Chapter 1

Banished to the Cold Palace, I opened a little eatery to keep myself alive.

My first dish was guo bao rou—crispy sweet-and-sour pork. It had barely left the wok when the noble consort burst in, crying. She pointed at my wok, tears streaming down her face.

“I’ll pay ten times your price. Please, just let me have a bite.”

My second dish was red-braised chicken. Its aroma drifted all the way to the Imperial Guards’ barracks. The men who should have been out on patrol crowded my gate instead. Their captain flung down his cap in fury.

“Do you call yourselves Imperial Guards?”

The guards looked at him with reddened eyes.

“Captain, just smell it. That aroma… We’ll take whatever punishment you give us.”

Early on the third morning, before I could open for business, I heard someone tapping a bowl outside.

I opened the gate. There stood the emperor, his dragon robes all rumpled. Holding up an empty bowl, he said in a low voice, “I hear…”

01

My name is Jiang Shu. When I opened my eyes, I was in the Cold Palace, with someone else’s memories flooding my head.

The woman whose body I now occupied had been Consort An, a low-ranking palace consort whom the emperor had bedded once while drunk. Her resemblance to the late empress had made her a thorn in Noble Consort Ning’s side. One tiny bottle of poison, its origins untraceable, had been enough to turn her into a criminal accused of plotting to harm an imperial heir.

No questioning. No chance to defend herself. A single imperial decree, and Consort An had become plain Lady Jiang, exiled to the Cold Palace.

Unable to bear it, she had killed herself by smashing her head against these moss-covered stone steps.

Then I had arrived.

I was a chef. A gold-medal winner.

My stomach growled.

I was hungry. Desperately hungry.

From the memories, I knew she hadn’t eaten for an entire day.

A small door in the corner of the palace building creaked open. A eunuch in gray entered, his face expressionless, and tossed a food box onto the ground.

“Eat.”

His voice was shrill, his contempt undisguised. The box tipped over, spilling out two dark, rock-hard steamed buns. One was speckled with green mold.

So this was what they fed you in the Cold Palace.

The eunuch was called Liu Fu. He was in charge of this place, and he watched me, waiting for me to scramble for the food like the other women who’d lost their minds here.

I didn’t move. I just looked at the buns. I remembered what eating this stuff had done to the body’s previous owner: vomiting, diarrhea, growing weaker by the day.

“What? Not good enough for you?” Liu Fu sneered. “You should be grateful you’ve got anything to fill your belly. Still think you’re some great lady of the palace?”

I raised my head and met his gaze calmly.

“Take it away.”

He stared at me, as though he hadn’t heard properly. “What did you say?”

“I said, take it away.” My voice was quiet but clear. “That’s pigswill.”

His face turned the color of a pig’s liver. He stepped forward and jabbed a finger at my nose.

“You little bitch! How dare you insult me?”

“I was talking about the food, not you,” I said slowly. “Of course, if you insist on taking it personally, there’s nothing I can do.”

“You—!”

He trembled with rage. Every woman in the Cold Palace cried and begged him for another mouthful. Had Lady Jiang gone mad?

“Fine. Fine! Got some backbone, have you?” His anger broke into a laugh. He kicked both buns into a puddle of mud. “Then go hungry! Let’s see how many days you last!”

He slammed the door behind him, and everything fell silent again.

I looked at the buns in the mud. Hunger burned in my stomach, but I knew I couldn’t eat them. If I did, I really would be at their mercy.

I stood and brushed the dust off myself. This body’s previous owner was dead. But I, Jiang Shu, had no intention of dying.

I had to live.

I surveyed the dilapidated courtyard. Weeds ran wild beneath towering palace walls. In one corner stood a half-collapsed little building. The memories told me it was an abandoned kitchen.

I walked over and pushed open its creaking door. Dust and cobwebs covered everything, but the stove was still there. An iron wok with a chip in its rim hung crookedly on the wall.

I smiled. There was a way out after all.

Give me a stove and a wok, and a chef like me wasn’t going to starve.

The question was, where would I get ingredients?

I reached up to my hair and touched something cold and hard: the only gold hairpin the previous owner’s mother had left her. She’d clung to it until she died.

