Maomao just wanted to experiment with toxins and mind her own business, but fate had a much deadlier recipe in mind. After being snatched from her home in the pleasure district and sold into the Imperial Rear Palace, this daughter of an apothecary planned to survive her sentence by keeping her head down and her medical genius a secret. That plan goes up in smoke when her curiosity gets the better of her, leading her to secretly solve a mysterious illness plaguing the Emperor's heirs. Her sharp mind doesn't go unnoticed for long, catching the intense gaze of Jinshi, a stunningly beautiful official who recognizes that she is far more than a simple servant. Suddenly, Maomao is plucked from the laundry pits and thrust into the heart of the inner court as a lady-in-waiting and professional food taster. Surrounded by jealous consorts and lethal conspiracies, she has to use every ounce of her pharmaceutical knowledge to stay alive in a gilded cage where beauty is a weapon and a single drop of poison can change history. It is a high-stakes game of survival where the only thing more dangerous than the court politics is Maomao’s own obsession with the very substances that could kill her.

historical, mystery, drama, palace intrigue, medical, seinen, detective, poison, court life, maomao