood the Emperor was testing Maomao’s fitness to be Jinshi’s mate. That would also explain all the teasing the Emperor made, as it was just like a family outing in which he teases his son and daughter-in-law.

If you also remember from the start of the episode, the old woman appeared to have more power than the old man, who may have been the Emperor at the time, who had to defer to her when she told him to go back to his room. Perhaps the epidemic that killed the previous Emperor’s older brothers was no real epidemic and was actually a mass murdering of the Imperial family ’cause that woman had some sort of leverage over the youngest son. That could explain why she had such great power despite being far past the age one would expect her to hold such power.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 30 (Season 2 Episode 6) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 17, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This episode leads with the woman from the clinic who showed Ailan a room she could stay in last episode, and we find out her name is Shenlü later in the episode. The first scene shows her looking at a letter someone sent her (which I will come back to at the end), and this suggests that someone else suggested to her to approach Maomao later in the episode when Ailan returned the next day to say that a court lady wanted to see her, which Ailan apologized for since she reasons she should’ve taken the medicine Maomao prepared for her beforehand so that Shenlü didn’t see it. When Gyokuyou wondered whether there will be repercussions, that’s when Ailan spilled that that court lady wanted to borrow Maomao for a while.

When Maomao and Yinghua went to meet Shenlü, Maomao noted that Shenlü has green-tinted eyes, meaning she is likely from the same region as Lady Gyokuyou. She said that yesterday Shenlü gave off the vibe of a tough mother hen, but in this calm setting, she gives off a wise reserved impression. Shenlü then apologized for yesterday since she had no idea Maomao worked for the Precious Consort, which is Lady Gyokuyou’s title with all the high-ranking concubines having a specific title (Lihua’s the Wise Consort. Lishu’s the Virtuous Consort. And Loulan’s the Pure Consort if I recall correctly). Court ladies from outside the 4 pavilions often use these titles. Shenlü requests for Maomao to make some medicine to treat a servant girl in the Crystal Pavilion who has a bad cough that she last saw half a month ago. Shenlü had met the girl at the laundry area a number of times, eventually telling the girl to get some serious rest, but she went missing the next day and didn’t even visit the clinic. Maomao surmises that the head leady-in-waiting at the Crystal Pavilion must have denied the servant girl’s request to go to the clinic after Shenlü put it out there that the higher-ups might not have allowed to come to the clinic.

Once they’ve left the clinic, Yinghua says that she knows these types of things catch Maomao’s eye, so she told Maomao outright to get the right permissions first to do anything about this situation as Maomao has a bad habit of diving into things head-first, a callback to when Maomao went to sniff the servant girls and ladies-in-waitings at the Crystal Pavilion. Maomao mentally notes she needs to be patient and said she’d get Jinshi to make the introduction. She then saw a salamander and caught its tail, which reinforced Yinghua’s point and freaked Yinghua out, as it appears she’s afraid of critters like those, which I thought was pretty funny. Maomao wants to study how they grow back their tails due to her wanting to figure out how to regrow testicles. Oh, you devious girl.

Back at the Crystal Pavilion, we see there’s a girl that’s dying, and a servant girl tries to check up on her but was rebuked by Shin since it isn’t part of that girl’s duties. Shin then gets notified that the quack doctor from the medical office is here, and nobody is happy to see him given how he couldn’t save the prince and when Shin outright says that Lihua doesn’t want to see him, he produces the letter showing he is here by Jinshi’s order after Maomao in high heels whispers something to him as Shin wonders whether she has seen this “tall” court lady before. The doctor says he’s sure Lihua has great helpers, and Shin replies of course since all who work at the Crystal Pavilion were born and raised in noble families, so they truly deserve their spot in the Emperor’s service, which we all know is not true since they’re the laziest workers around due to their background. Lihua mentioned that Lihua is born from the imperial lineage and thought to herself why she wasn’t a concubine with her thought being interrupted with Maomao having caught sight of a shed that is out of place and directing the doctor to ask about it. When Shin says it’s just for storage, the doctor just as planned asked if she did any gardening recently to draw her attention away so that he could sneak up to the shed while Maomao distracted her, saying that Shin is wearing perfume today among other things.

