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The damp, subterranean dark of the Rear Palace’s outer western storehouse was not a place meant for human habitation. To most, it was a repository for forgotten, decaying history—a place where broken pottery, water-logged screen doors, and decades of dust went to dissolve into obscurity. But to Maomao, it was a landscape of infinite, intoxicating possibility.
Above her head were the heavy cedar floorboards of a building long abandoned to rot; beneath her chest was the packed, cool earth that had not seen a single ray of sunlight in nearly half a century. The space was incredibly tight. It was so narrow that if she turned her head too quickly, the bridge of her nose would scrape uncomfortably against the splintering bellies of the support joists. The air carried the heavy, choking aroma of ancient soil, damp wood, and the faint, unmistakable trace of mold.
But Maomao did not mind the discomfort. In fact, she barely noticed it. Her fingers, stained a perpetual faint purple at the cuticles from weeks of grinding dried herbs, clawed delicately through the loose loam, her eyes darting through the gloom to trace the edge of the foundation stones.
She was tracking a legend. The older court ladies of the Jade Pavilion had whispered during their afternoon tea of a particular silver-capped fungus that grew only in the unventilated, high-moisture foundations of the oldest palace structures. According to their vague rumors, it bloomed only when the summer humidity reached a suffocating peak just before the arrival of the late rains. Its chemical properties were rumored to be highly volatile, causing either a brief, delightful paralysis of the vocal cords or a localized numbness that could completely revolutionize the compounding of dental poultices. Naturally, when Maomao heard the words volatile and numbness, she found herself completely unable to resist.
She slithered forward on her stomach like an oversized, green-robed beetle, her hips catching occasionally on the low-slung stone pillars that supported the main grid of the building. It was intensely quiet down here, a stark contrast to the bustling, gossiping hive of the inner court. The only sounds were the distant, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of palace life far above, the occasional skittering of an multi-legged centipede across the dirt, and her own shallow, controlled breathing.
Then, her palm brushed against something cool, smooth, and distinctly globular.
Maomao’s breath hitched. She stopped crawling entirely, holding her breath to avoid kicking up dust. Slowly, she pulled her hand back toward her chin, twisting her wrist in the narrow clearance to bring her prize into the meager, pale shard of light cutting through a nearby foundational vent. It wasn’t the silver fungus she had been hunting for. Instead, it was a cluster of tiny, pale-blue nightshade berries, mutated by decades of absolute darkness into a translucent, milky hue. They practically glowed with a faint, ghostly luminescence against the dark earth.
Fascinating, she thought, her eyes widening with a predatory, manic gleam that would have deeply terrified any of the palace eunuchs had they been present to witness it. A subterranean variant of belladonna. Because it has grown completely devoid of sunlight, the alkaloid concentration must be entirely different from the surface species. The pigmentation indicates a mutation in the toxin's chemical structure.
Without a single thought for her own safety, she pinched one of the delicate, milky berries between her thumb and forefinger. She was well aware of the risks. She was an apothecary, a self-taught connoisseur of lethal toxins and rare poisons. A normal, unconditioned person ingesting such a concentrated dose would likely experience severe cardiac arrhythmia, violent convulsions, or a rapid, painful death. But Maomao had spent years systematically conditioning her own body, ingesting micro-doses of various venoms and plant extracts to build a formidable tolerance. Still, clinical caution dictated a small diagnostic dose.
She brought the berry to her lips and split its thin, delicate skin with her front tooth. A sharp burst of cold, intensely bitter fluid flooded her mouth. She swallowed a single, concentrated drop of the juice, carefully spitting the remaining pulp and skin onto the dirt beside her.
Almost instantly, a pleasant, icy wave washed down her throat. Her tongue went completely, beautifully numb within seconds, followed by a tingling sensation that crept swiftly up into her jawline and numbed the roof of her mouth.
Ah, she mused internally, adjusting her awkward position against the earth to better observe and catalog the physiological effects. The numbing agent is incredibly fast-acting. It bypasses the typical mucosal absorption delay entirely. It is perhaps three or four times more potent than a regular surface belladonna extract. My heart rate is... dropping. It is slowing down to a steady, heavy thud. How deeply fascinating.
She leaned her head back against the dirt, intending to slide backward out of the crawlspace to document these spectacular findings in her medical notebook while the sensations were still fresh. But as she shifted her weight, sliding her hips back against the narrow stone pillar to give herself leverage, she heard a sickening, deep crack echo through the darkness.
