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.