Maomao then quickly gets to work treating the sick servant girl wondering why she’s being treated like this with Shin interjecting that it’s common sense to quarantine a sick person to make sure an illness doesn’t spread, but Maomao says the girl will die if she keeps getting treated like this, not that a death of a single servant girl would get Shin in any trouble. Maomao then says coming to the Crystal Pavilion made her think back to what happened here before when Lihua was sick, and Shin was burning incense as if to hide the scent of the sick. This time, she feels the opposite, that Shin put a sick person here to hide the smell of incense. Maomao remarks that the ladies of the Crystal Pavilion have too many secrets with how a basket full of banned goods from the caravan were found here, and she asked why Shin is trying to make an abortion drug, which unnerved Shin.

After Maomao has washed herself and changed into fresh clothes, Jinshi, Maomao, Lady Gyokuyou, and Gaoshun confront Shin, and I just absolutely love how Maomao was so in your face and aggressive with Shin, destroying Shin’s faulty logic about how the goods aren’t hers when one of the flasks has the same scent as she does today. That resulted in Shin scratching Maomao’s face, and that results in Lihua taking control of the interrogations with how she surmises that Shin never saw her as a concubine and said it came down to the wire about which of them would be chosen as a concubine, and Shin breaks down due to having perceived Lihua to be talking down to her, saying how she’s better at Lihua at at most things with Maomao thinking that Lihua’s breasts are why Lihua won out since she had more ‘caliber’ as a concubine. Maomao also observed that Lady Lihua wore the same outfit as Lady Gyokuyou before she started wearing outfits that would hide her pregnancy, thinking that ladies-in-waiting here are no good and were deliberately selected by Shin specifically ’cause of their upbringings. Eventually, Jinshi wonders whether what Shin said about her being raised from birth to be Empress amounts to a confession, and Shin completely loses it and throws all the scented oils at Lihua to try and cause a miscarriage, but she was stopped by Gaoshun. Maomao, still in a feisty mood, then puts out that Shin covets the position of Empress while Lihua just loves the Emperor in general, which rattled Shin further. Lady Lihua then punishes Shin with a huge slap to the face and was posed to also punch her too with her dramatics giving her the cover to give Shin a lenient sentence in merely just being banned from the rear palace, and she appeared so dignified unlike when she was sick, nearly to the point of death.

Outside, Jinshi asked Maomao how she knew the servant girl was in the shed, and Maomao said she had an idea beforehand since the girl would be somewhere out of sight, away from the bedrooms of the others. As a callback to earlier when the quack doctor asked if Shin had done some gardening, Maomao indicated there was an clue with flowers that were planted next to the shed being white when they were usually red ’cause in feng shui they say that green and white is a combo that brings good health. She said it was ironic that whoever planted them chose the white blossom though ‘since the white powder in the seeds of white blossoms can be used to induce an abortion. Jinshi reacted with alarm, and Maomao that they’re harmless otherwise unless you specifically have the knowledge about the abortions much like the scented oils. Jinshi asks her whether someone is deliberately spreading the knowledge about the use of scented oils for abortions, and she indicated she’s unsure, but you can never be too careful. Maomao then has an encounter with the girl who was trying to help the sick servant girl, and she was the one plating the white blossoms. Maomao let her know that she’s getting proper treatment away from the rear palace, thinking that Lihua is paying for the treatment herself since she felt responsible. It was just so wonderful to see this girl light up with the news, showing that there is at least one good person serving under Lady Lihua and the goodness of humanity in general.

