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The Apothecary Diaries S2 Ep 23 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-03 00:00:11
Edited:
2026-09-09 16:59:54
Imported:
2026-09
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Hello, Patreon family! Please enjoy my detailed analysis of the Apothecary Diaries Season 2, Episode 23. At this point, I am completely lost as to which episode is my favorite, as the running joke goes, but what is clear is that this is the most speechless I have felt, with the most devastatingly beautiful ending and the moon fairy dance moment, RIP Loulan/Shisui...

My main takeaways from the episode

1) Loulan's remarkable resilience, integrity (?), and her capacity to preserve her authentic self (Shisui's personality) until her final breath despite her tragedy, albeit her complicit nature with all that Shishou and Shenmei did, is unbelievable

2) Loulan / Shisui is probably one of the most complexly written characters in the show, and one that I have enjoyed watching in recent years across the board; such a tragic character

3) The question that I found myself asking after witnessing her final act of integrity (?) at the end is: Does what she did justify any of the deeds that she committed? Such as kidnapping Maomao, the premonition-like prediction with rigging the feifa (e.g., because technically, if Jinshi is not the principled man that he is, he could've been gravely in danger despite what actually happened), and all other acts she either contributed to or allowed to take place; conversely, one could also argue that Loulan had no choice due to her survival needs, but is that true? I believe we always have a choice; of course, easier said than done

Also, thank goodness the children, especially young master Kyou-u, will be spared since they already "died once," and our dear Moon Frog Prince is a man of his word.

What will the season finale entail?? I honestly have no idea, but you bet I am going to bring my all next week~

Happy new week, everyone, and until next week~

P.S., what should I watch after we wrap up AD season 2 until October when season 3 comes out?? I might react to some movies to fill in the in-between space to preserve the Apothecary Diaries Wednesday slot, but we shall see :)

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Comments

Andrestian

As for your question about Shisui, I think she answers it herself: maybe there was a better way to do things, but we weren’t smart enough. I think she didn’t just make all these decisions as a form of redemption, my theory is that, having been held captive by her mother her entire life (and never having had control over her own decisions for fear of incurring her mother’s wrath), her act of freedom and defiance toward the world was to use her intellect and free will to bring the entire plot to an end in a way she found satisfying (by saving her sister and the children). Was it the best way? The most humane? Certainly not, but I think she needed this final act of rebellion, to be able to make decisions that influence the world and shape the reality she was never able to create.

Talon Karrde

what Loulan guarenteed was that tho Shenmei, may truly be one of the most evil villians of the nation. when history is written, nobody will remember her. Shishou and Loulan will be the villians of the stories

Dragons like Bananas

I know this isn't the last episode but I think this point still works: Both seasons end in almost the exact same way, The eccentric daughter of a high ranking official is dancing on top of a wall at night as a send off to her parents, while a grandchild of the former emperor watches. The girl starts falling from the wall and the grandchild attempts to catch them. The only difference is that that one is able to catch them while the other one isn't.

Talon Karrde

i notice how Jinshis first concern to the cut on his face isnt an inevitable scar or damage to his royal self. what he feels bad about is Basen being punished for it.

Jeremy Herttna

Just like season one, you learn that the guy who you thought was the villain, was just a tragic hero trying his best. Such a beautifully sad end to this arc.

SarithaKabila

This is where you realized, but not to the degrees of how everything ties back together when it comes to not only everything in Season 2 but even things that happen in Season 1. There is so many things that this author does that wrote the original story that I love that you are using some of the things we have discussed here on patreon, on youtube and discord. There is beauty in the emotional damage that wrecks you even after you sit with it because it's such a masterful depiction of some of the true human experiences we deal with but don't talk about publicly like we maybe should. As I again sit here and sob with the dance of freedom that Shishu does at the end. But so happy that for you, you only have a month to wait until Season 3 starts. Since I know you uploaded this but you have watched the finale of the show. So that you are sitting in the place the rest of us that have watched have been in since watching it. lol.

Peach

It’s probably too long to fit before Season 3 but if you can manage Journal With Witch/Ikoku Nikki sometime, I think you & people would really love it, & there’s so much to yap about psychologically! Just 13 eps, all about the adjustment of a teenage girl building a new family life with her eccentric/ADHD aunt after her parents pass away, & her growing pains

Psychotherapist Reacts

So poetically said and yeah, there’s beauty and necessity in sitting with discomfort of the complexity and the pain of human experience, the individual and collective suffering as part of life, such as Shisui, the last dance, and so much more. Definitely sitting in the space with everyone!

Psychotherapist Reacts

Heard good things! There’s only 2 weeks in between so won’t be enough time. I’m going to do Alien Stage :)

Leah Shannon

I would recommend Akudama Drive when you have more time for it (it's a 12 episode anime). It has potential for so much yapping material and the art style is gorgeous (IMO). Check it out!

