There are few things that are more annoying to wake up to than a loud knock on the door. The only things that spring to mind are gunshot wound and the sound of a mosquito buzzing around your head. I’ve not decided yet which of those is worse. Who am I kidding, it’s definitely the mosquito. The person knocking has good reason to be upset early in the morning though, as it seems like someone they care about has fallen ill. Despite Maomao’s kind nature that comes through her harsh demeanor regularly, she’s not about to work for free for someone she doesn’t even know. Especially not if the first thing they present as a reward is their bad attitude. Of course when the person calms down a bit and becomes more reasonable in their request, this lets Maomao agree to more of a compromise. She does bring up a good point here where I want to draw a small parallel to the real world. I think providing charity – be it monetarily or in the form of free labor – is a good thing in general. But it shouldn’t be expected of others. For the same reason I will often end up annoyed when I donate to a charity every month and they keep pestering me for more. I understand that they need more money, but this will just chase people away.

At least she has the common sense to bring Ukyou with her to the poor district. I understand that these people are rightfully tense about this situation, but Maomao understands the dangers of interacting with a sick person. Considering how well hidden this special package of food was, I’m guessing this has something to do with what that strange woman we saw in earlier episodes was handing out and I bet it’s not exactly good for you. We quickly get to the core of things and it’s even a bit darker than I would have thought. The reason the dad is upset is much more because one less person around means less people who are able to make money for him. He’s abusive and gambles and his family hid their valuables from him. What a shitty situation. I feel bad for everyone involved, the dad included, but he needs to do some serious soul searching for me to properly feel bad for him beyond a basic “this situation sucks”. I do worry that this strange food is the reason the mother died as well, which will probably hit like a truck for these kids. It seems harmless enough from a quick smell and taste test. Despite that, Maomao seems to have caught on to something.

So there is something called ergot in this candy that is seriously harmful. It stops blood flow to the body’s extremities and combined with the malnutrition this girl is going through that is causing some serious damage to her body. Speaking of things that do serious damage to the body, getting beaten up by an abusive father is definitely one of them. When the older sister arrives at Maomao’s place it doesn’t take more than a glance for our apothecary to catch on to what is happening. What an awful situation. The slight pang of sadness I felt for the father is fully gone now. Despite how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, beating your children is evil. Abolish the prison system as we know it, sure, but bury this guy below the jail before we do so.

Here we have the Maomao in her natural habitat. Ragebaiting a child. She’s just like me for real. She talks to the older sister about payment and the conversation quickly shifts to having them work at the Verdigris house to make a living. Although I am all for the concept of sex workers, training a young girl to go into the profession – as safe as the environment might be – is rough to watch. It’s for a good cause and the people there seem to be trustworthy but it’s awful that it has to be this way. At the very least it looks like these two young girls can escape poverty to a tiny extent.

But back in the rear palace, politics are stopping for nobody. Where Maomao sees the direct effects of these drugs appearing in the street, Jinshi gets a message from the Mi family about similar things happening there. The woman in question is now known as the white lady. Jinshi also admits how much he values Maomao’s opinion on important matters. Despite their efforts in finding these books, they unfortunately do not have the information that Maomao is looking for. We also get a great scene of Pairin doing what Pairin does best. Sazen is pretty bad at sharing important information. He left out the third book or the woman who might know more.

Where Sazen once again fails to deal with a problem, Ukyou steps up. The father of the two girls who came to Maomao at the start of the episode is here to collect his girls. Looking at the girls’ faces, the writing’s on the wall. They’d much rather be clean, well fed and being taught to become courtesans than poor, filthy and being physically abused by their father. It makes sense, at least as courtesans they have a decent chance to go up in the world, even though you are selling your body. Then again, some of us are so radicalized that we believe every form of work is selling your body in some way. I digress. The poor father has to go home alone, who will earn his gambling money for him now?

With how lost in thought Maomao is when she gets into the fancy carriage that comes to pick her up it’s not hard to predict who is about to already be present within this carriage. Or so I thought. I would have bet good money that Jinshi would be waiting for her there, but we will have to wait until the next episode to find out if I’m right or not. If I am, I will call it out next week and if I wasn’t right, I’ll just hope everyone else forgets about it. Either way, things are ramping up and Apothecary Diaries is still doing a fantastic job in turning smaller stories into a part of something bigger. We have the locust plague, the drugs being handed out and the possible link with people from a foreign country through the rat cloak. I’m still enjoying every second of this season, and hope the same is true for you. Thanks for reading.