This week Maomao’s investigating has led her to the smell that Shisui had mentioned about in the North side of the Inner Palace. The area has been largely abandoned, making it a suitable place for various species of mushrooms to grow, and… to bury a body.
Jinshi had been quietly investigating a case relating to Concubine Jin, who was reported dead at the end of last week’s episode. The woman was described to be in one word: Nasty. Her unchecked jealousy of those who successfully curried favour of the Emperor was not one to be taken lightly. The torment she’d lash onto people ranged from verbal abuse, to physically assaulting them and of course, poisoning them (including Lady Gyokuyou while she was pregnant with her daughter). The most notorious case was with the very rare and dangerous mushroom. Ingestion of only a piece is enough to guarantee to kill, and touching it causes an awful scarring rash and other harm to the bodies (such as loss of hair). Maomao had encountered one in the past, and despite having washed it off immediately the scar remained. And we saw how one of the concubines (Lady Son) who had been attacked by Concubine Jin such manner bearing a very awful grudge, relishing the fact she was finally dead during her funeral.
But what made this mushroom so important was tied it was multiple cases. One of which, was one said to be responsible for the death of Concubine Jin. However the symptoms said to be the cause of death did not match what Maomao knew about it. So it was falsely framed that way to cover up what was likely actually a murder covered up as suicide. The main clues pointing to this are the fact the corpse only had the scarring rashes on her face, all-while her hands were spotless– indicating that she did not use it on herself, but rather someone rubbed it onto her face after the fact. And we did see the lady-in-waiting who was handing out the lilies have the matching scar on her hands.
The most damning part about this case was the fact, the body in front of everyone wasn’t Concubine Jin, but rather the missing lady-in-waiting Tao. Nobody knows the exact story of how it happened, but Maomao deduced a conflict between the two led to death of Concubine Jin. After-all, it was her body that Maomao had found buried in the forest of the North inner court, thanks to a species of mushrooms that grow on carcasses. So Tao ended up being was used as a stand-in for Concubine Jin, who in-fact had actually died a year earlier, and then was eventually killed too.
So yeah, talk about an ugly affair.
Unfortunately for Maomao, all the mushrooms she had so excitedly foraged for her own use has been confiscated whens he slipped up and gave too much information about them growing on carcasses. had she left them out, Jinshi probably would’ve been more open to letting her keep them. Hahaha…
Speaking of Jinshi. This was actually the first time he learned about what was actually hidden under Maomao’s bandages. He didn’t realize it had been hiding scars… of her own experimentation hahaha. Ah yes, Maomao’s particular hobbies.
To end things on a brighter note, we got to see that Jinshi’s grand scheme of encouraging the servant ladies to want to learn how to read and write has been quite successful. His next step is to put together an official class for the servant ladies to enrol in. Maomao’s quite pleased by the project, and was able to give him some helpful feedback of where it’d be better located, incensitives likes snacks to encourage students to stay and a better name for it. She also gave him a rare smile– to which both he and Gaoshun freaked out ahahaha. They are so not used to her showing a sweet face that they don’t know how to respond when she does hahahaha! Either way, it’s a great project in the works!
