Episode 1: Maomao

Maomao is an apothecary who is close with women working at a brothel. She gets kidnapped and sold off to the royal court, where she starts living as a servant in the rear palace. The newborn children of Concubines Lihua and Gyokuyou suddenly fall ill, as well as their mothers. Maomao figures out the cause and warns them, but Lihua does not listen to the warning and her child dies. Concubine Gyokuyou gets Jinshi, a particularly good-looking eunuch, to look for the author of the warning. She then decides to make Maomao her lady-in-waiting.

Episode 2: Chilly Apothecary

Maomao meets Concubine Gyokuyou’s four other ladies-in-waiting. She is then tasked with tasting her meals for poison. After proving her ability to detect poison, Jinshi asks her to make aphrodisiacs and gives her access to the tools necessary. Maomao makes chocolate aphrodisiacs and gives them to Jinshi.

Episode 3: The Unsettling Matter of the Spirit

Maomao is tasked by Jinshi to investigate the rumor of a ghost woman appearing on the east gate at night. She finds out it is actually Concubine Fuyou, suffering from sleepwalking. She is promised as a reward to an Officer who accomplished a notable military achievement against barbarians. Maomao tells the story of a courtesan who also started sleepwalking after receiving a purchase offer. She explains it might be caused by stress but that there is no cure for it. The day Concubine Fuyou is leaving the palace, Maomao reveals to Concubine Gyakuyou that there is more to the story. Another courtesan faked illness to be sold for a cheaper price to a man she was in love with. Concubine Fuyou was probably pretending to be sleepwalking to avoid the Emperor’s interest and be reunited with the man she loved.

Episode 4: The Threat

The Emperor asks of Maomao that she heals Concubine Lihua, who has fallen gravely ill after the death of her child. Her presence is refused by Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting, until Jinshi uses his charms to convince them. Maomao realizes the reason for Concubine Lihua’s illness is the use, by one of her ladies-in-waiting, of the white powder which was banned in the palace. After scolding them, Maomao spends two months tending to the Concubine and nursing her back to health, as well as teaching the other ladies-in-waiting how to take care of her. She also gets Jinshi to build a steam bath. The day she takes her leave, she reassures Concubine Lihua that the Emperor still cares for her and she has sufficient assets to get his favor back.

Episode 5: Covert Operations

While eating mushroom in secret with the palace doctor, Maomao is interrupted by a man claiming suffering from a curse. Maomao figures out the cause is a substance imbued onto the wood tablets picked up by the man. Jinshi shows up and asks her to figure out how one could imbue poison onto the tablets. Soon after that, the Jade ladies-in-waiting get Maomao to dress up for the upcoming Garden Party. The day of the party, Jinshi is left speechless by her beauty. He learns that Maomao’s freckles are actually fake and were a means of safety against people wanting her harm. Jinshi, visibly infatuated, gives her his hairpin before leaving, embarrassed.

Episode 6: The Garden Party

The four main concubines are present at the Garden Party. As the party begins, fights break respectively between the ladies-in-waiting of Concubines Lihua and Gyakuyou, and Concubines Lishu and Ah-Duo. Maomao learns that Lishu is actually the mother-in-law of both Ah-Duo and the Emperor, despite only being 14 years old. After that, she gets offered a hairpin from both a military officer and Lady Lihua. Later, she has to fulfill her job as a taster. She finds poison in her meal, and asks Jinshi to bring Lady Lishu. Having found out she was allergic to fish, she realizes her food has been swapped with Lady Gyakuyou’s, meaning she had been the target of the poisoning. The criminal is unknown and the mystery of the wooden tablets is still unresolved.

Episode 7: Homecoming

Maomao analyzes the soup bowl that was poisoned during the Garden Party and finds out four people held it, including the potential criminal. She also explains to Gaoshun how Lady Lishu had been victim of bullying from her ladies-in-waiting, and why she protected her taster. As he reports the situation to Jinshi, Gaoshun mentions that the new hairpin he was wearing during the tea party is a very important item that holds a secret meaning. Later, Maomao learns from her friend Xiaolan that the hairpin she received can be used to leave the palace. She asks the military officer to help her visit her family, in exchange for a recommendation letter to the Verdigris brothel, managed by her grandmother. Maomao finally reunites with her dad, who implies that she is somehow related to the rear palace.

