Yesterday I reached 400.000 words for the year which I think is pretty impressive. I was aiming for 500.000 at the start of the year but due to life being busy lately, I think I’ll aim a little lower. I’ve been taking it slow lately to make sure I don’t overwork myself and a lot of the writing I have been doing is aimed at stuff that’s not coming out anytime soon. I’m still in the process of figuring out exactly how to tackle the Hesitant Hero from here on out, but more on that soon. For now, let’s watch our favorite catlike apothecary stumble through palace politics.

I’m reminded each week of how good the music used for this show is. Both the opening by Yorushika and the ending by Eve have been playing on repeat during my commute. One thing that just caught my attention is that the book that the opening focuses on is not the one about insects – which Maomao had been searching for – but instead one about plants. I wonder if that will end up becoming relevant later on in the season. It looks like this opening has a ton of symbolism and little bits of foreshadowing, so I doubt it was put there without a purpose. Perhaps the wound on Jinshi’s cheek needs to be healed – as we see it scarred over – with a plant that they can’t find easily. We also see several characters in a garden later on. But first, the episode is titled after the white snake which means we’ll likely get to see more of the albino woman we saw last episode.

Maomao gets a visit from Lahan, who is her cousin and the adopted son of Lakan. Lakan’s subordinate is called Rikuson and he is sent instead of Lakan who is busy falling in love all over again. Either way, it’s time to go visit a show. And the only way to visit a show is by wearing a mask, because it would be weird if people recognized you. Now obviously with a mask like that on in real life it would still be relatively easy to recognize people – especially ones that you know – but I barely recognize people without a mask on if I meet them outside of the places I expect to meet them, so I’d probably be totally lost in a place like this. Then again, I wouldn’t go, so there’s that.

There’s something to be said about the allure of something or someone being different from what you’re used to. This is going on a tangent, but I remember when a boy joined our class whose family came from Afghanistan. I grew up in a relatively small town, so it was somewhat rare to have people of color around us, although we did have a few kids in school with roots in other cultures. Still, I remember this being a very big deal because this guy was so different from us in how he looked. Obviously it wasn’t a bad thing and although I wasn’t close friends with the guy, he was just one of the kids in the class. These people here have never seen a woman with white hair and red eyes before, and are enthralled by her beauty. It does help that she’s putting on a show.

Of course Maomao gets chosen to partake in the show up front and when she remarks that the ink she’s given to write with is thick and grainy you know that this is going to be part of the trick. I am a little bit disappointed that this woman is essentially doing a Penn & Teller here. There is a lot of showmanship and there are a lot of sounds that distract you from the other things that are going on. Either way, the woman knows exactly what Maomao wrote on the note. Not only that, she also knows exactly which of the spots she put the note in. Of course Jinshi assumes Maomao would figure out how it was done but Maomao hasn’t been able to quite figure it out yet. There also seems to be some trickery of the senses going on while on stage, as Maomao gets hot and a headache while on stage. I wonder if there’s some sort of drug being dispersed throughout the air. Perhaps everyone’s just getting stoned while in there.

Maomao has it all figured out, but I, dear reader, have not. I know it’s trickery, of course, but I am lousy when it comes to figuring out magic tricks. A lot of it has to do with alchemical reactions. This stuff has layers. What makes the entire thing dangerous at the end is that she takes in mercury. It looks like she left some people seriously ill but none of this seems to have been done to any clear and particular effect. With the white lady once again disappearing from the public eye, we’re left to wonder what was truly going on.