Chapter Text
The inner palace was, by all logical metrics, a beautifully gilded cage designed to cultivate boredom, paranoia, and an excessive amount of paperwork. For Maomao, it was also a place where a decent supply of quality poisons was tragically difficult to acquire without someone throwing a diplomatic tantrum.
She sat on the narrow wooden veranda of the Jade Pavilion, a small stone mortar held firmly between her knees. With rhythmic, practiced motions, she ground down a handful of dried, crushed snake scales, ignoring the crisp autumn breeze that threatened to blow the fine white powder into her eyes.
It was a delicate process; grind too fast, and the friction would ruin the mild paralytic properties she was trying to isolate. Grind too slow, and she would still be sitting here when the sun went down.
"Maomao!"
A voice, entirely too smooth and drenched in a syrup of theatrical despair, cut through the quiet afternoon.
Maomao didn’t stop grinding. Her hand didn’t even twitch. She simply let her eyelids drop a fraction of a millimeter, her expression instantly flattening into the blank, unreadable mask of a peasant who had long since learned how to dissociate from her surroundings.
A shadow fell over her workspace. A man was leaning over the railing, his face framed by the perfect gold of the late afternoon sun.
He possessed a countenance so absurdly flawless, so devastatingly beautiful, that it regularly caused lower-ranking court ladies to faint into the ornamental lotus ponds. His eyes, soft and luminous, wells of liquid sorrow, fixed entirely on her.
Jinshi, the head eunuch of the inner palace, was throwing another tantrum.
"You're ignoring me again, Maomao,"
Jinshi lamented, resting his chin in his hand. His long, dark hair cascaded over his shoulders like silk. He looked like a celestial being dragged down to earth, a tragic painting of pure, unadulterated longing.
"I came all this way from the central administrative offices just to see how my favorite little apothecary was faring, and I am met with the cold, unmoving back of a stone statue. My heart breaks. Truly, it shatters into a thousand pieces."
Maomao slowly lifted the pestle, tapped it against the rim of the mortar to dislodge the excess powder, and finally turned her head. Her gaze was entirely deadpan. It was the look a person might give a particularly persistent, damp slug that had crawled onto their shoe.
"Master Jinshi,"
she said, her voice a flat, respectful drone that carried absolutely zero emotional warmth. "If your heart has shattered, I highly recommend a decoction of dried toad venom and crushed iron shavings. It will either fuse the ventricles back together or stop the organ entirely within three breaths. Either way, the complaining will cease."
Behind Jinshi, his imposing, hyper-competent assistant Gaoshun let out a very faint, highly disciplined sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Gaoshun looked like a man who had spent the last ten years trying to prevent a brilliant child from leaping off a roof for attention.
Jinshi, however, only beamed. A faint, radiant flush colored his cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with a terrifyingly masochistic delight. The more Maomao looked at him as if he were garbage to be swept away, the more energized he became.
"As expected, your medical concern is deeply touching, even if it carries the distinct scent of a capital offense,"
Jinshi purred, leaning closer. He reached into the wide, luxurious sleeve of his robes and pulled out a small, intricately carved wooden box.
"Look what I managed to secure from the foreign merchant caravan that arrived this morning. A rare, imported variant of dried nightshade berries from the western regions. I am told they cause an exquisite, burning fever before the lungs collapse."
Maomao’s entire demeanor shifted in a microsecond.
The flat, deadpan expression vanished, replaced by a sudden, intense sharpness. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilating as she stared at the wooden box. A tiny, faint line of drool threatened to form at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers twitched against her apron.
True, pure poison. Raw, untamed toxicity from across the desert. Her inner apothecary—or rather, her inner mad scientist—screamed in absolute ecstasy.
She reached out, her hand moving like a striking viper to snatch the box.
Jinshi, expecting this, smoothly pulled it back out of her reach, a smug, triumphant grin spreading across his celestial face.
"Ah, ah. Not so fast. A proper thank you first, perhaps? A smile? A single, genuine look of adoration directed at your benevolent master?"
Maomao’s face instantly reverted to the slug-on-shoe expression. The transition was so abrupt it was almost audible.
