Chapter 3

Li Qing could be remarkably cutting. Still, Pei Yuan handled things impeccably.

So I took even greater care over dinner and had several dishes waiting when he returned.

He surveyed the table, suddenly curled his lips into a smile, and picked up the turtle soup.

"Why don't we go to the palace to thank His Majesty for his favor?"

His Majesty may have disliked my thank-you gift. He ordered me to help the palace household and the Ministry of Rites arrange the empress's investiture.

Pei Yuan nodded repeatedly, assuring him that I was meticulous and thoughtful. I would certainly do an excellent job.

I suspected he wanted to keep me too busy to bring him meals.

But it was an imperial command. I couldn't disobey.

Tilting my head toward Pei Yuan, I thanked him.

"Thank you, you dreadful saint."

By day, I rushed between the imperial city, the Ministry of Rites, and the palace household offices.

His Majesty even lent me a small kitchen so I could cook. We mustn't neglect Pei Yuan, he said.

I felt like a donkey made to turn a millstone all day, then whipped for good measure.

Endless conversations. Endless meals to cook.

Exhausted and glassy-eyed, I wondered if this was what life was supposed to be.

I'd thought I'd gone to hell.

Pei Yuan said he lived like this every day.

"Finish one round, and there's another."

"But I can help you look over the Ministry of Rites' ceremony arrangements tonight."

I gave a cold laugh. How very generous.

For half a month, I scarcely stopped moving. I even lost weight. At last, I survived long enough to reach the investiture.

Before the ceremony, Pei Yuan made a point of taking me to present congratulations and gifts.

His Majesty gave me a heap of treasures in thanks.

All that coming and going, all those polite speeches—I talked myself thirsty.

The fragrance of the tea struck me as novel. Quietly, I asked Pei Yuan what it was.

"It smells quite different."

He said it was a special supply from the imperial tea estate, served only in the palace.

During the banquet, I frowned and complained to him.

"Why does this fish taste sour? It's awful."

The moment I said it, I realized something was wrong.

Pei Yuan realized it too.

"Your sense of taste has returned?"

I was stunned. I'd disliked how numb the medicine made my mouth and hadn't soaked my tongue for several days.

I picked up a water chestnut cake and slipped it to Li Qing.

"Try this."

She chewed twice and still said it had no flavor.

"It's so hard to swallow."

I nodded and whispered, "The tea."

Pei Yuan understood. Perhaps there had been something in the tea I'd drunk in the Hall of Diligent Governance.

Unless His Majesty had deliberately poisoned me, something was wrong with the imperial tea.

We could only exchange a look and pretend nothing had happened. Everywhere we went, everyone was perfectly well, ourselves included.

His Majesty seemed to notice something. After the banquet, he told us both to stay.

On the way to the Hall of Diligent Governance, Pei Yuan drew me close and whispered with every appearance of intimacy.

"Don't alert them."

He also told me to take the opportunity to bring out some tea leaves.

While he and His Majesty discussed business, I asked a eunuch for a cup of tea and waited outside.

But the cup arrived without a single leaf.

In an unobserved corner, I spat a mouthful into my silk handkerchief.

Back home, the household physician took my pulse and gave me a little salt to taste. He confirmed that my sense of taste had returned.

"Yet there's no sign of poisoning. On the contrary, Your Highness's vital energy is flourishing, as firmly rooted as an ancient tree."

He was baffled too.

"Have you eaten something unusually nourishing?"

"Could it harm her?" Pei Yuan asked.

The physician shook his head.

"Hard to say."

"It's most unusual. I'll prescribe something to cool her system first."

Pei Yuan thought there was something wrong with the tea we'd had that day.

"But His Majesty ordinarily drinks the same tea in the Hall of Diligent Governance."

I caught his hand and asked the physician to check his pulse too.

He withdrew it, saying he disliked green tea and had hardly ever drunk it there.

Once everyone had left the courtyard, he asked when I had lost my sense of taste.

The answer slipped out.

"When I was six. Li Qing and I stole some snacks from Father's study."

Pei Yuan told Bai Zhu to steal all that year's case files from the ministry's archive.

"The poison may not have been meant for your father."

I added, "There's a dog hole at the northwest corner of the ministry compound. It's harder to be spotted if you go in there."

With everything arranged, Pei Yuan suddenly asked if I'd like to go to the Spring Pavilion for clay-pot pork hock.

I nodded furiously.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

He certainly knew his food. One bite of the pork hock melted away like spring snow in sunlight.

Eyes narrowed in pleasure, I fed Li Qing a piece and described the flavor.

Her cheeks bulging, she threw back her head and howled.

"Tonight, I'm using your numbing medicine to soak my tongue!"

Once my tongue was cured, food was our first thought on waking.

We even planned the next day's meals the night before.

