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The evening air in the Rear Palace always smelled faintly of pine soot and drying chrysanthemums, a heavy, stagnant scent that Maomao usually associated with the slow, predictable ticking of court life. Tonight, however, the air felt thick enough to choke on.
She sat on the edge of her narrow wooden cot, her fingers automatically sorting through a small bundle of dried liquorice root, but her mind refused to focus on the herbs. Instead, her thoughts kept drifting back to him.
It was an incredibly irritating development.
For the longest time, Maomao had prided herself on her absolute indifference toward Jinshi.
When she had first encountered him—with that ridiculous, otherworldly beauty that made grown men weep and concubines faint—she had looked at him and seen nothing more than a highly decorative, deeply troublesome nuisance.
He was an insect of a grander scale, a beautiful, venomous creature that was best observed from a safe distance and handled with a pair of sturdy bamboo tongs. His honeyed voice had been white noise; his dramatic, pouting sighs had been nothing more than an atmospheric disturbance.
Her heart rate during those early months had remained as steady and predictable as the tides of the Verdigris House, completely immune to the devastating smiles he deployed like military tactics.
But somewhere along the way, the medicine had stopped working. The immunity she thought she had cultivated had utterly broken down.
Now, everything he did seemed to echo loudly in her chest. It was a slow, insidious poisoning of her routine.
When he leaned over her desk to inspect a draft, the faint, elegant scent of his heavy robes—expensive incense mixed with something distinctly, warmly him—made her breath catch in her throat.
When his fingers accidentally brushed hers while handing over a rare ingredient, a sharp, electric jolt traveled straight up her arm, sending her pulse into a frantic, erratic rhythm that defied all medical logic. He didn't even have to try anymore.
A simple, quiet look from those dark eyes, stripped of his usual theatrical court persona, was enough to make her heart thump against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Maomao hated things she couldn't explain through a formula or a diagnosis.
And right now, her own body was betraying her.
The door to her quarters creaked open, breaking the silence. Maomao didn't need to look up to know who it was; the rhythmic, deliberate footsteps belonged to only one person.
Jinshi stepped into the dim room, closing the door softly behind him. He looked exhausted, the perfect, luminous facade he wore for the Emperor’s court slipping away to reveal the heavy strain of his true responsibilities. He didn't say anything at first. He simply walked over and sat down on the floor cushions opposite her, resting his chin in his hand, watching her sort the roots.
"You're tracking dirt into my workspace, Master Jinshi," Maomao murmured, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her hands. It was a lie—his boots were spotless—but she needed to say something, anything, to counteract the sudden, violent spike in her heartbeat the moment he entered the room.
"Always so welcoming, Maomao,"
Jinshi replied, his voice a low, tired purr. He reached out, his long, pale fingers drifting over the wooden table, stopping just short of her hand.
"You weren't at the pavilion today. I missed your sour face during the afternoon tea."
"I had poisons to test, Master Jinshi. Actual, productive work."
"Is that what you call it?" He leaned in a fraction closer. The dim candlelight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the soft curve of his lips. The sheer proximity was doing terrible things to her respiratory system. "You've been avoiding me. Don't think I haven't noticed. Every time I walk into a room, you find a reason to scurry away to the dispensary. Did I do something to offend my favorite little toxicologist?"
Maomao squeezed the liquorice root a little too hard. He was teasing her, using that familiar, playful cadence, but there was a genuine undercurrent of vulnerability in his eyes that she hadn't anticipated.
It made her chest ache. He was waiting for her to snap back, to give him a cold look or a biting remark to restore their usual dynamic.
Instead, Maomao stood up. The sudden movement startled him, his eyes widening slightly as she stepped around the small table. She didn't want to think about the political ramifications, or the hierarchy of the court, or the fact that her pulse was currently racing fast enough to cause a fever. She just wanted the loud, confusing noise in her head to stop.
She leaned down, caught the lapels of his fine robes in her hands, and pulled him up just enough to press her lips firmly against his.
It wasn't a soft, delicate kiss of a court lady. It was sudden, slightly uncoordinated, and entirely Maomao—pragmatic, direct, and fierce. Jinshi froze instantly, his entire body going rigid with absolute shock. For a second, he didn't even breathe.
Then, just as his hands began to rise, trembling, to touch her waist, Maomao pulled back, her face flushed a bright, unmistakable crimson, though her gaze remained fiercely steady.
Jinshi stared up at her, utterly breathless, his usual silver tongue completely failing him. His lips parted, a faint, dazed color rising to his own cheeks. Maomao let go of his robes, smoothing down her apron with a sharp, decisive tug, though her fingers were shaking.
She looked down at him, her heart hammering violently against her ribs, finally accepting the diagnosis she had been fighting for months.
"I didn't kiss you to shut you up, I kissed you because I wanted to," Maomao said, her voice fiercely honest despite the furious blush on her face.
Jinshi sat entirely frozen, his wide eyes darting from her lips back up to her face. For a man who could manipulate entire courts with a single look, he currently looked like a startled frog.
His cheeks burned a brilliant shade of pink, and his hand hovered in mid-air, trembling slightly as if he wanted to reach out and touch her to confirm she was real.
"Maomao, you..." he stammered, his voice cracking slightly as his flawless public persona shattered completely into a million pieces. "Did you really just—"
"And that is quite enough for today,"
Maomao interrupted sharply.
Before he could process anything or recover his speech, she grabbed him by the shoulders.
Ignoring his soft gasp of surprise, she physically hoisted him up from the floor cushion. She didn't give him a single second to regain his footing, marching him straight toward the wooden door of her quarters.
"Wait, hold on! Maomao!" Jinshi protested, his arms flailing slightly as he was steered backward. "You can't just say something like that and then—"
"I have a very tight schedule, Master Jinshi," she said, her ears burning red even as she kept her voice entirely flat and professional.
She planted her small hands firmly against the middle of his back, pushing him over the threshold and out into the cool evening air.
"The liquorice roots will not sort themselves. Furthermore, a high heart rate is detrimental to my focus, and your presence is currently classified as a health hazard."
She paused at the doorway, looking up at him through her eyelashes. The fierce, stubborn blush on her cheeks contrasted completely with her usual deadpan expression, making her look incredibly endearing.
"Goodnight," she murmured quickly.
With a decisive thud, she closed the door right in his face, sliding the wooden latch into place.
On the outside of the door, Jinshi stood entirely alone in the dim courtyard, staring blankly at the wood. Slowly, he raised a hand to touch his lips, his heart thumping wildly against his ribs as a massive, helpless smile broke across his face.
Inside, Maomao pressed her back against the closed door, slid down to the floor, and buried her flaming face in her knees, letting out a tiny, frustrated groan at her own lack of self-control.