“What do you mean, compensation? Did you pay this Rihaku guy with that?” He was making a dubious face for some reason.
It was an uneasy expression, combined with displeasure.
“That’s right. I pleasured him with a dream of one night,” she told him.
(Like this, he probably won’t return to reality for a while.)
Even a gallant military personnel would become a kitten when they look at Pairin-neesan.
Would he come carrying gold coins to her from now on?She looked at Jinshi. All the blood had drained from his face.
The hand holding onto the teacup was quivering.(Did the room get colder?)
Maomao added charcoal to the brazier and stirred the flames with a fan. “It seems he was greatly satisfied. I think I worked hard.”
Ku… Ku… Kusu… Kusuriya… awh, I give up! Hello, TokyoRoll back again this Friday! This time it’s a novel that for the life of me I can’t remember the title of, even remotely….. ever. I read up to volume 4, Chapter14~! I took a short break from reading for like, 2 days and spent that time playing a video game and watching a couple of anime episodes. Bad me, bad! With that said, spoilers and whatnot probably as per the usual, even if not described. I’ll never remember the name of this novel… So I’ll just call it KnH for short.
Title: Kusuriya no Hitorigoto
Author: Natsu Hyuuga
Series: Standalone
Rating: ★★★★★ (5 of 10 stars)
There is a certain large country in the central plains of the mainland. In the imperial court of its emperor, there is a girl. Her name is Maomao, a pharmacist from the prostitution quarter, currently working as a maidservant in the inner palace. The girl, surely not considered a beauty, is keeping a low-profile waiting for her contract to end. She is confident that she will not be made a “mistress” of the emperor. During that, she learns about the short lives of the children of the emperor. Maomao, hearing that the two surviving children are critically ill, begins to investigate the cause—.
Set in the middle ages of the East, the “Food Taster” girl continues to solve difficult cases in the imperial court one after another.
KnH positives
Perspectives: I like the perspectives of this story, particularly MaoMao’s. MaoMao views things in a round-about, relatively complicated way, she doesn’t give complete thoughts to her statements and leaves plenty of room for people to misunderstand her. In the case of the quote above, Jinshi had mistaken her ‘gift‘ of 1-3 nights of pleasure with one of her Brothel Sisters as MaoMao herself sleeping with Rihaku. Following that conversation, Jinshi was sulking, though it had been cleared up later thanks to one of the Emperor’s Consorts.
Unique Cast: Each of them have unique personalities, MaoMao, who is our beloved female lead, has an obsession with medicine (specifically of poison) to the point of injuring herself and ingesting poisons to find different solutions, her quirky nature is endearing. She honestly reminds me of Naedako Kanoko from Koi Dano Ai Dano and Warau Kanoko-sama. Jinshi, the male lead, is also a bit particular. He’s a beautiful man who falls for MaoMao‘s uniqueness, though he has his own specific flavor as he is often times childish and quick to sulk whenever things don’t go his way. There’s a muscle fetish brothel ‘sister’ of MaoMao‘s who is also a bit of a nymphomaniac, haha.
MaoMao‘s biological father, Rakan is also an oddball, as he views people as Chinese checker pieces or shogi pieces, sans MaoMao’s foster father, MaoMao herself and her (deceased(?)) mother. However, regardless of that deficiency as a person, he is an excellent judge of character and a good tool to identify useful people. He’s just a weird and obsessive father after he’s introduced. MaoMao‘s cousin Rahan is also strange but only because he’s obsessed with numbers, particularly money. Ruomen is MaoMao‘s biological uncle, adoptive father, he’s the only normal one in her family, personality wise, haha.
Different: This novel fits with being a Japanese novel but it’s a Chinese setting. Somehow it doesn’t feel wrong even though typically you can tell when one novel is done in one style or the other, but this one you almost forget it’s actually a Japanese novel. The tropes for Japanese novels aren’t exactly obvious at least in the first 4 novels, plus it’s a light and pleasant read. It just feels different compared to the norm but in a way that is refreshing.