At night, the Emperor visits Lady Lihua and casually remarks that Maomao was here again, and Lihua says he must know everything and that she has done nothing but save her. The Emperor looks deep in thought, either ’cause of all the threats to his concubines, ’cause this incident is having him think of making a request of Maomao he wouldn’t normally make, or maybe even both those things. Back to my thought at the start of the post that Shenlü approached Maomao after receiving a letter, it wouldn’t surprise me if whoever wrote the letter has some nefarious plans in order. Maybe this person’s request specifically involved Maomao saving the day to increase her profile for whatever reason. In retrospect, Episode 26 had Shin make an evil face upon reading a letter from the clinic, which perhaps suggests that she had a co-conspirator at the clinic, and that person may be Shenlü, who herself is conspiring with someone else with Suiren being the first to come to mind due to her expansive knowledge of poisons. The episode ends with an ominous shot of a building, and I wonder what it’s significance will be.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episodes 28 and 29 (Season 2 Episodes 4 and 5) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 12, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

These two episodes were a lot more straightforward than what came before and focused primarily on four things, Gaoshun telling Maomao about a story regarding two women, one of which who escaped a building while under the watch of men, Jinshi and Maomao handling the request of the two special envoys who are blonde women that want to see a moon fairy, Maomao pondering about the dynamic in the rear palace and about who taught Concubine Jin about the poisonous mushroom, and Ailan falling sick, requiring for her to be taken to a clinic. As it would be incredibly boring and tedious to simply recount everything in the order that it happened, I won’t be doing that.

So the two mysterious women from a foreign land who were seen at the end of Episode 25 are named Ayla and Aylin, are the two special envoys, and they actually get shown again the start of Episode 28, and Ayla, whose has red ornaments as opposed to blue with Aylin, actually met with Shishou, Concubine Loulan’s father, at night, and he had his daughter become a concubine that appears to be a different person every time the Emperor visits her due to her outfits and makeup varying wildly, which I believe is most likely a plot to allow her to live a double life as Shisui for some sinister reason. I wonder what the pair discussed although if I had to hazard a guess, it might have involved becoming one of the Emperor’s concubines given what happens later in the episode.

The special envoys had mirrors delivered to all the high-ranking concubines, and I’m not sure what the point of doing this was. Maomao thought it was done with the hopes of making a big business transaction, but she also considers that it might have been a provocation after seeing how Ayla acted later on it the episode. Regardless, shortly after, Gaoshun tasks Maomao with figuring out how two women who were under surveillance managed to trick the men surveilling them after telling a peculiar story about two daughters who looked like. They were located in a separate building attached to the main building through a corridor on the west and were watched through the east and south windows of the building with one man watching one woman from the third floor of the main building and the other from the first floor of the main building. Maomao realized that they had a very limited field of vision and reasoned that there was a large mirror placed specifically so that it appeared that the two were in the building at all times due to the embroidery looking different in a reflection, when in reality, one of them could escape at any time, and this. During this scene, Gaoshun mentioned that the ox bezoar that Jinshi promised to give to Maomao as a reward is hard to procure due to the demand for them suddenly going up, and Hongniang commented that Jinshi has been gifted many rare medicines from all sorts of people as rumours have been circulating that he is very passionately looking for an ox bezoar. In the meantime, Jinshi had Gaoshun deliver her a dried bear’s gallbladder, which is valued for its use in medicines for the digestive system. Jinshi intended to give it to her personally couldn’t due to his workload, but Maomao still has no idea what he feels for her. Gaoshun had stated that one of the daughters one day had become pregnant, but Maomao suspects that she was carrying a bigger secret than that, which is true since Ayla had snuck out to meet Shishou. I wonder what exactly Shishou’s role is as we know nothing about him aside from him being a favourite of the previous Empress Dowager. There has to be some reason Ayla approached Shishou of all people when she snuck out.

