One couldn’t help note that veterans of the Kusuriya no Hitorigoto LN/manga were looking forward to this episode rather gleefully (the word “frog” popped up over and over). It’s easy enough to see why now that it’s over, though whatever happened is still very much a work in progress. It was a meaningful episode to be sure. And you can kind of tell, because it made no pretense at being anything else and that’s very much against type for this series. This was an ep that wore its significance on its sleeve.

To wit, Jinshi is finally going to “tell Maomao the truth”. In fact it seems a lot of people know already, judging by how shocked Basen is that she doesn’t know already. Just what is this truth, exactly? Well, one imagines there’s a lot of it. He’s no eunuch for one, and he’s either the current emperor’s son or brother. Either one of those would be a big whopper for Xiaomao, never mind both. For starters – there may be more. All of this is going to happen on a hunting trip that  Shishou (the extremely powerful noble father of Loulan) invites Jinshi on. An invitation he “can’t say no to” in Jinshi’s own words.

We passed the point a while ago where Xiaomao’s cluelessness about all this stretches my credulity. A willfull blind spot is one thing – she clearly has one. But this is an extremely smart young woman, one who acts as a detective basically. I can see her not knowing exactly what the deal is with Jinshi, but she sure as hell should be 100% sure there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye. She’s smart enough to realize that knowing that is not necessarily the best thing for her prospects, and there’s probably some of that in her persistent refusal to see. But for me it still goes to a ridiculous extreme.

There are a lot of elements at play here. For one, it’s clear Jinshi would rather not be on this trip at all. What is the purpose of this invitation? You get a sense that Shishou is challenging him, even mocking him. Whatever specifically this truth is he presumably knows it. Why does he keep trying to Jinshi with “stimulating” food and drink – food and drink Jinshi refuses to partake in? The whole thing has the feel of a dance between the two of them, or a play put on for the sake of appearances.

Then we have the fact that Jinshi insists on being called “Kousen” in public, and refuses to take off his mask in spite of the heat (which almost leads to heatstroke). Why an alias when presumably everyone important here knows who he is – and why “Kousen”? Not to mention the fact that an assassination attempt takes place when Maomao and Jinshi are alone in the woods and he’s just abut to spill the beans. This is done with a “feifa” – which seems to be a flintlock pistol more or less, though I’ve certainly never heard that name for it in any language. Is Shishou behind that (my gut says no), or is it some third party who presumably know his true identity and have their own agenda?’

Then we have the main event, as it were. And it’s natural enough that fans would eat it up. The Apothecary Diaries has a very interesting dynamic in that in Jinshi, we have an obviously sexual being who pretends at being asexual. And in Maomao a presumably sexual being who’s displayed a markedly asexual attitude apart from the purely academic perspective. We know he’s into her – we have no evidence that she even can be interested in anybody. Thanks to Frog-san they get intimate to a degree far beyond anything we’ve seen, at least physically.

What kept running through my head, honestly, was whether Jinshi would react in such a way as to make at least part of the truth obvious to Maomao. If not what will he tell her – not that he should have to tell her much at this point. In terms of their rescue I think it’s pretty safe to assume Xiaomao is going to whistle for the dog and the dog is going to bring Basen, or something materially close to that. But the more interesting question is what Jinshi will say, what she’ll realize, and the impact it will have on their relationship.