For me, there’s no question that Lakan is the best male character in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto. But Jinshi is certainly the most important. And he’s definitely grown on me as a narrative construct, if not as a person (though that too, somewhat). With a character as brilliant as Maomao a true foil is pretty essential. And Jinshi does manage to provide that. He understands how she works, and his analytical shortcomings are more a result of a lack of real-world experience than of intelligence. Jinshi is indeed very smart – and in the area of court intrigue at least, more experienced than Xiaomao. He manipulates her quite deftly – and only some of the time with her knowledge and buy-in.

While I recently ranked The Apothecary Diaries on my Top 10 anime mystery list, I did so noting that the mysteries are often the weakest element of the series. That’s not to say they’re bad – generally not. But rarely are they especially compelling in their own right. For me their primary appeal is the observation of characters in response to them. This court poisoning caper very much meets that description. A couple elements were a bit of a stretch (like Jinshi being fooled by an imposter for a year), but mostly it was fine. Of more interest was the dance between Jinshi and Maomao is getting to the bottom of it.

The death of the concubine Jin is at the heart of this mystery, and it was briefly noted at the end of last week’s episode. It’s paired with another mystery – the disappearance of a mid-ranked court lady named Tao. That’s quite a coincidence, and Maomao is enough of a detective to be very suspicious of coincidences. The original lead here was a possible connection to the toxic face powder incident – and thus a threat to Gyokuyou. But there’s no obvious connection at this point – though Jin and Tao’s mysteries are as connected as it’s possible to be.

Mushrooms are the MacGuffin here. After soliciting Maomao’s advice on his idea for a literacy school for court ladies (Jinshi is indeed smart enough not to let his pride stop him from asking) he gives her a task. She’s to find all the poisonous mushrooms she can on the Rear Palace grounds, and compile a log of them. Ostensibly it’s to prevent foraging court ladies from inadvertently poisoning themselves, but Maomao grasps at once that this involves the Jin mystery (at the very least). And from his refusal to discuss it in front of Gyokuyou, that someone from the Jade Palace is a suspect – with herself being the most logical candidate.

The way Jinshi orchestrates this is a credit to his cleverness, and Xiaomao’s lack of outrage or even disapproval to her keen intellect. Another concubine, Son, makes a scene at the wake for Jin and as such, Maomao gets a look at the corpse’s face. She concludes that poisoning was involved here (Son too a victim, and obviously blaming Jin for it). She asks Jinshi for some help in finding the final piece to the puzzle, and again mushrooms are the key. She’s already found the one that caused the marks on Jin and Son, and indeed she has a scar herself from a childhood encounter. But the presence of corpse-loving mushrooms in the forest on the north side of the palace suggests that there’s one more piece of evidence to be uncovered.

Again, I don’t know that Tao’s act could have fooled a sharp cookie like Jin for a year. But on the whole the mystery is constructed pretty well. And again, it’s Jinshi and Xiamao manoeuvring each other like chess pieces that provides the real interest. Jinshi needs someone to act on his suspicious in ways his position doesn’t allow; Maomao loves a good mystery and getting her hands dirty. They both get what they want (though Jinshi obviously wants a lot more), so in that sense it’s very much a symbiotic relationship. But the other element of it – Jinshi shielding Maomao from her own indelicacy and insatiable curiosity – is one I don’t think Maomao is much aware of.