The ancient timber directly above her, compromised by decades of dry rot and suddenly disturbed by her shifting movements, groaned loudly under the immense weight of the building above. Before Maomao could even begin to scramble backward, a heavy, jagged section of the main crossbeam sheared off entirely, dropping several inches with a dull, echoing thud that shook the loose dirt around her.
It didn’t crush her to death. The sturdy stone pillar a few inches away took the brunt of the building’s structural weight. However, the split timber had slid down like a cruel, heavy wedge, pinning the thick, voluminous fabric of her outer robes and trapping her left leg tightly against the earth.
She gave an experimental tug. The wood did not budge even a fraction of an inch. She tried to wriggle her shoulders out of her outer robe, but the timber had pinned her lower back and thigh in a tight, unyielding embrace, leaving her with only a few inches of clearance to move her arms. She was effectively wedged between the cold, damp ground and a thousand pounds of ancient, water-logged cedar.
Well, Maomao thought, blinking slowly as the single drop of berry juice began to exert its full, sedative effect on her central nervous system. This is remarkably inconvenient.
The toxin was making her limbs feel incredibly heavy, warm, and languid—a strange, almost pleasant contrast to the damp, biting chill of the subterranean earth. Her eyelids grew profoundly drowsy. She wasn't in any physical pain; the mutated berry was turning out to be an excellent, high-grade analgesic. But her physical strength was rapidly ebbing away under the influence of the poison. If she allowed herself to fall asleep here, she knew she might not wake up before the limited air in the cramped, dusty space grew too stale to support life.
She opened her mouth to call out for help, hoping a passing guard might hear her through the ventilation grate. But her vocal cords, heavily affected by the localized paralysis of the toxin, produced nothing more than a soft, raspy wheeze that barely carried past her own ears.
How incredibly foolish of me, she chided herself, staring blankly at the translucent blue berries still clutched in her hand. I should have tested the structural integrity of the cedar before evaluating the chemical properties of the flora. If I die here, old lady Quack will probably ruin my herb garden out of sheer incompetence.
Jinshi was having an exceptionally wretched afternoon.
The documents arriving from the Ministry of Ceremony were dry, tedious, and entirely unnecessary. The late summer heat inside his private office was oppressive, causing his elaborate silk layers to stick to his skin. But worst of all—the singular thing that was driving his anxiety to a fever pitch—was that a certain small, sour-faced apothecary had completely vanished from the palace grounds.
He had gone to the Jade Pavilion under the flimsy pretense of delivering an administrative message from the Emperor to Consort Gyokuyou, only to find Gaoshun standing outside the pavilion doors with a look of profound, mild resignation. Maomao had skipped her afternoon tea-brewing duties entirely. She had not been seen by anyone since noon, and one of the younger palace maids had mentioned seeing her carrying a small iron spade and a woven bamboo basket toward the abandoned, overgrown western sector of the outer courts.
"She is likely digging for something thoroughly hazardous again, Master Jinshi," Gaoshun had sighed, rubbing his temples in a practiced gesture of exhaustion. "I have already sent two guards to look around the immediate perimeter, but you know how she becomes when she thinks she has located a rare weed. She completely loses all sense of surroundings."
Jinshi hadn't waited for the guards to return. Dismissing his formal attendants with a sharp, uncharacteristic wave of his hand, he had strode toward the western outer courts himself. His breathtakingly beautiful face was masked in an expression of pristine, cold neutrality to any passing servant, but beneath that flawless exterior, a simmering, anxious annoyance was twisting his stomach into knots. Why did she always wander off into the most dangerous, forgotten corners of the palace? Did she not realize that the Rear Palace was a viper's nest—and that she herself was far too careless with her own life?
He finally reached the old, dilapidated storehouse, its weathered wooden doors hanging loosely on rusted iron hinges. The entire perimeter was overgrown with waist-high weeds and choked with decades of grey dust that danced in the hot afternoon air.
"Maomao?" Jinshi called out as he stepped inside. His voice, usually rich, melodic, and perfectly modulated to charm the courts, carried a rare, sharp note of genuine irritation. "If you are hiding in there with a jar of scorpion venom or a poisonous caterpillar, I highly suggest you come out before I have Gaoshun confiscate your entire herb collection."
Only silence answered him. The wind rattled the loose, broken tiles on the roof far above, creating a lonely, hollow sound.
