What If Shisui Hadn't Taken the Abortifacient in The Apothecary Diaries?

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The foreshadowing begins before the Shi clan incident, during the light novel's ghost-story chapter. At the night gathering, Shisui tells a tale from a distant eastern country. It sounds like a strange folktale about a traveler, a young couple, insect-like voices, and a disturbing act hidden behind the atmosphere of a ghost story.

What matters is not the surface horror. The tale centers on insects whose beautiful sound masks a reproductive terror: in Maomao's later understanding, the female consumes the male so the next generation can be born. Shisui wraps that image in performance, folklore, and a childish voice that suddenly feels different under lantern light.

The payoff comes later in the Shi clan arc. Maomao questions the materials used for abortifacients circulating around the rear palace, and Loulan admits that she used them herself. Maomao then connects that confession back to the ghost story. Shisui was not telling a random creepy tale. She was translating her own fear into insects before anyone around her had enough context to understand it.

For the broader identity reveal, start with Shisui's secrets in The Apothecary Diaries. For the later consequences of what she leaves behind, read what Maomao gains from Shisui.

The Short Answer

If Shisui had not taken the abortifacient, the most likely result is not happiness, rescue, or a simple imperial-child power play. It would make Loulan more valuable to powerful people and less able to move as herself. A pregnancy would turn her body into evidence, her child into a political object, and her Shisui persona into something harder to preserve.

That is the cruel logic of her arc. Taking the abortifacient is not written as a shocking detail for its own sake. It is one of the clearest signs that Loulan refuses to let the rear palace, the Shi clan, Shenmei's damage, or imperial politics decide what her body means.

So the answer is: if she had not taken it, she might have gained short-term protection as a pregnant consort, but she would lose the one thing the Shisui mask still gives her, room to act outside the role other people designed for Loulan.

Why the Ghost Story Matters

Shisui's ghost story is the key to reading the counterfactual. Without it, the abortifacient reveal might look like one more grim rear-palace detail. With it, the choice becomes personal, symbolic, and deeply consistent with Loulan's view of motherhood.

The insect story gives us three layers at once. First, it shows Shisui's usual disguise: odd, playful, insect-obsessed, easy to underestimate. Second, it shows a darker storyteller inside that disguise. Third, it gives Maomao the metaphor she needs later. In Shisui's imagination, reproduction is not gentle continuity. It is a cage where desire, birth, hunger, and death are tied together.

That is why the later confession lands so hard. Shisui has already told Maomao the emotional truth, just in a language Maomao cannot decode yet. She is afraid of becoming the female insect in the story. She is afraid of a court where a woman becomes a mother and then consumes, is consumed, or is reduced to her reproductive use.

Shenmei makes that fear concrete. Loulan's only close model of motherhood is not a balanced parent. It is a woman warped by jealousy, humiliation, and imperial abandonment. The novels do not ask readers to conclude that all motherhood is monstrous. They ask us to understand why Loulan, raised inside that particular household, would see motherhood as a trap with teeth.

What Pregnancy Would Change

A pregnancy would change Loulan's status immediately. As a consort in the rear palace, a pregnancy would be treated as a matter of imperial household security. Doctors, attendants, records, factional watchers, and political families would all become interested. Even before any child was born, Loulan would no longer be only a suspicious consort with a hidden identity. She would become a possible vessel for imperial succession anxiety.

That might sound protective, but protection in The Apothecary Diaries is often another form of enclosure. Loulan would be harder to discard, but also harder to hide. Her movements would be watched. Her body would be examined. Her relationship to the Shi clan would become more dangerous because every faction would ask who benefits from the pregnancy.

Most importantly, Shisui would become almost impossible to keep alive as a self-created space. The cheerful insect lover could wander, listen, misdirect, and be underestimated. A pregnant Loulan could not move that way. She would be placed back into the official story that the Shisui persona was partly built to escape.

This is why the counterfactual should not be softened into "what if the child saved her?" In this story, children can inspire protection, but they also become evidence, bargaining chips, and succession pressure. The articles on Gyokuyou and Jinshi's political future and Ah-Duo and Lishu's protective relationship both show that rank can turn care into strategy.

