The Apothecary Diaries Season 2

Episode 36

As a special treat, we at ANN are excited to present to our readers an excerpt from a recently discovered play by William Shakespeare, Jinshi and Maomao, believed to be an early draft of his later masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. The following is from the beginning of Act 3, Scene 5.

[A cave]

MAOMAO: Wilt thou yet jest? it is not yet near true:
It was the frog, and not the testicles,
That rolled in the fearful hollow of mine hand;
Nightly he hops on yon stone:
Believe me, sir, it was the frog.

JINSHI: It was the testes, the herald of the man,
No frog: feel, Apothecary, what weighty bulk
Do fill the gentle cup of thine palm:
Eunuch's bodies are without, and jocund flesh
Stands tiptoe on my form.
You must accept and live, or deny and die.

MAOMAO: Yon weight is not thine, I know it, I:
It is some amphibian that the damp exhales,
To be thine this bundle be too small,
And unlike to be thy manhood:
Therefore I say again; thou need'st not tell.

We hope you have enjoyed being among the first to read this long-lost masterwork.

Well, the frog is well and truly out of the pants now. In some ways, it's a bit of a gift for Jinshi – as he says, it saves him some difficult explaining, although I daresay it's a smidge more humiliating than just telling Maomao would have been. This is largely because he underestimated the lengths she'd go to deny the truth beneath her own hand. In her mind, if Maomao admits that Jinshi's block and tackle are still intact, she has to admit that he's romantically interested in her, something she's even less comfortable with. She recognizes that she's been deliberately ignoring his feelings, something she attributes to her upbringing, when her crying was ignored for hours on end. We might also suggest that she's neurodivergent or, as I mentioned before, aromantic; the former explaining what she sees as her inability to understand other people's feelings easily and the latter why she does her level best to actively ignore or tell herself she doesn't understand or notice them. Arguably both Jinshi and Maomao are in intensely uncomfortable positions, with the latter being more aware that she's being at least a little unfair – she knows that insulting his package isn't the way to go as she twists logic into knots. (That she spent a few minutes actively groping and squeezing certainly doesn't help.)

It's interesting to think that the “reveals” in this episode are for things we viewers have already known for some time. We already knew that Jinshi was intact; likewise, we knew that he was related to the emperor in some way, as either his brother or his son, making him the current crown prince. But neither Jinshi nor Maomao is comfortable with these facts. Although it hasn't been explicitly stated, Jinshi doesn't seem to want to be the heir to the throne, and his feelings for Maomao are only a small part of that. But he also hates keeping that information from her, in no small part because he trusts her and knows she's a helpful person to have around. I'd say he's conflicted about their relationship and his status. Gaoshun notes that Maomao needs to know who Jinshi is – Ka Zuigetsu – because she's useful and they're going to need her in the future. But Jinshi wants her to know because he doesn't want to lie to her about his identity. Thinking about her as a political pawn doesn't feel comfortable at this point, even though he knows she more or less is one. He says he brought her along on this hunting trip because he wanted to tell her the truth, but he probably also wanted to have her handy since he and Gaoshun (and likely Basen) have very little reason to trust Shishou, the party's host.

Although there's no direct tie between the feifa and Shishou, I think we'd be remiss to assume that there isn't one at all. Someone may well have known that there would be such an assassination attempt since Lihaku's new friend, the bestest boy around, was specifically brought along. Someone knew that using the guns in the dog's presence would be an issue, which suggests that, while he's also doubtless a prey retriever, the dog may also be insurance against their use. Lihaku and Maomao certainly know his nose can be used that way, even if Basen is perpetually unimpressed. In any event, attacks against the emperor's brother have intensified, and that means that someone in the court isn't happy about Zuigetsu's continued existence…and they aren't likely to be any more pleased by Gyokuyou's and Lihua's pregnancies. Shishou's prominent role in the hunting party may speak of his machinations; he wants Loulan to be the mother of the heir.

In the end, only one person gets what they want out of this trip: Maomao. She has her ox bezoars, and that makes up for any number of uncomfortable revelations as far as she's concerned. Sorry, Jinshi. If you want to get through her wall of density, you're going to need more than just a frog.

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