Random thoughts after rewatching Apothecary Diaries Season 1 Episode 2

This note includes a spoiler.

I rewatched Apothecary Diaries season 1 episode 2 twice. 6/10.

Maomao was too smart when she figured out the issue. Honestly, there could've been a lot of reasons why people could've been poisoned, not only the smoke from the firewood. Or maybe actually not? It actually sounds weird that many people fell ill after they ate something, so the poison must have spread easily, and it must have happened while or right after they ate dinner at the camp. Also, they had nausea and other symptoms that were able to help her figure it out. And it happened at night, so that might've been another reason why she was able to figure it out. Well, she said it was just her own opinion.

Her co-workers also sympathized with her and were interested in her. She didn't understand how other people saw her. Though, how did other people communicate with her before she ended up in the rear palace? Maybe they didn't care about her at all, and they didn't notice the bandages on her left arm. Or they were already her friends and they knew she liked experiments a lot. So she might actually know how other people saw her.

She also knew what was expensive and what was important. Probably the rear palace was the best place to get medicinal ingredients. And she always figured out what each ingredient was, and how expensive paper was.

I knew who Jinshi was, but from this episode, at least we knew Jinshi was high-ranking in the palace hierarchy. He was able to find and collect precious ingredients from the medicine storehouse, and he was also given a task by the emperor to test the other women's loyalty. That made me realize why he was interested in Maomao. Sure she was unique among women. Why didn't Maomao realize how high-ranking he was, though he talked with Gyokuyou in a friendly way, and frequently? Maybe she thought he was just one of Gyokuyou's favorites?

In the first place, what is the era of this world? At least they have cacao in the rear palace, but I have no idea when it reached East Asia.

In terms of animation, they used lighting pretty well when Maomao first saw the storeroom for medicine ingredients. She stood in a dark room, but it lit up, and then the scene added some visual effects.