The Darker Side of Romance: Why It’s Okay to Hate Jinshi (Before You Love Him)
Introduction: Validating Your Instincts
Let’s address the elephant in the room right away: from an ethical standpoint, what happens in certain scenes of The Apothecary Diaries is utterly unacceptable.
If you have ever read or watched this story and felt a sudden chill—suspecting that Jinshi was crossing a line into an actual assault—your instincts are 100% correct. You are not misinterpreting the story. You are reading exactly what is written on the page, and your ethical rejection of his behavior is a completely valid human response.
The Evidence of the Darkness
The story hides a profound, predatory darkness right behind the scenes that are often dismissed as "comedic" or "romantic."
The Frog Scene (Volume 3): While often animated with comedic framing, Jinshi’s line, "Shall we check and see?" carries a heavy, dark undercurrent. Caught between his hidden royal identity and his intense possessiveness, he is testing a dangerous boundary.
The Volume 4 Epilogue: Just before Jinshi is about to kiss Maomao... Jinshi whispers, "First, we continue from where we left off." That single word—"first"—implies a calculating intent for a next step.
The Forced Kiss (Volume 5): This is the peak of the darkness. Right after physically choking Maomao, He forced a kiss on Maomao.he pins her down: "...I told you the continuation would be for another time, didn't I?"Saying that, he kisses Maomao once more.
Let’s call it what it is based on the text: Jinshi was attempting to assault Maomao.
Why the Author Dropped Jinshi to Rock Bottom
After Volume 5, these dark, predatory behaviors suddenly stop. Why?
Because the author, Natsu Hyuga, intentionally dragged Jinshi’s character image down to absolute rock bottom. In Japanese storytelling, there is a powerful and beloved narrative arc: a character must suffer a massive, undeniable moral failure, face their own ugliness, and use that rock-bottom experience to grow into a truly better person.
Volume 5 is Jinshi's ultimate failure. He needed to realize that he could never win Maomao's heart through force or power. If you feel compelled to absolutely hate Jinshi after Volume 5, please, go ahead and hate him. You are reacting exactly the way the author intended.
The Turning Point: Volume 12
However, the true mastery of this story lies in the long road to redemption. In the epilogue of Volume 12, Jinshi kisses Maomao again—but this time, it is an incredibly gentle, respectful kiss that honors her boundaries. It is here that Maomao quietly thinks to herself: (Perhaps, it wasn't unpleasant after all.)
We cannot attribute her thought to the terrifying, violent assault in Volume 5. No one looks back at an attempted assault and thinks, "That wasn't so bad." Instead, Maomao's heart is responding to the years of painful self-reflection and genuine change Jinshi put himself through.
The gentle kiss in Volume 12 is the ultimate payoff of a long, agonizing character growth.
I am not claiming that Jinshi's actions 'should be forgiven.' I am simply conducting a objective analysis of the text's actual plot: in Volume 12, after witnessing the profound changes he underwent over several years, it is Maomao herself—the victim of his prior actions—who chooses to accept the kiss Jinshi gave in Volume 12. While readers are completely free to never forgive him based on their own real-world ethics, rejecting the factual reality that Maomao chose to move forward with their relationship is fundamentally a denial of the story itself.
Conclusion: A Matter of Core Values
So, my urge to you as a reader is this: Allow yourself to face the darkness. Acknowledge his crime in Volume 5, let yourself despise him for it, and then read all the way to Volume 12 before making your final judgment.
If, even after finishing Volume 12, you still cannot forgive him, that is perfectly okay. For some, a boundary crossed can never be uncrossed, no matter the growth that follows. That is a completely valid and honorable ethical stance, and my goal is not to change your judgment.
I understand completely why it feels impossible to accept. To admit that a character you love committed such an act is painful, and it goes against our core human ethics. It is terrifying to face that kind of raw, dark reality in a story we cherish. Your resistance to it comes from a good and right place.
Even if facing this truth saddens many fans, we must not comfort ourselves by rewriting the author's words. There is a world of difference between "freedom of interpretation" and "rewriting the facts." How you feel about his actions is entirely up to you—but pretending those actions never happened is not an interpretation; it is a denial of the text.
My message is directed straight at the fans who desperately try to defend Jinshi, insisting he would never do such a thing. You have every right to hate him for Volume 5, but you do not have the right to rewrite the story and pretend his ugliness—or his agonizing journey toward growth—never happened.
Let us be mature enough as readers to face the text exactly as it was written. Agree or disagree with his redemption, but respect the story enough to stop sanitizing the truth.
Check the Evidence: Original Japanese Text & Translation Verification To respect the text as it was written, we must look at the source. Because of formatting and to keep this thread focused on the analysis, I have posted the exact, raw Japanese excerpt from this problematic section in LN Volume 5 on my Patreon.
It is completely FREE to access for free members (no paid subscription required).
If you want to verify the tone, the specific vocabulary used (like the physical choking and positioning), or run it through a translation tool yourself to see the raw reality of the scene, you can find the exact text here:https://www.patreon.com/JingBing/posts/apothecary-ln-5-164229399?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
👉 View the Original Japanese Text Excerpt Here (Free Access)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this analysis. Let's discuss in the comments below!