#shishou

In contrast, for Jinshi, his love for Maomao only leads him to become better as a person in a desire to be someone who can protect her and give her an environment where she can succeed. He doesn’t harm others in pursuit of her, nor does he ask her to be anything different than who she is.

When he sees her in his mind, it’s not some idealized version but her apothecary self, in her green everyday outfit and lovely just as she is. He pursues her because she’s uniquely a person who pushes him to step outside his comfort zone and brings out the truer side of his personality others ignore. This love isn’t destructive but beneficial as for Jinshi he’s only learned to be a better man in pursuit of Maomao and this relationship has grown them both.

This is interesting to me because we can say the stories of these two make them excellent foils. Their contrasting stories show what love has the capability to do to a person, to either destroy them if it's distorted or to make them better if it's a true and honest kind of love.

Shishou considered what he was doing as loving but didn’t realize Shenmei felt he was the lesser option compared to the Emperor. She never knew she was a bargaining chip. Even though he was being kind in taking her, to her it was a cruelty and so his love was just something she didn’t want and ignored. His then turning a blind eye to her cruelty became a selfish desire that she would come around and return his love which was all in vain as she never changed. It was purely two kinds of selfishness that both led to much pain and heartache.

The first reasoning, Shisui has been conspiring against her mother for a long time. From the abortifacients to all she confesses to Jinshi in this episode, she hasn’t merely been her mother’s doll for a long time. There’s still a guilt she likely feels for betraying her, even if she saw no other way. She sees the hatred and jealousy that founts from her mother like venom, and she refuses to become her, but also she never denounces her as her mother. Like when she talks about the ghost stories episode and how Suirei’s grandmother Taihou may have tried to kill her from the grave because she’s her mother’s daughter. Plus, despite her plotting, she has fawned for 17-18 years and that doesn’t all just go away in an instant because her mother is dead. Shisui still has love for Shenmei whether she deserves it or not, and can likely live with the rest of her choices by at least granting one of her mother’s wishes.

Secondly, Shisui always tried to take care of her family in her own way. She’s always been loving, and became “the doll Loulan” as her first attempt to fix things. If she was an obedient enough daughter, then maybe she’d be able to heal what had been so thoroughly broken within her mother. She sacrifices her sense of self both to survive—but we know that’s not her only/main priority given her repeated abuse when she disguised herself as a maid to see Suirei— and to protect and heal her family. It’s only when this doesn’t work that she moves on to plotting.

Shisui took care of her family, everyone got a version of what they wanted in the end. Obviously the main thing Shishou wanted was Shenmei’s forgiveness and love, but that was never going to happen. Both Jinshi and Shenmei had the chance to take the feifa from Shisui, and because of who they were, those cards fell where they did. Shenmei died as a consequence of her own actions, which Shisui didn’t want to happen but knew would. She always did what she could though, and gave her family what felt like very fitting parting gifts to me:

For Shishou, her final gift was seeing their plan through and making sure not only someone, but Jinshi knew her father served their country to the end. She also spoke up for her father to Shenmei in her dying moments, something Shishou had failed to do for himself the last 20 years.

For Shenmei, her final gift was violence, a final act of destruction towards something beautiful. Her wrath and pettiness given a small revenge. Immortality, even, to live on through Jinshi’s scar and become this “once in a generation evil” who wounded the once in a generation beauty her mother was so jealous of. Both continuing and ending the cycle of their families, with Jinshi’s consent.

For Suirei, her final gift was a smile— the promise that she was happy. A seed of contentment for Suirei to build the rest of her life on now that she’s lost her family. A second chance at life she was only given because of Shisui’s favor. That smile conveyed Shisui’s own freedom.

And in that is also Shisui’s gift to herself. She couldn’t help the circumstances she was born into, nor could she change the tides of fate to keep her family from being embroiled in scandal. But at least she could rewrite the ending. After so long hiding behind her makeup and mother and the role of Loulan, Shisui could finally have a voice. She could take up space. She could be a savior.

She could be the villain of a generation.

She could dance.