The biggest focus of these two episodes is a request from the special envoys to see an otherworld beauty who sheds pearls as tears he called a moon fairy. Ayla and Aylin’s grandfather told them the story about that when they were young repeatedly since he was the special envoy roughly 50 years ago. It was how he described a female dancer who had lights dancing around her as if she were being blessed. Jinshi said she was a courtesan from the pleasure district, and Maomao thought of the old lady from the Verdigris House. Maomao said the envoys know she was seen 50 years ago, so why can’t they just show her a different beautiful woman, but they had already tried during their welcoming party, and the envoys just laughed it off due to being very beautiful themselves. After Maomao had the old lady brought in, the old lady shared that the main reason she was chosen to be the main dancer at the time was probably ’cause of how tall (175 cm) and curvy she was and that a lot of the performance had to be improvised with them being made aware of the phases of the moon, having obstacles removed to give the envoy a better view, and picking out all the insect larvae from the orchard. She also revealed that people tampered with her outfit by rubbing insect carcasses on it, and after Maomao had a talk with Shisui next day, who was gathering the same insect larvae previously depicted, which is awfully convenient by the way if you ask me and made me suspicious, Maomao figured out that the pearls were actually moths sparkling in the moonlight attracted by carcasses of moths of the opposite sex, so she took the matter to Jinshi and the Emperor, who prepared heavily for the upcoming banquet for the special envoys and for the special entertainment to be given to them on that day. Maomao did her part in making sure that only Ayla and Aylin saw Jinshi dressed up as a woman dancing while being surrounded by little lights, and Ayla was so shocked that she went up to Maomao and asked whether the woman disappeared to, at which Maomao replied by saying, “Diana”, the name of a moon goddess in a western legend. Given Loulan’s father was important even 50 years ago, he may have been involved with the entertainment for the special envoy in the past, and that is how Shisui was able to give Maomao a nudge in the right direction.

During the bout of entertainment the Emperor had prepared for Ayla and Aylin, which took place before they had seen Jinshi, Ayla stepped out of her carriage to directly approach the Emperor and seduce him. She was very bored by the performances they were seeing, and Maomao had noted that Ayla gives off the energy that she believes herself to be the most beautiful person in the world while Aylin is the quiet type, which is not untrue given Aylin stopped Ayla after she interrupted the performance to approach the Emperor, and Maomao figured they were bored ’cause they both believe that there can be no woman more beautiful than themselves, which is why Jinshi’s performance came across as such a shock to them. After Maomao met up with Jinshi back in the building they had made preparations for his makeup and everything, Jinshi was pissed and had Maomao dry his hair since he had swam all the way to the opposite shore while in his heavy outfit as part of their plan to avoid him being seen so as to keep up their moon fairy ruse. And back in the building Ayla and Aylin stayed in, Ayla was fuming about how the Emperor didn’t visit her, and who knows whether she has some alternative plans in store for them.

The next day, Xiaolan shared with Maomao that she was going to school and proud to be part of the first generation of servant girls who were partaking in vocational training. Maomao was then bored and thought about how the problem about who had brought in the dangerous scented oils that when combined could seriously impact a pregnancy and who taught Concubine Jin about poisons, who she believes might have been Suirei. I have a thought about this as after Maomao finishes her pondering, she sees some members of the Crystal Pavillion, and Shin is among them. Maomao specifically noted that Shin was the only one from the Crystal Pavillion who didn’t smell of scented oils and thought that there’s probably always someone like that, but I find it extremely odd that Shin was the only woman who was serving Concubine Lihua that didn’t smell of scented oils. Perhaps Shin didn’t smell of them is ’cause she knows the harm those scented oils can cause and avoided involving herself with wearing those scents in case something happened to Lihua’s fetus, giving herself some plausible deniability and an alibi for why she isn’t at fault should something horrible happen. That she issued a complaint against Maomao might’ve been an act of self-preservation to avoid Maomao coming back to the Crystal Pavillion. While Shin might not necessarily directly threaten Lihua’s pregnancy, she might be hoping that someone else, like a servant girl or another lady-in-waiting, causes Lihua to have a miscarriage. Given that the title of the next episode is “The Crystal Pavillion for the Third Time, something is definitely suspect at the Crystal Pavillion.