Mary

Another thing I love about this parallel is that the send off is one dancing for her mother’s freedom and the other is dancing for freedom from her mother.

!! Nyck ☆ Palette ¡¡

This whole season, made me question which is my favorite character. I think Maomao wins by default for numerous reasons, but loulan/shisui..... I think the way her life quite reflects mine makes me hurt so bad from what she had to do in this story. (Not going much into it, but i'm someone who quite lives on a double-life, a restricting and influential family who has to keep appearences, but i myself am not connected at all with the expectations and responsibilty i've been put to carry.) There’s something almost haunting about the way she exists within it , so beautiful, composed, and seemingly unreadable, yet with an entire storm of intentions and contradictions hidden underneath. She feels like someone who learned very early that being perceived is not the same thing as being understood. What I love most about her is that Loulan’s mystery isn’t simply there to make her “cool.” Her different faces, her deliberate behavior, her distance from everyone around her, they all feel like parts of a person who has had to survive by becoming impossible to read. Her whole conversation with maomao after that chamber solidified that to me. She cried seeing someone see her as for what she always desired to be seen as, although that person was also in a way someone that did not exist. But more specifically, talking about her Shisui-self. That contrast makes her even more precious to me. Shisui feels brighter, stranger, more playful; she has this almost mischievous liveliness that makes it easy to forget how carefully constructed her identity actually is. Seeing that side of her makes Loulan feel less like an untouchable figure and more like a young woman who desperately wanted some small space in which she could simply be. No masks, no faces, but she knew her origin. She knew what her family was capable of and she knew what they already had tarnished with their blood. That conflict of what she wanted and what she felt like she needed to do came in a really bittersweet unison. She stayed. For her sake, for her family's sake, for her country and loved ones sake. I think that’s what makes her so memorable. Beneath all the schemes, disguises, politics, and tragedy, there is still a person there, someone who had desires, attachments, fears, and a sense of self that she couldn't entirely erase. A sense of self she held dear to her but that was still constructed from a turmoil of circumstance. She is fascinating because, despite everything she does to hide herself, you can still catch glimpses of the person underneath. And she stayed true to that not even just by herself but by all the others who "died once". This just reminds me of a phrase from my favorite franchise of all time. "Despite everything, it's still you." (Undertale)

neatchee

Quick FYI: "Golden handcuffs" very specifically refers to a contingent payout for leadership when a company is bought out. In order to prevent people in leadership roles from selling their company and then immediately quitting - and taking a lot of knowledge and talent that was the incentive for buying their company with them - the contracts are written such that C-suite and VP level folks only get their very big bonus after the buyout if they stay with the company for some amount of time (usually 2+ years). They're golden handcuffs because they use the enticement of a big payout to keep people from leaving the company. The More You Know™