Episode 8: Wheat Stalks

The next day, a little servant girl brings Maomao to a brothel where she finds a customer and a courtesan collapsed, visibly poisoned. She saves their life, and tries to figure out what happened. As she goes back to check up on them, she stops the servant girl from murdering the customer with a knife. An older servant explains to her that the man is the son of a rich merchant, and a terrible person who uses women. After thinking everything over, Maomao realizes that it was a murder disguised as a double suicide. Using wheat stalks, the courtesan drank the safe part of a poisoned drink to make the customer think it was safe, before drinking some herself to disguise it as a double suicide. A few days later, Maomao goes back to the rear palace where Jinshi misunderstands her outing.

Episode 9: Suicide or Murder?

Kounen, a high-ranking military officer dies after overdrinking alcohol. After being asked by Jinshi, Maomao determines that the cause of death is likely an overconsumption of salt that had been added into his drinks. Suffering from an illness that made him unable to taste salt, he didn’t notice the prank other officers were trying to play in him and ended up dying from it. Later, a woman is found drowned, and Maomao autopsies her and concludes it’s not likely to be a suicide as she could have hardly climbed the palace walls alone and her hands looked like she tried to reach for the surface to avoid drowning. This situation makes her think about life and death. After the case is closed and two months following the beginning of Gaohsun’s investigation, the Head lady-in-waiting of Ah-Duo is found to have burns on her arms.

Episode 10: Honey

The drowned woman apparently served Ah-Duo and is rumored to be the author of the poisoning at the Garden Party. The menace of Ah-Duo being replaced by a younger Concubine due to being 35 years old could have been the reason. During a tea party, Maomao then notices that Concubine Lishu seems to be wary of honey. Jinshi sends her to Ah-Duo’s pavilion in order to investigate. Maomao learns there that Fengming, the Head lady-in-waiting, has burns on her arm and is connected to honey due to her family running an apiary. As she is being teased by Jinshi while doing her report, Maomao realizes something and visits Concubine Lishu to ask her about her dislike of honey and her connection to Fengming. After that, she asks Gaoshun to learn more about the past of the rear palace and learns that the doctor who delivered the baby Ah-Duo had with the Emperor was her own dad.

Episode 11: Reducing Two to One

Having found out the truth, Maomao confronts Fengming and lists her crimes. She explains how feeding him honey led to the death of Ah-Duo’s child, how she later learnt from Concubine Lishu that it was poisonous and how she then tried to get rid of her to silence her crime. Maomao tells her she can’t help her, but offers her a way to turn her two crimes into one. Fengming ends up turning herself in, and is later executed. That night, Maomao climbs the palace walls and is met with Ah-Duo who offers her a drink. Ah-Duo explains she never wished for the title of Concubine and expresses her sadness for both her servants dying for her sake without her asking for anything. As she is leaving, Maomao is surprised by a sad, drunken Jinshi. The next day, Ah-Duo leaves the palace. As she sees both her and Jinshi together, Maomao notices how much they look alike. She theorizes Ah-Duo’s “dead” child could have actually been swapped with the prior Emperor’s own child, explaining why her dad would have been physically punished for not noticing after people later found out, and why Ah-Duo had stayed in the rear palace for so long. But she brushes it all off as idiocies.

Episode 12: The Eunuch and the Courtesan

Despite Jinshi’s anguish over the question, Maomao is let go from the palace due to the family she was sold off to being a trade partner with Fengming’s family. She returns to the Verdigris Brothel and works part-time as a courtesan at a fancy party organized for rich military officers. There she meets Jinshi, who steals an indirect kiss from her. The next day, Maomao wonders whether she wants to go back to the rear palace. That night, she goes outside and drinks while reminiscing about everything that happened in the past year. A few days later, Jinshi goes to the pleasure district to purchase Maomao.