In the last part of the episode, Yinghua tells Maomao to take Ailan to the clinic after she makes some medicine for her cold, and apparently it’s not the medical office with the quack doctor. It’s also located on the north side of the rear palace and is close to the washhouse, which is convenient for washing clothes and rugs often. Ailan says to Maomao tell Lady Gyokuyou that she’ll be back tomorrow since she wants to stay overnight just in case for Gyokuyou and Lingli’s safety. This clinic is full of older court ladies, and Maomao reasons that the reason there are older court ladies here must be ’cause they need clinic workers to have experience and knowledge. She bumps into Jinshi, who tells her to not let anyone find out she is making medicine as only mean are not allowed to be doctors and make medicine, which is why this more professional clinic isn’t the main medical office. Since the current Emperor banned the surgery for making eunuchs, they need a way to have more doctors, and that might be the purpose of the school since they’ll soon be understaffed when people become too old to continue serving the Emperor. When we flash back to the room Ailan is staying in for the night, the older court lady who arranged for her to stay in that room notes that Ailan has medicine on her since Ailan had taken it out for use with the court lady saying that she smelled medicine on the servant girl and said in an accusatory fashion that Maomao must be secretly making medicines. I’m sure this will lead to more conflict, and this week’s episode should be a blast.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) – Episodes 26 and 27 (Season 2 Episodes 2 and 3) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 10, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

So the caravan that was brought up at the start of Episode 25 is coming in advance of their banquet for the special envoy from a foreign land, and Maomao indicates it’s probably exciting for the rear palace given no shopping happens there and the lack of entertainment in the rear palace. Yinghua mentioned that Lady Gyokuyou will give them an allowance, which gets Hongniang furious as she’s doing too much chatting instead of working. It’s obvious that they will get a chance to go out there and buy clothing since Maomao and Gyokuyou’s other ladies-in-waitings were told that it’s time for a wardrobe change and since they organized so little to keep for themselves, the caravan would be the opportunity to stock up on fresh designs.

Back at the Crystal Pavillion, Lady Lihua directed Shin, her head lady-in-waiting to pass out a message, and Shin flatly says if she wants shopping at the caravan done that she’ll have one of the ladies-in-waiting do it. There is a strange close-up of the lower part of her face, which is probably intended to make us believe that there is something important about this interaction. A servant girl then tells Shin about a message they received from the clinic, and Shin breaks into an outright evil look after reading its contents. This does not look like someone who is benign in nature.

Maomao then has a talk outside with Xiaolan, who asked her out for the last day the caravan will be around as she might get some time off, and Maomao reasoned at the time that as a bottom-tier servant, she’s not allowed to start shopping ahead of Gyokuyou and her ladies-in-waiting. Maomao notes the rear palace is a peculiar environment as it it would appear if disease broke out in the rear palace that it would spread uncontrollably due to them only having 1 quack doctor, but she states the sanitation level is really top-notch with an underwater waterway carrying out waste flowing directly into the great river without ever going into the moat, which is the main source of water they use. I wonder if this will result in someone tampering with the waterway in the future to selectively cause an outbreak. whether it’s to explain why there aren’t widespread outbreaks, or whether they’re introducing filler info about the design of the rear palace, but given the sort of series Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is, it is more likely to be the first or second reason.

When Lady Gyokuyou and her ladies-in-waiting have finished with their shopping, Maomao notes that several robes and skirts are present with tight belts underneath the chest, which incidentally would easily reveal a pregnancy, and it gets her wondering whether this was done intentionally since Lady Gyokuyou’s pregnancy shouldn’t be public knowledge yet. As a precaution, she remarks to Lady Gyokuyou to ask whether the merchants have outfits with tight belts around the waste, which would obscure a pregnancy, and Gyokuyou and Hongniang did get the message with Gyokuyou asking the latter to directly ask the merchants that when they shop the next day.