She lowered her hands back to her lap, picked up her pestle, and resumed grinding her snake scales.
"Then please take it away, Master Jinshi. I would hate to clutter the Jade Pavilion with foreign trash. Please give it to one of the other consorts. I am sure Lady Gyokuyou would love to use it as organic fertilizer for her pomegranate trees."
"Trash?!" Jinshi gasped, clutching his chest as if he had actually been stabbed.
"I risked a diplomatic incident to skim this off the tribute list for you!"
"Young Master," Gaoshun interrupted, his heavy voice cutting through Jinshi’s dramatic display with the force of an iron anchor.
"We have actual matters to attend to. The internal audits for the winter charcoal supplies are waiting, and the Emperor requested your presence before the evening bells."
Jinshi pouted—a look that would have caused a lesser woman to offer him her life savings—but he recognized the tone. With a heavy, exaggerated sigh, he set the wooden box down on the edge of the veranda, right next to Maomao’s mortar.
"You are a cruel, heartless creature, Maomao,"
Jinshi murmured, though his eyes remained warm, dancing with an affectionate amusement he couldn't quite hide.
"Eat properly. Don't test any new toxins on yourself until after I return tomorrow. If you die of self-inflicted paralysis while I am stuck in a budget meeting, I will be
deeply annoyed."
"I make no promises regarding my own biology, Master Jinshi,"
Maomao replied smoothly, already reaching for the box the moment his fingers left the wood.
With a final, lingering look that Maomao expertly ignored, Jinshi turned and walked away, his silk robes rustling softly against the stone path. Gaoshun gave Maomao a small, respectful nod of solidarity—the silent communication of two people who shared the grueling task of managing the same idiot—before turning to follow his master.
Maomao waited until their footsteps completely faded from the courtyard before she let out a long, genuine breath. She immediately abandoned her snake scales, snatched the wooden box, and slid the latch open. The sharp, bitter, beautifully chemical scent of the dried nightshade hit her nose. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, a genuine, small smile touching her lips.
Ah. Wonderful. The toxin density is magnificent.
"Maomao? Are you huffing dangerous imports on the veranda again?"
Maomao snapped the box shut and looked up. Yinghua, one of Lady Gyokuyou’s senior ladies-in-waiting, was standing in the doorway, a pile of freshly washed linens balanced on her hip. She shook her head, a mixture of exasperation and deep fondness on her face.
"Honestly, if the other pavilions saw how you treat Master Jinshi, they would have you thrown into the moat,"
Yinghua said, stepping out onto the wood.
"The girls over at the Crystal Pavilion spend half their allowance on cosmetics just hoping he looks in their direction for three seconds. You look at him like he’s a spoiled turnip."
"A spoiled turnip would at least provide nutritional value if boiled long enough,"
Maomao observed, carefully tucking her new treasure into the hidden folds of her sash. "Master Jinshi only provides headaches and a high risk of execution by association."
"You're hopeless," Yinghua laughed, setting the linens down. "But smooth your apron down and clean your hands. Lady Gyokuyou wants us to accompany her to the western promenade. Apparently, Lady Lishu has finally received her new lady-in-waiting, and there’s a small gathering to welcome her."
Maomao paused, her mind instantly cataloging the political layout of the Rear Palace. Lady Lishu, the Virtue Consort, was a remarkably young, painfully naive girl who had been pushed into the imperial court by a family more interested in rank than her actual well-being.
She was fragile, easily frightened, and had already been the target of several petty, vicious bullying campaigns by older, more seasoned palace women.
A new lady-in-waiting for Lishu was always a gamble.
It could be a stabilizing presence, or it could be another wolf introduced into the sheep pen.
"Who is the new girl?" Maomao asked, rising to her feet and dusting the residual powder from her apron.
"Her name is Ruòyān,"
Yinghua replied, helping Maomao straighten her collar.
"From a minor bureaucratic family in the northern provinces. Not wealthy enough to be a threat, but educated enough to manage a consort's household. They say she’s incredibly quiet."