Would the Shi Clan Use the Child?

Almost certainly, or at least people around the Shi clan would try. The Shi clan incident is already shaped by old resentment, family collapse, Shenmei's damage, and Shishou's inability or unwillingness to contain what his household has become. A pregnancy would not heal that structure. It would give the structure one more object to fight over.

If Loulan carried a child understood as imperial, the child would be too politically valuable to remain private. Shenmei could treat it as proof, compensation, leverage, or a new stage for old hatred. Shishou's side could treat it as a bargaining position. Court enemies could treat it as evidence that the Shi clan reached too deeply into the rear palace.

That does not mean the exact future is fixed. The Apothecary Diaries is too careful for one mechanical answer. But the direction is clear: a child would increase the number of people who believe they have a claim on Loulan's body and future. It would not simply give Loulan someone to love. It would give the court another reason to define her.

That is why the insect metaphor matters again. The fear is not just "I might become a mother." The fear is "if I become a mother inside this cage, the role will devour the person." The ghost story says this before the plot says it openly.

What Changes for Maomao and Jinshi?

For Maomao, a pregnant Loulan would make the mystery morally harder and practically narrower. Maomao is good at reading poisons, herbs, inconsistencies, and bodies, but an imperial pregnancy is not just a case. It is protected information. The more official the matter becomes, the fewer clean moves Maomao has.

It would also change Maomao's relationship to Shisui. The friend she knew would be buried under Loulan's political body. Maomao might still see the same person underneath, but helping her would involve more risk and less room for quiet understanding. That is why the existing story is so painful: Maomao gets close enough to understand the person only after the person has already moved beyond reach.

For Jinshi, the consequences would likely accelerate. Loulan's warning to Jinshi already matters because it redirects attention and timing. A pregnancy would make that pressure much louder. Any hint that the Shi clan had placed a pregnant consort at the center of a crisis could force Jinshi and the court to act sooner, more visibly, and with less mercy.

For more on that side of the arc, read what Loulan gave to Jinshi and why Jinshi had to go west. Shisui's small actions often become large political signals once Jinshi is forced to respond.

Common Misreadings

Misreading 1: The child would automatically save Shisui

A child might make Loulan more protected, but not freer. In the rear palace, protection often means more control, more surveillance, and more people turning a woman's body into a political document.

Misreading 2: Shisui's choice means she hates all mothers

No. The point is narrower and more tragic. Loulan's fear is shaped by Shenmei and by the court system around her. She is reacting to the version of motherhood she has seen weaponized, not making a universal statement about every mother in the story.

Misreading 3: The ghost story is just atmosphere

It is atmosphere, but it is also confession. Shisui uses a folktale about insects to say something she cannot safely say as Loulan. The story becomes readable only after Maomao has the missing political and medicinal context.

Misreading 4: This counterfactual is mainly about romance

It is not. The stronger question is about agency, lineage, factional use, and whether Shisui could still keep any part of herself if her body became valuable to the court.

FAQ

Did Shisui really use the abortifacient herself?

In the light novel's Shi clan arc, Maomao raises the question of abortifacient materials, and Loulan indicates that she used them herself. The article paraphrases that plot point rather than quoting the novel.

Why connect this to the ghost story?

Because Maomao later connects the ghost story's insect imagery to Loulan's fear of pregnancy and motherhood. The tale gives readers the emotional framework before the explicit explanation arrives.

Would Loulan's child have been politically important?

Yes. In the rear palace, a consort's pregnancy would not stay private. It would invite imperial records, factional attention, and questions about succession, especially during a crisis tied to the Shi clan.

Would Shisui still have become friends with Maomao?

Possibly, but the friendship would be more constrained. The Shisui persona works because she can move as an odd, underestimated court girl. Pregnancy would pull Loulan back into official attention and make that looseness harder to sustain.

What is the best short answer?

If Shisui had not taken the abortifacient, she might gain temporary value, but she would probably lose freedom. The story frames the choice as a refusal to become another caged reproductive instrument in the Shi clan and rear palace machine.