Maomao gets the pulse of the Inner Palace from Xiaolan, who says word is the servant who tried to poison Lady Lishu committed suicide, and Ah-Duo may be on the cusp of being replaced with a new, younger concubine. This has Maomao reflecting on the fragility of the fruits in the Inner Palace. Ah-Duo had borne the emperor a son, but the babe died. The primary purpose of concubines is to provide heirs.
In the meantime, Maomao attends Gyokuyou’s tea party with Lady Lishu, and notes what a tense affair it is, with every woman sizing every other woman up. She remarks how skilled Gyokuyou is at extracting information with simple conversation, and also takes note of Lishu’s reaction to being offered honey—a very similar reaction to the fish she had an allergy to. Finally, she sees that Lishu’s ladies-in-waiting continue to look down on their lady.
Jinshi, more annoying to Maomao than usual, wants her thoughts on whether that servant really took her own life or if it was only meant to look that way, and who is responsible. To that end, he dispatches her and two other of Gyokuyou’s ladies to the Garnet Pavilion, home of Concumbine Ah-Duo.
Maomao is given no further instruction, but suspects that Jinshi wants her to use her time there to observe the various parties there, to either implicate or rule out their role in a possible murder. So Maomao observes and takes mental notes as she and the others help do a deep clean on the pavilion.
Despite being 35, a year older than the emperor, Ah-Duo appears younger, with a “androgynous, gallant” beauty that Maomao suspects would look better in a riding outfit. And whether she’s being intentionally obtuse or not, Ah-Duo’s resemblance to the androgynous Jinshi is clear to see.
Maomao is impressed by the diligence and work ethic of Ah-Duo’s ladies-in-waiting, and sees that the head lady Fengming leads by example. While she’s from a powerful house that runs a large apiary (i.e. honey), Maomao finds her down-to-earth, kind, and easy to converse with.
But the fact Fengming’s family runs a honey farm, and the bandage on her left arm, makes her a potential suspect in the colored-fire case. Maomao doesn’t put the various pieces together until Jinshi teases her by backing her against a wall and asking her to taste the honey from his fingers.
A pissed Gyoukuyou puts and end to that, and Gaoshun owes Maomao a favor for simply standing by during the prank, so he gets her an audience with Lishu, who is disappointed Maomao didn’t come with Jinshi. Maomao only has two questions for Lishu. The first is about whether honey disagrees with her.
Lishu tells her that she once had some when she was a baby and it nearly killed her, so that’s a big yes. Lishu’s ladies express their displeasure with Maomao’s direct questioning of Lishu, which sounds rich coming from them. Maomao realizes that they’re intentionally isolating Lishu by making her think they’re her only friends.
Maomao’s second question goes unanswered, but Lishu’s face says it all: she does know Ah-Duo’s head lady Fengming, and it’s a name she fears as much as the foods to which she’s allergic.
Maomao asks Gaoshun to provide her with some Inner Palace records to get more context, and she unearths a bombshell: her dad, named Luomen, was the doctor who delivered Ah-Duo’s son—the one who didn’t make it and now has Ah-Duo in danger of losing her position as one of the emperor’s top Concubines.
Other important details: Ah-Duo was the emperor’s foster sibling, and became his only concubine when he was still a prince, while her son was born around the same time as the emperor’s younger brother.
Her dad was then expelled from the palace. This is the first we learn that he is not her biological father, as he is also a eunuch. But it’s also the first we learn that her connection to the palace is much closer than she ever imagined. What she doesn’t seem to consider yet is what that means for her, a girl adopted from the former doctor responsible for delivering the potential imperial heirs.
We’ll see how much more we and Maomao learn about her father, her own origins, whether Fengming’s honey connections and Lishu’s allergy, or the resemblance of Jinshi and Ah-Duo are merely red herrings. Whatever transpires in the final two episodes of the season, whether she likes it or not Maomao is no longer just an apothecary … if she even ever was.
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