Jinshi entered deeper into the storehouse, his silk boots kicking up thick plumes of dust that made him cough softly. He looked around the empty, barren room, his eyes scanning the broken crates and discarded furniture. Nothing. He was just about to turn back, assuming he had guessed her location entirely wrong, when his eyes caught a small, familiar object resting near the base of the far northern wall.
It was a small, tightly woven bamboo basket, containing a single, blunt-nosed iron trowel and a small strip of clean parchment.
Jinshi’s heart skipped a beat, a cold dread pooling in his chest. He approached the wall with quick, frantic strides and noticed that one of the low, decorative iron ventilation grates near the floorboards had been completely unscrewed and cast aside. It left an dark, narrow opening barely wide enough for a slender, petite girl to crawl through.
"Maomao?" he called again, dropping his courtly, elegant posture entirely. He knelt directly onto the dusty, filthy floorboards, completely unheeding of the absolute ruin it would wreak on his fine, expensive lavender silk robes. He pressed his face near the dark opening, straining his ears. "Are you down there? Answer me."
From the deep, pitch-black recess beneath the floorboards came a sound that made his blood run cold. It was a faint, wet cough, followed by a raspy, barely audible whisper that sounded entirely too weak.
"Master... Jin... shi..."
"Maomao!" Jinshi's voice cracked, the carefully cultivated persona of the heavenly maiden shattering instantly into a million pieces. "Don't move. What happened? Are you hurt? Tell me where you are!"
"Stuck," the faint voice drifted back through the grate, sounding strangely slurred, dreamlike, and entirely dizzy. "The crossbeam... collapsed on my robes. And... Master Jinshi... I found a very interesting... blue berry... My tongue feels like... ice..."
Jinshi did not need to hear anything else. The mention of a strange berry combined with her slurred, slow speech told his sharp mind everything he needed to know. She had poisoned herself and managed to get trapped under a collapsing building. A volatile, dangerous combination that left him with zero time to spare.
"Gaoshun!" Jinshi roared toward the open doorway of the storehouse, completely forgetting that he had left his assistant several hundred paces behind near the main thoroughfare. Realizing that waiting for help would take entirely too long, a sudden, fierce desperation overtook him. He looked up at the cedar floorboards directly above the opening. They were old, warped, and heavily water-damaged from years of roof leaks.
Jinshi stood up, his jaw set in a hard, rigid line. He slammed his heel down onto the nearest floorboard with all the physical force he could muster. The old wood splintered with a loud, echoing crack. Grunting with exertion, he bent down, his long, delicate fingers—hands that were usually meant for holding delicate calligraphy brushes or silk fans—gripping the jagged, broken edges of the cedar. He didn't care about the sharp splinters driving deep into his palms, nor did he care about the bright red blood that began to well up beneath his nails. With a violent, adrenaline-fueled heave, he ripped two entire floorboards free from their rusted nails, casting them violently aside into the dust.
The opening was now wide enough for him to look down directly into the subterranean gloom.
A few feet away, partially illuminated by the sudden shaft of bright afternoon sunlight cutting through the broken floor, Maomao was lying limply on her side. Her face was deathly pale, save for a highly unusual, flushed pinkness on her cheeks, and her eyes were half-closed, glassy and completely unfocused. A heavy, jagged support beam lay directly across her lower back and thigh, pinning her to the dirt.
"Hold on," Jinshi muttered, his voice trembling with a raw terror he had never experienced in any political court or assassination attempt.
He didn't hesitate for a single second. Lowering himself into the narrow, dusty gap, he wriggled his broad shoulders through the space, completely heedless of the thick dirt and cobwebs covering his exquisite garments. He slid on his stomach through the loose earth until he was face-to-face with her in the cramped, oppressive, suffocating heat of the crawlspace.
The heavy smell of damp earth and something sickly, sweet, and metallic hung thick in the air around them.
"You absolute, incomparable fool," Jinshi whispered, though his large eyes were wide with panic. He reached out, his hand wrapping tightly around her small, cold wrist. Her pulse was dangerously slow, thumping against his fingertips like a distant, sluggish, lazy drum. "What did you eat? Look at me, Maomao. Keep your eyes open."
Maomao blinked up at him, her pupils highly dilated in the dim light. Even in her heavily drugged, semi-conscious state, she seemed mildly surprised by the sheer, unbridled intensity of his expression. His beautiful, silky hair was tangled with cobwebs and grey dust, and there was a prominent streak of black grime across his cheek, but to her altered senses, he looked entirely magnificent—like a fierce, protective deity breaking through the crust of the underworld to claim her.