AnimeLover101

Okay, so you finally caught up with the story, and I’ve been waiting forever for this because you may have misunderstood or missed a few things. So here it is: the full story behind the Shi Clan. The anime explains some of it, but it also leaves out several details that make the whole situation easier to understand. This whole thing started many years before the main story, and the actions of the Empress Regent and the late Emperor caused a domino effect throughout the entire series. The Empress Regent, also known as the Great Empress, was once a lowly palace maid in the inner court before she was eventually promoted to a low-ranking concubine. She later gave birth to the youngest son of the Emperor at the time. Because she was only a low-ranking concubine with no powerful noble connections, she was helpless to protect her son from the abuse of the higher-ranking concubines. After the Emperor’s other sons died during an epidemic, her son became the heir seemingly overnight. Because he was such a young child, many court ladies and concubines tried to take advantage of him, both because of his new position and because of his beauty. As a result of all this abuse, the young Emperor became mentally weak and developed a huge fear of adult women. It was no secret that he wasn’t suited for his position, so his mother immediately had to act on his behalf and prepare for his ascension to the throne. As his regent, the Empress Regent chose to completely dominate and browbeat her son into submission so she could take control of the court. It has been confirmed that the previous Emperor was abused by his mother, although exactly how she abused him is still unknown because, as you know, there are many different forms of abuse. Perhaps in her own way, taking control of the throne and turning her son into a puppet came from a mother’s desire to protect him and wasn’t entirely because she selfishly wanted power. Unfortunately, her actions only traumatized him further and cemented his fate as a figurehead ruler. Because of everything that happened to him, he developed his disturbing attraction to little girls. Adult women terrified him, so he could only find comfort and a sense of control through little girls, the one group of people he had power over. And, of course, neither his court nor his people could ever respect a ruler with those kinds of tendencies. One of the things the Empress Regent did was restrict or ban the overseas slave trade rather than abolish every form of slavery within Li. Both the manga and the light novel explain that, under her rule, Li’s government-sanctioned slavery worked similar to the pleasure districts rules. Once enslaved people worked long enough to repay their purchase price or completed a set term of service, they could earn their freedom. However, those protections only existed inside Li. If someone was sold to another country, Li had no control over what happened to them and no way to make sure they would ever be freed. Her reason for banning the overseas slave trade seems to have been a mixture of humanitarian concerns and state policy, especially when it came to the Shi Clan. At the time, the Shi Clan was a thorn in the Empress Regent’s side and a serious threat to both her and her son. They were one of the most powerful families in Li because of their enormous wealth, their control over a distant region, their own network of retainers and officials, and the slave trade, which was one of their main sources of income—especially selling young girls overseas. This is where Shishou and Shenmei come into play. At the time, Shishou came from a branch of the Shi family. However, because he had so much talent and potential, also because they had no male heir, He was adopted into the main family. To secure his position as the next head of the Shi Clan, Shishou was engaged to Shenmei, the daughter and only child of the clan’s head. Shishou also fell in love with Shenmei at first sight, and apparently, she was a high-class beauty in her youth. But then one day, a letter came from the imperial palace requesting that the head of the Shi Clan send Shenmei to the inner palace to become a high-ranking concubine. Shenmei was a spoiled and sheltered princess, so when she was given the opportunity to enter the imperial palace and the idea of becoming the next Empress, she refused to become the wife of what she considered a mere “local lord.” Little did she know that it was all a front. In truth, she was being taken as a hostage. The Shi Clan had continued selling enslaved people overseas even after the Empress Regent banned it. Taking the clan head’s only daughter into the inner palace was both a punishment and a way to ensure the Shi Clan’s future loyalty. Shenmei’s father knew that she was really being taken as a hostage, but Shenmei didn’t. So she entered the inner palace of her own free will, believing she had a chance to become Empress without realizing the real reason she had been invited. As a high-ranking concubine, Shenmei had many ladies-in-waiting. One of them was Taihou, a ten-year-old girl who also came from a branch of the Shi Clan, just like Shishou. The Emperor visited Shenmei’s room only once. But instead of choosing the proud, beautiful, noble sixteen-year-old Shenmei, the Emperor laid his hands on her ten-year-old attendant. Taihou became pregnant and gave birth to his illegitimate daughter. In Li, the only way for a child to be considered legitimate, regardless of the mother’s position or how the child came into existence, was for the father—or whoever held the higher position—to acknowledge that child. Although they say it was the Emperor who refused to acknowledge his daughter, but it was the Empress Regent who refused to acknowledge her. If she officially recognized the baby as her granddaughter and an imperial princess, that would also mean officially acknowledging what her son had done to a ten-year-old girl. So the Empress Regent arranged a cover story: a rear-palace physician was blamed for impregnating Taihou, and both the physician and the baby were expelled from the palace. This whole situation is also one of the reasons doctors in the inner palace were later required to be castrated. Taihou herself remained trapped inside the rear palace to be used, discarded, and forgotten. The baby and the doctor were later sheltered by Shishou. With Shishou’s help, the Emperor secretly visited his daughter behind his mother’s back, but Taihou never saw her daughter again. Time passed, and Shenmei was still trapped inside the inner palace. She was mocked and ridiculed by the other concubines, and the court ladies kept spreading gossip about her because despite her position as a high-ranking concubine, the Emperor refused to visit her. Then the situation became even worse when Anshi entered the inner palace. Anshi’s father was an ambitious bureaucrat, while her mother was one of his concubines. Anshi started her period at a very young age, and knowing the Emperor’s tastes, her father decided to use that for his own political advantage. And mind you, Anshi was only ten years old. He placed