Maomao will ended up being 'executed' by poison
- Maomao insisted if she were to be executed, it should be by poison. She said this since beginning even before figuring out Jinshi's position, out of the blue, as if it were a foreshadowing.
- There had been several cases in the series where 'criminals' were legally known to be killed/executed/dead but actually still alive.
- Maomao's fascination with the Resurrection medicine which Sui Rei used would certainly come into play.
- Obviously, the emperor and Jinshi won't kill her but it could be a setup due to complex circumstances.
There will be arsenic poisoning case
- Bezoar isn't a cure-all, but in a certain case it is able to cure arsenic poisoning.
- Since Jinshi give it to Maomao it looks like a plot device that will be used later.
- Bonus point if it's Jinshi himself or even the emperor.
Luomen is the one who suggested the baby swap
- Consider these things :
- Luomen is like the Mycroft to Maomao's Sherlock. Do we expect him not knowing the swap at all?
- Other notable trait of him is his kindness (which led to him being poor).
- We know Anshi (current empress dowager) basically raped the pedo emperor to get back at him.
- A common theme in Apothecary diaries is an 'evil mother'. We had Maomao's mother who cut her baby's finger; controlling mother of pedo emperor that makes him scared of adult women; Rouran's abusive mother and later on in the Light Novel Chuue's mother who left and neglected her
- In the manga, Anshi said she truly love 'this child' despite other people's accusation. However in Q&A session, the author claimed Anshi actually 'hated her second child.'
- With that in mind, the whole story might actually goes like this :
- Anshi raped the pedo emperor just to get back at him, not thinking of the consequences. She got pregnant and she hated it. She couldn't actually abort her child. (Or there are failed secret attempts).
- Nevertheless, the child is born. In the last attempts Anshi tried to kill the newborn. It would be easy to make it look like accident.
- Luomen is quickly called as the baby's health deteriorated and deduced what actually happened (especially if there were previous attempts to abort/murder the baby too).
- Now consider yourself in Luomen's shoes. It didn't matter how many time he nursed back the baby to health, the baby could get killed in the next chance. If the baby's dead he might lose his head.
- If he revealed Anshi's plot to save her son, it would be her getting executed and the baby would lose his mother. His kind nature is likely against this.
- At the same time it is a convenient timing that Ah-Duo just had her child. Luomen just helped her before being called so he knew Ah-Duo loved her child and would do anything for him to survive.
- While Anshi hated her child, it was possible she truly loves her grandchild (as in real life, it is possible for grandparents loving and spoiling their grandchildren more than their own children). Or she is just normal person who loves babies in general, as long said baby didn't remind her the pedo emperor.
- And thus, Luomen suggested the swap to both women.
- Ah-Duo's son would have better treatment. And Anshi seemed genuinely love the baby (in line with her manga comments)
- Luomen stopped Anshi's murder attempt telling her to just give the baby to someone else to get rid of it. It would spare both their life (neither would be executed) and the baby will be spared too.
- In short, the swap is a win-win condition.
- However Luomen is just being unlucky: just as he thought the baby would be safe and taken care with Ah-Duo, the baby gets poisoned. Further investigations then revealed the baby swap, and the rest is history.