Episode 13: Serving in the Outer Court

Maomao returns to the palace, but is this time tasked to work in the Outer Court, at Jinshi’s house. There she meets Suiren, Jinshi’s attendant and learns that she isn’t going to work as a servant again but instead has to pass the court lady exam. The next day, Gaoshun gives her a tour of the Outer Court, where many important buildings can be found. Later, Maomao gets harassed by other court ladies before acting like a poor girl to make them go away. The next day, as she is off gathering herbs, Maomao is told off by one of the court ladies. She notices her peculiar smell. A suspicious old man with a monocle observes her from a balcony.

Episode 14: The New Pure Consort

Concubine Loulan, the replacement for Ah-Duo, arrives at the rear palace. Maomao, recommended by Lady Gyakuyou and Lady Lihua, is asked to educate the concubines. She gives them a special lesson on woman seduction. That night, an explosion in heard in the Outer Court. The next morning, Maomao learns from Lihaku that a food warehouse had burned up. She quickly realizes what happened and demonstrates it to Lihaku, showing it had actually blown up due to a fire source being lit up among the dust of the warehouse. She brings back with her the potential light source, an ivory pipe.

Episode 15: Raw Fish

Lakan, a razor-sharp high official in the military, overhear officers talking about Maomao. As for her, she gets consulted by Gaoshun regarding two identical cases where men fell in a coma after both eating Fugu fish, despite the cooks affirming they hadn’t used any. Accompanied by Basen, she visits one of the two kitchens and notices seaweeds used that shouldn’t be available in that season. Back at the palace. Maomao explains that the seaweed used is poisonous if not soaked in limewater beforehand. The little brother of the poisoned minister confessed afterward. Later, Lankan visits Jinshi and tells him about the story of a courtesan from the Verdigris brothel he fell in love with, before mentioning a puzzling will which code he would like Maomao’s help to crack.

Episode 16: Lead

Jinshi explains the situation with the metalworker’s will to Maomao. The eldest son received a shack, the middle one a drawer and the youngest one a fishbowl. Accompanied once again by Basan, she goes to investigate. After analyzing the place, she solves the mystery by putting the fishbowl back to its place and filling it with water. The light melts metal within the drawer’s keyhole, making it fit the key and revealing another key. The new key opens the top 3 drawer, which Maomao guesses both contain materials for a new metal and themselves represent the proportions to use. However, she doesn’t reveal the last part. The youngest son convinces his two brothers to keep working at the workshop with him. Back at the palace. Lakan discusses the resolution of the story with Jinshi but doesn’t finish his story about the courtesan.

Episode 17: A Jaunt Around Town

Jinshi asks Maomao to do his makeup, to make him look worse instead of better. Maomao disguises him as a commoner by altering his build, voice and face. On Gaoshun’s suggestion, she also accompanies him on the way to a meeting he has with an acquaintance, near the pleasure district. There, while Maomao misunderstands he is going to visit a courtesan, he asks her for the way to decrease a courtesan’s value. Maomao answers that losing her chastity would halve her value, while a pregnancy would reduce it to close to nothing.

Episode 18: Lakan

The morning after parting ways with Jinshi, Maomao wakes up from a bad dream of her past as a baby where her mother was trying to stab her. She goes to the Verdigris House to take care of her mother, debilitated and suffering from syphilis. She stays with her to avoid seeing a weirdo who came to visit. The next day, Jinshi brings a “present from a weirdo” to Maomao, which she coldly accepts. Later, Suiren sends her on a errand, where she meets the same cold court lady again. As for Jinshi, as she is pondering the question of Maomao’s adoptive father, Lakan arrives and reveals that he is Maomao’s biological father. He expresses that he would like to meet Maomao. But when Jinshi mentions it to her, he is met with the coldest stare she has ever given. That evening, Maomao meets the court lady again while picking up herbs. She appears to be the one who planted the garden and, as she leaves, tells her she will be planting morning glories in a few days.

Episode 19: Chance or Something More

Lihaku tells Maomao a thief apparently broke into a different warehouse on the day of the fire and stole ceremonial tools. The new warehouse manager was the man ill due to food poisoning and the former manager was Kounen, who had died a year ago. Seeing the coincidences pile up, Maomao starting to suspect it may all be part of a bigger plan. She lets Jinshi know, who tasks her to find out the truth in exchange for Ox bezoar, a rare medicinal ingredient. While investigating at the archives, Maomao learns the pillar in the temple used for ceremonies could have very well be tampered with, and runs to warn the noble currently performing a ceremony. She is interrupted and beaten up by a guard, before being let through thanks to Lakan. She runs and barely saves the life of Jinshi, while gravely hurting her leg in the process. Crossing ways with a visibly distraught Lakan, Jinshi carries the bleeding Maomao her out of the temple.