both of his daughters inside the harem. His older and favorite daughter, who may have been favored because she was the daughter of his legal wife, entered as the actual concubine. Anshi was sent with her as a lady-in-waiting. Anshi knew ahead of time what her father expected to happen because he told her everything. Meanwhile, he left his favorite daughter completely in the dark. That part is honestly a little sad to me because the older daughter apparently fell in love with the Emperor at first sight. She was extremely happy when she heard that he would be visiting her that night. She believed everything was going to be a dream come true, like the beginning of a typical happily-ever-after fairy tale. Even though the anime didn’t show it, it has been confirmed that the Emperor slapped her across the face before choosing Anshi instead. And then we all know what happened. Ten-year-old Anshi gave birth to the current Emperor. The Empress Regent accepted him as her legitimate grandson, and Anshi eventually became the new Empress. Believe it or not, while growing up, the current Emperor thought Anshi was his older sister instead of his mother. Which honestly makes sense since she is only ten years older than him. Meanwhile, Shenmei continued sending letters to her father complaining about how unfair her life inside the harem was. She couldn’t understand why the Emperor favored Taihou and Anshi or why he refused to visit her when she had noble blood and believed herself to be more beautiful than either of them. Her letters made it painfully clear that even after all those years, she still hadn’t figured out the real reason she had been sent there. At the same time, the Shi Clan was struggling with all the enslaved people it could no longer sell overseas. That was when Shishou proposed making the inner palace larger, supposedly to increase the Emperor’s chances of producing more heirs. This is what Loulan meant when she said the enslaved people were treated similarly to courtesans in the pleasure district. She was referring to the system I mentioned earlier, not necessarily saying that every single enslaved person was being used for sex. Then, shortly before the Emperor’s mind finally broke after what Anshi did to him, S2 Ep9, he had a secret meeting with Shishou. The Emperor had always felt guilty about what happened to his daughter. He believed she deserved to live the life of a princess, so he asked Shishou—his most trusted confidant and a man who was still unmarried—to take his daughter as his wife. The Emperor promised that if Shishou married his daughter and the two of them had at least one child together, he would grant Shishou any wish he desired. So Shishou took the Emperor’s daughter as his first wife even though Shenmei was the only woman he actually wanted. The two of them eventually had a daughter who was first named Shisui and was later renamed Suirei. Shishou did all of this to get his fiancée back. After all, only the Emperor could decide what happened to the “flowers” living inside his garden. After twenty years of being imprisoned inside the inner palace, Shenmei was finally released and became Shishou’s second wife. However, wasting twenty years of her youth and beauty inside the palace for nothing had left her extremely bitter. Shishou hoped that Shenmei would forgive him for marrying another woman and having a child, even though he had only done it to get her released. Because he felt so guilty, he basically allowed Shenmei to do whatever she wanted. That included stripping his first wife and Suirei of their status, changing his daughter’s name from Shisui to Suirei, reducing both mother and daughter to servants, and giving Shenmei complete control of the clan while he was away in the capital. Shenmei was also allowed to torment the servants, which eventually resulted in her killing Suirei’s mother. Shishou believed Shenmei was never like this when she was younger. He believed that being imprisoned for twenty years while watching her dreams fall apart turned her into this horrible person. Personally, I believe Shenmei was always this type of person. The inner palace didn’t create that part of her. It just made it much worse. The late Emperor was also an idiot for not considering what might happen to his daughter or granddaughter. He ignorantly believed they would automatically be safe, especially since he had privately acknowledged them as members of the imperial family. He died believing that his daughter and granddaughter were living happily and safely with Shishou, never once considering what Shenmei might do to them after she returned. A year after marrying Shishou, Shenmei gave birth to Loulan. She planned to use Loulan as a tool in her petty revenge against the imperial family that had used and discarded her. Her ultimate goal was to destroy the current dynasty and replace it. Shenmei was connected to several events throughout the series, including the products intended to cause miscarriages and prevent future heirs from being born, the assassination attempts against Jinshi—and no, it wasn’t simply because he was beautiful—the embezzlement, and the help she received from some of the older court ladies. However, even though Shenmei believed she was the mastermind behind everything, both Shishou and Loulan were secretly working together to sabotage her rebellion. They pretended to support her uprising, but in reality, it was a carefully planned trap meant to gather all the corrupt officials and other traitors connected to her in one place. Shishou allowed Shenmei to act freely so that everyone tied to her would eventually expose themselves. Meanwhile, Loulan sabotaged the weapons and did everything she could to protect the children. But why Shishou never explained the clan’s true situation to Shenmei—why she was originally taken as a hostage and why he had to marry another woman and have a child—I’ll never know. Maybe he did tell her, and she simply didn’t want to hear it. Either way, allowing her to do whatever she wanted because he felt guilty clearly made everything worse. So basically, the destruction of the Shi Clan didn’t start with Loulan, and Shenmei wasn’t the only person responsible for everything. This whole situation was the result of decades of abuse, slavery, political manipulation, secrecy, revenge, and adults repeatedly using children as tools. The Empress Regent’s decisions affected the late Emperor. What happened to him affected Taihou, Anshi, Shenmei, and countless other girls. The fight against the Shi Clan’s slave-trading business resulted in Shenmei being taken as a hostage and the inner palace being expanded. The Emperor’s guilt resulted in Shishou marrying his daughter and having Suirei. Then Shenmei’s bitterness and desire for revenge shaped the lives of both Suirei and Loulan.

Psychotherapist Reacts

Shisui is still her, her true self. Love that and thanks for sharing bits about your situations. What a wonderful show and character

!! Nyck ☆ Palette ¡¡

Yes, series like this make me appreciate life even more, and your thoughtful analysis is always the cherry on top for me <3