Chapter Text
Hear me out, Imagine an Alternate Reality where Maomao is raised within the La Clan.
She grows up with her dad, and mom. She has a happy, albeit spoiled childhood where she wants for nothing. She is given all the love and attention in the world. She still ends up meeting her sisters at the Verdegris House through her mother who kept in touch.
Although she never learns a love of medicine, she becomes facinated with the power her mom and dad use daily to control others' actions from behind the scenes. This leads her to grow up obsessed with power.
She sets a goal for herself, that is, to gain the most power she can, however as a woman, laws state she is not allowed to hold a significant position of power. That being said Maomao decides the emperor's robes would suit her best. That would surely allow her to change the laws as she pleases!
With the overwhelming support from her family, they all get to work.... A little blackmail here, a lot of coercion there... It finalizes her plan to be in the right position to overthrow the emperor.
She succeeds and instates herself as the one true emperor. She would be in her element, happily controling the ones below her. She would be engrossed in being the one making all the rules and ruling an entire country.
As the country would settle down from the insurrection, she would find a pretty man hiding as a eunach, unaware that he's the previous crown prince. By finding him to be amusing, she would jokingly title him ad Imperial Consort. Thinking it to be unnecessary to have many concubines. As time goes by they have miscommunication and various escapades, ending with them falling for one another.
This ends up possibly developing into a tragic ending for the both of them. Jinshi would never forgive Maomao for killing his "brother" and Maomao learns her favorite consort was a close relative of the previous emperor. (She's paranoid, thinking he was just looking for an opportunity to get revenge).