When it comes to Shisui, more people should remember her villainous side and consider what it must cost her to live with what she's done. She inherited some of Shenmei's traits, whether she likes it or not. Much of her kindness is genuine, but so is her ruthlessness. That duality shows up a lot throughout the series (case in point, Chue), but she's had the chance to cut deeper than most. She cared about Maomao, but was still willing to use her. As Sazen's Secret showed, she genuinely wanted to save the country to the point of begging Sazen to secure the encyclopedias to fight the locust plague, but she was also willing to let it fall if it proved too weak to survive her schemes. In her one experience with Jinshi, she judged him a good man (so true girl) and decided the nation deserved to live. But she also left behind all the ladies-in-waiting to die (not that she could do much to save them really, but still), and it's ambiguous how exactly she treated them before.
None of this is a condemnation. It's precisely why I love her character so much, especially her troubled relationship with Maomao. But it's also why any depiction of her should grapple with this contradiction more directly, especially now that she's on her own. The canon text never gave us a full glimpse into her perspective, not even in Sazen's Secret. It leaves a lot of room to ask what it must feel to live like that. Does she feel guilt and remorse over in Not-Japan, or has she learned to bury it? Does she keep her distance from others out of caution? Does she struggle to form attachments? After all, the very few friends she's had (Maomao and Xiaolan), she used them.
She's likely kind to children and to strangers who don't pry. But if you cross her, she's merciless. She was prepared to devour the emperor if she had to bear his child. Even Sazen understood what she was.
From the official side story, Sazen's Secret:
He [Sazen] made sure to light a fire at night. To keep warm, the two of them would sleep under the same pelt. It wasn’t that he didn’t get strange urges. But if he laid his hands on her [Loulan], he had a feeling he would be the one eaten rather than the one eating.
I also love the way she leaves:
“What will you do?”
There was nowhere for her to go. The world wasn’t so nice for a woman to escape alone.
“I’m thinking of running further south.” Loulan grinned. “See ya. All the best.”
She turned her back on him without any reluctance to part.
That is Shisui in a nutshell. A woman whose pure smile hides sharp teeth, presenting herself as carefree and just a little distant to the people who care about her, and then she leaves. Running off to fend for herself in a merciless world.
She seems resilient enough that this hasn't broken her. She's a strong, smart person who's made the most of a terrible hand. But like many of the strongest people in her time, there's a sense that, deep down, she wishes she didn't have to be this way. Even in succeeding, she paid dearly for it. She used and betrayed a friend. She lost her sister. She left people behind to die, with only the narrow victory of saving a few children (which she can't even be 100% certain about). And she survived by the skin of her teeth, because of the very friend she used.
Last we saw of her, she was all bright smiles and going "I'm off to find the One Piece," but I think she always keeps Suirei and Maomao (and Xiaolan) in the back of her mind, both fondly and with regret. We've only ever seen her put on a brave face (with few exceptions), but the way she left them must haunt her as much as she's clearly haunted them.
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