"A blue... belladonna," she mumbled, her tongue thick and uncooperative. "An incredible... localized anesthetic. I don't... feel the weight of the beam... at all... It is an excellent find..."
"Because you've paralyzed your own nerves, you idiot!" Jinshi snapped, his voice a mix of fury and intense relief. He immediately softened his grip, his thumb rubbing gently over her pale, cold skin to bring back warmth. "Can you move your arms at all? Can you drag yourself out if I lift this?"
"A little." She weakly lifted her right hand, showing him three remaining squashed blue berries resting in her palm.
Jinshi slapped them out of her hand with a sharp flick, sending the rare specimens rolling uselessly into the dark corners of the dirt. "No more. Absolutely no more. I am going to lift this beam. When I hoist it, you must slide backward immediately. Do you understand me, Maomao? Do not try to salvage the plants."
She nodded sleepily, her head rolling slightly against the ground.
Jinshi wedged his shoulder and his bleeding hands beneath the broken cedar beam. It was massive, water-logged, and incredibly dense. He braced his feet firmly against the packed earth of the foundation, his muscles straining until they trembled violently under his clothes. With a low, guttural cry of pure exertion, he hoisted the heavy beam upward. The ancient wood groaned, shifting an inch, then two, then three.
"Now!" he gasped out, his face turning crimson from the immense weight.
Maomao, using what little residual strength remained in her upper body, dragged herself backward out of the pinning embrace of the timber, her skirt tearing slightly as it freed itself. As soon as her legs were completely clear, Jinshi let the beam drop back down. It struck the ground with a heavy, dust-raising thud that shook the crawlspace.
He immediately scrambled over to her side, his hands hovering over her body in a frantic panic, checking her limbs for broken bones or deep lacerations. "Your leg—did it break? Are you bleeding anywhere?"
"No," Maomao whispered, her head rolling back against his chest as he reached down and pulled her firmly into his arms. "The stone pillar... took the primary weight. Just... pinned the fabric. But Master Jinshi... your hands..."
She looked down at his fingers, which were raw, scraped, and bleeding heavily from ripping the floorboards apart and hoisting the rough cedar. A sudden, strange, and incredibly tight sensation twisted deep in her chest—something that felt distinctly different from the chemical effects of the belladonna. It was a warm, aching feeling that made her throat tighten.
"Don't look at my hands," Jinshi commanded, his voice thick with an intensity of emotion he could no longer hide behind his status. He gathered her up against his chest, lifting her easily despite the cramped clearance of the space. He began the awkward, slow process of backing out of the crawlspace on his knees, shielding her head with his arm to ensure she didn't strike the rough wooden joists above.
When they finally broke through the broken floorboards into the open air of the storehouse, the bright late-summer sunlight filtering through the roof was almost blinding. Jinshi stood up completely, hoisting Maomao securely into his arms, cradling her tightly against his chest as if she might completely vanish into thin air if he dared to loosen his grip even a fraction. He didn't call out for the guards who were searching the perimeter. He didn't want any of the palace staff to see her in this vulnerable state—and more than anything, he did not want anyone else touching her.
He carried her out of the ruined western sector, purposefully taking the isolated, shadowed walkways that bypassed the main courtyards, heading directly toward his private, restricted quarters.
Maomao rested her pale cheek against his sturdy collarbone, her eyes closing against the glare of the sun. The intense warmth radiating from his body was deeply intoxicating, gradually melting away the icy, unnatural chill that the mutated berry had left behind in her veins. She could hear the frantic, rapid, terrified pounding of his heart against his ribs—a sharp, beautiful contrast to her own sluggish, drug-induced pulse. It was a comforting, steady rhythm that made her feel safe.
"Master Jinshi," she murmured, her voice losing some of its slurred rasp as the fresh summer breeze began to clear her heavy senses. "You are being... excessively dramatic about this. I would have survived until morning. My metabolic rate had slowed down significantly."
"Silence," Jinshi said, his jaw locked tight as he strode through the heavy wooden doors of his private pavilion. He completely ignored the shocked, wide-eyed looks from the few highly trusted servants standing in his inner courtyard. He carried her straight past the receiving room and into his inner bedchamber, placing her down with utmost gentleness upon the thick, silk-covered mattress.
Instead of stepping back to call for a court physician, he immediately knelt on the floor beside the bed, catching his ragged breath. His dark eyes raked over her face, checking her color. The deathly pale tint on her skin was finally fading, replaced by a healthier, natural warmth, but she was still visibly weak, her limbs resting limply against the silk sheets.
