The Apothecary Diaries Discussion

@runec Are we sure he's a eunuch?

@Xuhybrid No we're not. It's only Maomao thinking he's a eunuch. Jinshii is an intact male OR a female. I can see it going both ways. Just waiting for the next episode.

@Gafennec I think we can rule out female with that body. Unless he's intersexed.

Dude's pretty built for a eunuch though.

As a random aside, in Imperial China eunuchs lost both the bait and the tackle.

Well, that was certainly some revelations.

That face Maomao made though. Yikes. She must be fully aware of her lineage.

Morning-glories are poisonous.

@marklebid That's what I was thinking, I was expecting Maomao to say the same thing.

So was the woman with Syphilis supposed to be Maomao's mom? They showed the flashback with what appeared to be her trying to stab a baby Maomao, but I am pretty sure syphilis would be transmitted to a baby.

@HOOfan_1 Yeah, it would be. You'd think her bio dad would have it too. Though it can sit dormant for years.

@runec From what I could understand she didn't do sex work until after Lakan "lowered her value". So the Syphilis likely came later.

@Greylurker that would kind of imply that either Lakan raped her, or he promised to buy her away from there and convinced her to have sex with him and then went back on it.

@Greylurker that would kind of imply that either Lakan raped her, or he promised to buy her away from there and convinced her to have sex with him and then went back on it.

I just wish I skipped the preview for next week. Bit of a spoiler on Maomao's fate.

@Gafennec Seeing that she's the MC and there would be no Apothecary Diaries without her, not to mention the show has only barely scratched the surface, of course there's no way she would be down and out.

Of course. But the duration she would be out could have been expended into the 1st half of the 2nd episode following this one. I know MC's have plot armour, but to show here in that shape at the end and then running around fine in the next episode (unless they add time (months?) to the start of the next show) then it will be ridiiculous. Yes, I know it's just a TV show, but let's be constant can we?

It seems to have been lead was used to hold up the pillar, so when the room got warmer from all the candles and shiz ... it melted? Or something?

@marklebid Lead melts at like 600F 327C...I think everyone in the room would be cooked

Gallium has a melting point of 86F/30C

That was the most convoluted plot to try and maybe kill someone. How could you possibly know who would be performing the ceremony when the beam fell. Of all the hours that the building is not even in use and the beam just happens to fall during a ceremony...

I mean it's been obvious since basically the beginning, but this proves Jinshi isn't a eunuch

I wonder if the guy who hit Maomao is already dead in a ditch somewhere

The metal the key was made out of wasn't pure lead. It was a mix of materials that made the melting point much lower. Also that beam being raised and lowered during ceremonies would create extra stress--and possibly change where major stress points are--and make it more likely to fall during that time.

They pretty much explained that whoever was behind this is using a shotgun approach. They weren't trying to set up any one specific thing in particular they were basically trying to set up a wide array of different possible scenarios in the hope that one of them would work out.

@zkeleton I caught the shotgun approach thing but honestly I didn't think it was a great explanation. Dropping the pillar on him should realistically have almost no chance of working. Of course it did work because the plot said so. But there would be no way to time when the pillar would finally give way.

The warehouse one is completely inexplicable. She gifted the guard a pipe and then just bet that he would immediately use it in a warehouse causing an explosion giving her cover to steal the ceremonial tools?

Ok now I'm here too.

To me, it's pretty clear Jinshi isn't a eunuch. He's just posing as such otherwise it would look bad having him oversee the harem.

My takeaway theories from the series so far:

@marklebid

Looks like his real official duty is religious ceremonies. So he has to stay "pure"?

Ahh, so he is chemically castrated. Needs to take regular weiner poison. Gotta keep the Jinshi x Maomao ship open.

I still think this entire evil plan is too far fetched. It requires too many things to go right.

I only just learned that Mao is Chinese for cat so her nickname is literally Cat Cat. Hence the cat ears. How I did not notice that sooner I don't know.

For what purpose though? The emperor asked him to keep an eye on the rear palace, so I assume the emperor knows he still has his balls and trusts him not to screw his harem. So why does he need to suppress anything. It's not like he will pitch an obvious tent in those baggy clothes

@HOOfan_1 Maybe he has equipment of considerable size and visible boners are a threat even with baggy clothes.

It is odd though yes. Either the emperor doesn't trust him *that* much or there is some sort of routine boner exam he has to pass.

@runec It's to kill his sex drive I think. A eunuch looking at a consort's boobs instead of her face would be a giveaway. Plus the lonely ones keep trying to seduce him even when they think he doesn't have anything down there.

@marklebid I can tell you from experience that having no sex drive does not reduce the stare at boobs impulse. Men spend most of their teenage years training their eyes to immediately seek out anything remotely boob shaped. It would take more than no sex drive to deprogram that.

It's a sad state of affairs but we do it to ourselves. I imagine the current generation is even worse as they have practically limitless porn at their fingertips at all times. At least when I was a teenager there was only dial up so you had to wait for the boobs to download. The concept of actual porn video was non-existent on the internet in my time. Which I think was for the best for my teenage brain.

@marklebid I can tell you from experience that having no sex drive does not reduce the stare at boobs impulse. Men spend most of their teenage years training their eyes to immediately seek out anything remotely boob shaped. It would take more than no sex drive to deprogram that.

It's a sad state of affairs but we do it to ourselves. I imagine the current generation is even worse as they have practically limitless porn at their fingertips at all times. At least when I was a teenager there was only dial up so you had to wait for the boobs to download. The concept of actual porn video was non-existent on the internet in my time. Which I think was for the best for my teenage brain.