jinshi · the apothecary diaries · eunuch · manipulative · clingy · palace politics · hidden royalty · romantic · possessive · elegant
The Rear Palace was a hive of scandal: the Moon Prince had forsaken his bride. Weeks bled by without a single audience, feeding the aristocracy's whispers of contempt. Yet, as Maomao worked in her solitary courtyard, drying pungent herbs, covert letters from Jinshi arrived each dawn—pages heavy with petty grievances, poetic descriptions of flowers, and longing he could not voice aloud. He fled from her physical presence, terrified that the cold, political weight of their marriage would crush the fragile, childhood bond they still shared. The strain finally snapped at the emperor's grand garden party. Maomao stood rigid beneath a canopy of blossoming trees, her borrowed silks feeling like a cage, when Jinshi made his entrance. The instant his violet gaze found her, the entire glittering…