On the final day, Maomao buys 2 hair ties for Xiaolan, and they run into Shisui, the girl who caught the cat, making this her formal introduction. Shisui has an orange highlight in her eye much like Concubine Loulan does. After missing that Suirei and the blue-eyed “man” who suggested to the younger brother of an official to kill his older brother with salted seaweed and who overdosed Kounen, the man with a sweet tooth who lost his ability to taste salt, with salt, I’ve been observing the eye colours of the characters more closely, and that’s how I realized that Shisui and Loulan both share that orange highlight in their eyes. If you recall from Episode 20, which I brought in my write-up of the previous episode, Loulan appeared to be a different person every time the she was visited by the Emperor, which confused him mightily, and that might literally be the reality with her ladies-in-waiting pretending to be her while Loulan is living a double life as Shisui. And if you also recall from Episode 17 of the first season, again from my write-up. it is possible to ingest substances that alter the quality of your voice as shown with Jinshi, which could allow Loulan’s ladies-in-waiting to have voices that can pass for Loulan’s. I have more to say about this at the end my article. Maomao brought back jasmine tea to the clinic, and apparently, Shisui is nerdy like Maomao is and into shrubs and insects and told Maomao there were tons of them on the north side of the palace, informing her there’s a weird smell coming from that side of the palace. The quack doctor thought that it might have been a waterway that was clogged, but given how every detail is important in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, there might be something more to it than that.

After that, the show moved on briefly to someone who was coughing who had opened a basket carrying tons of flasks of who knows what they are. I don’t know if those items are the cause of his sickness or if they’re what he’s taking to relieve his symptoms.

Maomao then discovers after the caravan left that scented oils became all the rage in the rear palace, and she noticed that there were multiple scents that could negatively impact a pregnancy, which led her to her visiting the Crystal Pavillion, which is most vulnerable to fads and trend-chasing, and she revealed to Jinshi, Gaoshun, and those at the Jade Pavillion that there were multiple scented oils, spices, and teas that could negatively impact a pregnancy if they were used for something other than their standard purpose with mustard even being used for abortion medicines, which could be chilling given we have two pregnant concubines in the rear palace right now. Maomao reasoned this incident is similar to the face powder poisoning incident that nearly took Lingli and Lihua’s lives and killed Lihua’s newborn son where multiple coincidences converged together to become an outright inevitable conspiracy. She advised for all the concubines to be notified immediately and thought to herself about the extent of the reach of the people who tried to assassinate Jinshi.

After Maomao played a rancid joke on Jinshi when he kept pushing about wanting to try the same tea as her, Jinshi received news from Gaoshun that middle-rank Concubine Jin had passed away with the cause suspected to be poison. The next day, Hongniang told Lady Gyokuyou about Jin dying from food poisoning with Gyokuyou mentioning that she heard Jin had been bedridden for a year now. Jinshi hurried to visit the Jade Pavillion, and when Maomao returned, he requested to speak with her in private away from Lady Gyokuyou ’cause he was investigating the Jin case with the Jade Pavillion being the prime suspect for carrying out Jin’s poisoning out of revenge for the previous poisoning of Gyokuyou during her first pregnancy, which Maomao found out later on her way to paying her respects to what was believed to be Concubine Jin’s corpse due to Hongniang’s deep feelings of resentment towards Jin. Jin was apparently a nasty piece of work who would verbally abuse people and even physically assault those who were of lower class than her, and she had poisoned Concubine Son, a low-ranking concubine who was sometimes visited by the Emperor, and Son was the one who trashed the venue out of spite for Concubine Jin due to her belief that Jin had poisoned her.

Maomao then went foraging for a very particular poisonous mushroom having connected all the dots and presented her reasoning to Jinshi that the corpse at the ceremony most likely doesn’t belong Jin since her hands were clean, and there was inflammation on her face, meaning she didn’t accidentally kill herself, and the corpse had recently been rubbed on by the mushroom, which prompted her to have 3 capable eunuchs come to find the real corpse of Jin. Maomao reasoned that it was a court lady, Tao, who she had heard about from the quack doctor, who had taken Jin’s place and that Jin had actually died a year earlier and had been regularly abusing Tao due to jealousy since Tao had found love while she couldn’t even get a visit from the Emperor. Maomao found out that Tao looked very similar to Concubine Jin, and that was probably why Jin’s lady-in-waitings used her to cover up Jin’s murder before Tao’s rapidly approaching marriage crept up up on them, resulting in them killing her as well, which would explain why Jinshi couldn’t tell that why Jin seemed to have become completely different overnight.