Episode 20: Thornapple

Right after waking up in Jinshi’s room, Maomao explains the situation ; how she knew the pillar was going to fall and the conspiracy that led to it. Later, Basen tells Maomao that Suiren’s corpse had been found after she poisoned herself. However, feeling like she wasn’t the kind of person to commit suicide, Maomao goes to the morgue to inspect the corpse. They find out it has been swapped with someone else’s, meaning she had used poison to fake her own death and escaped afterwards. That night, Jinshi is worried about both Maomao’s wounds and the situation with her dad. The next morning, he assigns her back to Lady Gyakuyou as her lunar cycle has stopped, meaning she could be pregnant.

Episode 21: How to Buy Out a Contract

While taking a break from cleaning the quack doctor’s office, Maomao learns that his family produces paper for the Emperor, but are about to lose purveyor status. She figures out the cause of the issue with the new production method. After that, she is summoned by Lihaku who asks her how much it would cost to purchase Pairin. Maomao gives her the price and takes a look at his body, deducing his personality from it as well. Jinshi arrives at this moment and misunderstands. After Maomao explains him, he offers Lihaku the money to buy the woman he loves, as a way to test him. To Jinshi’s pleasant surprise, Lihaku refuses the money.

Episode 22: Blue Roses

Maomao is still helping Concubine Gyakuyou as her pregnancy is becoming certain. At the same time, Lakan challenges Jinshi to obtain blue roses by the next Garden Party scheduled for next month, which he asks Maomao to help with. She has him build a room to keep the roses at the right temperature and humidity, and spends the next month getting them to bloom. In the mean time, she also starts a trend of manicure in the palace. On the day of the Garden Party, the roses are ready. Maomao explains Jinshi they are basically just dyed from the inside by soaking them in colored water, and she already explained the trick to the Emperor. Lakan, disappointed that his provocation failed, notices everyone’s manicures and compares them to that of his past love. At this moment, Maomao appears before him, with the same manicure as he had in mind.

Episode 23: Balsam and Woodsorrel

Maomao challenges Lakan to a BO5 chess duel. If she loses, she will go back to live with him. If she wins, he has to buy a courtesan from the Verdigris house. She adds two rules: whoever gives up loses the bet, and the loser of each game has to drink from a cup of alcohol out of five, three of which containing a “medicine that takes three sips to become a deadly poison”. She loses the first two games, but wins the third one, since Lakan wants to make sure she doesn’t drink all three poisoned cups. The medicine was actually a strong spirit, which knocks him out on the spot. Lakan remembers his life up until now: how he met Fengxian, Maomao’s mother, fell in love with her, and unknowingly made her pregnant before disappearing for 3 years. Lakan wakes up at the brothel, where Meimei gives him a box containing a withered blue rose, retaining its shape despite withering away.

Episode 24: Jinshi and Maomao

Lakan has to choose a courtesan to buy at the Verdigris house. He decides to pick Meimei as she has been nice to him, but she suddenly opens the door to the shack where Fengxian lives. Lakan hears her singing and runs to her, deciding to purchase her while playing Go. Back at the palace, Maomao explains to Jinshi that she doesn’t hate Lakan and that he probably was the one tricked by Fengxian instead, as there are ways to prevent pregnancy. That’s why she lost her mind when things didn’t work out as she intended. However, Maomao does dislike him, especially his laziness which could have allowed her to get the resurrection medicine. Later, Maomao receives a letter from Meimei explaining who bought who and containing a beautiful shawl. Having to dance for the festivities, Maomao goes outside that night to dance on the palace walls. Jinshi surprises her and almost makes her fall before catching her. Maomao’s wound reopens, so he carries her in his arms once again. She choses this moment to ask him for the Ox bezoar.

Daily life resumes at the palace, and Maomao once again gets wrapped up in new adventures.