The Apothecary Diaries - Vol. 7 Ch. 33 - The Devil's Trumpet

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Her breaking into laughter made me believe for a split sec that she had orchestrated the whole thing her self and I was like wait..no 😂
 
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@Kaarme It's the imperial palace. It was easy to get new servants because outsiders didn't know the conditions within. To a starving young scholar who'd failed his exam the image of life within the palace would have been fantastic, to say the least. While servants were basically disposable, it was important for masters to try to keep their servants alive precisely because they were hard to train and keep loyal, and killing someone's faithful servant risked having that person take revenge on yours. Of course, the situation didn't usually deteriorate to the point where people were murdering each others' servants willy-nilly, and in fact such a thing happening was usually a sign that order was deteriorating within the court. The Chinese intellegentsia knew this, and you can glimpse it in the Four Great Novels. Even Heaven isn't immune to such chaos, according to Journey to the West. Think of it this way: Every seriously powerful monster the Monkey King ever killed was a servant to one of the gods of the Heavenly Court - and he usually got help from rival gods.

Oh, almost forgot, the Japanese were EVEN MORE PRONE to servant-killing than the Chinese were. Their court classics show this blatantly. Even in Genji Monogatari there are many such cases. You can also see many examples in both the Taira Monogatari and the Taiko.
 
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then it turns out the monocle guy is the mastermind behind it all
 
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Cant wait wait for anime ( given how popular it is it s not unlikely to get one)
 
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@sedition I find your arguments most intriguing. I can only imagine how long it took you to produce such a detailed answer. I feel ashamed my humble post made you go to such lengths to expend the effort necessary to articulate a marvelous reply like that.

@sssr After reading your posts, I feel like I understand Maomao and her old man's attitudes a lot better, regarding the imperial court. Thanks!
 
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Honestly, if she was born a guy she would've been a great official with her intelligence. I can see her doing really well at it despite probably just wanting to play with poisons all day.
 
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@Kaarme there isn't anything to argue, you're reaching for clues and hints that simply aren't there, the guard had nothing to do with the murder plot. I don't understand why you assume he did?

And as far as the worth of maomao and other servants present in the story I'm sure my explanation as well as the points presented by the numerous other replies you got should have filled you in on the subject.

In the future you might want to look into a subject before arguing for or against it, I'd guess that most people reading this story have at least some secondhand knowledge regarding ancient Chinese customs and intricacies of their inner court/harem system, so at least humor someone the next time they try to help you understand it.

I wasn't trying to be condescending in any of my replies as much as you seem to believe I was.
 
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she's got more of her biological Father, than she will ever admit. lol
 
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@sedition
I'd guess that most people reading this story have at least some secondhand knowledge regarding ancient Chinese customs and intricacies of their inner court/harem system

I feel like you are assuming far too much here.

I'm suspecting the guard because the plot to have Jinshi dead was so intricate and meticulous. It would make perfect sense to have someone like the guard there to make sure nothing can randomly ruin the very last step. The guard was also really obstinate, as if he was more concerned about nothing affecting what's going on inside the temple in the least than anything else, even if what was going on was a murder. And when Maomao said what I'm saying now, the guard immediately turned violent with a really vicious expression on his face. He didn't spend even a microsecond to wonder what the "plan" is supposed to be, instead he turned murderous, as if there was nothing for him to wonder about.

Actually I'm not sure what you think I'm arguing against? I was genuinely surprised a free person's life was so cheap in the imperial court, and I acknowledged that mistake of mine in an earlier post. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with the guard's case. His case has only anything to do with how meticulous you think the exceedingly meticulous murderers were. Even if servants are more or less free to be killed, Jinshi most certainly isn't, so it's a good old attempted murder, with some already actualised murders in the background. When you are facing murderers of that calibre, you shouldn't assume anyone related to the incident in any way would be innocent.
 
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@Kaarme The kind of complex plot they're running is the kind where the less people know about it the better, they've gone to great lengths to cover their tracks and everyone else involved besides the woman that faked her death has been killed off already, they could have easily involved the doctor that handled the bodies in the plot but instead they had the woman seduce him and then trick him, most likely because they would have needed to kill him like the others after she escaped, and that would have raised questions when added to body count that already exists.

It's the same thing with that guard, going by the post they gave him (protecting a medium ritual) which is something they take very seriously as multiple aristocrats are involved, he's someone that people would absolutely investigate should something happen to him, and even before that, if Jinshi (who is very likely the son of the emperor) died while performing the ceremony and the guards outside allowed it to happen they could very well be put to death for failing at their job. At the very least they would be punished and demoted. There is no reason to believe they would want that to happen, their military careers would be down the toilet and their reputation (face) would be completely gone. Also the possibility of their entire families being wiped out exists as well if anyone caught wind of them being involved in the plot to kill someone as important as Jinshi.

There aren't any benefits that outweigh the risk of that, because they would get in trouble no matter what if someone died during a ceremony they were tasked to guard.
 
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Like father like daughter huh....i mean her biological father.
He looks like a scheming villain type and a mad scientist at the same time with the monocle lel.
 

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