Schrodinger’s male lead: When someone who was reading the novel asked me if Jinshi was a true Eunuch or not I gave the answer that he had a Schrodinger’s cat situation going on. He either was or wasn’t. If you read from Volume 3, Chapter 20, you would know that he was (coughtotallyintactcough), and that it’s alluded that he could possibly be the Royal Brother that everyone in the story says that hides away. It is fun though, guessing whether he is or isn’t up until that point, and even more, fun afterward because he has always tried so hard to get MaoMao‘s attention but she kept brushing him off. Oh poor Jinshi, the humanity of it all, huh? You’ll get her one day… or you won’t. But he’s just a cute guy anyway and I’ll never not call him Schrodinger’s male lead, heh!
Story: I just enjoy it. It’s not every day you read a story about a girl of her character type who is in love with dangerous stuff and could air on My Strange Addiction. It’s also interesting in how she gave herself tattoos to make herself appear less appealing.
Anyway, the story is of a young 17-year-old girl, MaoMao, who is kidnapped and sold to the inner palace as a maid. After arriving she hears the rumor of the crown prince and princess of the emperor, as well as one of his consorts, being strangely ill. She tries her best to secretly leave a message advising against the use of a facial powder that contains a poisonous toxin and leaves the messages in the window of the two consorts palace windows. One consort listens to the advice and her child, the crown princess, manages to get better, the other consort doesn’t listen and her child, the crown prince, passes away while she falls more and more ill. Jinshi, the supervising Eunuch of the inner palace, had conveniently heard MaoMao mutter about what to use to write when she had decided on leaving a message for the consorts. Finding the muttering girl interesting he promised the healthy consort, Gyokuyou, that he would find her so that Gyokuyou could thank her personally. Jinshi had called out numerous maids, then using writing, requested the one who could read (MaoMao as reading was not widespread) to stay back and work overtime which begins MaoMao‘s career as a food tester for the consort.
Several situations occur in which MaoMao works together with Jinshi and his charge Gaoshun, to solve. From bullying of a younger consort to the death of an official and even a grasshopper plague, Jinshi looks towards MaoMao for help.
KnH Negatives
(half-negative) Translation: for the most part the translation is really good but I think sometimes there are words missing, words misspelled or misused, however, it doesn’t happen all the time but it’s a tiny bit irksome. Mostly in the missing words.
Slight predictability: In some situations, it’s not predictable, in other situations it is predictable. For the parts that are predictable, It seemed as though it is expected, at least for me, since the moment the topic was brought up. A royal brother who hides away from people in his room and is considered useless? Probably actually a main character who is just associating with another identity in order to stay under the radar for one reason or another. A beautiful man of unparalleled status is a Eunuch? Might actually either be an intact man or a woman who is posing as a man. But whatever, haha, it’s not impossible that it’d be like that…
Not 100% digestible story: Going from what I’ve read and what I’ve seen that other people feel about the story, sometimes it’s not clear-cut and requires a bit more sleuthing than necessary. I will have to say that if it can’t be clear in the first read through, at least to the point where you think you understand the finer parts of the story (but don’t actually until the second read through) something along the way has been disrupted. I’ll have to count it as a negative.
Sudden: To me, Rakan‘s appearance was rather sudden and came out of left field. While he’s an interesting character I hadn’t expected him to show up so soon. It was almost a shock as to how suddenly he’d shown up. It also alluded that he’d frequently gone to try and see MaoMao, yet it’s not shown quite in how she interacts with him, I think. It seems more like he appeared a couple of times in her youth and since then had somehow been sent away or hadn’t had the time to visit yer, yet she grasps his personality well. It just leaves a strange taste in my mouth because of how they interact like they know each other and yet like they don’t. I dunno, just seemed kind of out of place for him to come into the story the way he had but he’s not too hateful.
I’m gonna definitely start reading more of those recommended novels I’ve given before haha…. so that I have something to read ₍₍ (ง ˙ω˙)ว ⁾⁾
Also for once, I don’t hate character names for being so dang similar. Rahan and Rakan are just so short I don’t have to use any extra brain power separating the two ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿
MerakiTranslations 