"Be wary of everyone."
Hello everyone!
I'm apparently on an anime kick recently, but don't worry, there's going to be something else making its way onto the blog soon enough.
I just have to get through this first haha!
It's what happens when I'm bored and randomly browsing Netflix, allowing the streamer to choose suggestions for me based on what I'd already seen and liked.
And seeing that I rather enjoyed My Happy Marriage, I figured tonight's topic of choice could be something equally nice to watch.
Turns out, it's more than just that - it's full-on entertaining and hilarious, while also weaving a rather complex plot in the background!
So without further ado, strap in, because we're heading back to Imperial Japan with The Apothecary Diaries.
The Apothecary Diaries is another manga adaptation, though this one is a little less stoic overall than My Happy Marriage, with bunches of little humourous moments thrown in throughout while you're trying to solve all the mysteries alongside our main characters.
The show centers around Maomao, a young apothecary who gets kidnapped and sold to the Imperial Rear Palace, where she hides the fact she can read so that what she earns isn't sent back to her abductors, but when she learns that the Emperor's children (which he's sired on different concubines in this place) keep dying, she's the only one to deduce the cause of death being a whitening face powder the concubines use.
Said powder includes lead, which is naturally deadly, and because she goes ahead and warns the two top concubines in writing, the one who heeds her warning asks the new manager of the palace, eunuch Jinshi, to investigate, and he easily tricks Maomao into revealing her intelligence.
This leads to a jump in rank as she becomes lady-in-waiting to the Precious Consort, one of the four highest-ranking concubines in the palace, and also Jinshi's walking, talking, breathing manual on anything mysterious and out of place, like when he gets wind of poisoning during a barbarian raid, which Maomao solves by explaining a lot of plants are poisonous and it doesn't have to be administered by any enemy.
The more hilarious aspect of this episode is that Jinshi asks our girl to create an aphrodisiac, which she does, and the consort's ladies-in-waiting try it, getting all hot and bothered. Equally funny is the fact Jinshi wants to seduce Maomao "just a little" to ensure her compliance, being the most beautiful person in the empire ... and is failing miserably as she's not even responding.
Still, this doesn't stop them from working together when rumours abound of a palace ghost dancing along the walls, which is revealed to be a rather sad, if ingenious story:
Concubine Fuyou is a foreign princess who was given to the Emperor, but is now being passed out as a reward to a commanding officer (the one who successfully prevented the barbarian raid and poisoning from becoming a rout). Everyone thinks it's punishment, but in reality, as Maomao deduces from her previous similar experiences with concubines, Fuyou learned it was her childhood sweetheart and intentionally fumbled in front of the Emperor so he wouldn't touch her, then pretended to be a sleepwalker to keep him away.
Her gamble paid off, and she can go to live happily ever after with the man she actually loves, a rare happy ending in a place where they don't happen often.
Which is probably why said Emperor tasks Maomao with healing his other high-ranking consort, Lady Lihua, who's still suffering from the powder effects, and Maomao has a hard time even getting close to the woman with her ladies-in-waiting in the way, but at least Jinshi can 'come inside'.
Listen, the double entendres in this are priceless.
Maomao deduces the ladies are still putting the face powder on their mistress, continuing her poisoning, and devises a strict regime to get her back to health, including but not limited to light foods and having Jinshi build a steam bath when he's so desperate, twinkling at her to tell him what she needs.
Shout-out to Gaoshun in the background facepalming because his boss doesn't get it (second shout-out because he asked Maomao not to glare at Jinshi like he's an insect, because the man LOVES it, and if someone caught him like that they'd probably faint in shock because he gets even more beautiful fawning over those details).
Eventually, Lihua recovers, and Maomao gifts her a parting secret of how to entice the Emperor back into her bed, which I won't talk about her other than ... well ... it involves a fairly large lung capacity, if you get what I mean.
Besides, our apothecary gets busy healing someone's burned hands and preparing for a garden party the Emperor's throwing, wherein everyone has to participate, and it's revealed Maomao's freckles are actually a product of makeup which she started applying to protect herself from rapists in the pleasure district. Even Jinshi doesn't recognize her with actual makeup on, but DOES realize - much to his chagrin - that she's quite pretty.
This results in him gifting her his hairpin, a significance that's lost on Maomao at that moment, though as she keeps collecting them later (from another officer named Lihaku, and one from Lady Lihua as well), everyone keeps saying it's a big deal, which she doesn't get at all beyond using the pins for sponsorship later, which we'll get to (the reality is they're also signs of affection, but she's clueless on that topic, so).
During the party, Maomao has better things to do anyway, dealing with bullying ladies-in-waiting and finding poison in her mistress' soup, but it turns out that the poison was actually meant for another consort, the youngest of them all, who was saved because her food taster swapped the meals to try and teach her a lesson, thinking the girl's a picky eater.
