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EP. REVIEW: The Apothecary Diaries

(I started writing the following post when Rebecca's was the latest.)

The idea about Jinshi supposedly being the emperor's brother isn't anything explicitly stated, either. It's a whole lot of hint-hint, wink-wink, nudge-nudge from a variety of things -- the question being asked of just what the deal is with this "inner palace manager" who seems to have an awful lot of authority, the mention in the garden party of the emperor having a mysterious brother who never shows himself, the specific movements Jinshi made during the party, along with the clothes he wore and the attention drawn to his qilin hairpin.

It is confusing to me that his identity seems to be wrapped in two layers of secrets -- most of the rear palace seems to think he's just another eunuch, with nobody really knowing where he's from. Assuming Maomao's theory is correct, and that does seem to be what we're meant to think, I'm not sure how many people know he's really the emperor's brother, and how many know he's really really his firstborn son.

A rough timeline from what we know and believe so far:

• ~34 years ago: Emperor Sr. knocks up a disturbingly young girl, who gives birth to Junior. Ah-Duo's mother becomes Junior's wet nurse; Ah-Duo herself is about a year old at this point.
  
• Junior and Ah-Duo are wed as teenagers. Ah-Duo becomes pregnant around the same time as the empress, Junior's mother.
  
• ~17 years ago: Ah-Duo and the empress give birth to boys. Luomen acts as doctor for both, but has to prioritize the empress. Ah-Duo somehow arranges for the babies to be switched. (Maomao is born around this time too; we don't know where or to whom.)
  
• Fengming accidentally causes the death of the empress's second son, who she thinks is Junior and Ah-Duo's son. (I think it's around this point that Luomen is punished and sent away.)
  
• ~5 years ago: Emperor Sr. takes another disturbingly young girl as a concubine, the 9-year-old Lishu. She grows attached to Ah-Duo. Fengming learns from her about infant botulism and tries to keep the knowledge away from Ah-Duo. At some point (I'm not clear on how long this is after Lishu becomes a concubine), Emperor Sr. dies, which means the empress becomes the empress dowager, Junior goes from being crown prince to being the new emperor, and Lishu's packed off to be a nun somewhere.
  
• Unknown times: Lishu returns to the rear palace as Virtuous Consort; Gyokuyou and Lishu become consorts; Emperor Jr. and Ah-Duo's son (who at least some people think is Emperor Jr.'s brother) starts working in the rear palace as "Jinshi"; Emperor Jr. has multiple children who die in infancy.
  
• Maomao is abducted.
  

I know it may be confusing because the previous episode they said both boys were born 17 years ago, but it was in fact 18 and a bit. As someone explained to me, it is some weird thing with how chinese count years (because I clearly remember from the LNs of certain character being more than a year older than MaoMao). MaoMao is at least a year younger (in case anyone will try to speculate of her being one of the children).

I think I just need to wait until things leave the realm of speculation on both the characters' and the viewers'/readers' parts.

I think I just need to wait until things leave the realm of speculation on both the characters' and the viewers'/readers' parts. Shay Guy's summation helps a bit, but my brain just starts fogging up after the third bullet point. I think it's some kind of psychosomatic resistance to ancestors.com or something, kinda like how I want to curl up and go to sleep the minute I enter a shopping mall.

Thanks anyway, everyone who tried to sort me out!

Am I the only one who wondered what was going on at the end when Jinshi implied of spoiler[a familial relationship between Maomao and Fenming?] Did I miss or misinterpret something? I guess we'll find out next episode.

What's going on with that - and the consequences of it - should, in fact, be the main focus of the next episode.

This was a misunderstanding on the level of a genuine romcom, just one side doing what they think is best for the other for once even if it's exactly the last thing the other person wants at this moment and they do a bad job of conveying it.

After Fengming's execution, a full eighty women in the inner palace who had purported ties to her had to be let go, and Maomao's assumed family of origin worked for Fengming's family. These numbers should probably give us all pause—if eighty out of two thousand women reportedly had business ties to Fengming's family and we know that Maomao was kidnapped and given falsified records, that could indicate that Fengming's family is somehow complicit in the kidnappings. While it's possible that they just have a lot of business associates, the numbers still seem high (as Jinshi himself notes)—and when we add in Fengming's words last week about how she entered the inner palace at her family's behest, we should probably wonder about what political intrigues are in play.

Quote:

After Fengming's execution, a full eighty women in the inner palace who had purported ties to her had to be let go, and Maomao's assumed family of origin worked for Fengming's family. These numbers should probably give us all pause—if eighty out of two thousand women reportedly had business ties to Fengming's family and we know that Maomao was kidnapped and given falsified records, that could indicate that Fengming's family is somehow complicit in the kidnappings. While it's possible that they just have a lot of business associates, the numbers still seem high (as Jinshi himself notes)—and when we add in Fengming's words last week about how she entered the inner palace at her family's behest, we should probably wonder about what political intrigues are in play.

The problem is that Fengming's family is a merchant family who supply stuffs for the inner palace so they would naturally have a lot of ties to other part of the supply chain. The Palace basically did a huge purge of it employee who has connection to Fengming no matter how small the connection is (like maybe just have business deal once before is enough), probably as a way to protect the secret of the switched Princes.