Mao Mao-cooking-

Maomao is a 18 year old woman who stands relatively short in height and possesses a petite frame. She has blue eyes and dark forest green hair, which is typically tied up and sectioned with a light blue ribbon that holds a portion of her hair back, whereas two strands of hair can be seen framing her face and are adorned with two beads each; the top one being red and the bottom one being sky blue. The bandage wrap on her left forearm hides the number of self-inflicted scars from where she had tested upon herself when experimenting with remedies and poisons. Maomao's main outfit consists of an aoqun hanfu with a light green top and a long, burgundy skirt. The inner robe in her top is white, while the collar of her light green robe is both pale and dark green. She also wears a pair of dark green flats to accompany this outfit. In essence of her usual outfit, Maomao prefers to wear simple and practical garments and will otherwise avoid elaborate outfits, jewelry and makeup unless the opportunity for her to do so arises, giving those the impression she dresses rather plainly. Despite avoiding makeup, she frequently paints freckles using clay around the bridge of her nose.[5] Some of her freckles are temporary tattoos she gave herself using a needle.[6] On the rare occasions where she would dress up and remove her freckles, she is considered to be rather attractive, especially when posing as a noble lady or as a courtesan, something that usually leaves most people to fail in recognizing her as the same person entirely.[7] Despite wearing an impassive expression on her face, Maomao can radiate with heightened excitement whenever she is able to taste and or experiment with poisons, medicines, or rare medical ingredients, often being portrayed with cat ears. Maomao's approach to life is very practical, focused on learning to survive and thrive in whatever way her environment demands her to. She is rarely tricked or charmed by others: she is one of the few to be unaffected by the beauty and charm of Jinshi. Her mindset has helped her come to terms with matters that many would find scarring; for example, she considers her near-rape and her kidnapping as enraging situations, but also as inevitabilities of living in the red-light district. She is simply a pragmatic individual who is well aware of her position in the world as someone with no status who can be considered expendable at a moment's notice if it means to protect a noble. She often follows direct commands without outward protest and forces herself to not acknowledge (and even withhold) significant events she had witnessed in the Imperial Palace as a form of preservation to herself and others, such as the fact that Jinshi is not the Emperor's brother but his son by Ah-Duo. In part because of her own self-preserving attitude, she finds people who will help others to their own detriment painful to watch. Despite her pragmatism, Maomao's insatiable curiosity often leads her to involve herself in the problems of others. It is also implied that she has a strong sense of justice, empathy, and compassion, which makes it very hard for her to ignore misdeeds and injustice once she has witnessed them.[8] The first examples of this tendency of hers is subtly revealing the truth behind the illness of Gyokuyou's daughter and interfering when Lishu was being harassed by her ladies-in-waiting. Fortunately, Maomao is well-equipped to expertly navigate the inner palace, which she herself notes has more or less the same nature as the red light district she was raised in. She is sharp-witted, calm and mature enough to know how to read people and situations, and how to placate or intimidate aggressive peers and superiors without making them direct their ire at her.