The Apothecary Diaries Season 2

Episode 34

Ghost stories based in reality are much more fun than those made up out of whole cloth. Growing up, we always told stories about the Royal Tar, a steamship that caught fire and sank, with one friend even claiming that her great-great-grandfather had found a bone from one of the lost circus elephants on the shore. Legend said to stay away from the north shoreline during foggy nights in October lest you see the glow of the burning ship through the fog and hear the screams of the doomed onboard.

Maomao, of course, would be quick to point out that the island we lived on wasn't the one closest to the place where the ship went down, and that the likelihood of finding a bone washed ashore was vanishingly slim, because she's the kind of person who finds the flaws in any scary story, as she amply demonstrates this week. But it's a good thing she does, because that means that she also saved herself, Shusui, Yinghua, and the other court ladies from suffocation when she figured out that candles + fire + no ventilation = dead. And that, along with the few ghost stories we hear out of the thirteen promised, actually makes the rest all the scarier. There doesn't have to be a hidden trick to a tale to give it a warning note. The story about the mother and son who died after going into a “forbidden forest” still serves its purpose whether or not it explicitly says “don't eat the glowing mushrooms,” and the tale of the Royal Tar nicely reminds sailors not to cut down on the number of lifeboats in order to fit a damn circus onboard. Maomao putting the pieces together about what the thirteenth ghost story would be also serves as a piece of good advice, one that Shusui and Yinghua aren't likely to forget anytime soon.

But more important is the fact that the one real ghost at the party is also telling us an important story. It's one that picks up where Anshin's left off, a story about the little girls who weren't so lucky. Brought into the court by the previous empress dowager, these girls were meant to tempt the emperor into doing his duty to sire children, never mind that they were just children themselves. They're the detritus of his reign, the broken-stemmed flora left beside the path, trapped because of their misfortune at piquing his terrible sexual interest. I'm not sure why they couldn't leave when it became clear that they weren't pregnant; perhaps out of the vain hope he'd try again or out of shame at what he was. The ghost surely wasn't the only lingering spirit left over from his reign. But she's a good example of why, ultimately, Anshin said, “I choose violence.”

It says a lot about Maomao that, despite her skepticism, she's fully ready to believe that the organizer is a ghost, and a vengeful one at that. She's willing to believe something that's placed in front of her with enough proof, which is an interesting statement in light of upcoming events. The most important thing to her seems to be the concept of “proof,” which makes sense with her scientific mindset. That's also probably why Yinghua brought her to the ghost story gathering in the first place, because our poor girl isn't made for spine-chilling nights, even (or maybe especially) when Maomao proves to be the world's worst ghost story teller.

This episode may not bring things to a close on the subject of the late emperor, but it does do a good job of reminding us why customs change. With the old man gone, the ghost has no one left to blame, and with the arrival of three new court ladies, Gyokuyou shows that she's not just going to sit back and let herself be shown up. Jinshi's also clearly come to some sort of decision, although we'll have to wait until next week to find out what that is. If he can provide Maomao with enough evidence, maybe she'll even help him with whatever he's got planned.

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