Suirei

Suirei (翠苓 (スイレイ) , Suirei^?) is the first daughter of Shishou, the half-sister of Loulan, and a former court lady in the Outer Court. She is an antagonist turned supporting character of The Apothecary Diaries.

Appearance

Suirei is a tall and beautiful woman with a calm, aloof demeanor. Maomao observed that she used makeup to downplay her natural beauty, likely to stave off unwanted interest as her assigned duties were in the military wing of the palace complex.

Personality

Suirei is an introvert and does not have much energy to talk to others. She seems to have a somewhat strict personality, as she admonished Maomao for nearly trespassing on military quarters. She likes medicinal herbs, having learned of them from her adoptive grandfather, and was permitted to plant them in the medicinal garden of the Outer Court.

Suirei is a foil to Maomao. She one of the few people to have successfully outwitted the apothecary, and escaped the palace after faking her own death. Her knowledge of the resurrection medicine which mimicked death was something Maomao was unable to figure out on her own. After her first successful escape, Maomao was uncharacteristically determined to catch her, even excited at the possibility of matching wits with her again.

Abilities

Herbal medicine: Trained by a former court physician, she was very skilled in herbal medicines and grew herbs in the Outer Court - including "resurrection medicine".

Background

The first child of Shishou and the banished princess, she was given the name Shisui at birth. After her mother's death, she was raised by her adoptive grandfather while being abused by her stepmother Shenmei. Along with her grandfather, she researched resurrection medicine.

At some point, she went to the Outer Court to serve as a court lady, and plotted several seemingly unconnected incidents to bring about the death of the imperial younger brother. This included poisoning the Minister of Ritual Implements, giving advice on poisoning his successor, creating a means to steal ritual implements, and replacing those implements with faulty ones.^[2] Though Suirei nearly succeeded on killing the imperial younger brother, her attempt was foiled by Maomao. Before she could be arrested, Suirei took poison and died, with her body sent to the morgue.^[3]

However, Suirei had instead taken a resurrection drug, which put her in a death-like state. Knowing that her body wouldn't be closely examined, she eventually woke up (with only a paralyzed left arm)^[4] and was smuggled out of the morgue.^[3]

Suirei then entered the rear palace mixed in with former slaves employed as eunuchs, under the alias Tian. Working with Shisui and Shenlü, Suirei was able to force Maomao to go with her, by holding Shisui hostage.^[5] She took both to a village in the Northern Province,^[6] and rendezvoused with Shenmei along with Loulan. After moving to the fortress further to the north, Suirei was repeatedly abused by Shenmei. She was rescued by Loulan, who brought her and Shenmei to a separate room. When Jinshi arrived, Loulan explained Suirei's origins to him.

Although guilty by association for the events of the Shi clan rebellion, Suirei's ancestry as an illegitimate granddaughter of the Former Emperor made her too valuable to execute. She was instead sent to live with Ah-Duo.^[7]

Trivia

• She has a severe fear of snakes,^[6] likely due to being subject to the taibon^[8] (two-foot-deep hole filled with various snakes, frogs, and bugs).^[9]

References

External links

• Official anime S1 character webpage (in Japanese)