Chapter 1

After my sister disappeared, I, who had never been good with words, began currying favor with my mistress.

“Look at my face. So haggard and swollen!”

Still in her month of confinement after childbirth, she frowned into a bronze mirror and sighed.

“You are a beauty beyond compare, my lady. A few more nourishing soups to restore your blood, and you will be lovelier than ever.”

I brought the medicinal broth before her.

She raised her eyes to me.

Only a handful of the maids who had accompanied her into marriage remained in this room now.

“You are…?”

I had served in the outer courtyard before. Her mother had only sent me along because she thought me pretty.

So my mistress did not even remember my name.

“Ah Xia, my lady.”

I answered respectfully and lifted a spoonful to her lips.

“Shangguan Yao! You’ll pay for killing my daughter!”

As we spoke, a burly man suddenly scrambled through a small window to one side.

Cleaver in hand, he hacked at Shangguan Yao.

Without the slightest hesitation, I stepped directly in front of her.

The man was Zhao Si, the cook who had come with her when she married. He had prepared her food for almost twenty years.

Fearing her daughter would dislike the food here, her mother had sent him with her too.

His daughter, Hongying, had also disappeared.

Thud!

A single sound.

Before the blade could fall, the cook collapsed.

A dart pierced the space between his brows. His eyes were wide open.

He had not known that Bai Su, the unremarkable maid beside Shangguan Yao, was a formidable fighter.

Her skill with throwing darts was uncanny.

Killing Shangguan Yao was harder than climbing to heaven.

“How did one slip through the net? Leave loose ends again, and you can die with them!”

Shangguan Yao glared at Bai Su.

“Yes, my lady.”

Bai Su’s face was expressionless.

“Drag him out and feed him to the dogs.”

Shangguan Yao’s face was cold.

With one hand, Bai Su hoisted Zhao Si, who was taller and bigger than she was, onto her shoulder and carried him out of the bedchamber.

“My lady, are you hurt?”

I gazed at Shangguan Yao anxiously.

Her eyes traveled over me again, slowly and carefully.

“You have your wits about you. Go to the accounts office later and collect ten taels of silver.”

She was pleased with my reaction.

“Protecting my mistress is my duty. I would not dare accept a reward.”

I bowed my head submissively.

“Mm.”

Shangguan Yao gave a small laugh and gestured for the broth.

“My lady, your blood and vital energy are still depleted, and you lack yang energy. Cold broth will only worsen the chill within you and impede your circulation. A stomachache would be the least of it. It could damage your health.”

I reminded her gently.

Her slender brows lifted a little.

“You know medicine?”

She asked the question aloud.

“A little. My late father was a physician.”

That, at least, was true.

Shangguan Yao nodded in satisfaction.

“Good. From now on, you will serve here in my rooms.”

With that, she waved me off to make fresh soup.

I bowed and hurried out.

Lamb soup with angelica and ginger, black-bone chicken with astragalus, crucian carp with codonopsis: I varied the medicinal broths each day.

Within half a month, Shangguan Yao’s cheeks were rosy and her face glowed with health.