Else, she would never in her life have wished to have anything to do with the hougong, the rear palace: the residence of the Imperial women. To Maomao, it was a moot question, for now she found herself caught up in their schemes, regardless of the reason. Sometimes the young ladies were offered in lieu of someone’s own daughter. What did the kidnappers do with the nubile young women they captured? Sometimes they sold the girls to the eunuchs, putting the proceeds toward a night of drinking for themselves. But Maomao, who had been making her way just fine as an apothecary, thank you very much, saw it solely as so much trouble.

There were worse ways to earn a living- if one went to the royal city of one’s own accord. Now, it wasn’t that she wouldn’t be paid, and with a couple years’ work, there was that glimmer of hope that she might even be able to come back to her hometown.

They were after women for the royal palace, and in a word, they offered the world’s most forceful and unpleasant marriage proposal. It seemed just the other day she had gone into the woods to gather herbs, and there had met three kidnappers let us call them Villagers One, Two, and Three. She lived in a world that was at once a place of unparalleled, sparkling beauty and a noxious, foul, suffocating cage. Maomao looked up at the overcast sky and sighed. What I wouldn’t give for some good street-stall meat skewers. Can she ever lead a quiet life, or will her powers of deduction and insatiable curiosity bring her ever more adventures, and ever more dangers? Read more so she can taste the lady’s food for poison!Īt her lady’s side, Maomao starts to learn about everything that goes on in the rear palace-not all of it seemly. He sees through Maomao’s façade and makes her a lady-in-waiting to none other than the Emperor’s favorite consort. That’s her secret, until she encounters a resident of the palace at least as perceptive as she is: the head eunuch, Jinshi. Though she looks ordinary, Maomao has a quick wit, a sharp mind, and an extensive knowledge of medicine.

Maomao, an unassuming girl raised in an unassuming town by her apothecary father, never imagined the rear palace would have anything to do with her-until she was kidnapped and sold into service there. In the East is a land ruled by an emperor, whose consorts and serving women live in a sprawling complex known as the hougong, the rear palace.

The apothecary diaries 7