Who Is Lakan in The Apothecary Diaries? Maomao’s Father Explained

Lakan is Maomao’s biological father, a brilliant but deeply unsettling military strategist whose history with the courtesan Fengxian explains one of The Apothecary Diaries’ most complicated family relationships. Maomao knows exactly who he is. She simply does not regard him as her father in the emotional sense, because the person who actually raised her was the apothecary Luomen.

That distinction is the key to understanding Lakan. The anime initially presents him through Jinshi’s eyes as an eccentric official who seems unusually interested in Maomao. Episode 18 makes the connection increasingly clear, while the final episodes of Season 1 reveal the painful history behind his obsession with the Verdigris House and Maomao’s mother.

01Is Lakan really Maomao’s father?

Yes. Lakan is Maomao’s biological father. Her mother is Fengxian, a highly skilled courtesan from the Verdigris House. Maomao was raised instead by Luomen, the apothecary she calls her father and the person responsible for teaching her medicine, poisons and the habits that define her adult life.

This is why calling Lakan simply “Maomao’s father” can be misleading. Biologically, the answer is straightforward. Emotionally, Maomao’s family is much more complicated. Luomen provided the care and stability that Lakan did not, so Maomao’s loyalty naturally belongs to the man who raised her.

02Who is Lakan outside his connection to Maomao?

Lakan is a high-ranking military official with an extraordinary talent for strategy. His mind is one of his defining traits. He sees patterns, evaluates people unusually quickly and can turn situations into games of probability and position. That makes him valuable within the court, but his behavior is abrasive enough that other characters rarely find him comfortable company.

His intelligence also creates an interesting parallel with Maomao. Both are exceptionally observant, stubborn and willing to approach problems differently from the people around them. Maomao does not want the comparison, but the series deliberately gives father and daughter similarly unusual minds while showing how radically different their personalities and values became.

03Why does Lakan have trouble recognizing faces?

One of Lakan’s most important traits is his difficulty recognizing ordinary faces. The anime visualizes this by showing many people to him as game pieces rather than distinct individuals. He can compensate by identifying people through their roles, voices, behavior and other patterns, which fits the strategic way he interprets the world.

Fengxian is different. Lakan can perceive her face clearly, and that exception helps explain why she becomes so important to him. His condition is not presented as a clever trick that makes him smarter than everyone else. It isolates him socially while pushing him to build other ways of identifying and evaluating people.

04What happened between Lakan and Fengxian?

Lakan met Fengxian at the Verdigris House, where she was a prestigious courtesan known for her intelligence and skill at games. Their relationship developed through matches such as Go and xiangqi rather than conventional romance. Fengxian was one of the rare people who could challenge him intellectually, and Lakan fell deeply in love with her.

Their story becomes tragic because circumstances separate them. Fengxian becomes pregnant with Maomao, while Lakan is sent away and does not understand the full situation until years later. By the time he returns, Fengxian’s circumstances and health have deteriorated severely. The anime gradually reveals this history instead of treating Lakan’s absence as a simple case of a father knowingly abandoning his child.

That context makes Lakan more sympathetic without erasing the damage around him. The Apothecary Diaries is careful here: understanding why a character failed someone is not the same as requiring the person who was hurt to forgive them.

05Why does Maomao dislike Lakan so much?

Maomao’s hostility comes from experience rather than a lack of information. Lakan is her biological father, but he was not the parent who raised her. His attempts to get close to her arrive after Maomao has already built a life, identity and family relationship around Luomen. From her perspective, biology does not automatically give Lakan the right to occupy the role he wants.

His personality makes matters worse. Lakan can be intrusive, manipulative and oblivious to normal boundaries. Even when his feelings are genuine, he approaches Maomao in ways that make her recoil rather than trust him. The result is intentionally uncomfortable: viewers can understand Lakan’s regret while also understanding why Maomao wants distance.

06Is Luomen related to Lakan?

Yes. Luomen belongs to the same family line and is Lakan’s uncle, which makes his role in Maomao’s life even more significant. He does not merely happen to be an unrelated apothecary who takes her in. He becomes the stable parental figure inside a family situation that Lakan could not provide.

Luomen’s influence explains much of Maomao’s personality. Her medical knowledge, caution, curiosity and practical way of dealing with danger come from years spent learning under him. AnimeSparks’ article on why Maomao is resistant to poison explores how her experimentation and apothecary background shape another side of that upbringing.

07Why does Maomao make Lakan buy a courtesan?

Near the end of Season 1, Maomao challenges Lakan to a game with a carefully chosen consequence. When he loses, he must buy out a courtesan from the Verdigris House. The choice ultimately leads him back to Fengxian, whose presence has been hidden from him for years.

The scene is important because Maomao does not suddenly embrace Lakan as her father. Instead, she gives him an opportunity to confront the relationship that shaped all three of their lives. Crunchyroll’s description for Episode 24 centers on this exact choice, asking which courtesan Lakan will select and who Maomao truly wants him to choose.

08Does Lakan love Maomao?

Yes, but The Apothecary Diaries deliberately separates love from good parenting. Lakan is fascinated by Maomao, proud of her intelligence and desperate for a relationship with her. None of that changes the fact that Maomao grew up without him and does not owe him the emotional response he wants.

This is what makes their relationship more interesting than a simple reconciliation plot. Lakan is not revealed as secretly perfect, and Maomao is not portrayed as cruel for rejecting him. Both perspectives can exist at once: Lakan can genuinely regret what happened, while Maomao can still decide that Luomen is the father who matters to her.

09Why Lakan matters going into Season 3

Lakan remains important because he sits at the intersection of Maomao’s personal history and the political world around the imperial court. Season 2 also introduces Lahan, officially described by Crunchyroll as Lakan’s adopted son and a civil servant gifted with numbers. That expands the family network around Maomao without changing her complicated attitude toward Lakan himself.

With The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 returning on October 2, understanding Lakan now is useful for viewers who remember him mainly as the strange strategist who antagonized Jinshi. He is one of the clearest examples of the series turning an initially suspicious character into someone more human without simplifying the consequences of his past.

10The simplest way to understand Lakan and Maomao

Lakan is Maomao’s biological father. Fengxian is her biological mother. Luomen is the apothecary who raised Maomao and the person she actually treats as her father. Lakan’s separation from Fengxian explains why he was absent, but it does not automatically repair his relationship with Maomao.

That tension is the point. The Apothecary Diaries allows Lakan to be brilliant, regretful, loving and deeply frustrating at the same time. Maomao can understand his history without giving him the place in her life that he wants.