My startup capital.

Now I needed someone to run errands for me. Someone low enough in the palace hierarchy to need money badly.

I looked toward the narrow path outside the courtyard wall, used for carrying away the nightsoil buckets. Every morning, a maid named Xiaoyun hurried past, her head bowed.

I remembered that her younger brother was gravely ill. She needed money.

She would do.

02

At first light the next morning, I pulled out the gold hairpin and waited close to the wall, clutching it in my hand.

Familiar footsteps approached. Xiaoyun came hurrying past with a wooden bucket, her head down.

“Stop,” I said softly.

She jumped and looked up. The moment she saw me, her face went pale.

“Consort An… Lady—Lady Jiang.”

She almost dropped to her knees in fright. People in the Cold Palace brought bad luck.

“Don’t be afraid. I just want to make a trade.”

I passed the hairpin through a gap in the wall. In the dawn light, the gold gleamed softly.

Xiaoyun stared, her eyes reddening.

“This pin is worth twenty taels of silver,” I said calmly. “Enough to pay for six months of your brother’s medicine.”

Her breathing quickened. She looked at the pin, then cast frightened glances around her.

“My lady, this… it’s against the rules.”

“Living people make the rules.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Do you want your brother to live?”

The question struck her where she was most vulnerable. Her eyes brimmed.

“Yes,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I need a few things.”

I passed her a list I’d already written.

“Pork tenderloin—the best you can get. White sugar, rice vinegar, scallions, ginger, garlic, and eggs. Whatever money is left is yours. Buy them and bring them back without anyone finding out.”

Xiaoyun bit her lip, struggling with herself. At last she snatched the hairpin and the list, tucked them inside her robe, and said, “Wait for me, my lady.”

Then she grabbed her bucket and ran as fast as she could.

I let out a breath.

First step: a success.

I set to work in the little kitchen, lighting a fire, scrubbing the cookware, and cleaning the stove. Run-down as it was, the essentials were still just about usable.

At noon, Xiaoyun returned with a heavy basket and passed it over the wall. Everything I’d asked for was inside, neatly wrapped in oilpaper.

“It’s all here, my lady.”

She was breathless, excitement mingling with anxiety on her face.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the basket. “We’ll have plenty more chances to do business.”

She nodded hard and hurried away. I looked at the tenderloin and smiled.

I’d found a way to survive in the Cold Palace.

I began preparing the ingredients. I cut the pork into thick slices and marinated them with salt and cooking wine. I finely chopped the scallions, ginger, and garlic, mixed a bowl of sweet-and-sour sauce, then beat the eggs and made the batter.

I took care with every step.

This wasn’t just a meal. It was my hope of survival.

I poured oil into the wok and heated it until it was good and hot. Then I dipped the pork in the batter and slipped it into the oil.

Sizzle.

The rich smell of frying meat burst into the air. The slices bobbed in the oil, quickly developing a crisp golden crust. I lifted them out, then fried them a second time—the key to keeping the outside crisp and the meat tender.

In another wok, I sautéed the chopped scallions, ginger, and garlic until fragrant. In went the sweet-and-sour sauce. I let it thicken over high heat, added the golden pork, and tossed it briskly until every slice wore a smooth, glossy coating.

Done.

A plate of guo bao rou, golden and gleaming, with a sharp, mouthwatering vinegary aroma.

I breathed it in.

This wasn’t the delicate, fussy fragrance of the imperial kitchens I remembered. It was bold, insistent, enough to awaken the most basic human hunger.

The sweet-and-sour aroma reached like an invisible hand beyond the courtyard, over the high wall.

I’d just picked up my chopsticks, ready to reward myself, when pounding footsteps sounded outside the gate.

Closer. Closer. Whoever was coming wasn’t stopping for anything.

Crash!

The gate was forced open from outside. A woman in sumptuous robes, her hair glittering with pearls and jewels, rushed in.

Noble Consort Ning.

A panicked crowd of maids and eunuchs trailed behind her.

“Your Highness! Your Highness, slow down! This place is unclean!”

She didn’t hear a word.

Her red-rimmed eyes were fixed on the plate of pork in my hands. She pointed at my wok, tears streaming down her face.