Maomao reveals that, no, that's not it, actually she's allergic to fish and can die if she's not careful, a subtle threat to her food taster, but at least it ensures one of the girl's ladies is now on her side, rather than her bully, something our apothecary explains to Gaoshun the next day when he comes by and is employed by the concubine with weeding the garden as he waits for Maomao.
I'm not kidding, it's too funny to imagine a high-ranking official like him doing it.
Not really knowing who poisoned the soup meant for the child concubine Lishu (who was originally concubine to the former Emperor with questionable tastes for young girls, while the current one has her as one of his consorts for protection), Maomao uses the pin Lihaku gave her to barter her way home, introducing him to one of the highest-ranking courtesans at the brothel she grew up at as payment.
Her visit home doesn't go peacefully as she's called in to help with what seems to be a lover's suicide, which she speculates later might have been a murder attempt against the client, but the important part of this episode is her return to the palace and confrontation with an annoyed Jinshi, who didn't even know she'd gone until he found her missing, and is now pouting that she didn't come to him for help, which confuses Maomao since he doesn't pout like a teenager.
More confusion later when Maomao talks abstractly about her taking Lihaku to the brothel sends him into shock thinking she slept with Lihaku as payment, which sends the consort into fits of laughter listening in, and Gaoshun facepalming. Again.
Poor man needs a raise.
Life returns to normal solving mysteries, with the death of a high-ranking minister who gets poisoned by too much salt in his drink which he couldn't taste anymore since a personal tragedy altered his system so much, followed by a suicide another lady-in-waiting commits, this one from the Garnet pavillion where light suspicion lies that they might have been behind Lishu's poisoning attempt at the garden party.
Especially as Gaoshun has unearthed that the head lady-in-waiting also has burns on her arms, like that soldier Maomao cured.
Cue Jinshi sending Maomao over to help with cleaning, but it only serves to reveal that the consort, Ah-Duo, was the current Emperor's first concubine and had a son with him. However, the child unfortunately died later, and neglect during the birth while the doctor was treating the then-Empress who was also in labour caused Ah-Duo to lose her uterus, thus preventing her from having any more children.
That's all well and good, until you learn the doctor was Maomao's father.
On the hunt for truth, Maomao figures out that Fengming, the head lady-in-waiting, unknowingly fed the infant honey back in the day, which is deadly at that age, and concealed it. However, when Lishu, who formed an attachment with Ah-Duo, revealed that she herself nearly died from honey, the servant figured out her mistake, and tried poisoning the consort so she wouldn't tell anyone else who was a sharp thinker.
Watching Ah-Duo take her leave during a ceremony after ensuring Fengming would be executed without the truth about the baby ever coming out, Maomao realizes the consort and Jinshi look startlingly alike, which makes her wonder ...
Did the concubine swap babies with the Empress at the time, to provide for her son and protect him, after seeing how he was treated even before he was born? It would make sense why Maomao's father was punished so severely (he had a bone removed from his knee), after being unable to prevent the infertility and infant death, but also not noticing the swap.
Our apothecary shakes her head, thinking this is all conjecture, because how would nobody have figured out Jinshi might be the son of the current Emperor and not a random pretty eunuch? (Spoiler alert ...)
This is all put to the side in any event, because people with ties to Fengming are being let go, and Maomao's captors actually worked with the other's family, marking her on that same list. Rushing to Jinshi, she tries bargaining to stay, but Jinshi, who has by now developed an attachment and fondness for the girl (she even comforted him when he was drunk and crying, natch), doesn't want to just order her around, so he lets her go.
Negotiations. unsuccessful to the max.
Maomao returns to the brothel where she's tasked by accompanying the Three Princesses to a private gathering, which means an unheard-of sum of money must have been spent, since they're so high-class. There, she runs into none other than a sulking Jinshi, and a beaming Gaoshun.
Theory incoming: Gaoshun got fed up watching the kid wallow and organized the party with Lihaku's help, since the man knows PLENTY men with deep pockets.
Jinshi, terrified of Maomao working as a courtesan, decides to buy her out - probably not what Gaoshun initially had in mind but, needs must and all that - and does in fact pop up in the pleasure district to do just that, setting everyone's tongues wagging.
BUT this means Maomao gets to go back to the palace, and because he brought her some rare medicinal ingredient (see, the boy CAN learn), she's over the moon.
How will this turn out, though? Tune in next week to see, when I go through part two of this hilarious series and all the other puzzles and boggles that Jinshi and Maomao land themselves in when they're not even trying, giving poor Gaoshun so many headaches it's a wonder he even gets out of bed every morning to attend his master.
I absolutely recommend this series, however, because it has it all: a witty protagonist, a brutally beautiful male character who's falling slowly but surely, ridiculously entertaining side characters, and a much deeper plotline that's being woven in without you even noticing until you get further into the series.
Every detail counts here, I promise you.
See you next week!
xx
*images and video not mine
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