The western promenade was bathed in the cool, shaded light of the early evening. Intricate wooden screens kept the direct wind out, while large brass braziers filled the air with the scent of burning pine and sweet plum blossom.
Lady Gyokuyou, radiant as always with her striking red hair and a warm, maternal grace that belied her sharp political mind, sat at the head of the low table.
Opposite her was the tiny, fragile figure of Lady Lishu, who looked entirely too small for her elaborate, multi-layered silk robes. Lishu kept her eyes lowered, nervously adjusting the silver hairpins in her hair.
Behind Lady Lishu stood her new attendant.
Maomao took her place a few steps behind Lady Gyokuyou, her head bowed in the standard posture of a submissive servant. But beneath her bangs, her sharp, dark eyes were wide open, locked entirely onto the newcomer.
Ruòyān was, at first glance, utterly unremarkable. She wore the muted, pale-green robes of a mid-ranking lady-in-waiting. Her posture was perfect—neither too stiff nor too relaxed—and her hands were folded neatly over her stomach. Her face was pleasant, possessing a quiet, soft kind of beauty, but her eyes were what caught Maomao’s attention.
They were completely calm. Too calm.
In the Rear Palace, every new servant showed something on their first week. Fear, ambition, nervousness, awe, or hidden arrogance. But as Lady Lishu rambled nervously about a minor rash her pet cat had developed, Ruòyān simply stood there like a painting.
She smiled whenever Lishu looked back at her—a soft, perfectly timed, reassuring smile that seemed entirely genuine—but the moment Lishu turned away, the smile vanished. Not into a scowl, but into a deep, hollow distance.
It wasn't the distance of a bored servant. It was the cold, calculating distance of a soldier assessing a terrain.
Interesting, Maomao thought, her fingers tracing the edge of her own sleeve. Her skin is smooth, but look at the base of her thumbs.
The slight calluses aren't from writing or embroidery. That’s the friction pattern of holding heavy ceramic or stone tools. A mortar? A scale?
As if sensing the heavy, analytical stare boring into the side of her head, Ruòyān slowly shifted her gaze. Her eyes met Maomao’s.
Maomao didn't look away. She kept her face expressionless.
Ruòyān didn't startle. She didn't look guilty. Instead, she offered Maomao a very slow, incredibly polite nod of greeting, her eyes remaining entirely unreadable. It was the universal gesture of one professional recognizing another in a crowded room.
"Maomao," Lady Gyokuyou’s soft, melodic voice broke the silent standoff.
"The tea is getting a bit cool. Would you mind preparing a fresh pot for Lady Lishu and me? And perhaps some of those sweet melon cakes from the kitchen?"
"Right away, My Lady," Maomao murmured, bowing low.
As she stepped back from the promenade, Maomao kept her ears open. She could hear Ruòyān smoothly stepping forward to assist Lady Lishu with her shawl, her voice soft and entirely soothing. She sounded kind. She acted kind.
But Maomao’s instincts, honed by a childhood spent in the dark, dangerous alleys of the Pleasure District and a lifetime of handling lethal substances, were screaming.
A person who possessed no flaws, no nervousness, and no visible ambition in a place like this was either a living saint—or a very, very dangerous liar.
Three days later, the quiet tension of the Rear Palace shattered over a bowl of bird's nest soup.
The midday sun was bright, casting sharp shadows across the courtyard of the Jade Pavilion. Lady Gyokuyou sat at her dining table, chatting amiably with her ladies-in-waiting while a spread of delicacies was laid out before her.
As the official food taster, Maomao stepped forward. This was her favorite part of the job—a duty most servants viewed as a terrifying, daily brush with death was, to Maomao, an absolute luxury. Free, high-quality food, with the added thrill of a potential chemical surprise? It was the best job in the empire.
She took the small silver spoon, dipped it into the delicate, clear broth of the soup, and lifted it to her lips.
The soup was rich, savory, and perfectly seasoned. But the moment the liquid hit the back of her tongue, Maomao felt a very specific, sharp, metallic tingle. It was faint—brilliantly masked by the heavy use of ginger and white pepper—but it was unmistakable.