The household cooks had all been dismissed, but there were plenty of cooks outside.

Li Qing bought the food and tipped it onto plates. I arranged it a little. How could that not count as making it myself?

Pei Yuan ate with us and even regained some color.

I felt that wasn't enough. Under the pretext of learning to cook, I took Li Qing around the city's restaurants, leaving early and returning late every day.

Meanwhile, Pei Yuan was secretly investigating the imperial tea.

Our courtyards were only a wall apart, yet sometimes we went days without seeing each other.

So when he saw me at the Imperial Prison, his face was icy.

Father accepted my food box. He said it smelled different. One bite made his eyes light up—and his brows draw together.

"If it's this good, will the prisoner still confess?"

"What can I do?"

I pulled an ear of corn from my sleeve, broke it in half, and gave some to Pei Yuan.

"This is about the extent of my skills now."

Father glanced cautiously at him and relaxed.

"Then I'm reassured."

"I was afraid my daughter's cooking would affect your marriage."

Pei Yuan glanced at me gnawing my corn and snorted coldly.

"No room in her eyes for love. Her mouth's full of everything she loves best."

The moment the prisoner saw the food, however, he wailed a confession.

"My lord! I'll confess! I'll tell you everything!"

"I only roast tea! Surely I don't deserve a last meal!"

"Please, my lord, look into it!"

Pei Yuan laughed in exasperation.

"It seems we no longer need your old secret weapon."

On the way home, I asked, "Was my cooking really that bad?"

He nodded.

"After eating it, I didn't dare die straight away. I was afraid my life would flash before my eyes and I'd have to eat it all again."

"But my taste is back now," I protested.

He said my cooking was passable these days.

"Still, I do have one regret."

A few days later, I learned what it was.

Early that morning, he asked me to make a pot of carcass broth.

"Your father needs to question a prisoner. Make your chicken soup the old way."

At lunchtime, he brought home a food box, claiming it was full of the Spring Pavilion's specialties.

I tried a bite and promptly vomited a rainbow.

Frantically searching the room for water to rinse my mouth, I caught sight of him trying to suppress a smile.

I knew it. The man was petty!

"Finally had a taste of your own carcass broth, have you?" he drawled.

"That poor chicken died for nothing."

I lunged at him and wiped my tongue on his sleeve.

Halfway through, I suddenly grew quiet.

When I lifted my head, I was looking straight up at his nostrils.

He reached up, fastened something in my hair, then withdrew his hand.

"Eat first."

At the side, Bai Zhu and Li Qing kept exchanging meaningful looks.

That evening, Li Qing removed a jade hairpin from my hair.

"Your Highness, it was such a lovely moment. Why didn't you ask him to stay?"

I looked at the hairpin.

"It isn't that I didn't ask. He didn't want to."

"There's no peace to be had just now."

At court, the arguments raged. At home, we grew more and more comfortable together.

Even after receiving and registering gifts, managing the household, and taking Pei Yuan his meals, I somehow still had plenty of time to study recipes.

But there were only so many things to eat in the capital. In late autumn, I took him to a farm outside the city.

"The old man here makes wonderful stir-fried chicken. We can pick our own vegetables too. Eat and have fun."

Pei Yuan surveyed the vegetable fields with interest.

"How did you even find this place?"

I lifted my chin proudly.

"It's an important day. I had to show a little sincerity."

He froze.

"How did you know today..."

He stopped. To say any more would be to admit to deceiving the emperor.

In his first year back in the capital, when he'd taken charge, the treasury had been empty. With little choice, he'd announced a scaled-down celebration for his twentieth birthday. Only the birthday gifts presented by the officials had given the treasury a little breathing room.

He understood that I hadn't said it outright because I didn't want to give anyone grounds for gossip.

He was about to speak, but the enormous plate of chicken Li Qing brought in was simply too delicious.

I called Bai Zhu and Li Qing to join us.

"I asked the old man to cook two chickens."

"And I've brought a jar of good wine. Genuine Jiuquan."

This time, Bai Zhu looked delighted and astonished too.

"Didn't Old Li, who knew how to make it, pass away?"

"I bought his last few jars from his son."

I took a sheet of paper from my sleeve and handed it to Pei Yuan.

"I bought the recipe too. A little gift for you."

He ordered the wine cups replaced with bowls.

"This wine should be drunk by the bowl."

One mouthful burned all the way down, as if my insides were boiling.

Pei Yuan had far better control of his face. He merely frowned a little, then drained the bowl.

Bai Zhu could hold his drink quite well, but two bowls made him sentimental.

"That sip took me straight back to riding to war with Your Highness in the northwest."

"He first went to battle at fifteen. He could stay in the saddle for eight hours."

I gave Pei Yuan a thumbs-up and began praising him.

"Such staying—"