Episode 10
Not much too much happened in episode 10 so I’ll be brief. We were introduced to three new ladies-in-waiting to serve Lady Gyokoyou. They look so alike you could pass them off as triplets. But there are subtle details to tell them apart, notably with their eye colors and hair styles. However it’s difficult for Maomao to remember who’s who, so they’ve volunteered to wear specific colored ribbons so she could at least have a color-code reference.
Apart from that Maomao was invited by Yinghua to participate in a gathering where they tell ghost stories. Maomao was bored for most part because she could deduce where the stories had come from, ranging from rumours of cases she had personally investigated, to stories where she understood the cause of death (foraging poisonous mushrooms).
The funny part in all of this though was that there was one truthful scary story, of which they were supposed to be the victims of. But luckily they managed to avoid that because Maomao realized the reason why she was getting so sleepy was because there was not enough air ventilation in a tiny space, crammed with twelve people sitting around a smouldering fire pit no less.
And to top things off: Maomao and Yinghua learned that the court lady who hosted the event had actually died a year ago! WHELP!
But if there’s one thing that Maoamo did get out of this event, she has finally come to notice that Shisui looks familiar to someone else we all know… COUGHLOULANCOUGH.
Episode 11
AH DARN! THEY STOPPED RIGHT BEFORE THE BEST PART! We have to wait till next week for the fun stuff, ribbit~
This week Maomao joins Jinshi on a expedition to Shihoku-shu (governed by Loulan’s father). Accompanying them is Basen (who Maomao finally learned is actually Gaoshun’s son), who will be serving Jinshi on his father’s behalf since Gaoshun was invited as a guest. We also got to see an unexpected familiar face, and that’s Lihaku, who has climbed the ranks quite a bit since we’ve last saw him! Now that’s the power of love!
However this trip has Jinshi on the edge. The biggest issue pressing his mind is the fact he knows it has gotten to the point where he can’t and doesn’t want to keep hiding his true status from Maomao. And the fact he’s invited as a special guest, and yet he’s choosing to hide his identity (and to be referred to as Master Kousen in public), so it should have been a dead giveaway so to speak. However what would be to Jinshi’s dismay, Maomao amazingly has defaulted (more so for her own convenience) to just confirming the suspicions that yes, he’s from a well off family to have the Ma Family (Gaoshun and Basen) serving as his retainers. Heck, Basen was actually surprised to hear that she’s still in the dark about it, and was told to keep his mouth shut until Jinshi tells her himself.
Needless to say, if Jinshi had any choice in the matter, it’s clear he would much rather not attend this expedition. He has to go through great lengths to hide his identity, and keep his guard up at all times. That means he has no choice but to stay shut in a stuffy room (no windows allowed open to let the air circulate), wearing a face mask while out in public, no eating or drinking anything that had been served to him except for the preserved food they’ve brought themselves. To say it’s suffocating is an understatement!
We also saw why he couldn’t even afford to eat the meal served to him. While it’s not poisonous, it was as Maomao described it to be: Invigorating. Maomao has built up resistance to it, so one wouldn’t be able to really tell just how potent it is– until Basen was ordered to eat it. Sure enough it livened him up, which proved Jinshi’s concern when he frankly asked Maomao whether she was sure he should eat it. Well, I guess that’s certainly the perks of strong tolerance so to speak. Maomao gets to enjoy luxurious food without having to worry about that kind of stuff. Jinshi has it rough to have to watch out for those kinds of traps all the time…
But as much as Jinshi tried to play it cool in public, it’s not easy to resist ripping off the mask just to breathe or get a drink for sanity sake. Maomao noticed during the banquet that he was showing signs of hydration, and wanted to act quickly to help him. She couldn’t do anything until he was able to get away, but even then he was so guarded that he didn’t feel it was safe enough to take the mask off outside of the banquet. Maomao had thought they should go further out so that he could, but unbeknownst to her at the time, it just left them vulnerable to being shot at by assassins wielding a Feifa. So much for catching their breaths, because the next thing she knew, Jinshi had plunged them into the waterfall to escape, and Maomao lost some of the stuff she had brought along with her for him. Ironically only after that they were actually able to have a collective breather (quite literally, if I may add).
Well thanks to that crazy decision to jump into the falls, Jinshi and Maomao got their first technical lip-lock, haha. But of course that doesn’t count as a first kiss since it was purely for CPR. Maomao was the one who needed it since she (like any normal person) almost drowned under such circumstances. Needless to say, it’s refreshing to see neither one was sensitive about shyness right now, especially since both of them are pragmatic enough to know what gotta be done. Staying in cold drenched clothes wouldn’t do them any favours, so they both had to strip down and wring it out. Jinshi made himself useful though by offering to do that part on her behalf because he’s stronger than her.
Apart from the gravity of the situation, we did get a few wholesome moments between the two. Maomao was very attentive, and presented the butterbur she had brought to help him get hydrated again. I thought it was adorable when Jinshi offered it back to her when he noticed she was hungry, shes’ really like a cat with the way she took up the offer, haha!
Another fun moment was when they worked together to try and reach climbing out of the hole to exit the cave. Jinshi was like: ‘Climb on my back’, leaving no room for debate. Of course Maomao as per usual was being mindful of their status (especially when she was thinking about how Suiren would react if she knew), but reluctantly agreed since yes, she’d most definitely be crushed under his weight!
They almost managed to succeed, but their attempts were thwarted when a freaking frog jumped on Maomao’s face. Honestly impressive that she didn’t even flinch at that, and instead just tried to shake it off. But that wasn’t really the smartest idea since that caused her to lose the grip on the already slippery surface, and she went tumbling down onto Jinshi. Now they find themselves in quite an intimately tangled situation, and clearly Jinshi’s not about to let go of the prime opportunity to tell her the truth! Ribbit~!