Back to my previous point, I wonder what Shisui’s motive is for telling Maomao about the smell on the north side. If I’m right, and Shisui is Loulan, she specifically wanted Maomao to solve the case regarding Concubine Jin, perhaps to lower Gyokuyou and maybe Lihua’s guard about the risk of being poisoned during their pregnancies. Concubine Jin and her ladies-in-waiting had to have learned about the very toxic mushroom from somebody else due to Jin’s high-class upbringing, and maybe that somebody was Suirei. Shisui may intend for it to be a cased closed sort of thing, but maybe Maomao will connect the dots later.

Alternatively, Suirei is directing Shisui to act this way as a direct intellectual challenge to Maomao like with Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes. It’ll be interesting to whether one of my two theories is correct or whether the truth is something else entirely. Every detail in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is important as is the case for Re:Zero, and stories like these are among my favourites, and it’ll be a treat to see how everything unfolds.

I couldn’t find a good spot to inject this into my post earlier, but earlier in the episode, Jinshi told Maomao about the school he planned on building for servant girls when he pulled her away from Concubine Gyokuyou and after getting Maomao’s opinion, she suggested the north side since even though the southern courtyard is a convenient spot for delivering goods it happens to be by the main gate, a popular spot for high and mid-ranked concubines to gather, and some of those concubines are very prideful and might not like the idea of having the servant girls educated, which made Jinshi settle on the north side as Maomao pointed out that that area isn’t well-maintained and has many abandoned buildings that can be renovated. Maomao told him to call it vocational training and to offer a snack every now and then as positive reinforcement since nobody gets addicted to a gamble that pays off every time. She reasoned that Jinshi asked for her opinion ’cause he might overlook some things due to his high-class upbringing. It’s clear this is Jinshi’s plan to improve the literacy rate in the rear palace.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) – Episode 25 (Season 2 Ep. 1) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on January 13, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

It’s really nice to have The Apothecary Diaries back given how weak this season of anime looks. Jinshi and Gaoshun visit all the concubines, and one thing of note is that Jinshi noted the obscenely high number of ladies-in-waiting Loulan has, which was increased after the garden party, and I have always found this extremely suspicious given how bad it makes the other concubines look and ’cause there is no real use to have such an inordinately high number of them unless one has ulterior motives.

If you recall from episode 20 of Season 1, it was said that the Emperor didn’t like to visit Loulan compared to the other concubines ’cause she dressed so differently and with so many different hairstyles and makeup that it appeared it she was someone else entirely each time he visited, resulting in him getting confused.

Maybe that’s ’cause that is actually the case, and Loulan has some of her ladies-in-waiting impersonate her so she can do whatever she is plotting. I don’t think we have actually seen her speak even once in person, and we’ve just her look brooding or disinterested every time she’s on screen, maybe ’cause the one time she was shown speaking, it might’ve been someone impersonating her who was speaking. And if you recall from Episode 17 of the first season, it is possible to ingest substances that alter the quality of your voice, which could allow Loulan’s ladies-in-waiting to have voices that can pass for Loulan’s.

The OP for this season shows a scene with 6 Maomaos at the 25 sec mark, and I’m wondering if some of the new ladies-in-waiting Loulan’s father procured for her can actually impersonate Maomao, leading to Maomao being blamed for things she didn’t do. Regardless of what actually ends up happening, I’ve always been extremely suspicious of Loulan’s extremely high number of ladies-in-waiting, and she definitely doesn’t NEED so many of them.

