We’ve reached the climax of the arc, and all the answers to the mysteries building up to this point are finally revealing themselves… From the Founding Mother’s heritable colourblindness (from Shishou’s side), to the story behind exiled consort, Suirei’s true bloodline and the Shi’s clan fall from grace. Needless to say, this was a heavy episode, and especially tragic considering the consequences that befalls many young and innocent souls that are being dragged into this mess.
Things were originally going to go south real fast when Shenmei walked into the scene where Maomao when Kyou-u had been caught by the guard trying to help Maomao escape, and Suirei was trying to defuse the situation before Shenmei caught wind of it. Unfortunately because she did that Suirei, the guard and Kyou-u were going to be cruelly punished for it (hell Suirei already been beaten several times just for speaking up trying to protect Kyou-u). Maomao knows all too well when to keep her head down, but when she sees such disgusting injustice– she can’t stay quiet about that. So the most courageous thing she did was not only speak up, but deliberately provoke a dangerous woman like Shenmei by calling her an ‘Old Hag’ all for the sake of a guard she doesn’t even know, and Kyou-u, who had earnestly tried to help her escape. And boy did she take a hefty hit– she was smacked in the face with her fan.
Thankfully Shisui managed to make it on time to spare Maomao from being cast into the water chamber. Shisui knew Maomao would be just fine if she had to face a Taibon, and sure enough, she was right. While most would understandably fear the capital punishment created by the mad king from ancient times (just like how Suirei been traumatized by it), not Maomao. Instead this was more like a treat. Maomao wasn’t afraid of the venomous snakes and insects that came crawling out, no- it was the other-way around, she hunted them, and with the hair pins no less. The end result: Maomao eating what’s edible of them for a tasty snack, by using Jinshi’s hair pin to hunt, and Shisui’s to roast over the flame. Classic!
As for Shisui (whom I’m referring to again as since she prefers that over “The Doll Loulan”), we finally got the full explanation of the story of both her and Suirei’s bloodline, and good grief, what a dumpster-fire.
Long story short: Suirei actually has imperial blood in her veins because her grandmother Taihou (the woman who shared the scary stories) was the first among the young consort victims of the late emperor. Tahiou and her newborn daughter, along with a doctor were exiled from the inner palace under the pretense that they had an affair. Years later, the Emperor sought his closest aid Shishou to marry his exiled daughter (despite Shishou already habing a fiancee (Shenmei), who was serving in the Inner Palace at the time). Shishou marries the daughter, they give birth to Suirei. Then Shenmei returns and that’s when everything fell apart.
Furthermore, Maomao finally understand why there was so much abortion medicine getting into the Inner Palace. It was so that Shisui had access to it, and proactively took abortion medicine to ensure that if she did bed with the Emperor, she wouldn’t give birth, and would thwart her family’s plans from being fulfilled. In addition to that, she refuses to stand idle to the rebellion, and has proactively taken measures to sabotage the efforts, save as many innocent people as she humanly can, and had poisoned the children to spare them of a far worse fate for their families being affiliated to treason. Maomao’s heartbroken and frustrated about it, but for Shisui, and I think most would agree– this is the most merciful thing one could do in this kind of situation.
But not only did Shisui seek to save the children from a worse and tragic fate, but did she also seek to save the people working in the workshops producing the weapons. She threw them money and ordered them to flee, and then proceeded to blow everything up. Both she and Maomao (who had been investigating the workshop after being released by the guard) had almost gotten totally caught up in it. Chances are it probably would’ve been pretty dangerous for Maomao too had she still been in the room considering she noted how she appeared to be working on the floor above it, or at least close to it.
Needless to say, Shisui was really doing her best to save as many souls as possible in a really bad situation…