It was a classic, highly refined derivative of aconite, mixed with a secondary binding agent to delay the paralysis of the throat.
A normal person would have panicked. A normal person would have dropped the bowl, choked, or screamed for the guards.
Maomao’s eyes lit up. Her heart did a little joyful flutter. A slow, deeply serene, almost unhinged smile spread across her face. Her cheeks flushed with a genuine, pure happiness that she rarely displayed in public.
Oh! This is magnificent! The concentration is high enough to cause cardiac arrhythmia within twenty minutes, but the refinement is so smooth it doesn't even curdle the broth! Whoever brewed this is an absolute genius!
"Maomao?" Yinghua asked, her voice instantly dropping into a tone of stark, freezing terror as she saw the terrifyingly joyful smile on the apothecary's face.
"Maomao, why are you smiling like that? What is in the soup?"
Before Maomao could reply, a loud, violent crash echoed from the doorway.
The heavy wooden doors of the dining hall were thrown open with such force that one of the brass hinges groaned in protest. Jinshi stood in the threshold, his face entirely pale, his usual flawless composure completely obliterated. He had clearly been running; his breath came in short, ragged gasps, and his hair was wildly disheveled.
He had heard the news of a potential breach in pavilion security from a guard and had raced across the palace complex without his carriage.
"Maomao!" Jinshi screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated panic that completely shattered his carefully cultivated, elegant persona.
He sprinted across the room, completely ignoring Lady Gyokuyou, who merely blinked in mild surprise.
Jinshi dropped to his knees in front of Maomao, his hands flying out to grab her by the shoulders. He shook her violently, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate terror.
"Spit it out! Spit it out right now!" he yelled, his voice cracking with emotion. "Gaoshun! Call the physicians! Bring the emetics! Clear the throat-cleansing wells! Get an entire barrel of charcoal water!"
"Master Jinshi," Maomao tried to say, her voice muffled as he gripped her jaws, trying to force her mouth open with his thumbs. "Please stop shaking me. You are going to make me swallow it prematurely."
"You swallowed it?! You idiot girl! Why do you always do this?!" Jinshi looked like he was on the verge of actual, genuine tears. His grip was frantic, his entire body trembling as if the world were ending. "If you die, I will—I will personally execute whoever made that soup, and then I will dig up your grave and yell at your corpse!"
"Young Master, please calm down," Gaoshun pleaded, rushing into the room behind him, looking entirely exhausted as he tried to pull the hysterical eunuch off the poor apothecary. "You are suffocating the girl more than the poison is."
Maomao managed to twist out of Jinshi’s grip, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at him with an expression of profound, deeply rooted annoyance.
"Master Jinshi, I am a trained professional," she snapped, her flat voice returning to restore order to the chaotic room. "The aconite derivative used here has a delayed absorption rate due to the starch density of the broth. If you would stop screaming like a startled pheasant and let me walk to the pharmacy, I can smoothly mix a standard licorice and mung bean antidote, consume it, and document the exact symptom progression for future research."
Jinshi froze, his hands still hovering in the air, his face a mix of profound relief and intense, burning frustration. "A startled pheasant?!"
"Yes. A very loud, very dramatic one," Maomao verified, already standing up and smoothing her apron, her eyes lingering regretfully on the remaining soup. "Lady Gyokuyou, please ensure no one touches that bowl. The structural composition of the toxin is incredibly rare. I would like to analyze the residue once my heart stops fluttering."
"Of course, Maomao," Lady Gyokuyou said, covering her mouth with her silk sleeve to hide her amused chuckles. "Please go take your medicine. Take your time."
As Maomao walked out of the hall, she could hear Jinshi behind her, his voice loud, panicked, and entirely overbearing as he ordered an entire regiment of imperial guards to lock down the kitchens, audit the suppliers, and guard Maomao’s pharmacy door.
Maomao sighed, walking down the stone path toward the medical pavilions. The poison was a thrilling, beautiful mystery. But dealing with Jinshi's dramatic overreactions? That was the real, life-threatening hazard of the inner palace.