Jinshi founds out from his visit to Gyokuyou that Maomao is at the clinic, and Gyokuyou has this info since Maomao is working under her again since she’s pregnant. Maomao’s making scented oils away from the Jade Pavilion since a high concentration of certain substances can cause miscarriages, which Gyokuyou doesn’t want since she’s expecting a second child. Maomao whispered that info to Jinshi since she didn’t want the quack doctor knowing since he can’t keep secrets. Maomao also revealed after Jinshi inquired about it that she was distilling alcohol to disinfect the Jade Pavilion since they have a a very young child there who they don’t want to get seriously sick.

Then Maomao’s package arrives, and it was poor timing as Gaoshun and Jinshi vetoed them being distributed due to them being too explicit. Maomao tried to reason that the Emperor might choose a girl he takes a shine to, so it’d be in their best interests to teach the girls of the palace about sex and ’cause the Emperor found the books she previously brought to the palace as teaching materials were not exciting enough, but they didn’t want to hear it. Gaoshun did remark about the fine paper the books were made of, and Jinshi made his own order of a novel from the same shop Maomao’s grandmother had gotten Maomao’s order from since one of his goals he revealed to Maomao in Season 1 was that he wanted to raise the literacy rates of the court ladies, and I guess improving the literacy rates of everyone in the rear palace, who would eventually become ladies-in-waitings, would be one way to do that. Xiaolan found the inspiration to read and write ’cause the one reading the novel to her became hoarse due to overextending herself, so she wants to read the copy of the novel made for her and the other girls since it will come in handy when she leaves the Rear Palace, which Maomao is very pleased to her since Xiaolan is thinking of her own future.

Back at the Jade Pavilion, Gyokuyou reveals to Maomao and her head lady-in-waiting, Hongniang, that she has gotten approval from the Emperor to have her daughter, Lingli, go out on walks under the supervision of 2 eunuchs as well as Hongniang and Maomao, which Maomao reasons is due to all of the Emperor’s children up ’til this point dying young, something she finds reasonable. Gyokuyou also wants Maomao to teach Lingli about flowers and all sorts of creatures, which she believes will prove useful after Hongniang protested since Lingli will be married off one day and could use the knowledge to fend for herself when she is in a foreign land, and Maomao thinks Gyokuyou is just so clever for thinking so far ahead for her daughter’s future. She’s clearly an excellent mother.

On the walk, Maomao teaches Lingli that the flowers she took an interest in are primroses although she may not remember due to how young she was. She then heard the sound of a kitten and rushed to it, which led to Maomao checking out what was there, and Lingli frantically wanting them to chase it, which led them to the woods where the girl being shown taken by surprise by something at night earlier in the episode catches the cat for Maomao after saying, “Found you”, showing she had encountered it before. This girl is in the OP, so she should have an important role, whatever it is. Maomao opposed letting the princess touch it since it was dirty and possibly had all sorts of diseases as a stray. She brought it back and helped it survive since it was really scrawny and not in great shape. The Emperor gave her the okay to keep the kitten, which they found out was a female, since he knew his daughter was really taken by her. After nursing her back to health, the Emperor granted her the title of the Admonisher of Thieves since she was protecting the clinic from rats that would pillage supplies.

During that time, Maomao and Jinshi both indicated they aren’t cat people unlike with Gaoshun and the quack doctor, but after Maomao listed all the reasons people like cats, Jinshi realized he actually was one after thinking of how Maomao’s behaviour was very reminiscent of the reasons she listed and pressed the cat to his face, which was quite fun to see. Maomao is also repeatedly shown with cat imagery and cat ears through these two seasons, and given she hissed in this episode, it shows the show and probably the source material very intentionally linked Maomao to cats, which is why the kitten was also named Maomao.

Maomao was never able to find out who brought the cat to the palace, but given how starting with the second part of the first season how all the details matter, her mental note that at the place you need a license to have a pet could possibly be important later in the season if the show ever intends to address where the cat came from.

I don’t know what to make of the two ladies part of the caravan that Gyokuyou’s ladies-in-waiting were talking about, but whatever their roles will be, I’m thinking it’s not something good given what little we saw of them.