Chapter 3

I took Liu Yan into a nearby alley. Jiang Pu waited at the entrance, casting sharp glances in our direction every few moments.

The instant we were alone, she snapped, “I thought you were some self-sacrificing saint. Turns out you’re an idiot! You chose to drag me down with you!”

“The Princess Consort has already agreed to let you into the household.”

“And you think I’ll have an easy life there now? She believes I drove you away. Even the second son and his wife hate me!”

I said nothing.

“Come back with me. Ke’er misses you.”

Go back and stand between her and every knife she had pointed at herself? What a joke.

“I saw your plans for the improved fire lance,” I said. “They looked convincing. The mechanism of your wooden glider was clever too, and your magic tricks weren’t bad.”

She waved me off impatiently. “I offered to teach you all of that. You’re the one who refused to better yourself—”

“What were you before you came here?” I asked. “A champion of the nine-to-nine, six-days-a-week grind, or some kind of prodigy?”

Her jaw nearly hit the ground.

After a long silence, she whispered, “No wonder you demanded a divorce. I was so wrong about you. I thought you were a pushover, but you’re ruthless enough to sacrifice even your own son. You’re the real master here…”

“I don’t have half as many schemes as you think. I called you over to ask one question: did you look down on your own mother like this too?”

She blinked. “What?”

“A woman cooked for you and worried whether you were warm enough, yet in your eyes she had no value and no ambition. Back in your own time, did you dismiss a woman’s work in the home just as easily?”

Her face flushed crimson. “I can’t be bothered arguing with you. If you don’t return with me now, I’ll tell Ke’er that you abandoned him!”

I smiled. “A word of advice. If you dare, the Princess Consort will kill you.”

She finally lost control. “Don’t think the Princess Consort will remember you forever! You’re nothing but a housewife. How can you compete with me? Once you’re gone, you’ll be forgotten. Someday, I will make everyone acknowledge me!”

“Even if you came from another time too, so what? You’re a woman with no interests, no self—”

I desperately wanted to know who had brainwashed this girl so thoroughly.

Who told her that making soup could not be an interest?

I also wanted to warn her that there was a flaw in her fire-lance design. It could fire in quick succession, yes, but it could also misfire with terrifying ease.

But she showed no sign of ending her tirade.

Jiang Pu rushed in, pulled me behind him, and ordered the guards forward. “This woman is deranged. Take care that she harms no one!”

So be it. Some people seemed born to invite disaster.

The Empress Dowager beamed when she saw me. “Qiqi, come here.”

I bowed. “Greetings, Your Majesty. You’ve put on weight again.”

She was a round-faced, good-natured old lady whose eyes narrowed to slits whenever she smiled. She had been nothing like this the first time the Princess Consort brought me to the palace. Back then, the pains of menopause had left her so irritable that she looked ready to tear a strip of flesh from anyone who came near.

She took my hand, seated me beside her, and asked about the divorce.

For the sake of the Prince of Qi’s dignity, I merely said, “We could no longer live together, so we parted.”

“Then you parted,” she said. “That boy Li Yi never knew his good fortune.”

She settled me in a side hall and asked me to stay with her for a while.

Though she smiled sweetly at me, she immediately sent people to investigate what had happened in the prince’s household. That worried me.

The current Emperor was grown and vigorous. The Prince of Qi had already withdrawn at the height of his success and now remained in the capital. The household needed an heir as harmless and unambitious as Li Yi.

Surely that fool would not try to win glory in the army.

He was not an ignorant child. He had spent years assisting his father with government affairs.

Reassured by that thought, I went happily to make soup for the Empress Dowager.

My skill came from my previous life. My grandfather had been an expert in medicinal cuisine, from a family that had practiced the art for generations.

At its simplest, the craft followed the principle that food and medicine shared the same source. At its most complex, it drew upon traditional medicine, nutrition, and even psychology.

Psychology mattered because my grandfather had specialized in treating patients with critical illnesses. A diagnosis frightened such people half to death, and treatment kept frightening them over and over until terror alone had drained the life from them.

His soups carried no medicinal taste. They obeyed the requirements of the prescription while catering to each patient’s preferences. Eating three ordinary, comforting meals a day made life feel as it had before the illness. The suggestion itself became part of the cure.

I had never reached my grandfather’s level. I could treat only mild ailments. He told me to be patient and learn slowly, but I later ran off to study Western medicine instead.

I had always been impatient. To reach his mastery would have taken me well into old age—perhaps longer than one lifetime. And who would invite a doctor into their home to make soup for a month over a mild illness when an injection worked faster?

So I became a physician, just as I wished. Then I let other people work me mercilessly, worked myself even harder, tore myself apart with anxiety, and finally died of exhaustion.

This life had taught me sense. Nothing mattered more than a bowl of hot soup and a warm meal. Anyone who made me miserable could get out of my life. Husband or son, it made no difference. My peace came first.

The Empress Dowager had possessed a fiery temper in her youth. Age had weakened her liver and heart. It became a vicious cycle: stagnant liver qi made sorrow and anger come easily, and every fit of anger worsened the stagnation.

She was practically another version of my former self.

After I tended her for a time, she became cheerful from morning to night.

Half an hour into the slow simmer, the little clay pot began to burble.

A voice suddenly came from beside me.

“Sister Qiqi, that soup smells wonderful.”

I jumped. “Lord Jiang?”