Kusuriya no Hitorigoto
ch36.1 - this story sends shivers down my spine with how GOOD it is, the plot is amazing T_T can more manga be like this MC is a pharmacist who was kidnapped and sold to the inner palace as a maid, she ends up saving the baby princess (poisoning via face powder) thus become the attendant her mother, one of the favoured consorts and doubles as food taster. She also spikes the interest of a "eunuch" in charge of the inner palace (aka ML). She helps him solve various mysteries in palace. MC later is dismissed from her position (due to her kidnappers being part of a faction that lost power). However, later ML hires her to work in the outer court as his attendant. A sly old officer approaches ML to obtain MC - seems like he's her real father, he fell for a famous consort however the bidding for her drove her price up, in order to reduce her price, he made her pregnant. Now MC is investigating a series of incidences (death of a court official in charge of ceremony a year ago, arson destroying ceremony items, craftsman's legacy involving easily melted metal), seemingly unrelated but all culminating in the tools of a ceremony being remade and tampered with to crash down - MC rushes in to halt the ceremony and manages to save ML who was conducting the ceremony but gets hurt herself. She was actually stopped at the entrance however her father shows up and lets her through. Culprit turns out to be court lady sui rui but she faked suicide, swapped out her body for another and escaped. MC gets sent to inner palace again to take care of a consort's pregnancy. She's also asked to grow blue roses by ML for a viewing party. In the beginning the ML might seem like your typical overbearing ML but he actually respects MC's boundaries, when he finds out MC would be dismissed, he did not scheme to keep her in the inner palace, you can see how affected he is by the MC, initially she was just an interesting plaything, but now she means so much more to him and it reflects in his actions. MC is gorgeous as her usual deadpan pessimistic self, she keeps her head down to prevent courting misfortune, she keeps other ppl's secrets, she's actually really kind. She is observant and high analytical and intelligent. The only thing that gets her excited is pharmacy/interesting plants.
Cases of Judge Zhang