"You could have died," Jinshi said. His voice dropped to a low, dangerous whisper that vibrated with a raw, terrifying vulnerability. He reached up, his bleeding, scraped fingers gently tracing the soft line of her jaw, leaving a faint smudge of dark earth on her skin. "If the beam had fallen just a few inches to the left... if I hadn't noticed your basket... you would have lain there alone in the pitch-black dark, and no one would have ever known where to find you."
Maomao stared up at him, her analytical mind temporarily silenced. The heavenly maiden mask he usually wore for the world was entirely gone, leaving only a young man who looked deeply, profoundly hurt by the mere thought of her permanent absence. It was an expression of absolute, terrifying devotion—a look he only ever wore when they were entirely alone, stripped of courtly rank and expectation.
"I have a remarkably high tolerance for lethal poisons," she offered softly, her voice quiet as she tried to defuse the heavy, suffocatingly romantic tension rapidly filling the room.
"I do not care about your ridiculous tolerance!" Jinshi leaned forward, his face now mere inches from hers. The rich, familiar scent of his expensive eaglewood perfume mixed with the raw, metallic tang of blood and damp earth filled her senses entirely. "My tolerance for your utter recklessness has reached its absolute limit, Maomao. If you want to test dangerous poisons so badly, test them on me. Do not do it alone in the dirt where my arms cannot reach you."
Maomao’s breath caught in her throat. His eyes, usually full of playful, manipulative mischief or calculated political charm, were dark, intense, and fiercely possessive. She felt a sudden, sharp, and violent spike in her own heart rate, completely overriding the lingering sedative effects of the subterranean belladonna.
"Master Jinshi," she whispered, her pragmatic, medical mind desperately searching for a clinical, rational explanation for the way her chest was tightening and why her skin felt hot. "That is an entirely... irrational and unscientific request."
"Then let me be irrational," he murmured against her skin.
Slowly, deliberately, as if giving her every single opportunity in the world to push him away or turn her head, Jinshi leaned down completely. His lips brushed against hers—a soft, tentative, yet unyielding pressure. The kiss tasted faintly of the bitter nightshade fluid she had swallowed, but mostly it tasted of intense heat, relief, and an unyielding, desperate tenderness that left her completely breathless.
Maomao froze, her eyes wide with shock. Her limbs were still heavy from the toxin, but she found a sudden surge of physical strength, curling her small fingers tightly into the damp, dusty fabric of his silk collar, pulling him a fraction of an inch closer to her. The kiss was not the grand, distant gesture of a royal prince; it was grounded, warm, and slightly messy, filled to the brim with the lingering adrenaline of their narrow escape from the dark.
When he finally pulled back a few inches, his forehead rested heavily against hers, his ragged breath hitching in his chest. "If I have to lock you in this pavilion to keep you from wandering into broken buildings, Maomao, I swear I will do it."
"That would be highly detrimental to my ongoing medical research," she replied instantly, though she did not let go of her tight grip on his robes. She shifted her gaze down to his injured hands, her brow furrowing with her usual clinical, stubborn focus. "Go bring me some clean water, a sterile cloth, and the yellow porcelain jar of salve from my basket. Your hands need to be washed and treated immediately before an infection sets in from the rotting wood."
Jinshi let out a low, breathless laugh, the intense weight of anxiety finally breaking from his broad shoulders. He leaned down again, pressing a soft, warm kiss to her forehead, then to the tip of her small nose, before finally pulling away just enough to look at her with a fond, completely exasperated smile.
"Even when you are half-paralyzed by poison, you are still an absolute tyrant," he whispered softly, his deep voice wrapping around her like a blanket. He did not move from her side, his bleeding hand remaining firmly, warmly clasped around her smaller one, binding them together in the quiet, safe light of the afternoon room.
"I am a practical apothecary," Maomao corrected him, her eyes closing as a deep, natural exhaustion finally washed over her body, safe in the absolute certainty that he was there to watch over her every breath. "And you are a remarkably troublesome, unmanageable patient."
By the time the late summer rains finally broke against the tiled roofs of the Rear Palace that evening, Maomao was fast asleep, her fingers still loosely intertwined with his. Jinshi remained seated on the edge of the mattress, his wrapped hands stinging under the yellow salve, completely content to listen to the steady, rhythmic sound of her breathing against the backdrop of the falling rain.